Page 15 - CITN 2017 Journal

elections, resultant political crises and other factors contributed significantly to the rate of
migration from Nigeria. In return, the migrant remittances rose exponentially. This
supports the literature that remittances often increase phenomenally during periods of
crisis or disaster as migrants, due to their altruistic tendency; remit more to support their
families.

Between 1994 and 2000, the increase in the migrant remittance was steadily fluctuating but
1994 to 1997 witnessed a growth rate of about 51 per cent on the average. The year 1999
marked the beginning of a new dawn in democratic governance in Nigeria and from the
year 1999 to 2012, the migrant remittances continued to increase steadily. A close look at
the trend shows that the value of remittance has been increasing since the turn of the
century. Its growth rate has been between 9 per cent and 110 per cent. However, there was a
blip in the remittance value in the year 2003. The remittance value fell from $152,645 to
$142,835.

In sum, migrant remittance has contributed tremendously to the growth of the Nigerian
economy. It has helped to reduce poverty and finance education especially for the poor
category of people in Nigeria. Through migrant remittance, the literacy rate has increased
and many small and medium-sized enterprises (SME) have grown drastically. Currently, it
competes favourably with foreign aids and foreign direct investments as shown in figure 1
below.

Source: Authors' Computation, 2016

Figure 2: Composite Trend of all variables

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