Turning Nigeria’s brain drain to brain gain

The brain drain syndrome is a process where a country loses her highly skilled, talented and educated manpower to another country. Nigeria is at the receiving end of this plague. Many of our professionals from all walks of life do not want to stay here and slug it out to become prosperous. Rather, they are willing and ready to “check out” of the country in search of greener pastures. This has been the narrative from the early 1990s till date. So heart-rending!

On Monday, September 2, 2019, I was interviewed by a reporter at the Nigerian Television Authority on how Nigeria could turn her brain drain to brain gain. That set me thinking.  Indeed, it is the most desirable thing to do but how realistic will that be in the face of a myriad of challenges facing our country at this point in time?

According to NigeriaDiaspora.com, “Millions of Nigerians have emigrated from Nigeria to other parts of the world, with a significant number leaving after 1990. These migrants and their descendants make up the Nigerian Diaspora. Estimates of the size of the Nigerian Diaspora vary greatly and range from about five million to 15 million people. The Nigerian Diaspora covers practically every part of the world but the largest populations of Nigerians can be found in the UK, the USA, Dublin, Dubai, and South Africa. In Europe, London’s Peckham can be called “Little Lagos” and in the USA, Houston, Texas has the largest population of Nigerians in the country.”

As the situation in Nigeria becomes unbearable, many young and old Nigerians can’t resist the lure of trying their luck elsewhere on the continent or across the globe. The push factors include mass unemployment, poverty, insecurity and the urge for self-actualisation among others. As I explained during the aforementioned NTA interview, many young Nigerians emigrated out of the country due to the frustration of securing gainful employment in the country. With shrinking employment opportunities, parents spend their life-savings to bankroll their children and wards’ adventures to travel abroad to see the possibility of getting employment overseas. Not minding the fact that many of them who are irregular migrants would not be able to seek white collar jobs abroad, many disillusioned Nigerians are willing to pick up menial jobs whether as corpse washers, security guards, dishwashers, cab drivers and the like. As far as they are concerned, the foreign currency they will earn from such demeaning jobs make them millionaires in Nigeria when it is exchanged for our devalued naira.

Ancillary to unemployment is the grinding poverty being experienced nationwide. It is an open secret that Nigeria currently occupies the unenviable position of being the headquarters of poverty in the world, being home to the highest number of poor people globally, according to the World Poverty Clock.  As water must find its level, the thirst to meet basic needs has made many Nigerians to embark on creative solutions to get out of the poverty bracket. That’s why many Nigerians annually flock through the desert from northern Nigeria through road to Libya, Morocco and other North African countries with the sole aim of being trafficked across the Atlantic Ocean to Spain, Italy and other European countries.  Of course, it is a perilous journey with many being killed or sold into slavery along the way while hundreds of others get drowned while being ferried on rickety boats across the ocean.

Another push factor is the grave insecurity situation in the country. Many Nigerians are victims of terror. Insurgency in the North-West, especially in the BAY States viz. Borno, Adamawa and Yobe, banditry in the North-West especially in Kaduna, Zamfara and Katsina and kidnapping which is now at an industrial scale have combined to force many Nigerian professionals to seek refuge abroad. Many go overseas to seek asylum, while several others simply sell off their property here in Nigeria and relocate with their families abroad.  With life in Nigeria sliding fast into the Hobbesian state of nature, short, brutish and nasty, can you blame privileged Nigerian professionals from relocating to saner climes?

It is however more saddening that even for those who relocated to supposed saner climes, life is also not rosy for them. Many of them have to put up with racial discrimination and xenophobic attacks such as being currently witnessed in South Africa by Nigerians. Many Nigerian footballers and sportsmen and women plying their trade abroad have complained about racial chants against them. As condemnable as these attacks and discriminations are, if you must blame the hawk for wickedness, first blame the mother hen for exposing her children to danger, so says a popular proverb. If the situation at home is not as deplorable as it is, many of these Diasporans would have willingly and voluntarily returned or stayed home.

Brain drain is not altogether a bad phenomenon, however. With an estimated inflow of $25bn remitted by Nigerians in the Diaspora in 2018, the Chief Economist at PriceWaterCoopers Nigeria, Prof Andrew Nevin, said in February 2019 Nigerians living outside the country are its biggest export. Thus, this huge financial inflow has a positive impact on Nigeria’s economy.

To turn this brain drain to brain gain by encouraging these Diasporans to return home to contribute their quota to national development, there is a need for conscious efforts on the part of government to attract Nigerian professionals abroad back home. First is the need to secure the country and its citizens. Not many Nigerians would want to return home only to be kidnapped or murdered by bandits. Therefore, safety and security of all Nigerians must be paramount and beyond the current rhetoric.

There is also the need to genuinely promote ease of doing business. Currently, doing business in Nigerian is quite challenging. Access to land, credit facilities and quality infrastructure are Herculean. Loans are still being given at double digit interest rate. Multiple taxation is a disincentive to many investors. Epileptic power supply, bad road network, lack of potable water, low purchasing power of many workers all combine to make people wary of coming to invest in Nigeria. These have to be addressed if indeed we are serious about attracting Nigerians in the Diaspora back home.