Director-general of the World Trade Organization (WTO), Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, claims that if they can succeed at home, young people won’t be eager to move outside.
On Monday, the former finance minister gave a speech at the induction ceremony for elected and re-elected governors for 2023.
‘Governing for Impact: Building Sub-National Governance’ was the theme of the event, which was hosted by the Nigerian Governors Forum (NGF).
Okonjo-Iweala urged the governors to put their attention on nation-building and make investments in their states’ infrastructure and educational systems.
If the youth keep leaving the country, she claimed, Nigeria will struggle to “develop and prosper.”
According to Okonjo-Iweala, businesses across the nation are finding it simpler and easier to offer intermediary services like accountancy or insurance claim processing to offices around the globe thanks to remote work and AI tools.
“With our large numbers of educated people fluent in English – together with a deep network of connections to the diaspora – we are well positioned to seize these opportunities,” she said.
“But such businesses, like our tech startups, will struggle to thrive if we keep losing so many of our most skilled young people to emigration. Let me share some numbers.
“Over 15,000 Nigerians emigrated to Canada in 2021, joining 19,000 who had moved there in the previous two years. Estimates for 2022 are 20,000. That is over 50,000 skilled Nigerians in the space of four years.
“In the first half of 2022 alone, the UK granted skilled worker visas to nearly 16,000 Nigerians. Thousands of Nigerian-trained medical doctors work in the USA.
“The most popular phrase in Nigeria now is “I am going to japa”. I am not telling people not to go, but what I am saying is how many of these japas can we afford? If you japa we want you to “kapa”.
“Excellencies you must make your states and all Nigeria a hospitable, encouraging place where young people want to stay and thrive, not leave.
“Much as we appreciate remittances sent home by these migrants, Nigeria will not develop and prosper if its youthful, tech-savvy population leaves. Without them, our demographic dividend disappears.”
