Extent of remittances to households in villages around onigambari forest reserve of Oyo state, Nigeria

The study examined the extent of remittances to households in villages around Onigambari Forest Reserve of Oyo State. Multi-stage sampling techniques were used to select 96 respondents and data were collected with the aids of interview schedule. The data were analysis through descriptive analysis. The distribution shows that majority of the respondents were male (75.5%), above 50 years of age (55.3%), married (66%) and 79.8% engaged in farming activities. It was revealed that most (67.0%) of the respondents often received remittances once in a year. The level of receiving revealed at the end of the study that extent of remittance was low. The study concluded that remittances in this study area is not a well-recognized phenomenon in spite of the recognized advantages of a well-articulated remittance management in Nigeria. It is therefore recommended that the rural household dwellers should develop a vast communication strategy with their immigrant’s children, friends and relatives to ensure adequacy and frequency allocation of remittances.

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Percentage: Male vs FemaleClose ×

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Percentage: 31-40 vs 41-50 vs 51-aboveClose ×

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Introduction

Remittances have been identified as an important source of capital for people in developing countries like Nigeria due to its contribution to economic development of rural households dwellers. According to Poprzenovic (2007) [6] , remittances are defined as income in terms of money and goods that are sent by migrants or relatives, families and friends to their respective home towns. It is the current transfers in cash or kindsent or brought from non-residents to residential households. Therefore Peoples livelihood outcome depend on this magnificent source to improve their food security, general wellbeing and sustainability of natural resources in their community. Remittances received increases consumption or investment in capital of household resulting into higher return of household economy (Adger et al, 2002) [1] . Remittances flow has a direct effect on the distribution of income and assets accumulation with an indirect effect on resource users and therefore reducing poverty in the rural areas. Poverty is a state at which people realize themselves as a non-human being due to lack of well-being (Kamaga et al, 2009). The level of consumption, expenditure, income and assessing of assets can be a measure of poverty. A majority of poor people in the world live in the rural areas and an important source of income accessible for poor people are remittances. It would therefore be great to determine how remittances have affected household livelihood outcome. Remittances flow has a direct effect on the distribution of income and assets accumulation with an indirect effect on resource users. There is immense consensus that remittances can help poverty alleviation among rural households. However, the wealthier households May have no income sources from remittances. There is no doubt that larger percentage of poor people in the world especially developing countries lives in the rural areas. People in this environment migrate to the urban areas to secure better future for themselves and their households. The effect of their movement to areas where they could generate more resources sometimes contributes to livelihood of their family back home in form of remittances. The rural-urban migrants send remittances to their relatives in the rural areas and these remittance-receiving households use the remittances for various purposes. However, despite the ever increasing size of remittance, both internal and international, the extent of remittances still remain unclear as a result of inappropriate data to determine the outcomes on their livelihood. Therefore the study attempt to provide insight to the extent of remittances to households in villages around Onigambari Forest Reserve of Oyo State

Methodology

The study was conducted in villages around Onigambari Forest Reserve located in Oluyole Local Government Area (LGA) of Oyo state. Onigambari is one of the early forest reserves in the state and it is divided into 5 series namely Onigambari, Busogboro, Onipe, Olonde and Mamu. Onigambari forest reserve is a lowland forest. The reserve is located between latitude 70⁰ 25 1 N and longtitude 30⁰ 50 1 E. It is situated at the southern part of Ibadan bounded on the west by River Ona and on the east by the main road of Ibadan to Ijebu-ode. Multi stage sampling method was used and total of 96 respondents were selected for the study. The socio-economic characteristic of the respondents examined includes sex, age, marital status, religion, education level, occupation, household size. The distribution shows that majority of the respondents (75.5%) were male while 24.5% were female. This implies that there are more male household heads in the study area. This is in line with work of Ayad et al (1997) [2] who reported that most household heads are usually male as males are known to be the head of the family except on cases where the male is dead leaving the household head position for the wife. Also, the table shows that 5.3% of the respondents were between the age range of 31-40, 39.4% were between 41-50 years while 55.3% were above 50 years of age. This indicates that larger percentage of the respondents were above 50years. This implies that the respondents which are household heads are old enough to state their experience on whether they receive remittances or not. Furthermore, it was observed from the result that none of the respondent is single, 66.0% were married, 5.3% were divorced and 28.7% were widow. This result implies that no household heads is expected to remain single except if he/she is divorced or has lost his wife or lost her husband. This could attribute to African culture which regarded marital status as a social symbol which attracts prestige. Furthermore it is suggested that higher percentage of married people is an indication of more responsible adults in the society. Table 1 above also revealed that 56.4% of the respondents practice Islam while 38.3% of the respondents practice Christianity. It was observed that only 5.3% practice the traditional religion. Although Islam is greater in percentage, there is no prejudice or discrimination towards the choice of religion among respondents in the study area. In term of education, it was revealed from the table that 61.7% of the respondent in the study area have no formal education, 2.1% had adult education, and 33.0% had primary education while 3.2% were able to acquire secondary education. This can be attributed to the fact that the study area is a rural settlement and minimal range of educational level is expected in the study area. In addition, it was pointed out from the table that majority of the respondents (79.8%) engaged in farming as major occupation, 1.1% engaged in lumbering, 8.5% were into hunting while 3.2% engaged in fishing and 7.4% engaged in trading. This result implies that most of the household heads engage in farming as their major source of livelihood. Majority of the respondents being farmers is in consonance with the assertion of Yusuf and Falusi (2000) [7] who reported agriculture has the main occupation of 75% of people in most developing nations. Similarly, Neven et al (2009) [4] noted that agriculture as a sector is dominated by small holdings farming families, with most of them residing in rural areas. It was emerged from the table above that 3.2% of the respondent had <3 persons in their house while 44.7% of the respondents had between 4-6 household members, 43.6% between 7-9 persons while 7.4% and 1.1% had household members ranges from 10-13 and > 13 respectively. This implies that the families of people in the study area tend to migrate out for greener pastures which in turn resulted into more remittances for the community. 2 above shows that majority of the respondents 67.0% receives remittances once in a year, 33.0% receives it occasionally once in a year. Also, 64.9% receives remittances always at the beginning of the year while 29.8% receives it occasionally at the beginning of the year while 5.3% does not receive it at all during the beginning of the year. Only 1.1% of the respondents frequently receive remittances quarterly while 40.4% receives it occasionally at every quarter of the year and 58.5% does not receive remittances quarterly at all. None of the respondents frequently receives remittances every month but 9.6 occasionally receive remittances every month and 90.4% does not receive remittances every month. Furthermore, at every middle of the year, 4.3% of the respondent receives remittances frequently while 45.7% occasionally receives remittances at the middle of the year and 50.7% does not receive any remittances at the middle of the year. The result further shows that none of the respondents receive remittances every day, every week, twice in a month or three times in a month. Thrice in a year, 2.1% receives remittances frequently while 45.7% occasionally receives remittances three times in a year and 52.1% does not receive remittances three times a year. Lastly, 17.9% of the respondents frequently receive remittances twice in a year while 77.7% occasionally receives remittances two times in a year and 5.3% does not receive remittances two times in a year The result therefore shows that larger percentage of the respondents only receives remittances once in year or only at the beginning of the year at 67.0% and 64.9% respectively. Meanwhile, larger percentage of the respondents rarely or does not receive remittances at other periods or amount of times of the year. This indicates that despite the ever increasing size of remittance, both internal and international, remittances have not been appropriately discharged to the rural dwellers and this is in support of Nightingale (2003) [5] who observed that in spite of the recognized advantages of a well-articulated remittance management regime to aid growth and development of rural settlements, Nigeria does not see remittance allocation as a major priority. The effects of remittances on livelihood outcome of households in rural areas still remain uncertain. Conclusively, Table 3 shows that there has been little or minimal extent of remittance back to the study area. This implies that there is no adequate fund coming back to the study area as at when due.

