Think about the addition to Nigeria’s Gross Home Product, if Ademola Lookman, a participant with Italy’s Atalanta Bergamasca Serie A Soccer Membership, and Africa’s Greatest Footballer of the 12 months 2024, and his predecessors, Nwankwo Kanu, who received the trophy in 1996 and 1999, and Victor Osimhen, who received it in 2023, have been enjoying within the Nigerian Soccer League.
The best way to make that evaluation is so as to add up the remuneration and commercial endorsements of those gents and different Nigerians who faucet soccer for a lot of international locations in Western, Central and Jap Europe and the Gulf international locations.
In 2017, Lookman signed a four-and-a-half yr contract with English Soccer Membership, Everton, for a payment, rumoured to be between 7.5 and 11 million kilos! His four-year contract with Atalanta is reported to be about 15 million euros.
In the event you add the remunerations of former World Heavyweight Boxing champion, Anthony Joshua; pop singers, Seal and Sade Adu; actors, David Oyelowo and Chiwetel Ejiofor; and Chiwetel’s sister, CNN’s information anchor, Zain Asher, you possibly can solely think about the loss that the Nigerian financial system suffers by shedding these high-earning Nigerians to different international locations.
The migration of those extremely inventive individuals raises the GDP of nations aside from their very own. Now, add that to how a lot else is misplaced to the nation by the migration of sundry younger Nigerian women and men by means of the “japa” syndrome to different international locations.
Medical docs, nurses, lab scientists and different medical personnel, skilled at enormous prices within the medical faculties of Nigerian universities now commerce their skilled companies for larger remunerations in different international locations.
Nigeria’s banking business is experiencing every day operational glitches as a result of they’re shedding most of the younger, impatient, techies to financial migration to North America and Europe the place they amplify wins, larger mental stimulation and have ringside view on the cusp of technological breakthroughs.
Along with denying Nigeria the advantage of their companies, that have been purchased at nice value to Nigeria, these professionals are contributing to the expansion of the GDPs of their host international locations. That may be a large loss to Nigeria.
What’s making Nigeria lose its greatest to the diaspora in a gentle exodus stream? It’s the cumulative failures of virtually all of the governments which have dominated Nigeria. Their greatest has not been adequate for Nigeria and its residents.
Along with diverting Nigeria’s commonwealth to their private use, these in authorities do one thing even worse: They introduce political, financial and social insurance policies and programmes that add little worth to the Nigerian realm.
The time period, human capital flight, or mind drain, is the mass relocation of extremely expert people with superior coaching from one nation, business or occupation to a different, often to reap the benefits of higher remuneration and an atmosphere conducive to work.
The terminology was launched after the Second World Struggle, to explain the migration of a number of the greatest scientists and technologists from the Outdated World (Europe) to the New World (North America), the place they anticipated to greatest use their expertise and skills for higher reward and security from Europe’s defeated fascist regimes.
Nigeria is shedding its abilities, not solely to extra developed international locations of the world, but additionally to poorer and fewer endowed nations, due to poor governance, escalating financial hardships and unpredictable socio-economic situations.
Curiously, the “japa” syndrome will not be new. The primary set of “financial migrants) have been (in all probability) the slaves who left the shores of Africa in galleys to work within the plantations of North and South America, between the fifteenth Century to the nineteenth Century, earlier than Britain led the best way to abolishing slavery by passing the Abolition Act of 1807.
Many Nigerian legal professionals that have been drafted to assist to arrange the authorized occupation and judicial system of some East and Central African international locations within the Sixties by no means returned to Nigeria. Additionally, between the Nineteen Eighties and Nineties, many medical professionals went to work within the Gulf international locations, though they returned periodically to their households and ultimately returned to Nigeria after their excursions of responsibility.
After all, we should acknowledge the $4.22 billion remittance from the diaspora between January and October of 2024. However we remorse that this enormous remittance made by Nigerians residing overseas doesn’t essentially translate into funding; most of it goes to fund the existence and existential problems with dependents within the nation.
Abike Dabiri-Erewa, Chairman of Nigeria Diaspora Fee, ought to pitch infrastructure financing to the diaspora, to allow Nigeria to create an atmosphere conducive to investments in manufacturing, farming and mining.
That’s the best way to reap the benefits of the international remittances into the financial system. Dabiri-Erewa should additionally get the buy-in of her colleagues within the Workplace of the Ease of Doing Enterprise in Nigeria, who’re attempting, however aren’t attempting sufficient to encourage investments.
