Bill Gates said the recent surge in the number of young professionals leaving the country for greener pastures is good and healthy for the country.
Gates said he does not believe that no one
should go away, noting that completely blocking people from leaving is not a
healthy thing.
Microsoft co-founder and philanthropist, Bill
Gates, has explained that the japa syndrome is good and healthy for Nigeria as
he weighed in on the recent surge in the number of young Nigerian professionals
leaving the country for greener pastures.
This was made known by Bill Gates on
Wednesday, June 21, 2023, while addressing a question during an interactive
session with innovators on ‘Advancing Africa: Unleashing the Power of Youth in
Science and Innovation’ held in Lagos State.
Bill Gates said having a big diaspora that
includes people coming back into business and government is a very healthy
thing.
“In a
sense, people leaving is a good thing, if you up the amount of training you’re
doing. So you say okay, some of our doctors can go get a very high salary in
the UK, the US, some of them will pay to their family broadly and some of them
will return.
“So having a big diaspora that includes
people coming back into business, into government – that’s a very healthy
thing. There are some cases like in medical education were subsidized by the
government, you almost wish that a little bit of that resource you get overseas
would help the government increase the training. Because otherwise and we see
today a significant shortage in some of those skills.’’
Gates added, “But I’m not someone who
believes that no one should go away or that blocking that completely is a
healthy thing.’’
He pointed out the similarities Nigeria
shares with India and China in the export of talent, he highlighted that “many”
innovative immigrant doctors had spent some time in the UK and the US as part
of their training.
The philanthropist said, ‘’But certainly
India and China and I’ll say Nigeria is third on this list, this idea that
people go away and do great work but then they come back, if you get that
balance and figure out the education funding piece of that, that is a super
healthy thing in computer science, in health, in business and other areas.’’
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