Level	Frequency	Percentages
low	71	75.5
high	23	24.5

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Table 3Close ×

Extent level of Remittance in the study Area

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Variable	Frequency	Percentage
Sex
Male	71	75.5
Female	23	24.5
Total	94	100.0
Age
31-40	5	5.3
41-50	37	39.4
51-above	52	55.3
Total	94	100.0
Marital status
Single	0	0.0
Married	62	66.0
Divorced	5	5.3
Widow	27	28.7
Total	94	100.0
Religion
Christian	36	38.3
Islam	53	56.4
Traditional	5	5.3
Others	0	0
Total	94	100.0
Educational level
No education	58	61.7
Adult	2	2.1
Primary	31	33.0
Secondary	3	3.2
Tertiary	0	0
Total	94	100.0
Occupation
Farming	75	79.8
Lumbering	1	1.1
Hunting	8	8.5
Fishing	3	3.2
Trading	7	7’4
Total	94	100.0
Household Size
<3	3	3.2
4-6	42	44.7
7-9	41	43.6
10-13	7	7.4
14 above	1	1.1
Total	94	100.0

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Table 1Close ×

Socio-Economic Characteristics of the Respondent

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Result and Discussion

Result and Discussion

Recommendation and Conclusion

From the result gotten from this research work, it shows that majority of the respondents were male and are slightly above middle age bracket, few had formal education while many does not and the major occupation of the respondent is farming. Its therefore concluded that larger percentage of the respondents only receives remittances once in a year mostly at the beginning of the year as shown by the result which affirms to the fact that remittances in the study area. Remittances in this study area is not a well-recognized phenomenon in spite of the recognized advantages of a well-articulated remittance management regime to aid growth and development, Nigeria does not put remittance of migrants into their best use and migrant individuals has also failed in adequately sending home their remittances.

The following are the recommendations made base on the findings of this study. The rural household dwellers should develop a vast communication strategy with their immigrant's children, friends and relatives to ensure adequacy and frequency allocation of remittances.

The community should derive a strategy to attract remittances to the community for community developmental projects which will result into improvement in their livelihood outcomes.

Figures and tables from the paper

Variables	Always	Occasional	Never`
Once a year	63(67.0%)	31(33.0%)	0(0%)
Beginning of the year	61(64.9%)	28(29.8%)	5(5.3%)
Quarterly	1(1.1%)	38(40.4%)	55(58.5%)
Every Month	0(0%)	9(9.6%)	85(90.4%)
Middle of the year	4(4.3%)	43(45.7%)	47(50.0%)
Every Week	0(0%)	0(0%)	94(100%)
Every Day	0(0%)	0(0%)	94(100%)
Twice a Month	0(0%)	0(0%)	94(100%)
Thrice a Year	2(2.1%)	43(45.7%)	49(52.1%)
Thrice a Month	0(0%)	0(0%)	94(100%)
Twice a Year	16(17.9%)	73(77.7%)	5(5.3%)

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Table 2Close ×

To What Extent (when) do you get Remittances

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