In the global context, an irregular immigrant is a person who, owing to irregular entry, breach of a condition of entry or the expiry of his or her legal basis for entering or residing in a country, lacks legal status in a transit or host country.

Irregular migration occurs in every part of the world. However, the narrative of irregular migration tends to create the impression that it is essentially an African problem. Achieng, Maureen and Amira El Fadi (2020) have challenged the African migration narrative. They identify three reasons for the distortions that characterise the current narrative on African migration:

• most African migrants are not crossing oceans, but rather crossing land borders within Africa;
• 94 per cent of African migration across oceans takes on a regular form; and
• most global migrants are not African.

Africa accounts for 14 per cent of the global migrant population, compared, for example, to 41 per cent from Asia and 24 per cent from Europe. These fortify the need to retell the story that is largely about intraAfrican migration, contrary to the horrific sensationalized impression of irregular migration from Africa through the Mediterranean.

Of the 150 million migrants in the world estimated in 2006, more than 50 million are estimated to be Africans. Given that the number of migrants is rising and that this trend is likely to persist in the foreseeable future, the management of migration has necessarily become one of the critical challenges for states in the new millennium. According to Gerald Chirinda (undated), it is estimated that in 2015, 15 million African-born migrants were living outside the continent.

In the past few years, thousands have risked their lives trying to cross the Mediterranean Sea bound for Europe in search of better economic opportunities. Tragically, many of them only get as far as the Sahara Desert or the middle of the sea where they, unfortunately, meet their demise.

The main factor driving this migration from Africa is simply the failure of their governments to provide them with opportunities within their countries of origin. In Africa, poor socioeconomic conditions, such as low wages, high levels of unemployment, rural underdevelopment, poverty and lack of opportunity fuel immigration. These factors are usually brought about by a mismatch between the rapid population growth and the available resources, low level of requisite technology to exploit the available natural resources and capacity to create employment and jobs in the countries of origin (African Union, 2006).

According to Marie-Laurence Flahaux and Hein de Haas (2016), contradicting conventional interpretations of African migration being essentially driven by poverty, violence and underdevelopment, increasing migration out of Africa seems rather to be driven by processes of development and social transformation which have increased Africans’ capabilities and aspirations to migrate, a trend which is likely to continue in the future.

In 2006, the countries of Africa, under the auspices of the African Union, came up with a common position on migration and development. The Draft African Common Position on Migration and Development also contains a set of recommendation at national, continental and international level which are aimed at addressing migration and development issues. The delegates also adopted a Report of the Experts Meeting, which among other things, mandated the African Troika to address the issue of migration and development with the European Troika during their meeting in Vienna, Austria, on May 8, 2006. The African Common Position on Migration and Development has since been endorsed by the executive council through the Executive Council Decision adopted at the Banjul Summit in July 2006.

Marie-Laurence Flahaux and Hein de Haas (2016) emphasise the need to move past the Western approach and amplify African voices in the migration dialogue by providing answers to the following questions:

• What would an African approach to mobility look like?
• With what presumptions would it begin?
• How would it build on histories of Pan-Africanism and African hospitality?
• Most importantly, what kind of policies would it bring forth?

In this article, I want to concentrate on the fourth question because, indeed, most problems, issues and challenges can be sought in the defective policies governments frequently make, often on the advice of the international financial institutions (IFI), principally the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund (IMF). The defects are compounded by the temptation of rulers to emphasise greed, selfishness and corruption for self-aggrandisement, or the aggrandisement of kith and kin or those who belong to their ethnic groups at the expense of the rest of ethnic groups or society.

While each of the African countries has its own migration policy, Africa, within the context of the African Union (formally Organisation of African Unity), has addressed the issue of African Migration by developing African migration policies on various aspects of migration. These are found in the Migration Policy Framework for Africa and Plan of Action (2018 – 2030), which may be accessed online.

During their 74th Ordinary Session in July 2001, The Organisation of African Unity (OAU) Council of Ministers called for the development of a migration policy framework in light of the development potential and challenges posed by migration. This resulted in the AU Migration Policy Framework for Africa (MPFA), which was adopted in Banjul, the Gambia, in 2006. Ten years later, in 2016, the African Union (AU) Commission (AUC) conducted an evaluation of the MPFA regarding its efficiency, its implementation challenges and opportunities that could be seized, relevance and whether there was a need for revision. At their meeting of November 2016, AU Member States and Regional Economic Communities (RECs) acknowledged that migration is dynamic, and that migration trends and patterns on the continent had changed over the previous 10 years (2006-2016).

