The Nigerian Village Square - Immigration: Matters Arising 3

Immigration: Matters Arising 3

Wednesday, 02 February 2005

In this part I will discuss Emigration as it affects various professions. I would say that Emigration has affected all professions in Nigeria and Africa in various degrees. For example in the literary profession there are arguably more African giants in the United States of America and the Western world in general than in Africa. Literary emigrants include Tsi Tsi Dangaremba of Zimbabwe who wrote Nervous Conditions, Assi Jebar of Algeria who wrote Algerian White. Those that need no introduction include the GrandMaster of the African Novel Chinua Achebe, Nobel Laureate Wole Soyinka, Ngugi Wa Thiongo and Professor Abiola Irele of Harvard to mention a few. In Fact newer Literary figures such as Chimamanda Adichie, Helon Habila are based in the West. Why is it that such talent is nurtured to a certain level but cannot be retained?

A lot of our star professional athletes have also had cause to emigrate due to Sports authorities’ mismanagement and financial reasons. Included in this group are the Midfield maestro Stephen Keshi,BBC Soccer player of the year Jay Jay Okocha and Finidi George to mention a few.Infact the entire Nigerian soccer team for the past several years have been foreign based due to decline in our local league. This group of people however tend to return because top flight sports activity can only be successfully sustained for about 8 to 10 years maximum. Also they have not been able to break into the ranks of sports managers and coaches in the West. However some exceptions include athletes who are now Nationalizing and representing other Countries such as Daniel Igali the Canada based Wrestler, Gloria Alozie formerly of Nigeria but now representing Spain and the Nigerian who won Gold for Portugal. I remains to be seen what will happen after their sporting careers are over but being Citizens of the Countries they represented i would guess they would remain there semi-permanently.

Now to discuss the Medical Profession, i would start with a historical perspective. In the early 1970's during General Gowon regime as Head of State there was a problem between academic staff and the Government. This degenerated to the stage that the Government issued a threat for them to quit the staff quarters. The University lecturers including physicians among others now started buying land to erect houses of their own. They generally realized that apart from the University quarters they had no home of their own except the family house where they grew up in their hometowns. To finance the construction they had to take mortgages. These included physicians who had obtained medical degrees in the 60's and early 70's and had obtained their postgraduate training and were practicing consultants in the hospitals gradually advancing through the academic ranks. By the 1980's and early 90's some had not been ably to pay the mortgages and the banks wanted their money back. To prevent foreclosures they then had to start traveling abroad to earn foreign exchange. Places where they went to include Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, United Arab Emirates. Some went to Britain and the United States where they had done their training and were quite familiar with medical praxes there. Most of these buildings are architectural delights that dot the various GRA's of our major Cities.

Also coinciding with this period there were political upheavals during the Buhari-Idiagbon regime in the mid 80's which adversely affected physicians. In 1984 to 85 there was a doctor's strike. The main points of the strike were the decline health care facilities which incidentally tallied with then Brigadier General Sani Abacha's coup day speech about '' Hospitals being mere consulting clinics". Another point was the cancellation of the 1 year training abroad program for specialists in training which was always in Britain in my opinion because of colonial ties. The strike lasted a few weeks but ended in the proscription of NARD and NMA (National Association of Resident Doctors and Nigerian Medical Association respectively). A number of dedicated physician leaders who had put in a lot to medical education and training lost their jobs. There were also a number of arrests of physicians. These events also affected morale adversely. President Babangida after taking over in 1995 tried to reverse things by allowing the physician leaders to go back to their training positions. It is however of note that the Provosts who lost their jobs never received any compensation. He also appointed Prof Ransome Kuti who in my opinion was arguably the best health minister in living memory.

Another financial issue before i conclude this part of the series of articles is as follows. Drugs, durable medical equipment and journals were largely funded by foreign exchange but with the devaluation of the Naira, lack of indigenous manufacturing base medical book publishing industry and poor maintenance culture equipment started breaking down, laboratory tests and radiological investigations became far too expensive for the patients and the slide continued.

In the next article I will discuss medical immigration to the United States.

Dr Olumide Ogunremi is an attending physician in internal medicine in St Louis, MO and the host of The Village Doctor Forum

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	# 1 In this part I will discuss Emigration as it affects ...Read the full article. Posted by Robot\| 27.04.2008 19:26

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