The Presidential candidate of the Labour Party, Peter Obi has revealed that the volume of Nigerians fleeing the country to search for a greener pasture in other countries is a welcome development for the economy of the country.
“Brain drain” will be the country’s “brain gain,” Obi said.
Stating this through his Twitter handle on Thursday, Obi claimed to be in support of a comment, recently made by the founder of Microsoft, Bill Gates, where he stated that the recent surge of Nigerians leaving the country for greener pastures is good and healthy for the country, said he had always preached and maintained the same position, that the development will be a gain for the country in the future.
“I read and agree with Bill Gates’s recent comment on the ‘japa syndrome, where, according to reports, he stated that the recent surge of Nigerian professionals leaving the country for greener pastures is good and healthy for our country,”
“I have always preached and maintained this same position that ‘Our brain drain today will be our brain gain tomorrow,” he wrote.
According to him, the large number of people leaving the country because of the prevalent poverty in the land, which look like a loss to the country because of the brain drain in the society will later be a gain to the nation when their brains will be useful to the development of the country.
“Nigerians leaving the country may look like a loss today, but when we start doing the right things and taking the governance of our nation more seriously, the knowledge and resources from them will be critical in the building of the New Nigeria, as it happened in China, India, Ireland and other developing countries,” he wrote.
His comments came, following the alarm raised by the International College of Surgeons, Nigerian Section, over the massive exodus of Nigerian doctors to the UK for greener pastures.
The claim estimated the number of Nigerian doctors who fled the country for the UK in the last six years to be around 6,221, noting that Nigeria now has a ratio of one doctor to over 4,000 patients, contrary to the World Health Organisation’s standard of one doctor to 600 patients in Nigerian hospitals.
