International African Institute

Rural Migrants as Catalysts in Rural Development: The Urhobo in Ondo State, Nigeria
Author(s): Onigu Otite
Source: Africa: Journal of the International African Institute, Vol. 49, No. 3, Small Towns in
African Development (1979), pp. 226-234
Published by: Cambridge University Press on behalf of the International African Institute
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/1159555 .
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Africa, 49(3), 1979

RURAL MIGRANTS AS CATALYSTS IN RURAL

DEVELOPMENT
THE URHOBO IN ONDO STATE, NIGERIA
ONIGU OTITE
ALTHOUGH there is a plethora of works on migratory processes and migrant
organizations, few of these deal with the contribution of rural-to-rural
migrants to socio-economic development and the emergence of small urban centres.
Migration involves permanent or semi-permanent changes in residence and takes
account of factors which intervene between the economic opportunities and
social conditions of the place of origin and those of the destination (Lee 1966;
Otite f.c.; Udo 1975). Economic and non-economic calculations of cost are
important in all decisions to migrate. Rural-to-rural migration (with which we are
concerned here) involves those who because of their low education and incentives
decided to move to exploit familiar resources in new rural environments. Perhaps
it is through in depth anthropological studies that the best light may be shed on
the contributions of such migrants to development in the particular place to which
they migrate.
Development in this sense is both a stage and a process referring to increasing
structural differentiation and standards of living. An important consequence of
this differentiation is the evolving social and spatial complexity. Migrants link
emerging urbanizing situations to the socio-economic organizations of their natal
homes, by ties of kinship and cultural symbols as well as those of cash and the
impersonal relations of a growing population with diverse occupations. In this
context, development is more than increases in per capita income and investment
per head; it involves the problems of access to economic opportunities and the
recognition of local social institutions as either assets or constraints.
The strength of the social and cultural ties to natal homes and the impermanent
form of the architectural structures and social organization of the immigrants at
their destinations in the Nigerian case under examination suggest a framework of
target migrancy. As I have pointed out elsewhere (Otite forthcoming) a target is
two-dimensional, that is, it consists in the choice of a particular destination and
in the achievement of some material wealth, defined or undefined, with an element
of time for the possible return to the natal home. There may be some intervening
targets such as the purchase of implements, bicycles or vehicles, not only to promote
one's business but also to act as symbols of progress. A migrant may achieve his
target of reaching his ideal destination, but may or may not acquire money for a
new wife or radio, train his child at college or university, build a house and
equip a shop. Even more important is the development of successive targets as the
result of wider experiences and new aspirations in a small developing urban centre.
In the process and while retaining the hope'of returning home, migrants contribute
commodities and services to meet changing consumption patterns which help in
creating and sustaining small urban centres in otherwise rural environments.
It is therefore suggested that immigrants' access to land and other vital economic
resources are important conditions for the emergence and maintenance of small
urban centres and the development of the national economy. In examining this
hypothesis, I use my study of Urhobo migrants from the Bendel to the Ondo state

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 RURALMIGRANTSAS CATALYSTS 227

of Nigeria. The Urhobo population was 517,000 in 1963, being the largest of
twelve ethnic groups in the Bendel State population of 2.5 million. The host
society in Ondo State was mainly Ikale. I make some reference also to non-Urhobo
immigrants.

