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Foreign Graduates Are Better By Joseph Anwana
I read with shock and a deep sense of dismay an article by Shola Ajani titled “Foreign graduates are better”, published in the Guardian Newspaper of 13th August, 2007. Ajani’s piece which was a rejoinder to my earlier article titled “Nigerian Employers and tokunbo mentality” completely missed the point and sentimentally defended a personal opinion based on parochial survival exigencies.
I would have taken Ajani’s comments more seriously if it was not coming from the point of view of a “self acclaimed” international recruiter whose views cannot but be biased towards a convenient opinion. This was obviously manifested by the fact that Mr. Ajani hardly disputed any of the stated facts on the issue, but merely attempted to erroneously and shamelessly tell us that there are no competent professionals in Nigeria, as such in his view, we have no option but to continue shopping abroad.
The issue of decayed educational system is being over-flogged, and it is being used as a platform to trade by unscrupulous individuals in the name of international recruitment agencies. We have said time without number that this so called decay in our academic system has affected us to the point that we are still producing world class brains within the country. The question remains, how many of the captains of industry, bank chiefs and the likes in present day corporate Nigeria got their B.SC from abroad? Since Mr. Ajani started his business of recruiting from abroad, what great impact has the so called better experienced and exposed professionals made in the economy? How can you tell us that in a country of more than 140 million people, you have “ inability to recruit enough competent hands locally”, when in actual fact the problem is that of under utilization of available skilled manpower?
It is a pity that at this stage in our development as a nation, there are still people who will mortgage national survival for self-aggrandizement. It is of great concern and grave consequence to maintain this kind of insatiable taste for foreign products, academic or otherwise, at this point that we have so much potential untapped locally.
I tell you authoritatively that in the finance sector, the problem is not unavailability of skilled manpower; the issue is that there is a huge army of well trained professionals presently under-employed and under-unutilized and a whole bunch unemployed. In the oil and gas sector, we equally have a pool of skilled workforce; the only problem is that most organizations will like to minimize training cost as much as possible. Why not employ a Geology graduate and train him to specialize in Geophysics, Petro-Physics, as the case may be? That is if they really care about growing our economy and capacity. We cannot move ahead with this kind of attitude, thinking that we are not good enough until we go to UK or US. We are gradually getting to believe that a B.SC is not enough to get a decent career in Nigeria, until you go and come back with a certificate with a foreign stamp. This is sad. You should see the trend, most of these foreign recruits hardly have any so called international work experience and exposure, the difference being in the few months they spent abroad doing the post graduates. Who are we deceiving?
Nigerian professionals have carved a niche for themselves in various fields, and so many have left the country and doing well in different parts of the world. Nigerian based professionals are gaining global relevance acquiring certifications of international influence and making their impact felt in different fields. A lot have exported their skills to different parts of the world and adding value to global economy. Professional bodies like ISACA, ACCA, CFA, CIMA, and many others have found a gold mine of talents and brains in Nigeria, and we are responding with fantastic outputs in these globally acclaimed professional bodies. In the last IFAC conference held in Tuikey, the Nigerian delegation led by ICAN was recognized as having the largest number of participants, this is one way to confirm that we have what it takes in terms of human resources to stand out in the global assembly. It is my opinion though, that if anybody is into the business of helping Nigerians who cannot get jobs abroad to relocate back home to try and make something out of life, we have no problem with that. But we certainly consider it an assault on our collective pride for anyone to say that we have no competent hands in this country. You can only have that kind of view if there is ignorance of the true position of things coupled with a brazen desire to preserve the status quo.
Let it be stated once again, that the idea of having Nigerians who have been exposed abroad to come back with their skills is positive and well desired. It is also very clear that most of them find it hard to break through the labour market out there and need a way out-homeward. However, pushing it too far will lead to a far greater effect we may not be able to manage; an exodus abroad is a looming reality with this present scheme of things. If not for anything, to cash in on those recruitment forms fying around US and UK to come back home and take a lucrative offer as an “exposed professional” even when the individual had no job abroad. Let it be stated clearly that by the time we lose these present crop of “incompetent hands” according to Mr. Ajani, there won’t be anyone left to train the returnee rookies and experience hands. The logic is simple, every action has a reaction, and the circle will be complete when all our recruitment will be done from abroad, B.SC from UI, Ife, Benin, BUK, UNIJOS, UNICAL UNIPORT, and other Nigerian schools may become excluded from the list of requirements for entry level recruitments. By then, international recruiters will be having a field day while danger walks our streets. Who will want to see that day?
It should also be stated here again that we should encourage international mobility of labour, not only in recruiting everyone carrying a Nigerian Passport on the streets of London, New York and other foreign cities, but to the extent that we have technocrats in different fields irrespective of nationality to be able to tap into their wealth of experience. Likewise, why are we in a hurry to bring everybody back home, when we need people out there to penetrate and tap into the fast moving economic and technological growth in those developed countries? I have never heard of any Nigerian that is really doing well professionally abroad thinking of coming back home, except on national assignment. Which IT professional riding smoothly on the wave of the IT revolution in US will want to come back home, which Doctor in the middle of medical advancement abroad will want to come, Which Accountant or Finance professional in the centre of global economy will think of coming back home to work? I came to a conclusion, the whole thing is a scam, they are bringing back people whose best market is still local After all, and no one can become a genius in 12 months. Who is deceiving who?
It should be said that contrary to Mr. Ajani’s view, employment in Nigeria is not and has not for a long time been social service. We are talking about equal opportunity; we are talking about believing in ourselves, what we can do and what we can offer. It is about preserving our national heritage; it’s about giving us the opportunity to develop our potentials. Japan did not grow from importing everything. We must be engaged before we become experts, and if we can become experts in our country, we can open up an international traffic for labour mobility from Nigeria to other countries. We have competent hands enough to be the best Engineers, Doctors, Finance experts, Investment consultants, IT and IS auditors in the world. Some who believed in themselves are making great names for themselves all over the world, and for those of us still back home, we won’t stop believing in ourselves until the world takes notice of us.
This is a great nation, with great people having great potentials. I see us coming to a day when the Nigerian professional will convincingly be the best the world has to offer.
Joseph Anwana Chartered Accountant. Lagos-Nigeria. |