- Adesina lamented the prevalent migration trend, known as Japa, where Nigerian youth seek opportunities abroad, stressing the significance of fostering development within Africa
African Development Bank (AfDB) President Akinwumi Adesina emphasized the importance of Nigeria’s youth staying in their own country for a prosperous future.
He said this during the 2023 Obafemi Awolowo Prize for Leadership ceremony in Lagos, highlighting the economic growth that comes from retaining talent locally and acquiring additional skills globally.
Adesina lamented the prevalent migration trend, known as Japa, where Nigerian youth seek opportunities abroad, stressing the significance of fostering development within Africa.
“While one might argue that our growing diaspora is good as they send back billions of dollars, higher than the oil revenue that we have, this is not the way to develop sustainably,” Adesina said in a room colourful graced with past and serving African leaders including the President of the United Republic of Tanzania, Samia Suluhu Hassan; Ethiopian President, Sahle-Work Zewde; Prime Minister of Togo, Victoire Tomegah Dogbé; President Bola Tinubu of Nigeria; and the President of the Union of the Comoros and the outgoing Chairperson of the African Union (AU), Azali Assoumani.
“Nations that develop do all they can to keep their best human capital at home and additional resource skills elsewhere, with flexible immigration and labour policies. We must make Nigeria a viable place for people to stay and not a place to run away from, the same applies to other countries,” said the AfDB chief who donned his signature bow tie.
“I refuse to believe that the future of Nigeria’s and Africa’s youths lie in Europe, North America, Asia, or anywhere else. I believe that there future must lie in Africa, growing well, robustly, able to create quality jobs and decent earnings for our young people.
“There is absolutely no reason in the world how we have a demographic asset that then becomes a global negative externality. Let’s take pride in ourselves and let’s make our demographic asset our economic asset globally.”
Adesina, who was Nigeria’s Agriculture Minister from 2011 to 2015 said, “I firmly believe that their future lies right here in Nigeria,” adding that for this reason, the AfDB launched a $614m programme to support Nigeria’s digital and creative enterprise to create 6.3 million jobs and add N6.4bn to the economy.
He also said the pan-African bank will launched a youth-centric bank, the Youths Entrepreneurship Investment Bank, to cater specifically for the needs of young people.