THE IKALEAND THE URHOBO

Since Nigeria came into being in 1914, the country has been successively divided
into three Regions (1947), four Regions (1963), twelve States (1967), and nineteen
States (1976). The Ikale are a Yoruba people in Okitipupa Division, formerly part
of the Western State of Nigeria, but now (from 1976) in Ondo State.
An Ikale nuclear family is part of an extended family headed by the eldest
patrikinsman. The local kinship system recognizes complementary matrifiliation and
thus a person retains kinship connections with his or her patrikin and utilizes ties
with those people whom the mother regards as her patrikin group and matrilateral
kinsmen. These links are vital particularly in economic crises involving land use
and dependency situations.
An extended family or lineage is a corporate unit in the political and economic
organization of the Ikale. The Ikale are politically organized into eleven main
town units, many of which are headed by a ruler called the Abodi or Oloja, none of
whom determines the economic activities and decisions of the 'subjects'. While the
Abodi/Oloja may have granted farmland or houseland to the earliest immigrants
this role has now shifted to lineage heads as the actual owners/users of their inherited
land. However, an Ikale may offer presents (money or part of his harvest)
voluntarily to the Abodi/Oloja.
Land and its resources traditionally constituted the most crucial item in the
economy of the Ikale. Land was not scarce in the 15th century when the Ikale
occupied their present territory but more recently population increase has altered
this situation and individual families have gradually asserted their rights over
particular areas of the territory. The Ikale strengthened their interests and stake
on their land not only because of its central importance in their agriculture-based
livelihood but also because of the contingent assertion of the ownership of the oil
palm trees which in later times the Urhobo immigrants-have exploited as licensed
tenants. The individual Ikale family also took decisions to lease farm and house land
to the Urhobo immigrants.
The Urhobo themselves are a patrilineal people organized in their homeland in
Bendel (previously Mid-West) State into twenty socio-political units, most of which
have kingdom structures. The government of an Urhobo town, like that of the
Ikale, is gerontocratic. However, although this government can decide on the
seasons for palm oil manufacturing processes (the opening and closing periods
for cutting oil palm regimes or bunches of fruit), it does not determine the other
economic activities-such as farming-engaged in by individual Urhobo families/
households. The ownership of land is distinguished from that of oil palms. While
the unit of ownership of oil palms is either the ward or town, that of the land
itself is generally a collateral family unit of a man, his wife/wives, their children
and grandchildren. No family can be deprived of its rights to exploit the land for
farming and other subsistence purposes. Yet while the rights of individuals are
temporary, those of the patrilineage, as an ongoing though changing organization,
are permanent and supersede those of the individuals that compose it. As among
the Ikale, the bilateral nature of kinship permits requests to use land for subsistence
purposes from any category of kinsmen including those of the wife/wives. In any

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228 RURAL MIGRANTS AS CATALYSTS

case, the right to use the land did not involve exclusive right over the oil palm
trees growing wild on it. Similarly, the right to exploit palm trees in a given area
does not confer indiscriminate farming rights. The Urhobo are primarily oil palm
producers, an ethnic and culture-bound occupation. Any Urhobo migrant was
socialized in this economic and cultural context, each had a full knowledge of the
technology for palm oil production.
The destination of the Urhobo migrants with whom this study is concerned was
determined by the abundance of oil palm resources. The Urhobo chose to travel
272 km, in stages, to reach Ikaleland rather than move to the urban areas of Warri
and Sapele within their territories or go to Benin City which was a few kilometres
away. This choice was determined by the fear of possible failure in the competition
for urban employment on one hand, and on the other by the availability of similar
rural life experiences and the expectation of survival and prosperity through their
known palm oil technology.
By 1931 the Ikale occupied an area of about 1,261 square km, and out of a
population of 60,902 in this territory, 25% were Urhobo. Apart from Ikale there
were Ilaje (also a Yoruba people) and Ijo indigenes in Okitipupa Division. Although
new economic activities have since attracted more people to the Division, with a
consequent population growth from 150,185 in 1952 to 275,709 in 1963, the Urhobo
migrant element in the Division, which had been coming in since the 19th century,
dwindled from 22.3% of the population in 1952 to 14.7% in 1963. This variation
in the figures has to do with the economic changes in the environment and the
achievement of migrant targets and the consequent re-migration or return home.
Besides the Yoruba majority of 74.4%0, there were 8.2% Ijo, 1% Igbo, and less
than 1% each of Bini, Isoko, Itsekiri, Hausa, Efik, Ibibio, and other small
elements. The Division was largely rural. By 1963, only 6.4%oof the population was
urban. In the absence of reliable figures one can hardly speak of any urban
population before the 1952 census.