In line with their recommendation for the AUC to update the MPFA and formulate a plan of action for its implementation, the “Migration Policy Framework for Africa and Plan of Action (2018 - 2030)” is a revised, strategic document that builds on the achievements and challenges of the previous MPFA to guide member-states and RECs in the management of migration, reflecting the current migration dynamics in Africa. It is the result of an inclusive and participatory process involving different departments at the AUC. The revised MPFA takes into account AU priorities, policies, Agenda 2063, the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and international migration management policies and standards. It provides member-states and RECs with comprehensive policy guidelines and principles to assist them in the formulation and implementation of their own national and regional migration policies in accordance with their priorities and resources.

In addition to eleven cross-cutting issues, the revised MPFA identifies the following eight key pillars:

• Migration governance
• Labour migration and education
• Diaspora engagement
• Border governance
• Irregular migration
• Forced displacement
• Internal migration and
• Migration and Trade (African Union Commission, AU Department for Social Affairs, 2018)

Better migration governance as the overarching objective of the MPFA aims at facilitating safe, orderly and dignified migration. It advocates for the socio-economic well-being of migrants and society through compliance with international standards and laws. The security of migrants’ rights and addressing the migration aspects of crises are key elements. Better migration governance can furthermore be achieved through the development of evidence-based policies through a “whole of government” approach (African Union Commission, AU Department for Social Affairs, 2018).

The Migration Policy Framework for Africa and Plan of Action (2018 – 2030) is so comprehensive and inclusive that it captures a range of issues, including: brain drain, remittances, migrant smuggling, human trafficking, forced displacement, return and readmission, refugees and asylum seekers, reintegration, internal displacement and internal migration (migration within countries, for example, from rural to urban areas, from one region to another).

This document, if taken seriously by African countries, provides policy guidelines that can help them and Africa to address the various aspects of migration and, hence usher in a new narrative of African migration scenario as envisaged by Maureen Achieng and Amira El Fadi (2020).

I have in the past written many articles on various aspects of migration in Uganda. I have written on human trafficking and modern slavery, which are somewhat institutionalised, with scores of local firms connected to power formed to facilitate the scourge. I have written about the refugee menace and the rising refugee economy. I have written about the ongoing forced displacement simultaneously with internal displacement, of settled communities linked to land grabbing by mainly nomadic pastoralists belonging to the ethnicity of those that dominate power in Kampala.

I have touched on the issue of remittances from Ugandans abroad to Uganda, and how it started long ago to outstrip the importance of foreign aid to the country as a source of foreign currency, and how the government of Uganda is benefiting immensely. However, I have not directly addressed the issues of brain-drain and migrant smuggling and how they are affecting the economy of Uganda.

It is appropriate to ask “to what extent is the government of Uganda applying or evading the Migration Policy Framework for Africa and Plan of Action (2018 – 2030) in its approach to the issue of migration? As I wrote some time back, Uganda is encouraging the inflow of refugees from elsewhere, and is now the second or third most important destination for refugees on the globe and the first on the continent of Africa. Most nationalistic governments of Africa do not encourage refugees to freely flock to their countries. One school of thought argues that the Uganda government is abusing the concept of pan-Africanism to allow “ethnic refugees” to flock into the country and subsequently enjoy far more opportunities than the indigenous peoples.

This is one reason, according to the school, why many Ugandans have chosen or been compelled to join the queue of those being sucked into modern slavery in the Middle East. Those with advanced qualifications and skills have been sucked into the brain drain and are found performing tasks especially in the West, which they would have performed in Uganda to contribute to the country’s development, transformation and progress. There is fear that charlatans fill many specialised stations in society left by specialists working abroad.

There is need for the government of Uganda to rethink the whole issue of migration governance, within the context of the Migration Policy Framework for Africa and Plan of Action (2018 – 2030) to begin conquering the scourges related to migration. We need every Ugandan to contribute to the country’s development, transformation and progress, not from afar, but from within the country. The country cannot, and will never be, developed and transformed by foreigners; not when they get tax holidays and are facilitated to ferry out all the money that they make in Uganda back to their countries of origin.

Accordingly, we must rethink the current Indianisation and Chinisation of Uganda’s economy and the tendency to build a refugee economy. The African mindset of inferiority complex must be erased altogether to erase irregular migration and all the other aspects of migration.

For God and My Country.

• A Tell report / By Prof Oweyegha-Afunaduula, a former professor in the Department of Environmental Sciences of the Makerere University, Uganda