Just recently I was in the midst of some young women doctors who were lamenting how they couldn’t get work in government hospitals and also how they couldn’t get residency to specialise.
They now work in small private hospitals that they don’t regard as much, since their aim is to specialise, especially in gynecology.
“I studied out of passion, but the Nigerian government has disappointed me,” one said.
But then, there were stories of their friends that work in government hospitals with poor pay.
Therefore when the outgoing speaker of the House of Representatives, Femi Gbajabiamila said many young Nigerians have lost faith in the country he couldn’t be more apt.
Speaking on Wednesday at the valedictory session of the ninth House of Representatives, he said, “Too many of our young people have lost faith entirely and are choosing in droves to seek their fortunes and their futures in other lands.”
“We are losing some of our best and brightest, and if we don’t act now, the consequences of this loss will shortly become painfully evident,” he added.
It is not however strange to hear such lamentations from leaders, some may even proffer solutions to many problems facing the country, but implementing them is another matter altogether.
While the youths are eager to work and contribute to the progress of their own country, they get the shock of their life at the reality on ground.
Some are armed with the best result imaginable but are roaming the streets jobless, while some make do with any job to make ends meet.
At the end some blame our educational system for being based on theory with no practical skills, yet these best brains that cannot get work here may get jobs abroad in their field of study and excel there.
And that is when Nigeria may lay a claim to them, while if they had been here their brains and talent would have been wasted.
The irony is that some state governments sponsor medical students abroad but when they return they refuse to employ them, in spite of complaints that there are few doctors in government hospitals. The fact is that they don’t want to spend money on their salary.
But if these young people go abroad, they are accused of being unpatriotic.
“I have to take care of myself, my family and my parents apart from extended family members, so I have to look for where to make money. I cannot spend many years studying rigorously and expect to be paid peanuts,” a young doctor said.
In any case while these best brains are disenchanted and feel betrayed by Nigeria, politicians are getting a lot of money as salary and allowances and God knows what else. They and their families live in opulence, even those that didn’t have money before they got into office are suddenly transformed.
So it is not as if the system is hostile to everyone, some get the upper hand and not necessarily for having the best brains.
To bring sanity into the system is to have the will to do so and do it. How come you train doctors but you cannot employ them or if you employ them, you keep them redundant in some cases?
We should do away with corruption and give opportunities to those that deserve them. We should not accept a situation where there are so many qualified young people to fill vacancies, but the vacancies are not filled for years, or filled with ghost workers that usually happen from the top officials to steal government’s money.
Gbajabiamila also said, “The government must ensure that the economy is healthy, vigorous, growing and that all Nigerians will have equal opportunities to succeed through their labour, hard work and ingenuity,”
Maybe. But only if it is so, that it is not another rhetoric that anybody can dish out as we are not lacking in such fantastic ideas.
In this regard, to stop young Nigerians from losing faith in the country is to make them feel part of it, be given opportunity and not to make them feel as if they are a nuisance and a burden while they are welcome abroad to offer their expertise.
