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HENRY FALAIYE examines the impact of the migration of Nigerian skilled workers on the labour market
Nigeria has recently witnessed an uptick in the number of skilled workers migrating to other countries. Many of these migrants graduated from Nigerian universities, which are highly subsidised by the government. Those who seek greener abroad take with them years of training and skills acquired locally.
There are concerns that human capital export has created a manpower gap in different sectors of the Nigerian economy. And one of the most affected sectors has been health, where doctors and nurses have been migrating in droves in recent years. The Information and Communication Technology and engineering sectors have also had a fair share of the japa (a Nigerian colloquial for migration) syndrome.
Poor working conditions and remuneration, insecurity, and unfriendly economic realities have been adduced for the wave of migration. The poor state of the economy; high cost of living; human rights violations; among other reasons have also been cited as other reasons young Nigerians seek greener pastures in developed countries.
The japa syndrome has caused a paradigm shift in the labour market, changing it from employer-centred to employee-focused.
Experts have argued that the resultant brain drain from the current japa syndrome would lead to a loss of potential entrepreneurs and a shortage of skilled manpower.
Employees are beginning to lose fate in the country’s economy such that they are determined to migrate regardless of the incentives given by their employers to make them stay.
Chief Executive Officer, Centre for the Promotion of Private Enterprise, Muda Yusuf, believes the japa syndrome poses any challenge to the country’s economy.
He said, “I don’t think that we should be lamenting over the migration of our youths if their skills are in demand in the rest of the world.”
“There is nothing wrong. We have the population. We have many of them. What we need to do is to train more people because when you talk about an economy and the capacity to generate foreign exchange, it can come from goods and from services.”
He explained, “By virtue of our population and particularly our demography, the fact that we have a very youthful population and our people under the age of 30 is 70 per cent of the population that is a very big asset.”
Yusuf noted that Nigeria’s population is not just an asset to the domestic economy, but to the global economy.
“Go and look at the kind of incomes these people earn when they travel out. Sometimes it is almost about five to 10 times what they earn when they are here. And you know how much they repatriate home.
“They do not just go and don’t look back. Diaspora remittance is almost $20bn. That is something. It has a value for the economy and when they go out there, they also gain a lot of experience and know-how,” he argued.
He maintained that the country should not only explaining of losing its best hands, but it should also consider the gains it gets from those who in the diaspora.
He said, “The other day, I was looking at some data, truck drivers in some of these foreign countries are earning $5,000 to $6,000 a month. So, what is wrong with re-training our truck drivers and pushing them out there? Many of them are there in the garages, sleeping inside the trucks under the bridges.
“Therefore, we should look more into how we can utilise our young people, and create opportunities for them domestically and internationally. That is what India, the Philippines and other countries are doing. They train their youths and export them as services,” he postulated.
An HR Consultant, Bolaji Shote, said, “Brain drain is not a new word. It is the emigration of capable human resources that are trained to impact our economy migrating out of the region and the focus is about Nigeria.”
She said, she once read about an article where a lot of Indians were migrating in the 70s, 80s and 90s to the United Kingdom and the United States and they went back to their country and made India very big in technology, medical sciences, and other fields.
“So, I divide brain drain into two aspects. We have the positive side and the negative side. People migrate to better their lives and for greener pastures, especially in Nigeria.
“Unfortunately, the problem that we have in Nigeria is data. We do not even have the data to even know how many people are leaving. What is the proportion of people leaving as to the proportion of people that are left in the country?” she quizzed.
According to her, one of the reasons the country is experiencing brain drain is that it not paying attention to education.
“If we have a lot of people getting an education, we will have enough people in the system even when people are migrating. We will still have a lot of them in the country.
“Also, the issues that have increased the number of people migrating are the poor working conditions, working environment and services. Our government needs to do a lot better,” she claimed.
Shote averred that the challenge of brain drain could be addressed with an improved educational system in the country.
“When people are gainfully employed and building their careers, they won’t have any reason to migrate. They can go there for the experience. Many of our parents went abroad in the 60s and 70s and came back to Nigeria to improve the society,” she reasoned.
The Director-General of Nigeria Employers Consultative Association, Adewale Oyerinde, said in terms of relocation, India comes first, followed by Palestine and then Nigeria in the context of migration to the United Kingdom.”
“So, it is not a strange thing. Sometimes it happens, when there is the mobility of labour, people will move for many reasons apart from the two predominant reasons, which are economic and security reasons.”
He claimed if people have good jobs in the country that meet all their needs and there is security, the rate of migration would be low.
He said, “It creates talent issues because businesses also need very strong hands and competent workforce to be competitive and to grow. So, if those workforces are moving, it creates a gap within the system and some have said every problem creates an opportunity.
“While we were talking about the issue of unemployment as some are moving, it also creates opportunities for some other people to take those positions. But also, it is a cause of worry for everybody. It is a cause of worry for talent management issues and it also creates dynamics for talent managers to start building the pool, to be more conscious about succession planning.”
He advised HR managers to have succession plans for every position in their organisations, in case the lead person leaves, they have people that can fill in that gap.
“If you look at Forbes50 companies in the world, about half of the people leading those companies are Indians. On the flip side, it is coming to pay off for Indians and for us in the context of forex. Diaspora remittance is quite huge for us, but it is quite unfortunate that those remittances are basically for consumption.
“All the billions of dollars Nigerians are sending down to Nigeria is for consumption. Nigerians in Diaspora send money to their family members basically for consumption not to build industries or businesses and that is the risk of it,” he noted.
He explained, “Imagine we have N100bn coming from diaspora remittance, and it has been pumped into the industries, building businesses, small-scale industries, ICT start-ups. Imagine the huge developments we will have in the next five to 10 years but unfortunately, when that money comes it is to take care of basic needs.”
Similarly, an Associate Professor of Economics with the Pan Atlantic University, Olalekan Aworinde, said, “We should not blame those that are moving out of the country. The reason you should not blame them is that majority of them are graduates and could not get jobs and for the people that have jobs, they are not able to take care of their necessities of life.”
He said some of them who even have good jobs are also afraid for the future of their children.
He stressed, “That is why a lot of people are leaving the country. People will continue to leave in their numbers, but the most important issue here is that government should try as much as possible to do its best.”
He said despite the government’s efforts to reduce the number of people leaving the country, people would continue to leave, and those gaps would always be there.
“Recently, especially in the finance and technology industry, we have seen people leaving in large numbers. So, people will continue to leave, and those gaps will continue to exist unless government is able to do something quickly about it,” he said.
The Chief Executive Officer of LRA Consulting Limited, Mr Ayoola Lawal, said, “The brain drain is not crippling our economy, we are crippling our economy, that is, the government and the masses are crippling our own economy.
“Looking at the situation from different perspectives, some people view the migration of our people as a good thing while some people view it as a bad thing. I am a typical example, I left the shores of the country and after some time, I returned to see how I can impact and give back to society.
“Also, I have brought some few investors into the country, which the local content are Nigerians. After that based on insecurity, I had to step down because of so many limitations experienced in the country.”
He noted that in the long run, the brain drain would become a brain gain for the country.
“People in the diaspora want to come back home with their resources and the expertise they have gained over there over the years.
“If Nigerians, especially the political elites or the masses can vote for the people with the right leadership skills and experience, this will revive Nigeria’s economy.”
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