Corruption and growing absence of security are the two major factors discouraging accomplished Nigerians living in the United States of America from returning home.
The former US Ambassador to Nigeria, Mr. Walter Carrington, said this bombshell in Ilorin, Kwara State, yesterday, while delivering the convocation lecture of the University of Ilorin.
Carrington said that his country and others around the world profit from Nigeria’s greatest export, which is her accomplished people.
He added that, “I often ask Nigerians who are legally in the US why they remain. The two major impediments to going back which they cite are their fears of the omnipresence of corruption and the growing absence of security. They cringe whenever they hear Nigeria belittled on television comedies because of 419 schemes.”
The ex-envoy noted that Nigerians in Diaspora have so much to contribute to their homeland, and called on the government to create the environment which would encourage them to return and reverse the brain drain which has done so much damage to the body politic.
“A cure must be found for the corrosive cancer of corruption in the country,” he said.
Carrington lamented that Nigeria has been too long an underperformer on the world stage, noting that it had ceded to South Africa the pride of place as Africa’s leading spokesman.
He added, “When the G-8 or other gatherings of the world’s most powerful nations occur, it is more often to Johannesburg that they call than to Abuja on those all too rare times when they seek an African perspective.
“In its second century as more than a geographic entity, Nigeria must at last realize its full potential. Even now, as woefully neglected as it has been, its manufacturing sector produces a large proportion of West Africa’s goods and services. What it has done for the region, it can certainly in the years ahead do for the entire continent.
“You are indeed the giant of Africa. Your population of close to 170 million dwarfs all others. You are, by far, the continent’s largest and most appealing market. Surely Nigeria can raise the future amount of its exports to members of the African Union beyond its current level of 11 percent. Africa’s success is crucial to Nigeria’s own. Even if it accomplishes all of its 2020 goals by 2050, it will find it difficult to long prosper as an oasis in a desert of impoverished countries.
“It will become the attraction for massive illegal immigration as has the United States to its poorer neighbours to the South or has Europe to the peoples of the poorer countries of Africa, India, Pakistan, and the Caribbean. That is why it is in Nigeria’s enlightened self interest to be concerned as much about the plight of its neighbours as it is of its own. Those are the responsibilities that the members of the club of the world’s most powerful nations which Nigeria wishes to join must shoulder.”
The guest lecturer however, said that Nigeria has the potential to be in fact the giant of Africa which it has always thought itself to be, noting that its agricultural output is already second to none on the continent and 25th in the world.
“By making it more of a priority, Nigeria could become a major player on the world’s commodities market. It must refine at home more of its 37 billion proven barrels of oil which is the world’s sixth largest reserve of crude oil. Its 187 trillion cubic feet of proven natural gas is the eighth largest gas deposit in the world. Its flaring must be stopped and the gas harnessed to meet the country’s mounting energy needs. The pipelines carrying oil and liquefied natural gas must be better protected for both ecological and economic reasons.
“The second century must be dedicated to diversifying this economy away from its overdependence on oil and to adding value to Nigeria’s treasure trove of the other natural resources lying beneath its soil. This can be done by sending not raw materials abroad but rather enhancing their value at home through a revitalized manufacturing sector, which refines and finishes the more than thirty different minerals lying beneath the nation’s soil”, he stated.
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