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 gained the trophy in 1996 and 1999, and Victor Osimhen, who gained it in 2023, had been taking part in 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 price, rumoured to be between 7.5 and 11 million kilos! His four-year contract with Atalanta is reported to be about 15 million euros.
If you happen to 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 economic system suffers by shedding these high-earning Nigerians to different international locations.
The migration of those extremely inventive individuals raises the GDP of nations apart 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 via the “japa” syndrome to different international locations.
Medical docs, nurses, lab scientists and different medical personnel, educated at large prices within the medical faculties of Nigerian universities now commerce their skilled providers for increased remunerations in different international locations.
Nigeria’s banking trade is experiencing each day operational glitches as a result of they’re shedding lots of the younger, impatient, techies to financial migration to North America and Europe the place they extend wins, increased mental stimulation and have ringside view on the cusp of technological breakthroughs.
Along with denying Nigeria the good thing about their providers, that had been purchased at nice value to Nigeria, these professionals are contributing to the expansion of the GDPs of their host international locations. That could be a massive loss to Nigeria.
What’s making Nigeria lose its finest to the diaspora in a gentle exodus stream? It’s the cumulative failures of virtually all of the governments which have dominated Nigeria. Their finest has not been ok 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, trade or career to a different, often to reap the benefits of higher remuneration and an setting conducive to work.
The terminology was launched after the Second World Warfare, to explain the migration of among the finest scientists and technologists from the Previous World (Europe) to the New World (North America), the place they anticipated to finest 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 shouldn’t be new. The primary set of “financial migrants) had 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 way in which to abolishing slavery by passing the Abolition Act of 1807.
Many Nigerian attorneys that had been drafted to assist to arrange the authorized career 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 finally returned to Nigeria after their excursions of obligation.
After all, we should acknowledge the $4.22 billion remittance from the diaspora between January and October of 2024. However we remorse that this large remittance made by Nigerians dwelling 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 setting conducive to investments in manufacturing, farming and mining.
That’s learn how to reap the benefits of the overseas remittances into the economic 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 making an attempt, however aren’t making an attempt sufficient to encourage investments.
