CHAPTER
INTRODUTION
1.1      BACKGROUND TO THE STUDY
The burden of rural-urban migration in Anambra State is multifaceted and intertwining. As such, an analysis of one decompose component or consequence, such as unbearable population density, impinges on other issues within the identifiable cycle of burdens. For instance, in examining the management of rural- urban migration and its effect on economic development, has it result to increase in population in the urban areas   while the rural areas lack development or at the extreme its explosion. Various other subsequent effects are expected to be considered.
Population explosion activates the housing challenge both at micro (family) and macro (society) levels. Congestion in households and communities has implications for both the health and psychology of victims. Nigerian cities such as Lagos, Port-Harcourt, Kano, and Onitsha among others are characterized by human traffic, vehicular congestions, environmental pollution, consistent in-migration and spurious expansion of territories to accommodate human additions.
Nigeria is a country with over 150,000,000 million people (Censes 2006)
and the giant of Africa. Most international organizations and foreign investors find
a good market in Nigeria. The oil-boom in the 1970s has deeply affected the economic development of the  country and  continues to  do  so  as  government focuses on oil sector and neglects the agricultural sector which was the prime of the economy and economic development before the oil-boom. Government insensitivity to the plight of the rural communities whose major source of livelihood is agriculture has lead to migration of the rural dwellers to urban area for a good standard of living.
Nigeria, at independence in 1960, was largely a producer and net exporter of primary products. The six major agricultural products then were cocoa, rubber, palm oil, groundnut, cotton and palm kernel (Idode, 1989).  Although there existed mining and quarrying activities, these were of negligible percentage and never counted for the economy as a whole (Olaloku, 1979). In other words, agricultural produce  and  raw   materials  constituted  the  main  income  for  the  country. Specifically, the Nigerian state as an exporter of agricultural goods had 69.4% of its total GDP for the year 1963/64 comprising the six aforementioned agricultural commodities (Olaloku, 1979:8).
Rural-Urban migration has led to uneven development of the country.  The urban areas are over-populated while the rural areas are densely-populated, as young men and women leave the rural areas due to lack of infrastructures, social amenities, employment and economic development of the rural areas. According to
Nyagba (2009), rural communities are the most important sectors of the Nigerian economy, indeed the West African regional population. There are several reasons to support this position.
Agriculture and rural development are crucial for the structural transformation and economic development of West Africa region. Agriculture contributes 20 per cent of GDP in northern Africa and 30 per cent of GDP in sub – Saharan Africa (Nyagba, 2009). The rural population represents an average of over
60 percent of the total population on the continent; about 90 per cent of the rural labor force engages directly or indirectly in agricultural activities. For the continent‟s rural people,  accelerated agricultural and rural development would contribute to greater efficiency, increased household income, improved standards of living, and poverty reduction.