Nigerian expatriates and Diaspora

The ambition of practically every young Nigerian is to leave the country to escape a situation of hopelessness. A visit to embassies in Abuja will reveal Nigerian youths seeking entry into every nation on the planet including Afghanistan! Nigeria has the largest population of people of African descent in the world and we constitute a […]

The ambition of practically every young Nigerian is to leave the country to escape a situation of hopelessness. A visit to embassies in Abuja will reveal Nigerian youths seeking entry into every nation on the planet including Afghanistan! Nigeria has the largest population of people of African descent in the world and we constitute a significant portion of the number of legal and illegal immigrants into practically every country each year. This migration in which many of the best, brightest and most able have departed has been termed the “Nigerian Brain Drain” and as a result Nigerians now contribute to the development and sustenance of many countries throughout the world to the detriment of their own nation.
Worse still the contributions they make to their host countries are typically replaced in Nigeria by the recruitment of expatriates at an exorbitant cost to the nation. In the old days expatriates were only employed to do jobs Nigerians could not do but these days the calibre of foreign labour entering the Nigerian market has fallen drastically and should give serious cause for alarm. It is a mark of disrespect that Nigerians living and working in western nations continue to be called “immigrants” living in “Diaspora” while westerners living and working in Nigeria are referred to as “expatriates”.
By definition an expatriate is any person temporarily or permanently residing in a country and culture other than their own. The word comes from the Latin terms ex (“out of”) and patria (“country, fatherland”). Expatriation came into prominence and increased dramatically in the middle of the last century when European companies sent professionals to work in foreign subsidiaries, and colonial governments sent staff to administer their territories. As a consequence practically all colonized countries had expatriate populations in administrative capacities and the word had some connotations of superiority attached to it. Back then it was perhaps understandable to distinguish between skilled professionals who moved from Europe to Africa and unskilled labourers who moved from Africa to Europe by referring to the former as “expatriates” and the later as “immigrants”.
But the situation has changed drastically and the more qualified brains are moving out of Nigeria and less qualified brains moving in! In modern day usage an expatriate should be any person living in a different country from where he or she is a citizen, but in Nigeria as a hangover from our colonial past, the term has come to exclusively refer to Caucasians living over here.  We don’t refer to citizens of other African countries as “expatriates”, and on the whole tend to refer to Lebanese, Chinese or Indian nationals not as “expatriates” but by their nationality. Commuter and short-term assignments, and private businessmen have replaced traditional expatriation in Nigeria. Families hardly ever accompany the expatriates anymore and the cultural impact of this trend is significant. The former traditional expatriate did not integrate, only associated with the elite of the country, frowned upon intermarriage and always looked forward to returning home one day. Modern “expatriates” integrate better and now inter-marry which was previously a taboo.
Also with the end of the colonial era the new expatriate is more of a technical rather than managerial cadre. Just as a new type of expatriate has evolved so has a new type of Nigerian immigrant. The new “immigrant” to Europe is more qualified and more likely to seek non-manual labour. Expatriation in a legal sense means ‘renunciation of allegiance’. The Expatriation Act of 1868 states that ‘the right of expatriation is a natural and inherent right of all people, indispensable to the enjoyment of the rights of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness”.  This actually means that everyone has the right to move to another country in order to better their welfare. Therefore to all intents and purposes the distinction between expatriates and immigrants is simply a question of semantics. Why then are Nigerian expatriates said to be in Diaspora? The word is Diaspora is used to define a “movement, migration, or scattering of people away from an ancestral homeland”.
Diaspora has come to refer to historical mass-dispersions of people with common roots, particularly movements of an involuntary nature, such as the expulsion of Jews from the Middle East, or the African Trans-Atlantic slave trade.  It can be categorized by its causes such as imperialism, trade or labour migrations, or by the kind of social coherence within the diaspora community and its ties to their ancestral lands. Diaspora is also characterized by thoughts of return, relationships with other communities in the diaspora, and lack of full assimilation in the host country. The term diaspora carries a sense of displacement; and usually its people have a hope, or at least a desire, to return to their homeland at some point.
Most Nigerians living overseas cannot be said to be in Diaspora because they increasingly have no wish or desire to return home. Until the exodus is reversed and Nigerians massively return to the country no government can be said to have been truly successful. Some people say Nigerians living overseas should be given the right to vote while others claim they have already voted… with their feet!  Be that as it may, government must present opportunities that allow them contribute their resources effectively to assist in developing the nation. In practically all fields of endeavour Nigerians living overseas have excelled. If we learn to copy their attitudes and harness their growth potential we shall prosper Urgent action must be taken before ties to the nation start to wane, and we lose another generation of gifted Nigerians.