Nigerian Employers And Tokunbo Mentality

By

Joseph Anwana

joeanwana@yahoo.com

 

In Nigeria of today, preference for foreign made products has been well established, even when the locally made substitutes are better than the imported junks. This has no doubt inflicted serious dead blows on local industry, and kept the economy in comatose. Our dependence on foreign economies has become more obvious and we are increasingly destroying local capacity and eroding the little that remained of our national worth and pride.

 

This dangerous trend has shifted from importation of goods to importation of work force, not just in the sense of reversing brain drain, but at a level that spells disdain for locally train professionals. It is now so bad that most companies in the oil and gas sector have it as a core strategic recruitment policy to employ from abroad.

 

It has become very common for Nigerian firms especially in the oil and gas and banking sectors to solicit for applications from abroad and hold job fairs for recruitment in foreign countries. I don’t have any problem with this. The problem is with the terms in which these recruitments are made. Most of the foreign recruits enter from a level or two above entry level even when they have no work experience, and those with relevant work experience even go as high as Manager cadre, just on the basis of a 12 months post graduate programme abroad.

 

What happens to so many locally certified professionals holding both local and international certifications like ICAN, CISA, CISM, CISSP, CIBN, CIS, ACCA, IT professionals trained in Nigeria? They are either roaming the streets, or crawling up the ladder in the different under-employed capacities.

 

This craze for “expatriate” staff indicates a general lack of faith not just in the Nigerian educational system, but an affront to the Nigerian pride. We know that our educational system is in shambles, and yet most of the movers and shakers of today’s Nigeria are products of this same system. Even those coming back with “tokunbo” degrees are mostly first degree products of these same dilapidated Nigerian universities. Have we not seen so many winning academic laurels in far away lands coming out from Nigerian universities? Have we not been having people studying in these same poor universities dusting all comers to come tops in globally organized professional exams like ACCA, CISA, and other certifications? Are they now telling us that a 12 month M.SC programme is better than a rigorous professional examination like ICAN, ACCA, CISA, etc just because it is gotten from abroad?

 

We have gotten to a point where we don’t believe in ourselves anymore. We are mortgaging our destiny as a nation, our future generation will not have faith in anything that is Nigerian, or that is not from abroad with this present trend. Who will want to improve the educational system when all that is needed is to travel to UK to hold recruitment fairs? Who will stand up to revamp the rot in our universities if all our children are schooling abroad? Who will employ the more than 120,000 waiting for NYSC presently if corporate recruitment policy is biased towards degrees acquired abroad?  What will happen to those already roaming the streets if their locally acquired degrees cannot get guarantee jobs in their own countries? Will these returnees who are automatically inducted into the elite class be allowed to sleep well at night or drive around in peace if their counterparts and age mates who schooled in Nigeria are still roaming the streets? Too many questions without answers, Posterity will certainly demand answers from us.

 

The bottom line is this, we feel locally trained personnel cannot deliver, when in actual fact, they hold the economy. We think we are attempting to reverse brain drain, when in fact, we just initiated another massive brain drain from different sectors of the economy. We are laying the foundation to make a bridge that will support another MASSIVE EXODUS from so many key sectors of our economy.

 

The brigade is already marching, who can stop it? It can be proved that the number of those checking out without intention to return against those willing to return remains majority, which implies that we will lose most of our very skilled and experienced manpower permanently.

 

I fear that if nothing is done, either that a foreign degree will be the minimum qualification for employment, or the quest for foreign degrees will plunder the labour market so much that we will have permanent recruitment desks abroad.

 

 

It will make more sense if corporate bodies both local and multinationals will stop this flagrant display of disdain for the “Nigerian brain”, and put more effort to help the present administration in rejuvenating the education sector. It will also be good if they will encourage professionalism and academic excellence among the work force. An employee who meets the requirements of relevant professional bodies should be recognized and accorded better opportunities. The window of attracting Nigerians based abroad home should remain, but not a core employment drive.

 

We should not elevate foreign certificates so high above locally obtained qualifications; otherwise we will create disequilibrium in the system, and set the pace for another brain drain.

 

 

 

Joseph Anwana

Chartered Accountant

Lagos.