For most of past 4 centuries, Africa’s indigenous populations have been decimated by intercontinental slave trade and colonial conquests by imperial Europe and the near East. Africans have been forcibly removed from their ancestral homes and flung far and wide around the globe to supply cheap reliable labor, particularly in the Americas. In the heydays of trans-Atlantic slave trade, any able-bodied African was a candidate for capture and exportation to work in the plantations of the New World. Sugar cane, tobacco and cotton cultivation rarely requires human labor these days because machines have come to take over the backbreaking labor provided by former slaves. As a new economic paradigm evolved, former slave masters attempted to devise new ways to continue to harness and exploit Africa’s profit-making labor force. In the early stages of slave trade, outsiders had to journey to the African continent to capture and transport slaves overseas to work for them. Today, Africa voluntarily gives away the cream of its indigenous skilled labor force to live and serve the home economies of former slave masters while the African continent continues to plunge deeper into political chaos and socioeconomic decline.

Human enslavement has undergone metamorphoses which depended on the prevailing economic modality that was preferred by the slave masters. Journeying across the seas to Africa to buy slaves made little economic sense when machines could be built at home to perform the same tasks more profitably. In fact, economic pundits considered it more profitable to leave Africans on the continent and to utilize their labor, with the assistance of machines, to exploit the resources of Africa for the benefit of foreign interests. This thinking spurred the notorious scramble for Africa and the Berlin Conference of 1884/85 during which major European powers agreed on how to carve up and share the continent amongst themselves. Colonialism collapsed after World War II because it became economically and politically tasking for imperial powers to cater for their cosmopolitan populations as well as retain control of global empires that cut across multiple cultures. A conscious decision was made then to replace colonialism with neocolonialism; a new arrangement where indigenous populations were granted self-rule while economic control still remained in the firm grip of former colonizers. The doctrine of neocolonialism has now been practically abandoned because the African elite class, which is needed to buoy up the economy of the indigenous societies, is deserting African continent at an unprecedented pace.

The best brains of Africa now reside outside the continent for a variety of reasons. In post-Independence Africa, the brightest of indigenous students were encouraged to travel overseas for further education which was hard to come by locally. Since the relative decline of Europe in the aftermath of World War II, North America ended up being the main destination of African students who left home for further studies overseas. The first wave of students mostly followed the pattern established by their predecessors in the colonial era and returned to their home countries at the conclusion of their formal education. Post-Independence Africa soon plunged into a political and economic tailspin. Africa became engulfed in civil wars, political dictatorship and economic mismanagement which led to the rapid deterioration of living standards of the average African. Lack of adequate societal services and the decline in educational standards combined to put increased pressure on African youths to emigrate at the slightest chance. Those who have finished their formal education overseas developed cold feet about returning immediately to their home countries. In many instances, even those who had earlier returned to Africa after their sojourn in Western countries have voluntarily left Africa again to reside elsewhere as the survival struggle intensifies for the average African living on the continent.

The greatest tragedy of contemporary Africa is that its enlightened population has opted to abandon it at the moment of greatest need. In the immediate postcolonial era, it was easy to explain the shortcomings of Africa based on the lack of educated and skilled indigenous manpower to spearhead a structured developmental agenda for the continent. Africans have since acquired sophisticated skills and education that ought to begin to alter the quality of life of its peoples in tangible ways. Unfortunately, educated and skilled Africans stay to help their kith and kin on the continent only if they cannot find the means to get out and emigrate for greener pastures elsewhere. Nigerian Diaspora population in the US, for example, has enough doctors, nurses, lawyers, professors, scientists, administrators and business managers to run a first class 21^st Century African country. The prize products and intelligentsia of Africa’s premier nation have tacitly opted for a modern-day enslavement in alien lands while their kith and kin survive marginally because of lack of the wherewithal to develop the country. The cream of African human resources appears to have voluntarily dissociated itself from partaking in the evolutionary struggle of today’s Africa.

Some expatriate Africans residing in the Diaspora argue that their skills would be inappropriate for present needs of African societies. Some are reluctant to return to live in Africa with their families because they are genuinely worried about poor educational facilities for their children who have gotten used to the Western model. Expatriate Nigerian parents often claim that they plan to return home to Africa after their children graduate from college in the US educational institutions, for example. The implication of this stance is that the children of most African immigrants to the West develop into adulthood without any coherent exposure to the socioeconomic and cultural milieu of their ancestry. Without any emotional attachment to the continent, this next generation of Africans will likely grow up seeing their African ancestral base as alien and remote to the realities of their life experiences. If their parents keep their pledge to return, they will likely do so in their late middle age, too old and out of touch to play meaningful roles in present African societies. The likely scenario is that the majority of present African immigrant population in Western countries will live out the rest of their productive lives in their host countries. Most would not contemplate retiring in their countries of birth where support structures for the aging, like guaranteed retirement income and healthcare, are unpredictable, to say the least.

