Nigeria is a country of over 150 million people, a country
of great minds, potential and future, Nigeria like many other world developed
countries is undergoing progressive metamorphosis, we couldn’t deny that we’ve
had our many challenges up until now but
so did the developed countries we look up to. Out of the many challenges we
have and their many etiologies, I would like to talk to you about just one
today which is
NIGERIA AND THE AVOIDABLE BRAIN DRAIN
It is a non-negotiable truth that nation building is not the
job of one person, in fact when it is a nation, the singularity of that nation
is based on the plurality of the citizens in number but their singularity of
purpose. And the one purpose that is of concern today is development.
Nigeria is a country blessed with brains, evident to this
fact is the number of Nigerian students that make waves every year, just in
Ukraine, in your very own universities, you can testify to the mental prowess
of Nigerian students. Across board every year Nigerians are recorded to blaze
trails in every academic field, just last year a Nigerian Doctor Samuel Achilefu won the prestigious St.
Louis Award for creating cancer-visualizing glasses.
But the question now becomes where are all these people in
the picture of our nation building? The truth be told, this is one of our
biggest challenge impeding the speed of our national development. In my research
I’ve found out that there are two basic reasons for a national brain drain.
1.
Absence of opportunities
2.
Deficiency of Nationalism
The absence of opportunities truly is a backbone of the
national brain drain as brain drain is not
limited to people leaving their
country but also include people switching trade just to survive, the banking
sector today is filled with people who were trained microbiologist, geologist,
and other non-bank related courses but upon receiving a crash training of 6
months they are recruited into the industry, these people hardly go back into
their original field for which they were trained and contribute a large
percentage to the number of the avoidable brain drain.
Also of importance is the orientation parent give their
young ones, an orientation that if you are not one of either a Doctor,
Engineer, lawyer or banker, you’ll hardly
find opportunities and hence be of little significance to the society
when indeed the only reason we have few opportunities is because we have fewer
people trying to create them, With the mentality that except you belong to
these aforementioned fields there are not much opportunities in itself is an
obstacle to self-discovery which is the mother of skills development. It is
worthy of note that it is the plethora of skills and skilled persons that
drives the train of nation building.
To avoid this particular cause of brain drain we must have
some mind renewal, we have to grow from what we might have been told into the
current realities of life. We must understand that creation of opportunities is
not only the job of government but also that of citizens who have been enlightened
and have discovered their paths.
The deficiency of nationalism is a worm that have eaten into
the depth of our national development, aided by the seeming loss of
opportunities, some amongst us have forgotten that the great nations they want
to run to were built by two set of people the nationals of that country and
other nationals who could have easily built theirs, the only place people could
be easily regarded as heroes for their immense contribution is their home.
Countries are regarded as great based on the discovery,
inventions and patents made in them, it is good that Nigeria have brains doing
well outside but the better variant is that we have our people discovering,
inventing and filling for patents in Nigeria,
you can be encouraged as the government of Nigeria is now ready to
support and create conducive environment for you to create opportunities, I want
to encourage you to return home after your studies, there will never be a place
where you’d be a first class citizen outside Nigeria. I’d leave you with this
“National development does not exist without nationalism” no
one but us can build our nation, it is time for our generation. Thank you
