Yusuf, Saliu Danlad2022-01-102022-01-102019-12https://uilspace.unilorin.edu.ng/handle/20.500.12484/7343For hundreds of years, peoples of various and diverse ethnic groups in West Africa had been migrating from their places of origin to far flung areas in the sub-region with freedom. The trend continued to the eve of colonial period. With the advent of colonialism in the sub-region from the turn of twentieth century, artificial boundaries were created and this made trips made to places outside the new borderlines become less easy to undertake. As such, people that once saw themselves as one prior to the appearance of the European now discovered themselves to be foreigners in places inhabited by people that belonged to the same ethnic or even tribal groups as themselves due to the reason of their different colonial masters. This was the exact situation in the cases of the Yoruba of Benin Republic and Western Nigeria, Hausa of Niger and North Western Nigeria, the Fulani of Cameroun and North Eastern Nigeria. interestingly, these 'artificial' boundaries survived the colonial masters that erected them as those who took over the reins of power from them were in most cases were their minions and acolytes. After the political independence of various component states the boundaries were still intact. Policies were formulated individually and collectively across the sub region to enhance political and economic cooperation as well as 'linguistic unity'. With all the resources expended on these strategic fronts, this researcher's findings show that migration plays a greater role in bringing the people of the sub region closer especially in economic, linguistic and cultural fronts during the colonial era and post colonial period. This is especially true of the Yoruba emigrants from the South western Nigeria. Thus, the aim of this paper is to examine the extent to which migration assisted in the economic and linguistic cooperation of the West African sub region. Varieties of primary and secondary sources are used in this study.enintegrationmigrationsub-regionboundariesethnicitycolonialismArticle