The labour market has become borderless and financial institutions, healthcare, education and major consulting firms in Nigeria are losing high-skilled Nigerians to advanced economies, Canada in particular, leading to brain drain, BusinessDay investigations show.
Human resource managers from across Nigeria’s economy have confirmed to BusinessDay on the condition of confidentiality that they are losing high-skilled staff to Canada.
Brain drain is the loss of skilled intellectual and technical labour through the movement of such labour to more favourable geographic, economic, or professional environ, depletion or loss of intellectual and technical personnel, a gradual depletion of energy or resources; a drain of young talent by emigration.
This phenomenon is a major constraint in terms of development opportunities and lost investment.
It is different from low-skilled and migrant workers stealing their way to other lands.
However both have similar results because in both cases excellently healthy and able bodied (those that could have been most useful in the workforce) are involved in the human flight. This is happening at a time when Africa’s largest economy needs to attract and keep high-skill personnel for its national development. This new wave of immigration is reversing the gains made since 1999 in attracting expat Nigerians back to the country.
“I can confirm to you that there is a growing wave of high-skilled Nigerians immigrating to Canada, such as medical doctors, financial analysts and lecturers. Canada’s immigration policy is consciously designed to attract top talents from everywhere in the world. They also have an aging population and need young skilled immigrants to fill in the gap,” said Orji Udemezue, CEO of Lagos-based Flame Academy and Consulting Limited, which caters to the training needs of financial institutions and multinationals.
Nigeria currently has 35, 000 medical doctors but needs no fewer than 237,000 to meet the World Health Organisation (WHO) benchmark of 1:600, that is, a medical doctor for every 600 persons, Folashade Ogunsola, a professor of medicine and chairman, Association of Colleges of Medicine of Nigeria, said.
In 2016, 300 doctors left Nigeria to practise in foreign countries, according to the Nigerian Medical Association.
A recent NOIPolls survey showed that the reasons for the looming brain drain in the health sector included challenges such as high taxes and deductions from salary (98 per cent), low work satisfaction (92 per cent), poor salaries and emoluments (91 per cent) and the huge knowledge gap that exists in the medical practice between those abroad and in Nigeria (47 per cent), among others.
“All the doctors at the health clinic I go to are from Nigeria, they are polite, gentle, educated men and women with great sense of humour who are fitting into society well. But again, they are doctors, they have good careers. If you don’t have a good education and job prospects Canada is not the place for you,” Judy Riley, born and raised in Eastern Ontario, Canada said in response to questions about immigrating to Canada, on Quora, a website for professional exchange of ideas.
Canada has a strong reputation for multiculturalism and presents many socio-economic opportunities for Nigerian immigrants.
As one of the leading G-7 countries, it is highly developed and enjoys outstanding education and health care systems as well as excellent working conditions. A long life expectancy, 82 years as at 2015, and relatively low crime rates also contribute to Canada’s high quality of life.
Canada’s strong economic position could largely be attributed to the contributions of its immigrant workforce.
To this end, the Canadian government has one of the most positive immigration policies in the world, with the government admitting over 200,000 immigrants each year. Canada also allows dual citizenship, allowing Nigerians to retain their national identity.
Immigrants from Nigeria usually find employment opportunities in Canada in high-growth sectors through the Federal Skilled Trades Class. This programme allows workers with in-demand trades, such as welders, crane operations, and electricians, to obtain Canadian permanent residency.
That Nigeria is losing its strong human capital that took enormous resources to nurture and produce represents a significant loss and a major shift of paradigm.
Any country with outflow of emigrants loses critical human capital in which it has invested resources through education and specialised training and for which it is not compensated by the recipient country because there is no bilateral agreement on the transfer.
“A number of reasons may account for brain to different countries. I can say that Canada has a skills based point system that eases the path to residency and eventual citizenship for qualified professionals and educated persons and their families from all over the world,” a talent manager, who pleaded for anonymity, said.
Experts say it is cheaper for developed nations to encourage, by whatever means including immigration policy orientation, the influx of the best brains from developing world.
Unfortunately, poor governance systems in developing nations like Nigeria with their attendant poor planning and disregard for future generations are all too conducive for the maintenance of the status-quo.
STEPHEN ONYEKWELU
