Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, director-general of the World Trade
Organisation (WTO), says young people will not be keen to relocate abroad if
they can thrive in the country.
The former finance minister spoke on Monday at the 2023
induction for re-elected and elected governors.
The event, organised by the Nigerian Governors Forum (NGF),
had the theme ‘Governing for Impact: Building Sub-national Governance’.
Okonjo-Iweala appealed to the governors to focus on
nation-building and invest in the infrastructure and education system of their
respective states.
She said Nigeria will struggle to “develop and prosper” if
the youths keep leaving the country.
Okonjo-Iweala said with remote work and AI tools, it is
increasingly easy for businesses across the states to provide intermediate
services like accounting or insurance claims processing to offices around the
world.
“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.”
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