Over the years, stakeholders have continued to express concern over the negative effects of migration on the society in terms of brain drain and manpower shortage in the origin countries. There is, however, a change in perception of migration as its roles in shaping the 21st century development have been recognised. Studies have shown that more than a billion people rely on international and internal migrants to escape poverty, economic shock, improved health, education and economic status of their family and communities. This marks a change from the days when migration was seen as a failure of development but rather as an engine of poverty reduction. The huge amount of remittances from migrants has been yielding considerable benefits for promoting sustainable development. There is therefore the need by the government to harness the gains of remittances by coming up with policies that would favour migration and eliminate discrimination against migrants. Protecting the rights of migrants will reap bigger gains for sustainable development, especially, in developing countries. Therefore, this paper explores the relevance of migration to sustainable development in Nigeria.