The criminal
neglect and gradual decay of the education which forced the exodus of students
whose parents can afford it, and poor services in the nation’s hospitals which
compelled the expensive search for treatment abroad, have exacerbated the toll
on the nation’s foreign currency spending.
Regrettably,
since all that ails Nigeria can be traced to woeful leadership, the
indiscretions of a few have left the country’s economy and infrastructure in
shambles. The result is that while promoting those foreign economies that have
been recipients of the available forex in form of students’ tuition fees and
medical bills for health challenges, Nigeria has been left the poorer. That
many of these health challenges are what local experts have the capacity to
handle but for the obsolete and inadequate facilities, makes the tragedy more
unbearable. More than two billion dollars, for instance, is said to have been
paid by Nigerians over time as tuition fees abroad. On health tourism, the sum
is much more humongous. The Senate Committee on Tertiary Institution and
Tertiary Education Trust Fund has, therefore, rightly frowned at the idea of
Nigerians seeking higher education abroad, especially in other African
countries.
On the heels
of that, the Bankers Committee at a forum in Abuja on how banks could play
their role to assist the real sector to be the engine of growth has also urged
the addition of education and medical tourism to the list of 41 items already
denied forex through the official window. That admonition followed the
realisation that demand forex on a monthly basis for just education and medical
tourism (services that can be obtained locally) now exceeds 15 per cent.
In the heat
of this confusion, some reports even alleged immediate halt of forex allocation
by the Central Bank (CBN) to the two sectors. Expectedly, there were public
protests, enough to cause the CBN to issue a statement debunking the claim and
that all “genuine users desiring to obtain forex for the above-mentioned
purposes are to freely approach their banks with requests”. Of course, such
reassurance could only be predicated on the availability of the money at the
designated banks.
The pro-
restriction group has genuinely argued that the huge chunk of 15 per cent has
adversely affected the supply of foreign exchange to the real sector, which
forms the pillar of a productive economy. Moreover, it has been argued that
Nigerians need to make sacrifices and be patriotic at a time like this to help
grow the economy and attract more foreign direct investment while conserving
the little left in the treasury.
Conversely,
those opposed to restrictions hold fast to the belief that keeping students
away from foreign education is not a solution to the problem. Rather, a
conscious effort to build human and infrastructural capacities in those areas
of education and medical needs would be the only disincentive to going abroad.
This point, however, is reinforced by the claim that in contemporary times, the
youths cannot be kept away from an interactive and collaborative global network
and that Nigeria does not need to prevent her children from a search for
knowledge anywhere. Education, after all, includes exposure to and interaction
with other cultures and peoples.
There is the
urgent need, no doubt, to make the local system work, made more attractive with
better schools and functional health facilities. This is the ultimate solution
to capital flight. Nigeria certainly can boast of world-class professionals to
run any well-equipped health or educational facility once the incentives are
right.
Change in
Nigeria’s destiny would come only when the nation accords education the right
pride of place and invests enough in it to make foreign schooling unattractive.
Health facilities and medicare system must be re-built to attract the best
hands in order to stop the huge sums flowing out to India and other countries
from Nigeria. The opportunity to make the country better is here, the present administration
has to seize it and all Nigerians must join in the task. (Guardian)
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