What are the political drivers of migration from sub-Saharan Africa and what role does ethnopolitical exclusion play in shaping migration decisions? Commonly cited explanations of voluntary migration focus on economic conditions in the home country as push-factors, whereby individuals emigrate in search of economic opportunity (Borjas, 2016). However, despite decreasing levels of poverty since the 1990s (Fosu, 2014), sub-Saharan Africa has some of the fastest growing levels of voluntary emigration (AfCSS, 2017). Thus, conventional explanations cannot sufficiently explain existing patterns of migration. Ethnicity is the main political and social cleavage in nearly all African states and creates limitations to opportunity because resources and job opportunities are patrimonially distributed. This paper explores the relationship between ethnopolitical exclusion and emigration desires by first testing the direct relationship and then by employing a causal mediation analysis to test how grievance participates as a mediator in the relationship. To test this, I use Afrobarometer Round 7 data and Harkness (2019)’s Ethnic Stacking database. The results show that there is no statistically significant relationship between ethnopolitical exclusion and emigration desire; however, there is a positive and statistically significant causal mediation effect when accounting for the role of grievance. The results indicate that grievance fully mediates the relationship between ethnopolitical exclusion and emigration desires, suggesting ethnopolitical exclusion may invoke emigration desires when accounting for the role of grievance.