Let us talk about this migration thing.
So many Nigerians, from the rich, and middle class, or anyone who can afford it are uprooting their lives and moving to the West. Many of them have great jobs, comfortable lives here but they are still moving.
Why?
My friend wanted to do post graduate studies. She paid the entry fee (crazy amount when converted form $$ to ##), she wrote the exams and excelled. Then came the Nigerian factor. NASU was on strike so they couldn’t send her transcript.
What did my friend not do? Contacted some people who worked in the office, paid them twice the normal amount for the transcript, for where? They did not send her transcript. It is not as if funding was sitting there waiting for her. This is how Nigerians get edged out, but when Nigerians excel in other countries we are so quick to hail them and say our daughter, our son. This same thing happened to several of my friends, they lost out on admissions in foreign universities, and amazing jobs because of no transcript.
Another friend was very ill. She went to the hospital, good thing there were doctors but first, let’s run a test. Health workers are on strike. She can only run the test in a government hospital, or it will be very very expensive in a private hospital, that is if she can even find a private hospital that has the required equipment. So now we are sitting ducks, watching her suffer and managing the illness until health workers call off the strike or we are able to raise money for a private hospital.
Is it our education sector?- Unemployment?
What aspect of this country is working?
Little babies jump and clap their hands when generators come on as if it is normal.
Older Nigerians (above 60) are always quick to say “oh it is not a bed of roses abroad, you young people are so impatient, life na jeje.” The people saying these things had official government cars at 25, jobs waiting for them as soon as they graduated, had scholarships etc but young Nigerians looking for better lives are impatient.
People are not naïve. Nobody thinks they will land in Europe and find Euros lying on the ground waiting for them to pick up but as long as there are systems in place; knowing a loved one will not die because there is no oxygen in the hospital, that NASU/ASUU will not strike every other day, that I don’t need to know somebody to get jobs, that I can get access to credit facilities, that when it rains I will not need to panic about flooding, that using public transport to commute or driving at night will not be an extreme sport, we will calm down.
Nigeria has failed us in so many ways, and if they are other countries who need us to fill in their workforce, why not?
Is better economic/living conditions not why humans have always migrated since the beginning of time? If people see a better life elsewhere why will they not leave?
If we get admitted into universities where we can actually study courses we want, where there are books in the library, equipment in labs, where there is funding even for foreign students, why not?
Why do you think we will want to leave and go abroad?