AmanaOnline

Leadership is what Nigeria needs to gets it’s diaspora to return with skill sets that could be categorised as “Brain-Gain” and also keep its skilled or even semi-skilled workers at home, not statements such as that of
Bill Gates that debases people. “Japa” (emigration) or the subsequent return of the Indian Diaspora is not the only reason India became a techhub, the reason people, mostly second or third generation Indian Diaspora returned in large numbers back to India was due to a number of reasons, one of which was actually the earlier tech bubble burst which happened in the US Silicon Valley engineered by the likes of Bill Gates and his friends, the subsequent loss of lucrative IT jobs led a lot of mid level Indian-American techies to head back to India to work or set up new tech startups. It is important to note that India has a century long desire to openly welcome its diaspora, this has made it possible and easy to have the return home because there is always a welcoming home to return to.

A desire to harness cheap labour by Multinationals has already placed India as an industrial hub willing to absorb returnees. Nigeria doesn’t have such and with terrible leaders, the country has a hostile environment for both its resident (Diaspora) and non-resident citizens. Largely the Indian government created an enabling environment for returnees by investing in social, physical and policy infrastructure to encourage their return.

There is no way a lot of Nigerians in the Diaspora or their tech savvy children are going to return to a shambolic badly governed Nigeria. Period! First we must fix this damn country and make it habitable for it residents and then see how Nigerians at home will stick with their country and those abroad would flock back home. You can’t tell anyone that the salve-like desperation in migration by those perishing in the Mediterranean Sea would lead to “brain gain”. During one of his visits, Bill Gates had identified lack of investment in education and social service was the reason Nigeria hadn’t developed as it should.

Saying that the diaspora will bring about “brain gain” without real so economic progress in terms of security, improved wages, improvement in education medical care, electricity is but fleeting illusion. #RevolutionNow

P.S: I am writing as someone who Japa-ed for 20 years, acquired skills and returned with those skills (if they could be considered “brain-gain.”) And my story will be fully told someday. Don’t mistake my position as discouraging you not to “Japa” just letting you that Japa won’t bring automatic brain gain if Nigeria continues to be run like an “Animal Farm” by its worst citizen some of them like President Bola Tinubu who had japaed before and returned home only to become one of arrowheads of political leaders who are some of the most dangerous political actors since 1999. I HAVE SPOKEN!