Despite the rich empirical evidence which suggests that rural-urban drift is
often induced by economic considerations and rural deprivation, the literature on
onchocerciasis have often claimed that the disease induces massive out-migration
from endemic communities. This study examined the actual causes of out-migration
in the onchocerciasis endemic area of Patigi LGA, Kwara State, Nigeria. The study
area, was stratified into three administrative districts, 200 heads of household were
randomly selected from each stratum for questionnaire interview, using the LGA’s
onchocerciasis control register comprising of 3005 registered households as
database. The Probit regression analysis showed that the significant migration
factors were education (T = 8.3321, p<.01), economic factors (T = 6.0993, p<.01)
and marriage (T = 5.0458, p<.01). The study concludes that, the assertion which
states that Onchocerciasis leads to massive out-migration from endemic
communities is not true, the hypothesis seems to be that there are usually some
serious developmental problems in onchocerciasis endemic communities which tend
to push people out of them, and then the disease sets in to further devastate the
people left behind