Who Belongs Where? The Politics of Internal Deportation, Nativism and Migration in Nigeria

In Nigeria’s federal system, certain states impose mobility restrictions that result in the internal deportation of citizens to their so-called ‘states of origin’. This paper investigates this practice through a case study of the Lagos State government’s deportation of Nigerians labelled as ‘non-indigenes’. While existing scholarship primarily frames such actions as violations of human and constitutional rights, less attention has been given to their role within the broader frameworks of migration governance. Drawing on nativism theory and employing qualitative content analysis of government press releases and media reports related to two high-profile cases from 2013 and 2024, the study argues that internal deportation functions as an exclusionary state policy aimed at regulating mobility along ethnic and regional lines. The analysis demonstrates how state officials legitimise these practices through exclusionary rhetoric, security narratives, and nativist labelling, discursive strategies commonly associated with international migration regimes, to reinforce negative perceptions of internal migrants.