THE STRUCTUREOF IMMIGRANTVILLAGES

Urhobo migrants conceptualized their target in terms of going to 'Ukane' (a
corruption of Ikale) or 'going to the sea' (mi kpu rhie), indicating the route used.
Both concepts signified at the same time the migratory trip, the destination, the
socio-economic motivation, and the expectation to return after accomplishing
their targets. On reaching their destination, the migrants sought village-camp
tenancy positions from Ikale landlords through their kinsmen or friends with
whom there had been some communication. Six such village-camps were studied in
detail. Each comprised men, women, and children with a functional physical
layout designed for convenience. Each house was built typically after the Urhobo
fashion but without the dignity and the semblance of permanence. All the physical
structures, including the trough-factory (oko) and wells were kept within calling
distance. In this way, wives could go straight from the kitchen to serve meals in the
production centres, children be sent on quick errands from one place to another,
and possible outbreak of fire and other attacks faced quickly.
Each village consisted of an average of seven family/household units, with a
total of forty people often having kin relationship with one another. A household
was the smallest unit of social organization in a village. Each village was exclusive
to the Urhobo immigrants. Its government was gerontocratic and the head ensured
peace and cooperation through timely intervention in quarrels; without these, palm
oil production could hardly be successful. The interest of immigrants in the

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 RURALMIGRANTSAS CATALYSTS 229

maintenance of law and order was basically economic and tied to the achievement
of individual family targets.

BASICIMMIGRANT ECONOMIC ACTIVITIES

Rural migrants in general have several sources of income. They may exchange
their labour for cash during weeding or harvesting periods, become fishermen, or
exploit local cash crops such as wild oil palm trees, or engage in non-agricultural
industries such as blacksmithing and shoemaking. Since these occupations do not
require prolonged special training, there is often an easy combination, or a
conversion of skills from one to another as determined by changing demands
and relative profitability.
The Urhobo immigrants whose ages ranged between twenty and forty years
engaged almost exclusively in palm oil production. Their problems included low
technology and access to land and wild oil palm trees. An immigrant required
minimal investment to begin his occupation: his own strength, a cutlass, an axe,
and a ropegirdle, called efi, which he could manufacture from parts of an oil
palm tree. Other investments were the village trough, an important communal
property in the economic process, and participation in an ongoing scheme of
mutual assistance and collaboration. In addition to these an immigrant paid to an
Ikale landlord about N1.20 and a bottle of gin as a settlement fee and N6 (about
US $10) after a year. The landlords exploited this relationship to their own
advantage and began to develop ideas of rural capitalism.
A married immigrant arranged for his wife to follow him if the family did not
travel together. On the other hand, an unmarried immigrant arranged for a wife
to join him almost at once: a wife or wives and children were an essential part of the
work force.
A normal working day began at 7 or 8 am and ended by 4 or 5 pm.
Immigrants rested on Sunday, if christian, or their traditional resting day called
edewo. Oil palm production required searches through rough bush on footpaths
and (nowadays) motorable roads for ripe palm fruits. A typical immigrant working
intensively for twelve days in a month and resting every three days, cut an average
of 1,080 regimes in one year. It took a household 21 days to complete the process
of extracting oil from the palm fruits. On average, a kerosine tin of 18.2 litres of oil
was produced from 18 regimes of palm fruits, thus giving a total of 60 tins of palm
oil produced yearly by a typical immigrant. In addition to this an immigrant's
wife or wives got 1,097.2 kg of palm kernel a year. These figures were diminishing
each year owing principally to the ageing trees and to their destruction through
fire and lack of manure.
There were fluctuations in prices and immigrant income but by 1970-72, a
typical immigrant earned 150 from palm oil and N64.50 from palm kernel, hence
a total of N214.50 from his oil palm produce. From this amount he maintained
his household of about six people on the average for one year.
An immigrant household spent the whole day labouring, producing palm oil or
kernel or working in the farm, except on rest days. Every member of the household
was involved in some kind of economic activity. In a normal distribution of labour,
male adults were responsible for cutting and slicing oil palm regimes, fermenting
and treading oil palm nuts, selling palm oil and the initial farm clearing, while
adult females carried the processed palm nuts, extracted and sold kernel from oil
palm nuts, manufactured soap and pomade from palm oil and kernel, weeded the
farm, produced and marketedgarri, starch, and other farm crops. Males, females, and

