The number of Nigerians studying abroad, especially in the United States of America and United Kingdom has steadily increased and people with deep knowledge of the matter are counting costs and benefits of this trend to Nigeria.
Some of the concerns that have been raised by experts in education and keen observers of the trend is that Nigeria loses the cream of its skilled personnel to host countries because many of these students do not return home. Furthermore, while financial remittances have been identified as one of the benefits that diaspora populations bestow on their home countries, it has been likewise identified that the second generation, borne of those who do not return home, likewise do not return home and worse still, generally do not make remittances, since they have no strong family ties in Nigeria.
Nigerians living abroad sent more money back home in the three months through June 2017 than in comparable periods dating back to 2015, as the urge to divert cash through informal channels diminished. Current transfers, mainly made up of Diaspora remittances, saw a 25 percent increase to $5.4 billion in the said period. That compares to a 16 percent contraction in the second quarter of 2016.
Diaspora remittances, the largest source of foreign inflows into Africa’s largest oil producer after oil exports, were hammered by an unpopular currency regime by the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) that pegged official dollar inflows at an artificial exchange rate of N199 per dollar, not minding that the true market value of the naira was around N300 per dollar, where informal markets traded. This has changed, because the CBN has liberalised the foreign exchange market a little.
Nigeria faces talent crisis because its education system is failing to equip the bulging youthful population with skills needed to compete favourably in a fiercely competitive and increasingly borderless global labour market. It is estimated that of Nigeria’s 183 million people over 60 percent is less than 35 years old. The push of a failing education system and pull of promises of a better system in the UK and USA is making Nigerian youths to immigrate.
Some of the benefits from the rising number of Nigerians in the UK and USA are: a growing market for export of Nigerian culture and food and a support system for new arrivals.
Recent trends of immigration to USA from Nigeria were driven by family reunification. Family reunification refers to the ability of US Citizens to sponsor family members for immigration. Sponsoring family members and other family preferences led to 45 percent and 10 percent of all African immigration in 2016 respectively.
During the academic session of 2016/17 there were 11, 710 Nigerian students studying in various universities in the USA. This was an increase of 8.85 percent over 2015/16 academic session that saw 10, 674 Nigerians studying in the USA.
Other African countries with over 1,000 students in the U.S.A. during this period include Ghana with 3,049, Kenya with 3,019 and South Africa with 1,813.
Students from Nigeria study primarily at the undergraduate level: 50.80 percent undergraduate; 35.60 percent graduate; 11.50 percent, Optional Practical Training; and 2 percent non-degree programmes or short-term studies.
Interestingly, the top five institutions that have received the most Nigerian students are all located in the state of Texas: Houston Community College, the University of Houston, the University of North Texas, Texas Southern University, and the University of Texas at Arlington.
Of the ten countries with the most students in the U.K. Nigeria ranked sixth. The other five countries are China, Malaysia, USA, India and Hong Kong. In 2015/16 there were 16, 100 Nigerian students in UK universities. This fell by 27.12 percent in the academic session of 2016/17 to 12, 665.
Since the 1960s there has been a sizeable Nigerian expatriate community in the UK. Prior to independence (1960) many students would go to the UK for university then return to Nigeria after graduation. Civil and political unrest in the ’60s led to a large number of refugees and skilled workers immigrating. Then there was another spike in the 1980s after the collapse of the petroleum boom. This was followed by a peak in refugee applications in the mid-1990s due to the dictatorship of Sani Abacha. Even with all of the social unrest and economic draw, the Nigerian-born population of the UK in 2001 was a little over 88,000.
In 2011, the Nigerian-born population was 200,000 and 88,000 migrated in a 40 year period, over 125 percent of that number migrated in the following 10 years.
Nigerian pupils are some of the best performing students, with those earning 5 General Certificate of Secondary Education at a rate of over 20 percentage points higher than the average for England. Nigerians, as a group, are net contributors to the nation. But, the actions of the government from 1997 to 2010, which quadrupled net immigration, explain why the number is high enough for some keen observers to ask how many of them come back to Nigeria?
“I think the numbers of those who come back are more than those who stay in the Diaspora. We were about 95 Nigerians at the University College London at some point and about 80 percent of us are back to Nigeria” Majiri Otobo, CEO KuiCare said on a phone interview.
“The truth is, when you are in the UK you are not British, except you have a passport, and there is a ceiling to how much you can achieve. You literally live from hand to mouth; taxes will almost take away everything. Yes, there are more opportunities to make it big in Nigeria, but the reality is that the environment is so tough that you sometimes regret coming back” Otobo said.
In the USA 4 percent of Nigerians hold the Doctor of Philosophy (Ph.D) compared to 1 percent of the general US population, according the United States’ Census Bureau. Similarly, 17 percent of Nigerians hold the Master degree and 37 percent have the Bachelor’s degree. In the 1960s and 1970s after the Biafra War, Nigeria’s government funded scholarships for Nigerian students, and many of them were admitted to American universities. During the mid to late 1980s, a larger wave of Nigerians immigrated to the US. This was driven by political and economic problems exercerbated by military regimes of self-styled generals Ibrahim Babangida and Sani Abacha.
Since the advent of multi-party democracy in May 1999, Olusegun Obasanjo, Nigeria’s former head of state made numerous appeals, especially to young Nigerian professionals in the United States, to return to Nigeria and help in its rebuilding effort.
The 2016 American Community Survey estimates that 380, 785 US residents report Nigerian ancestry. The 2012 – 2016 ACS estimates 277, 027 American residents were born in Nigeria. It also estimates that top five states with the highest Nigerian-born population are Texas, 60, 173; Maryland 31, 263; New York, 29, 619; California 23, 302 and Georgia, 19, 182.
