Paper short abstract:

Urban rural migration has been driven in recent times by the spate of crime and high cost of living in urban areas across Nigeria. Specifically, this paper explores the patterns of urban-rural migration

Paper long abstract:

The recurrent urban displacement across the country has aroused a sense of how the phenomenon of contesting the city has received inadequate scholarly attention. Urban rural migration has been driven in recent times by the spate of crime and high cost of living in urban areas across Nigeria. Specifically, this paper explores the patterns of urban-rural migration by responding to these questions: What is the trend of urban-rural migration in Southern Nigeria? Why are people being forced to relocate to the rural areas? What opportunities in rural areas determine urban-rural migration? Using synthesised primary and secondary sources, this paper is a case study of state's leanings toward urban displacement. Nigeria's urban bias scenario has been revealed by available data on how over 2 million people lost their homes and land to compulsory land acquisitions as at 2006, the eviction of more than a million people in Port Harcourt by oil companies, as well as the eviction of more than 500,000 people in Abuja since 2003 which affected people that relocated to rural areas in Southern Nigeria. This paper argues that due to the problems associated with land and development, both the rising cost of living in the urban areas and the incremental wave of urban crimes occasioned by urbanization remain the dominant motivations for movements of people to rural areas which are relatively safer than the cities which attract job seekers and foreign investors.