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230 RURALMIGRANTSAS CATALYSTS

children were all involved in carrying oil palm regimes between cutting and slicing,
as well as in miscellaneous palm oil production activities. Women and children
were also responsible for carrying and nursing babies.
Immigrant household-heads emphasized production for sale rather than for
consumption. A household that consumed all or nearly all that it produced was
considered unwise and could hardly achieve its targets. Immigrant households
therefore planned their consumption habits to avoid paralysing their sales in the
periodic markets or to visiting middlemen. Immigrants discriminatedbetween buyers
on the basis of their ability to pay high prices for the produce rather than on the
basis of ethnic origin. From cash returns on a market day, an immigrant bought
the needs of the household.
Immigrants derived satisfaction from their perception of wealth and progress.
Their criteria in this respect included the ability to run the household expenses
'without tears', pay children's fees at colleges, build a personal house at home in the
Bendel State, buy a vehicle (taxi or lorry), open a shop in the town, or buy
cracking and grating machines. Immigrants invested their savings in the locality
on moveable property such as taxis or the contents of a shop. In general, both
Urhobo and non-Urhobo immigrants contributed immensely not merely to the
concentration of population but also to the development of middlemen trade,
shopkeeping and the diversity of occupational groups.

TRADINGACTIVITIES
Middlemen in the Oil Palm Trade
The position of the middlemen in the Division began with the village-camp
founders. The British colonial government officers in the locality standardized this
middleman position of the village heads by authorizing them to buy the produce of
all other household heads in the camps and to sell these to the European firms.
However, this system broke down and a new group of middlemen emerged with
or without previous experience in the oil palm industry. This group, like the
producers-sellers themselves, were subject to the new regulations of the colonial
Government Produce Department and Inspection Officers which required that the
oil and kernel produced were of the best quality.
The middlemen, some part-time others full-time, formed part of a relay trade in
oil and kernel from the villages to the most profitable markets in urban or
other areas. Palm oil was consumed locally or exported. The fact that there
were surpluses and a middleman group to syphon these away encouraged the
commercial development of the locality before and after Nigeria's independence.
Under colonial rule, foreign companies which included Messers W. B. MacIver &
Co. Ltd, Miller Brothers Ltd, Anglo-Guinea Produce Co. Ltd and John Holt
& Co. Ltd, established themselves in the locality as from 1921 to trade in palm
oil and kernel. Two main shipments were made overseas by the United Africa
Company through the port of Koko in the Bendel State, and Messrs John Holt and
Company Ltd, through Lagos port.
Cash relations were developed as a consequence. Buying and selling oil and
kernel were in terms of cash relations and while they lasted they superseded
other kinds of relationships. It was a normal practice for a middleman's kinsmen to
prefer selling his produce to a non-kin middleman, thus marking the early beginning
of impersonal relations, socio-economic differentiation, and indicating the develop-
ment of tastes for the new commodities imported by the foreign firms. In addition,
Yoruba and Hausa immigrants were attracted from Abeokuta, Epe, Ibadan,
Ijebu and other large Yoruba towns.

