Rural-Urban Migration and Urbanization in Nigeria: Case Studies from Lokoja and Kaduna

The Nigerian cities of Lokoja and Kaduna were both established first as colonial administrative centers by the British at the beginning of the nineteenth century. These cities soon developed features characteristic of commercial, industrial, and manufacturing centers within central and northern Nigeria. In 1900, Lokoja served as the first capital of the newly created British Northern Protectorate, maintaining an important administrative domain, even long after the shift of the northern regional capital to Kaduna in 1917. Today, these cities possess significant political and administrative salience as state capitals within the Federal Republic of Nigeria; Lokoja serves as the capital of Kogi state and Kaduna as that of Kaduna State.

Apart from being the administrative nexus and cultural nerve for central and northern Nigeria, both cities equally serve as important trade and network sites, interlinking the major administrative hubs servicing the surrounding agricultural areas and also attracting immigrants from the different rural areas of the Niger-Benue confluence (Middle Belt) region, as well as from other Nigeria’s core and peripheral northern territories.

The paper examines the interactions between economic development and immigrations from the rural areas of the Middle Belt and depicts the characteristics of urban growth and sectoral economies and industries, especially those specifically developed during the colonial and early postcolonial era such as the textile industry and the French Peugeot automobile assembly in Kaduna. It also reviews the impact of such developments like the emergent new Federal Capital territory in Abuja, not so far away upon both Lokoja and Kaduna. For Lokoja, this paper evaluates and chronicles the equally important development and installation (since late 1970s) of metallurgy technological and industrial facilities in exploiting the iron ore deposits in the vicinity of Ajaokuta, near Lokoja.

The paper will further address the impact these rural-urban migrations possess for the social, cultural and economic development of these two cities.