 Migration and its effects on the Nigerian economy. When the best of us live, who will help the rest of us? Data strongly suggests that the primary reason for immigration is employment. Unemployment rate however in Nigeria is projected to reach the 3% in 2022. This is a minimum of 0.5% increase from last year 2021. It then begs the question, even more people are living every year primarily for economic reasons. Why am I putting unemployed every year? The answer is simple. The solution to unemployment is not to be found externally but internally. Migration itself is nothing new. It is centuries old phenomenon. People always move for a myriad of reasons including security, economic benefits etc. Young talents who are mostly in IT, professionals, doctors, nurses, engineers, auditors and accountants among others are living the country due to the current hash economic realities. Insecurity and poor governance as well. Skilled labor is suffering. There are many cases of banks who have struggled for months because of lack of proper IT personnel resulting in a rise in failed transactions. Both private and government hospitals have cried out at the massive outflow of their nurses who are in high demand in hospitals abroad with its UCP and benefits. For the net economic alone, study visas, also known as student visas, has increased by 222.8%. That's three twos, 222, 222.8% to 65,929 in June 2022 from 20,427 in the same period last year. The brain drain goes on. Doesn't have to be a grim situation all through anyways. The exit of some is now creating job opportunities which once did not exist here. Now companies are beginning to recruit much more and even reduce their conditions for recruitment e.g. in some audit firms. You can now write the aptitude tests more than once if you don't pass the first time. Age restrictions have now been moved up. After all, not everyone has the resources to migrate. Now people left would need to obscure themselves to get ready for these positions they are applying for. However, should be told, something has to be done to preserve the skilled labour in Nigeria from drastically affecting economic growth and development. The government and private sector must partner to ensure that an enabling environment is created for all industries and sectors because as I said at the beginning, when the best of us live us, who will help the rest of us? This is kind of a continuation or a sequel to what Victor said earlier. The concept of JAPA, I was going through the news yesterday and I saw that the statistics have it that in the UK, the Chinese have the highest number of students, migrants, followed by Indians. The Nigerians have the highest number of dependents. The students coming from China to study in the UK virtually have little or no dependents. Mostly single people. But in Nigeria, they go with their wife, they are married, or go with their sister or their brother. Or go with their husband sometimes. Even their parents is possible. There is nothing wrong about, let me know the word JAPA, migration. Now there is a difference between JAPA and migration. You know you said something about migration in the last show we had two weeks ago and you said something about you should be able to go to Senegal, Singapore, do your business, study, come back learn from them, come and implement it here. But JAPA is a problem. In the sense that you are going with the mindset that there is nothing good at home. Let's leave, we are not coming back. Maybe if we come back, we will come back as visitors. And just like you already said, the solution is not out there. It is an internal problem. If that country, I bet you, if that country they are migrating to has degenerate to a similar problem here. They will leave that place and leave that place. So I am not going to blame them. They are not here as a morality police. Police their minds and their conscience and say, don't leave Nigeria. We are seeing that the government stakeholders should be serious. And how can they be serious when their children go abroad to study? When they even go there for health care? When some of them even live abroad? Like the popular politicians that lives in a certain country and comes back home every four years to contact? Wow. Jesus, that's outrageous. It's okay. You do Google search. Just Google search. That's a silent thing. Okay. But I think we've had this conversation in many forums and over and over. Migration is non-new. We have people in the 80s who have left. People who left Nigeria in the 60s who went to school abroad and came back. My parents left in 78 and came back to Nigeria in 85. But that will not happen to most of the people living now. Most of the people living now are living and never coming back. For good. In fact, some of them are not even coming back to visit. And then if you're unfortunate and you go and you have to return, it then brings a whole different set of issues. Because like what happened to my parents for example, eight children, four live in America, four live in Nigeria. I haven't seen one of my sisters since 1999. Physically. This is what is going physically. We see Zoom, we see phone calls, we do WhatsApp and all of that. But she got married, I wasn't at her marriage. So much happens that we then lose out on. You see parents who are in the village who would never see some of their grandchildren ever because they're never going to come to Nigeria. And that's what's going to continue to happen. How long can we continue to allow this to happen? The government really needs to sit up. Really needs to make this place liveable and make Nigeria attractive. Nigeria is not attractive to Nigerians. Anyone that has the opportunity to live. And I say that almost everyone who has the opportunity to live this country will take it. Even those who don't have the opportunity to live. They are seizing the opportunity. Exactly, people are struggling and trying to make the opportunity to live. But if the opportunity just falls in your lap, you live. But you don't have that in other countries. There are Americans who have never been out of America who have no desire to live their country. Who don't want to see anything of the world. Anything they see on TV is enough for them. But here, everyone that has the opportunity to live will jump at it. Let me add to what you just said. There is this case, I don't know if it followed the news yesterday. I was watching the news yesterday and we were interviewing some Nigerian students from the Nigerian Marine time. Something related to the massacre. I can't get the exact name there. Now these people, they were alleging that they were sent on an exchange course for four years in the Philippines. And they've exceeded their time there. And the government has refused. All relevant agencies, including the government, have refused to pay their fees. The group has access to the embassy. The Nigerian embassy, they have for them to just come and kill their kids. And the Nigerians. Just imagine tomorrow, those kind of people, maybe somehow the government become lenient and decide to help them. Usually they will come back. And these are the people you sent to go and live so that they will come and come and help you cover the system. This isn't about calling. It is. Victor. Yes, that's very, you know. First, it's important to say that Nigeria can and will work again. It is my personal belief. It is my personal resolve. I believe in Nigeria. However, we're losing the middle class because when you think about it, the idea that somebody has to relocate is setting level of struggle at another level. So it's not a struggle that is connected to the masses. When I say the masses, the lower middle class, the lower class. But the middle class are saying, okay, you know what? We want greener pastures, you know. But most of them are still struggling to live. I want to think about the elites, right? There are some elites that have not left the country. You know, they have, I mean, two passport, but they are still coming in. We look at our, you know, and people in the internet industry are actors, our musicians, you know, why are they still here? That means there's a lot of untapped opportunities. And that piggybacks to, you know, leadership, right? If things are working really, why should we have that massive exodus, right? So if we can get things to work, then it will not be that, okay, I want to go and work in this country. Like I said earlier, I should be able to go and work in Dakar and live in Dakar for three months and move to, you know, Boston and go to Chicago, you know, and things like that. But the truth is people are leaving because they don't want to come back again. And piggybacks to, let's fix our leadership. Absolutely agree. Absolutely agree. Because, I mean, you know, there's the, you're about saying that, you know, it just basically means that the stranger can never be like home. But, you know, the sad reality is looking like home is no longer what it used to be. So, you know, so, Adria is beginning to look more like the best option. I know they say the grass looks greener on the other side. But that's because you don't water your grass. Clearly, we just need to water this grass, you know, so that it's more attractive to our people. Yeah, the end always seems to come too soon on The Advocate. 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