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 RURALMIGRANTSAS CATALYSTS 231

Between Nigeria's independence and 1972, British firms backed out of the trade
in palm produce. Instead middlemen connected the village-camp producers with
Government Licensed Buying Agents who in turn sold their purchases finally to the
Marketing Boards on whose behalf the Nigerian Produce Marketing Company Ltd
in Lagos made shipments. Buying Agents were given minimum purchasing prices
of both kernel and oil by Government every marketing year and were required to
purchase produce from gazetted buying stations. These regulations helped to
minimize the exploitation of village-camp producers, since each knew the gain a
middleman made on him/her. The middlemen were themselves interested in the
continuation of the palm produce trade that sustained their livelihood and hence
they made just enough profits to encourage more production to start the chain in
the village-camps.
Of twelve middlemen studied, ten were immigrants to the Ikale area. Four had
been involved in the palm oil business before, four were Urhobo, including both the
least and some of the most active in visiting camps (the frequency varied from 3 to
60 camps weekly), the rest were Isoko or Yoruba (including Ijebu and two Ikale).
The year of their arrival in the Division varied from 1922 to 1965.
Immigrants engaged in other kinds of relationship than those in market situations.
For instance middlemen lent money to immigrants in the villages to meet sudden
or urgent expenses such as hospital bills, taxes and children's school fees. Repay-
ments were in cash or a quantity of produce. Such a scheme was a powerful means
of retaining customers. But it also led to a complicated system of indebtedness
in situations where high interests were demanded. Similarly, a middleman was
allowed by the village-camp producer to carry produce away on credit until he
received money from a Buying Agent for the lots purchased. Hence the role of
middlemen created a new type of cash and commercial relationships which
incorporated the traditional locally-specific and personalized relations.

Shopkeeping
Like everyone else, an immigrant considered shopkeeping as a stage forward from
the drudgery of palm oil and kernel production. There were two ways of leaving
the village-camp system behind to attain this stage. A household could decide to
quit oil palm produce and to start a shop when they had a good year's income
to add to previous savings. Secondly, particularly in large and well established
households, it was a common practice for the combined proceeds of two or more
seasons of oil palm production to be given to one member of the household,
usually a fairly educated elder son, to begin a shop. In this latter case, the other
members of the household stayed behind in the village-camp, working harder for
additional savings to increase the capital and the content of the family enterprise.
The keeper's parents visited this shop frequently to watch the progress.
Immigrants refrained from setting up shops in the village-camps themselves for a
number of reasons. The demand-population was too small, hence payments for
commodities if made in full at once would result in small turnovers. A shop would
therefore suffer from too great an accumulation of unsold commodities. Another
reason was that village-camp inhabitants were so busy with enervating and regular
work that neither sellers nor customers would be available until late in the evening
when everyone had returned from the day's work. A shop would in addition
attract thieves to the village and would present management problems.
Therefore, once capital was acquired, immigrants proceeded to establish shops
rather in such growing centres as Okitipupa. In this way the villagers around helped
to concentrate population in one place and shopkeeping was both a cause and a

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232 RURALMIGRANTSAS CATALYSTS

consequence of such concentrations of human, food and other material resources.

