How Nigeria can profit from Japa phenomenon - Bill Gates

The co-chairman of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, Bill Gates, has highlighted how Nigeria can profit from the Japa phenomenon in the long run.

Japa is a Yoruba locution used to describe the recent surge in the number of young Nigerian professionals leaving the country for greener pastures.

Meanwhile, Gates added his voice to the ongoing conversation about the Japa phenomenon while speaking during an interactive session with innovators on 'Advancing Africa: Unleashing the Power of Youth in Science and Innovation’ held in Lagos State on Wednesday, June 21, 2023.

The Microsoft co-founder believed that having a “big diaspora” can spur skilled Nigerians to return to the country to set up businesses and join the government.

“In a sense, people leaving is a good thing, if you up the amount of training you’re doing.”

“Having a big diaspora that includes people coming back into business, into government – that’s a very healthy thing,” he said.

According to the philanthropist, in an instance where the government provides subsidised medical education, “one almost wishes that a little bit of that resource you get overseas would help the government increase the training.”

He, however, noted that there would be a significant shortage in some of those skills in the absence of overseas remittances.

“I’m not someone who believes that no one should go away or that blocking that completely is a healthy thing,” Gates stressed.

Highlighting similarities Nigeria shares with India and China in talent export, Gates explained that many innovative immigrant doctors had spent some time in the UK and the US as part of their training. 

He said, “This idea that people go away and do great work but then they come back, if you get that in balance and figure out the education funding piece of that, that is a super healthy thing in computer science, in health, in a business, and other areas.”

“You say, ‘Some of our doctors can go get a very high salary in the UK or the US.’ Some of them will pay to their family broadly and some of them will return.”