I do not doubt many of us recall growing up with the popular notion that Nigeria, albeit Africa experienced a brain drain in the mid and late nineties. That decade witnessed the breakdown of social order in Nigeria owing to the June 12 political crisis and a number of political incidents. Most African countries also witnessed a huge exodus of skilled professionals from their native land as academics, professionals and skilled medical personnel headed to North America, Europe and the Middle East.

Even Nigerian sportsmen were not left out. At the height of the exodus, a famous judoka and sprinter dumped their Nigerian nationality for other countries.

The first few years of this century saw the growing influence of Nigerians in Diaspora with Nigeria being regarded as one of the countries with the greatest number of educated foreigners in the United States. This is accentuated by the fact that by 2002, about 64% of foreign-born Nigerians in the United States aged 25 and older have at least a first degree.

The impact of the brain drain is not hard to imagine. A number of Nigerian universities at some point lost almost all the academics in a number of departments to the ‘brain drain’ syndrome. In Phillip Emeagwali’s words, “African universities and by extension, Nigerian universities were (emphasis mine) actually training one third of their graduates for export to the developed nations”. Nigeria became the breeding ground for the medical personnel of the western hemisphere. As bad as the ‘brain drain syndrome’ had become, the good side I must concede is the amount of remittance Nigerians abroad have sent back to the country. In 2006 alone, Nigerian nationals abroad remitted about 3.3bn USD to their home country which is about 2% of the 2006 GDP.

Interestingly, the trend seems to be changing rather slowly but surely. Nigerians by the middle of this decade were beginning to look back home for opportunities. While the return has been minimal and pretty limited to service sector personnel in telecommunications, financial services, building and construction and oil and gas, this marked a significant shift in labor migration patterns between Nigeria and countries abroad.

The re-emergence of the middle class; banking consolidation and reforms; privatization exercise by the government; extensive real estate development etc have all contributed to the gradual relocation of Nigerians abroad. The willingness of Nigerian firms to hire skilled personnel from abroad rather than expatriates have also contributed to the mass exodus of young Nigerian professionals to their home country. For instance as I write, a number of Nigerian professionals in North America are been interviewed for job openings back on the African continent.

While the celebration may be premature, I believe it’s simply a pointer to the inevitability of Nigeria’s future greatness. Indeed, as we celebrate the renewed interest in Nigeria, all steps must be taken to improve the standards of education. Many of us whose parents could not afford to send us to private schools but opportune to  attend one of the ‘unity schools’ or ‘military schools’ in Nigeria look back with deep pains at the falling standards of education. The facilities which we thought were derelict in our own times are still there begging for repairs and in many instances require immediate replacement.

Only well trained students are encouraged to stay back home. The private and public universities must be encouraged to improve their teaching standards. Otherwise, the gains of relocation by Nigerian professionals abroad will be cancelled by the exodus of young Nigerians seeking to leave for foreign lands in search of better education and jobs.