Unlike the village organization, the new concentration was increasingly hetero-
geneous with a population that had a more 'shop-oriented culture' in which
commodities were effectively demanded and a more frequent turnover ploughed
back to expand the shops in order to cater for diversified tastes and demands.
This is not to say that the history of shopkeeping began with the arrival of
Urhobo immigrants, or that without immigrants there could not have been shops in
Okitipupa and other towns in the Division. The fact was that both the oil and
kernel produced by the Urhobo could satisfy more than local consumption: some of
the oil and virtually all the kernel demanded a chain of economic activities which
included middlemen, buying agents, cash transactions and this led to the investment
of savings in shops. There were some Ikale and other Yoruba as well as other
Nigerian shopowners. But these got their capital from such other sources as loans
and farming proceeds.
With continuing increase in the population the tempo of shopkeeping in the
locality also increased, with about 90%7oof the commodities being brought
from Lagos. In the case of the indigenes almost every dwelling house that opened
into a street had the parlour turned into a shop of some sort. Such shops required
little capital. For example, each of the 117 Ikale-owned shops in Okitipupa and 51
in Igbotako (another growing small urban centre in the locality) was worth
approximately N531 and 309 respectively as against each of the other Yoruba-
owned shops (N986 and 531) and the Urhobo shops (N1,234 and 628) respectively.
Although the Ikale owned about 6607oof the shops in Igbotako, their contents
accounted for only 49%7o of the total value of the shops. On the other hand three
of the shops owned by the Ijebu (Yoruba) in that town accounted for only 4%oof
the total number of shops and yet up to 10% (i.e. N3,290) of the value of N31,772
for all the shops in Igbotako.
Immigrant and non-immigrant shopowners maintained several occupations
principally because no one of them alone attracted such demand and yielded such
income as could sustain the family. Hence a shopkeeper was also a goldsmith,
a bicycle repairer, a shoe maker etc., all in one room. Prices of commodities were
generally moderate when compared with those in Ibadan and Lagos, taking
transport costs into account.
Of the 35 types of enterprise in Okitipupa town in 1972, the most numerous
were textiles and clothes (36), beer and drinks (21), and tailors and seamstresses (16).
Nearly all these shops engaged from one to five persons. Only one bakery, one
weaving, one textiles, one radio/electrical shop, one tobacconist and two tailors
employed from six to ten, and one textile shop employed from eleven to fifteen.
Those enterprises that engaged less than five persons, often members of the
household, rewarded them with periodic gifts as members of the owning unit.
Throughout the opening time, wives, children, husbands, relatives and apprentices
assisted in one way or the other. Breakfast, lunch and supper were served and
consumed in a part of the shop, interrupted only by buyers. Some of the shopowners
combined farmwork with shopkeeping; they left for their farms at about 5-6 am
and returned between 12 noon and 2 pm to open their shops. Farmwork was an
inevitable supplement to shopkeeping.
Although shops were managed in the rural setting, their processes contributed
the semblance of an urban life, of a definite daily lifestyle different from that of
either farmwork or oil palm production. The shopkeepers did not face complex
organizational problems; shops were managed by common sense, checking off the

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 RURALMIGRANTSAS CATALYSTS 233

profits and ploughing some of these back. Immigrant shopkeepers visited their natal
homes in a more leisurely way, told their kinsmen and friends about their progress
and surveyed the market demand for the kind of commodities they stored in their
shops in Ikale land. Some of the immigrants negotiated in advance for either an
urban or a rural base for their shops and returned finally to the Bendel State
whenever they felt that their gains and savings were adequate for their immediate
expenses and for the transfer of their shopkeeping activities.

INCREASINGDIVERSIFICATIONINTOOTHER OCCUPATIONALGROUPS
The concentration of population and development efforts has produced economic
growth poles as well as centres into which the Government injected development
projects. The most important of these centres in the Ikale area was Okitipupa
(a meeting point by the river side for those living in the rural hinterland and in the
creeks), where the Government set up branches of its ministries such as the Local
Government Council/Divisional Office, the Customary Court, the police,
agricultural stations, farm settlements and experimental oil palm plantations.
Part of the Government efforts was the construction of roads and the establishment
of postal services to link the area with other parts of Nigeria especially with Ibadan,
the former Regional Headquarters.
By 1963, there had been a large number of occupational groups. There were
114,085 employed persons in Okitipupa Division, 56.2% male and 43.8% female.
The largest categories were 'farmers, fishermen, hunters and loggers' (67,875),
craftsmen (16,626) and sales workers (16,394). In the latter there was a higher
percentage of women than men, and a significantly high percentage of women
(24.2% out of the 43.8%) in farming and fishing, but only a minority in the
categories which included professional, administrative, clerical, transport and
service workers. Some of the workers had no direct dealing with immigrant oil palm
producers except as consumers or in bargaining relations in palm oil and kernel
transactions. The presence of such a diversity of occupational groups contributed
to the transformation of rural life in the direction of an urban system. But the rural
base and the immigrant-indigene socio-economic relations gave the emerging urban
centres their own distinct characteristics. Hence places like Okitipupa and
Igbotako could never be replicas of Ibadan or Lagos even though these latter
towns had an impact on the form which urban processes were taking in the smaller
centres.

