Nigerians in the Diaspora: Marooned or involuntary Economic Refugees?
There is something about one’s country of origin that keeps tugging at the heart. The memories and experiences that defined one’s early existence are difficult to jettison even as the terminal stages of longevity approaches with horrifying speed. Nigerians living abroad are not immune to this uniquely primordial instinct, and it may the case that this instinct is particularly more pronounced amongst Nigerians. This sentiment is not misplaced because observational evidence abounds to adduce positive testimony as readily seen from yearly migration of Nigerians to their land of birth in the months of November and December.
These returnees, albeit for only weeks at a time, are not tourists for nobody with functional faculties go to Nigeria for tourism ….the roads are death traps, there is no regular supply of in-door running water, the noise and air pollution from diesel generators are unhealthy but necessary to power electrical appliances (Nigerians go for weeks without electricity from the national grid), medical facilities are either non-existent or too primitive to be salutary to good health. But these abnormalities aside, Nigerians still go home to visit their loved ones and reconnect to the cultural sensibilities that gave sustenance to their formative years and continue to guide their sense of being. The millions of dollars in yearly remittances to relatives furnish further evidence of the grip and strength of this unrelenting primordial instinct to remain connected but not to stay in their land of birth. This tortured relationship between Nigerians in the diaspora and the country they call home is of recent origin. A reasoned narrative will afford a rationale.
Prior to Nigeria’s independence in 1960 from Britain, and extending to the late 1970s, brilliant Nigerians to whom providence lent a benevolent hand through government sponsorships went to the best universities in the United States and the United Kingdom to acquire superior education in disciplines essential to the development of Nigeria. Many took advantage of this opportunity, and many returned home to augment available human capital that spurred the growth of the middle class or senior civil servants in local parlance. This process accounted for the sustained growth of Nigeria’s middle class that is indispensable to economic development; the growth of the middle class in all major economies affords both tangible and ephemeral evidence to its catalytic properties. Nigerians, then, did what was expected of them; they returned home, found a welcoming environment in which to ply their acquired skills, and were handsomely remunerated. Many went on to elevate the productivity of institutions of higher learning in the country, but most deployed their talents in the public sector as junior and senior civil servants and managed the affairs of the governed. Social and economic development in Nigeria took off on a trajectory that infused enthusiasm and rightfully imbued in Nigerians a sense of pride and unmistakable desire to return home to be part of the Nigerian experiment. That was then.