Thursday, September 25, 2008

Nigerian brain gain

Interesting article on the fat pay cheques on offer these days in Naija. Here.

Posted by Jeremy at 10:00 pm

7 comments:

naijalines,  12:57 am  

A positive story about Naija is always a good thing. Let's hope the brain gain continues.

Red Eyes,  10:51 am  

Money isn't everything my good friend!

Anonymous,  11:38 am  

I'm not sure I agree that the story is that positive, because what I find most disturbing is the striking disparity between the quality of the life for the ordinary Nigerians on the one hand and the "repats" on the other. It sickens me if anything. The upliftment of the generality of the population should be the focus here, not sushi, SUV's and shopping malls.

Anonymous,  12:12 pm  

some of the finest and most creative minds of nigeria's younger diaspora are returning home to contribute their skills. the minority report is that so are a large number of useless tossers. Note that one of these guys in the article has come home to work for transcorp (!). doesn't he read the papers? In the city of London in the 80s (back when i was in my full-on gordon gecko trader phase) the acronym 'FILTH' (Failed In London? Try Hongkong) was used for the third-raters who took their accent, passport and school tie to the far east to get on the shooting-fish-in-a-barrel gravy-train of asia's british-chained tiger. Maybe we need to coin similar - FILTVI maybe? A small prize (position on board of US mortage provider, or somesuch) for anyone who can give me a better acronym...)

Chad,  9:15 pm  

The question that bothers me is this? They are not Nigerian workers but expatriates. I know. I was one of them who didn't take the job. If I took the offer I would have been classified as a foreign worker, not a Nigerian worker. That is not why I did not take the offer. But the previous statement is the reality. One of the reasons this is done is because of the NYSC. You can't work in Nigeria without having done the one year youth corps. I haven't and most of the returnees never did it. The other thing is the high salary quotes. It's feast and famine. The Naija expats are paid ten times (or more) as their immediate lower ranking colleague who isn't. This has bred resentment. That's what I hear. Also most of the workers, some my friends going back are green card holders and American citizens - keeping it restricted to America being I am based in America and do not know about expats from other countries. Some of them pay taxes as American citizens and not Nigerians. Do they intend to relocate to Nigeria? That is their choice but they are paid in foreign exchange and may keep the money in foreign accounts. I understand the thinking behind the good, Nigerians are coming home but in reality, tell me how it is different from the hiring of foreign white workers. How much of a win is it? I assure, I've seen it, when the Nigerian govt. lists foreign workers in the country, these returnees from the Diaspora are counted as expats or in lay man's terms, foreign workers. The success of this hiring deployment will depend on retention rate and whether they invest in the economy, i.e. how much money stays in Nigeria. Otherwise, it's no different than hiring a white foreign worker.

Anonymous,  9:00 am  

Ah credit crunch in Africa/Asia? Had an interesting debate which concluded that the poorest countries will be hit hardest due to rising inflation and prices. Can the Nigerian banks sustain their tremendous growth (where does the money comes from?- the NSE suggest that shares are down) and lending? (what happens when individuals and organisations cannot pay up?). Or will credit crunch not reach Nigeria. I have not seen evidence of the latter.

Anonymous,  9:09 am  

See below on economic downturn and whether what Nigeria can learn.

http://wetindey.blogspot.com/

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