THEIMPLICATIONS
This study supports Richards' suggestion (1956:222) that certain occupations and
the technology for economic activities are culture-bound. The wider implication of
this observation is that the richer the diversity of economic resources in any given
region, the greater the influx of immigrants with different talents to participate in
their exploitation. Hence without this mixed population and variety of technological
know-how certain economic resources would hardly be fully exploited. A necessary
condition for local population concentration to promote socio-economic develop-
ment and the emergence of urban features is therefore the access which immigrants
and indigenes have to local resources.
This condition is met in the Okitipupa situation, the Division being made up of
rural hinterlands which surround and contribute to growth centres and emergent
urban concentrations from which the villagers in turn derive various incentives.
The Urhobo and other immigrants not only helped to develop the national

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234 RURAL MIGRANTS AS CATALYSTS

economy through their production for local use and for export but also contributed
to the concentration of both population and elements of urban life.
The direction of this development was towards greater intensification of an urban
system in which indigenes were centrally involved. The Ikale, for example, not
only learnt from the Urhobo to climb the tall palm oil trees (before the arrival of
the Urhobo immigrants they only cut regimes for food from low oil palms) but
also developed the habits of shopkeeping and trade and became employed at the low
levels of unskilled labour in plantations, government agricultural extension works,
farm settlements and in the local Government Council. So that even after a
majority of the immigrants had left the host society, a sustained system of urban life
had been created. Government investments and participation in this urbanization
process can hardly be withdrawn.
All the immigrants studied expressed a strong desire to return to the Bendel State
at some stage on the attainment of their targets. Although a full study of the return-
migrants has not yet been made, preliminary enquiries show that from both ends-
the natal and destination points-we can apply a development theory, rather than
development in one and decay in the other (natal), to rural migrant organizations
and their consequances.
Hence rural-to-ruralmigration should be encouraged by Government as a desirable
strategy for rural development and for the emergence of socio-economic growth
centres. In this respect an important obstacle which requires national policy is the
land tenure system and the discouragement of the dual nature of local citizenship.
Immigrants in Ikaleland were regarded as Nigerians but not as citizens of the
local areas. This discrimination is real and has socio-psychological consequences for
immigrants; it also places them at a political disadvantage if any of them wished to
participate actively in the politics of the local councils and the state.
However, whereas a full integration of immigrants would lead to their greater
involvement in the development of their host society, the fact that they are pushed
away and attracted back to their natal homes, principally by ties of kinship and an
enduring share in a common system of symbols, renders immigrants able to spread
the investment of their acquired wealth and skills to their natal homes. Hence, in
both cases, rural migrants are powerful agents of the concentration not only of
population and development efforts but also of the elements of urbanization.
NOTE
I am gratefulto the Senate ResearchGrants
Committeeof the Universityof Ibadanfor funding
thisstudy.

REFERENCES
Lee, E. S. 1966 'A Theory of Migration' Demography 3 (1): 47-57.
Otite, O. forthcoming Rural Migrants of Nigeria: Urhobo migrants among the Ikale,
Ondo State, Nigeria.
Richards, A. I. (ed) 1956 Economic Development and Tribal Change. Cambridge:
W. Heffer and Sons.
Udo, R. K. 1975 Migrant Tenant Farmers of Nigeria. Lagos: African University Press.

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