As
a young professional in this country, you begin to wonder if there is
something wrong with you if you have not commenced your own immigration
process.
Yes, Canada is not just taking our young people, they are taking
the fattest of our crops, the best, the brightest, and the brainiest!
One of them is my friend, Olufemi, (not real name). He graduated
top of his class and best in the entire university! Nine years after
graduation, he got married to his equally cerebral lawyer wife, and they
both had fairly paying jobs that admitted them into the struggling
middle class in Nigeria. A year after marriage, Olufemi, disillusioned
by the state of his family’s finances, the situation in the country and
the underutilisation of his skills, and intellect at his place of work,
sold all his assets and relocated his young family to Canada!
Femi’s story is not unique, almost every young Nigerian
professional who is not in the process of immigrating to Canada, knows a
friend, family or colleague who has relocated or is in the process of
relocating. The situation is alarming, almost like the biblical
“rapture”: you come to work one day, you see your colleagues, you resume
the next day, and they are gone!
I recently had a conversation with a millennial working in one of
the big four audit firms; the conversation bordered on the number of
young professionals leaving the country for Canada. He informed me that
their firm had started a WhatsApp group for ex-staff members that had
immigrated to Canada; as of the time of having that discussion about 70
Nigerian immigrants had joined the group. A similar conversation with
another tax consultant also working in one of the “big four” revealed
the same trend. According to him, almost all his colleagues in their
audit department had immigrated to Canada or some part of Europe!
Why Canada, you may ask? Well, Canada has an immigration process
carefully designed to attract highly skilled young professionals. It
requires you to be of a certain age bracket (the younger you are, the
more points you gain) to take a “Test of English”, send your academic
transcripts, have certain amount in your bank account and Voila! you get
a Canadian Permanent Residence.
The process, while seamless, is expensive for the average Nigerian,
and is also a clear indication of the class of people they want:
comfortable, highly educated, extremely skilled, young professionals,
hence the people who go through this process are not poor by Nigerian
standard.
As a young professional in this country, you begin to wonder if
there is something wrong with you if you have not commenced your own
immigration process. When you see your friends and colleagues resign
from their jobs, sell their property, and leave the country; when you
watch them upload pictures of their new countries of residence on social
media and ‘brag’ about how the system works; when they inform you
gleefully of how they have “secured” the future of their children, and
invite you to join them, you wonder if, perhaps, you are not missing out
on life opportunities for your own children!
Sir, the young people leaving the country are not unpatriotic, the
reality is that Nigeria has not been kind to her youths! Furthermore,
this brain drain did not start with young people nor did it start in
this generation. When political and religious leaders send their
children outside the country to be educated or when they seek heath
care outside the shores of their country, they send a clear and
uncontroverted message to our young people that they do not believe
in the future of their country! Young people are therefore simply taking
a cue from her leaders, yet, this mass immigration in recent times
is nothing like what happened in the past: it is massive, and it is
alarming! Young bright people immigrating to a foreign land is the most
telling evidence of a failed leadership!
What state of affairs of a country would make its young people
leave e.v.e.r.y.t.h.i.ng: family, friends, some measure of certainty
and in some cases extremely good jobs for a foreign country, full of
uncertainties and oftentimes for less than inspiring jobs?
The current state! The reality is that the state of affairs of this
country is extremely discouraging for young people! Our country is
ridden with nepotism, insecurity, poor infrastructure, unemployment and a
lot more, underemployment! What is more discouraging, and frightening
is that nothing in the present seems to indicate that things will get
better in the future!
Our health care system needs a complete overhaul, medical
“facilities” are in dire state of disrepair. The doctor to patient ratio
in public hospitals is shockingly poor, yet our doctors and health
personnel continue to emigrate the country, because they are overworked,
overwhelmed and underpaid!
A close friend and her younger sister were recently threatened with
deportation, as she had remained in the United Kingdom, after her
student visa expired. Her British friends started a petition online in a
bid to keep her and her sister in the UK. There is a back story to all
of this drama: my friend had lost two of her siblings who had medical
conditions, mainly as a result of the poor health care system in the
country and has a younger sister with the same medical condition who may
have faced a similar fate, were it not for the excellent and timely
treatment she had received in the UK. Unfortunately, her younger sister
requires continuous health care which is simply not available in our
country.
My friend, a brilliant lawyer and patriotic Nigeria, is compelled
to appeal to the British Government to offer a right to remain, because
her younger sister’s life quite literally depends on it!
Why do we subject our young people to this kind of humiliation? Why
do we have to beg to remain in a foreign land? How does a developing
nation recover from such massive evacuation of its human capital? And
more importantly, how do we address this issue to reignite a sense of
patriotism amongst our young people?
Quite frankly, I do not have the answers to all these questions.
I hear that there is a common joke in Toronto, that the best place
to have a heart attack is in a taxi, because the driver is probably an
immigrant doctor. The young people leaving are some of the smartest and
the brightest, they know that adapting to a new society is hard, yet
they still go! Many of them are skilled professionals, lawyers,
doctors, architects, pharmacists, they know that they must write and
pass expensive professional exams, yet, they still go! They hear about
racism, about the cold, the lonely nights and outright discrimination,
yet, they still go! The frustration and disappointment amongst young
people are real and palpable, but, they believe the country has little
to offer so they leave.
We must address this issue with the urgency it deserves, because
at the end of the day, Nigeria is the only country we can truly call
home! It is for this reason that many Nigerians in the Diaspora still
choose to come back home! They still build property, start businesses
and make investments in the country. They still give their children
African names and follow the local news closely; many are even more
abreast and passionate about the happenings in the country than those of
us in the country. They are never truly gone; one “leg” in, the other
out! and how can they, their parents, friends, colleagues and relatives
are still here!
Canada’s gain is Nigeria’s loss. It is impossible to stop this
trend completely, sadly, but we can discourage it by creating a more
enabling environment for everyone. We would need to do this gradually,
perhaps, we can start with our health care, with improved power and
security of lives and property!
More importantly, young people need to sense a clear redirection in
the affairs of the country; when this is done, maybe, they will remain
in the country. But first, we must start! The sooner we begin, the
better.
Ms Imosemi, a lawyer, sent this article from izereimosemi@yahoo.co.uk
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