African Immigrant Religions in America

3: The Andrew Syndrome: Models in Understanding Nigerian Diaspora

3 The Andrew Syndrome Models in Understanding Nigerian Diaspora Ogbu U. Kalu Who Is Andrew? There was a time when the Nigerian government resorted to television advertisements to stem the flow of emigration from the country. One of these pictured a burly man called Andrew, who was seen at the international airport with a disgusted, sweaty face, “checking out” of the country in frustration. An avuncular voice could be heard reminding him that “Nigeria is our country, we have no other place.” The cajoling worked neither then nor now. The summons to participate in nation building has ceased to be convincing, and the patriotic rhetoric about a jointly owned mother/fatherland has lost its purchase. Much to the contrary , the political elite declares, in Igbo language, “ana enwe obodo enwe” (some people own the nation). This is an assertion of power that, like the proverbial he-goat, butts and excludes the weak amid the struggle for dwindling national resources. Once in a while, Nigerian leaders attempt to change hostile public attention by addressing the problem of brain drain with strategies that urge Nigerians abroad to return. Recently, President Olusegun Obasanjo was alleged to have empaneled a committee to travel abroad to recruit Nigerian professionals. Someone quipped that the real plan is to travel overseas and bank the proceeds from the excess oil funds. According to Transparency International, he presides over the third most corrupt nation in the world through the assistance of multinational corporations. The efforts to respond to the Andrew syndrome by containing the level of emigration, hyping patriotic jingoism, or persuading those living abroad to return have met with a cynicism that reflects the distrust bred by the sufferings of professionals 61 at the hands of insensitive Nigerian administrators and worsening conditions of life in spite of the optimism of analysts. If professionals who work abroad constitute the brain drain, it is argued that those who remain at home suffer from brain hemorrhage because of a disabling environment that stultifies. There is, however, little doubt that many national institutions lack adequate manpower and that the nation spends huge amounts to engage foreign professional experts. Perhaps, universities and the medical field have suffered most from the exodus of educated manpower. It is alleged that more than eight thousand Nigerian doctors work outside the country . Nigerian universities, for instance, are depleted of academics because the situation got so bad that people escaped to all manner of places. Worse, few graduates from foreign universities are coming to replenish the academic culture. The current leaders in the departments are homebred . The problem is continentwide. According to the Association of African Universities, “at the University of Nairobi, only 40 percent of the teaching force holds doctorate degrees: 33 percent at Kenyatta, 32 percent at Moi, and 19 percent at Egerton.”1 In Nigeria, the president explained that the fault lay in poor partnering between universities and the private sector and in overdependence on government funding.2 On the whole, massive emigration has become a characteristic of the contemporary economic and social environment in Africa. This reflection focuses on its manifestation in Nigeria, with an eye to the continent: its scope, causes, and nature, its impact at the home base, and its character in the Diaspora. We argue that there are four phases of the problem: (1) the home-base conditions that compel emigration, (2) the journey, (3) the diasporic condition, and (4) the prospects of re-entry. Various discourses in the analysis of the political economy explain the first dimension . Quite often, analysts skip the second phase, ignore the complexities of the third, and discuss re-entry with discourses such as brain drain, brain replacement, and brain gain. The perspective here is that all the phases are like the strands of an akwete cloth. A composite, viable tapestry must weave together all strands. The chapter argues that the second phase is a cultural condition by itself, implicating a large swath of the able-bodied population of the continent, and carries much ideological import. It canvasses two models in understanding Nigerian Diaspora: the “exile” and the “crossing Jordan” discourses that are competing models for understanding the diasporic condition. These models weave together the 62 o g b u k a l u various strands of the Andrew syndrome to explain the impact of emigration on both the Nigerian homeland and the destinations of migration . The...