Uzodimma’s state-sponsored japa

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AMONG several other spinoffs of Nigeria’s tottering economy is the grave level of youth unemployment which is intricately linked to the paucity of skill sets needed to translate the economy into a modern one with a huge absorptive capacity to employ indigenous productive hands. It was, therefore, somewhat comforting when one of Nigeria’s subnational governments, Imo State, decided to get some young people trained to acquire special skills that would make them fit perfectly into and contribute optimally to the development of a modern economy. The expectation was that the well equipped youth would be deployed to launch the state’s economic renaissance and chart a new path to its socioeconomic development. However, this expectation was cut short when the governor of the state, Senator Hope Uzodimma, revealed his plan to send 4000 of the trained and equipped youth abroad where they would get productively engaged. In other words, the government itself is sponsoring the migration of productive hands outside the country.

This is not something expected of any serious government. The government ought to be concerned with how to ensure a good working environment for citizens internally as part of the development strategy. The critical question is this: if the European political leaders did not develop their own climes, would you think of sending your own youth to Europe to work? The political leadership appears to lack vision, direction and focus. There is this tendency for politicians to act as if most Nigerians are gullible and they can throw just about anything at them. And they do this because they know that they can conveniently play to the gallery and still retain seemingly popular appeal, especially among less discerning citizens. Why not invest the funds to be used to take 4,000 youths to Europe in the Imo economy? Why not develop the economy to attract foreign talent?

The government wants to take part of the money that should have been used to develop Imo to developed countries, as it were. What the governor is saying in essence is that he cannot create quality jobs within the state. Who developed those European countries, the UAE and other countries that Nigerian youth want to japa (flee) to? Uzodimma’s plan is wasteful and deceitful. It is trite that the country needs the productive contributions of its members for it to have real, sustainable development, as in some other climes. This is why giving encouragement, and indeed the assistance, to Nigeria’s productive hands to migrate to other lands, ostensibly in search of greener pastures, is an anathema. Since the craze by the youth to migrate abroad is in reaction to the growing perception that the local economic environment is not conducive, why not address this critical challenge instead of exporting your priced human capital abroad?

Meanwhile, successive governments at the federal level recognised that the indiscriminate migration of Nigerians abroad is a serious challenge that must be addressed, and tried to see what they could do to arrest the trend and ensure that the country was able to retain the productive contributions of its citizens. Sadly, Imo State and the Federal Government are now working at cross purposes. That is counterproductive. Indeed, the concern about brain drain was so rife that even the National Assembly recently mooted the idea of legislating against the migration of medical professionals abroad. Though we opposed such oppressive legislation as it would have constituted an infringement on the rights of the affected citizens, it nevertheless underscores the gravity of the challenge that the ‘japa’ syndrome represents.

Governor Uzodimma was perhaps fixated on the potential diasporan remittances that his plan could generate when he gleefully announced the success of his government’s effort to get employment for 4000 of its citizens in Europe and Canada. The governor was very specific that his government would bear the cost of flight tickets for the beneficiaries when the appointment letters start coming in. As far as he was concerned, the government’s effort was a reflection of its concern for citizens and the responsibility to get them gainfully and productively engaged. The question, however, is how the state will optimise its yields from this investment by sending its trained and skilled youth to unleash their productive energies on the economies of other climes, leveraging the conducive socioeconomic environment available there. Why not create a similar, salutary environment here at home?

While we do not fault the concern expressed by Governor Uzodimma, we do not see how shipping out the productive energies of Imo State under the sponsorship of the government will ultimately benefit the state. The governor’s approach is tantamount to cutting corners and should be interrogated against the backdrop of the fact that these productive hands have been trained with the resources of the state in order to equip them to maximally contribute towards the development of its economy. It verges on critical and monumental misunderstanding of the role and responsibility of a true government not to bemoan the idea of citizens voluntarily seeking to take their productive energies and contributions elsewhere, but to even be the one to help them scout for places to go and even sponsor such migration.

Governor Uzodimma ought to know that Imo State needs a lot of investments in setting up factories and other manufacturing concerns to aid its development. Just how would he provide the necessary workforce for such concerns, if and when established, if he is already helping to ship capable hands out of the state? And why didn’t industrialisation of the state go side by side with the skill acquisition programme? Or could it be that he has never thought about the industrial development of the state and is satisfied with relying on the handouts from the national coffers every month to satisfy whatever personal desire he has while the people of the state learn to fend for themselves elsewhere, including travelling abroad to do so? It is imperative that the governor realizes the enormity of the negative implications of this misguided adventure and reverses himself for the sake of the state. Posterity will judge his administration harshly if he insists on following this patently flawed path to empowering the youth of the state.

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