Our craze for foreign education

Once again Nigeria is grappling with the messy world of international affairs. As usual, it is not because we are a direct or proxy combatant in the conflict in Sudan, none of which we have ever been in our history. As in Eastern Europe about this time last year, we are caught between two warring sides merely for having a sizeable contingent of young citizens studying away from home in a country at war with itself. And yet, once again, we are working hard to make the situation messier than it already was, for ourselves, for the countries we encounter, and for our young citizens who are directly affected.

There are so many sides to Nigeria’s involvement in the messy affair in the Sudan that it is even difficult to find a particular focus for commentary. Take the duplication of functions by different institutions in the same area of activity by the same government, which throws up the nagging question: Why does Nigeria need a “Nigerians in Diaspora Commission (NIDCOM)”? And what has a commission for Nigerians in Diaspora, whatever that means, got to do with evacuating Nigerians in distress in foreign lands when we already have our embassies and consulates in those lands?

First, the whole idea of a “Nigerian in Diaspora” is a misnomer in law; it has no legal basis whatsoever. ‘Diasporan’ is not a category of citizenship separate or different from ‘Nigerian’. A Nigerian citizen is a Nigerian citizen, regardless of whether they live at home or overseas. My Nigerian citizenship status does not change merely because I live overseas, unless where I take up dual nationality, or where I renounce my Nigerian citizenship for that of another country, or where I simply refuse to pass it on to my children or when they themselves choose not to take it up.

For Nigerians studying at home, this is even more so because a majority of them return home, so their studying abroad is no more than attending a boarding school in a distant or strange land. None of these situations requires a separate government agency to handle my affairs other than my embassy or consulate, which, needless to say, are a part of the international order and its regulation.

Even for Nigeria’s well-known penchant for duplicating public agencies, there is a case for closing down NIDCOM or at least making it a wholly controlled unit of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, whatever the problems of that ministry. NIDCOM should not have the same mandate as our consulates and embassies, which it now does, merely because it uses a different nomenclature like ‘Diasporan”. After all, NIDCOM cannot issue anyone with a visa or passport, whether Nigerian or foreigner, whether in Nigeria or elsewhere. Moreover, the problems caused by having the NIDCOM situated between Nigerians abroad and their embassies and consulates during moments of emergency, such as happened last year in Ukraine, and now in Sudan, are enough to show that its duplication of efforts does more harm than good.

NIDCOM cannot continue to dapple into diplomatic turfs because in moments of crises, it cannot relate to foreign governments in the way our embassies and consulates do on behalf of the country. At best, we could have NIDCOM operate like the US Fulbright Commission, which works to promote cultural diplomacy between the US and other countries through various exchange programmes, but focused on Nigeria’s admittedly large, upwardly mobile and settled diaspora in many countries. Even then, like the Fulbright Commission, it should be clearly under the foreign ministry, and should have no remit over Nigerians studying abroad whatsoever.

But if you are done wondering why a country with hundreds of embassies and consulates around the world would still need a commission for its own citizens, you’d remember that at least $1.2 million is said to have been spent on evacuating those Nigerians stranded in Sudan. Like me, you will wonder why there was no warning or citizen advisory at least several weeks before the actual break-out of combat between Sudan’s warring factions. Part of the reasons ill-fitted-for-purpose agencies have sprung up out of nowhere to usurp the duties of trained diplomatic corps is because Nigeria’s ministry of foreign affairs, and by implication, our diplomacy and standing in the world, has fallen to its lowest ever right now. Still, with such a large budget, you will expect some results, and quickly too.

And then, of course, there is the sense of entitlement exhibited by the students themselves. If any Nigerians students are caught up in any danger zones anywhere, then it is good for the government to do its best to evacuate them to safety. It helps to entrench loyalty to the flag at home, and respect of other countries abroad, especially if the evacuation is smartly and professionally well executed. For this reason, I will always recommend that the federal government tries to help Nigerians in need of assistance wherever they find themselves overseas, especially during moments of danger. I personally worried that majority of the students appear to have been females who are the most vulnerable victims of war everywhere.

And yet, all of us must grasp that the government is actually under no obligations to do that, unless the travel was sanctioned by the government in the first place. The emotional outburst by the students in Sudan in many a viral video is understandable, but we need to tell our children the hard truth: no government is under obligation to evacuate you, even if it is good for the government to do so. Both parents and their adult children need to think through this before sending their children for study in countries whose educational institutions are scarcely better than Nigeria’s anyways.

All of which brings us to the question of foreign education yet again. China and India are the top two countries sending students to study overseas. Of the top 10 most popular destinations for international students—including US, UK, Canada, Australia, etc—China is in the top three countries sending students to eight of them, while India is in the top three in six popular destinations.

China itself is in the top five destinations, its universities receiving large contingent of students from its neighbours like South Korea, Thailand, Pakistan, Vietnam, etc. At the same time, both China and India do not send students to just about any place available. For example, they send to each other far less than they send to other top spots.

In other words, foreign education is a strategic decision that a country must learn to master and expertly guide both parents and their children looking to study away from home. This is what Nigeria lacks. At home, everything goes, and for foreign schooling just about anywhere would do, including countries like Uganda whose universities actually depend on Nigeria’s lecturers on technical aid or other private arrangements.

Thousands of Nigerian students have obtained degrees from literally crazy places like Benin Republic, Cyprus, Hungary, and so on. And if those who can afford a little extra to pay tuition for university education take their kids abroad, then how and when would our universities at home—public and private alike—grow? In short, the craze for foreign education by Nigerians has outlived its usefulness and it’s time for the federal government to regulate it.