The federal government may soon witness mass return of Nigerians from the United Kingdom (UK) following the hash effects of the new welfare and immigration reforms announced by David Cameron-led Conservative-Liberal government.
According to Nigerian High Commission in London, about two million Nigerians are living in UK. But the 2001 UK Census recorded 88,378 Nigerian-born people resident in the UK. More recent estimates by the Office for National Statistics put the figure at 154,000 in 2009. A Council of Europe report gives a figure of 100,000 Nigerians in the UK but suggests that this is likely to be an underestimate since it does not include irregular migrants or children.
One of the Nigerians living in UK who does not want his name mentioned in this report told our reporter that the new measure which restricts benefits such as housing, allowances, does not favour British citizens and foreigners including Nigerians who feel that their means of livelihood has been reduced said they want to return home.
Mostly affected are aged Nigerians who depend mainly on welfare benefits. They want to return home so that the extended family system in Nigeria will take care of them.
The main elements of the Bill are the introduction of Universal Credit to provide a single streamlined benefit that will ensure work always pays, a stronger approach to reducing fraud and error with tougher penalties for the most serious offences, a new claimant commitment showing clearly what is expected of claimants while giving protection to those with the greatest needs and reforms to Disability Living Allowance through the introduction of the Personal Independence Payment to meet the needs of disabled people.
The government is creating a fairer approach to Housing Benefit to bring stability to the market and improve incentives to work, driving out abuse of the Social Fund system by giving greater power to local authorities in reforming Employment and Support Allowance to make the benefit fairer and to ensure that help goes to those with the greatest need.
UK government said the reform has become necessary because too many people are living in unnecessary and unedifying subsidised worklessness than would once have been the case. It said that lifelong welfare dependency is now seen as a cause of many of the intractable problems associated with deprivation, such as educational underachievement, delinquency and anti-social behaviour. Added to this has been the phenomenon of migrant workers entering Britain in huge numbers, apparently able and willing to find employment. To be importing labour into an already overcrowded country in which more than a million able-bodied young British people are failing to take up jobs seems an absurd situation.
The Conservatives are adopting a reform model that has proved hugely successful in the United States. They will place a strict time limit of two years on the duration of the Jobseekers’ Allowance, after which claimants will be required to undertake civic duties such as park maintenance or graffiti clearing if they are not to lose their benefits.
According to Nigerian High Commission in London, about two million Nigerians are living in UK. But the 2001 UK Census recorded 88,378 Nigerian-born people resident in the UK. More recent estimates by the Office for National Statistics put the figure at 154,000 in 2009. A Council of Europe report gives a figure of 100,000 Nigerians in the UK but suggests that this is likely to be an underestimate since it does not include irregular migrants or children.
One of the Nigerians living in UK who does not want his name mentioned in this report told our reporter that the new measure which restricts benefits such as housing, allowances, does not favour British citizens and foreigners including Nigerians who feel that their means of livelihood has been reduced said they want to return home.
Mostly affected are aged Nigerians who depend mainly on welfare benefits. They want to return home so that the extended family system in Nigeria will take care of them.
The main elements of the Bill are the introduction of Universal Credit to provide a single streamlined benefit that will ensure work always pays, a stronger approach to reducing fraud and error with tougher penalties for the most serious offences, a new claimant commitment showing clearly what is expected of claimants while giving protection to those with the greatest needs and reforms to Disability Living Allowance through the introduction of the Personal Independence Payment to meet the needs of disabled people.
The government is creating a fairer approach to Housing Benefit to bring stability to the market and improve incentives to work, driving out abuse of the Social Fund system by giving greater power to local authorities in reforming Employment and Support Allowance to make the benefit fairer and to ensure that help goes to those with the greatest need.
UK government said the reform has become necessary because too many people are living in unnecessary and unedifying subsidised worklessness than would once have been the case. It said that lifelong welfare dependency is now seen as a cause of many of the intractable problems associated with deprivation, such as educational underachievement, delinquency and anti-social behaviour. Added to this has been the phenomenon of migrant workers entering Britain in huge numbers, apparently able and willing to find employment. To be importing labour into an already overcrowded country in which more than a million able-bodied young British people are failing to take up jobs seems an absurd situation.
The Conservatives are adopting a reform model that has proved hugely successful in the United States. They will place a strict time limit of two years on the duration of the Jobseekers’ Allowance, after which claimants will be required to undertake civic duties such as park maintenance or graffiti clearing if they are not to lose their benefits.