A large segment of the African intelligentsia living overseas appear to have a sense of emptiness and guilt for their choice to stay away at a comfortable distance from the harsh realities their countries of birth. They constantly tussle with the conflict that is inherent in being a naturalized citizen of their host countries while at the same time harboring grandiose sentiments about a culture that they left behind in their youth. To deal with this dilemma, the Nigerian Diaspora population domiciled in large metropolitan centers of the US, for example, formed many parochial associations, based mostly on ethnocultural affiliations, to provide the media for interaction amongst themselves. Some large US cities are home to some Nigerians who have assumed the titles of traditional chieftaincy, however, without recognizable functions to match. Parochial groups, which have featured in sociocultural and political life of home-based Nigerians, now have their US or North American chapters ostensibly to serve the needs of the new immigrant group. With the evolution of Internet technology, expatriate African groups establish interactive forums where they maul over their dilemma and pontificate on the politics of home countries that they had since abandoned for a better life overseas.

Africa’s dilemma for the 21^st Century can better be understood and appreciated after one looks at the dynamics that underscore the reluctance of the neo-African elite to demonstrate any firm commitment in addressing the issues that confront his continent at the dawn of a new millennium. The bulk of the African brain drain, which contributes immensely to service the economies of the West, were reared in their early childhood with the resources that came from indigenous African societies into which they were born. The race for their education certainly started in Africa but climaxed in Western industrialized countries of Europe and America. Without the good foundation built in Africa in the earlier years, this set of African intelligentsia would not have been able to make it to the institutions of higher learning in industrialized countries of the West. African resources provided most of the critical educational input that helped to create the neo-Africanist elite class which has now abandoned its African home in the hour of great need. The Western societies may have embellished the job of educating this group but they are getting all the benefits of their skills while Africa comes off empty-handed. Africa’s greatest export today is its intelligentsia and skilled manpower while the continent remains burdened by political instability, hunger, disease and many other negative connotations of material poverty.

It is the duty of any nation to ensure that its resources, including the manpower variety, are applied principally to uplift the welfare and livelihood of the average citizen. Many African nations are now committed in principle to adopt democratic governance as a system that will bring economic prosperity to Africa in the early part of this century. Military and authoritarian dictatorship has given way to democracy in leading African countries and the new political leadership appears determined to portray the continent as ready to play a meaningful role in global economy and world politics. But political statements that are not backed up with clear actions usually come to naught. Potential multinational investors loathe committing substantial amounts of resources in Africa partly because of the dearth of skilled indigenous manpower and a middle class clientele that will consume goods and services in order to generate profits. If only a fraction of Nigeria’s skilled manpower resident in the US is repatriated en masse, foreign investors will have a compelling reason to channel their resources toward expanding the country’s economy. President Obasanjo of Nigeria has reportedly invested a lot of political capital in his quest to slow and hopefully reverse the brain drain from his country to the US in particular. Based on the apathetic response to his attempts, it is obvious that only expatriate Nigerians themselves can decide to reverse the present trend, not the government of the day.

If attitude of expatriate Nigerian population in the US is anything to go by, a reversal of present brain drain is nowhere in sight. Most of them still regard themselves as aliens in their host nations even after becoming US citizens for decades. When compared to other immigrant groups in the US, the average expatriate Nigerian remains ambivalent when it comes to deciding his real nationality. The numerical presence of expatriate Nigerians in the US is quite impressive. But their numbers do not reflect in the calculations of the host political elite because they lack coherence that is evident in other immigrant groups from Latin America, Asia and even the Horn of Africa. They have unwittingly transplanted the prevalent attitude to politicking in Nigeria into their new communities abroad. The cleavages that evolved amongst Nigeria’s ethnocultural groups since independent rule are clearly evident in the Diaspora populations. Even as strangers in a new land, Nigerians have not yet learned to see themselves any differently from their counterparts at home. Parochialism, ethnic nationalism and cultural prejudice still keep interactions between large expatriate Nigerian groups at the barest minimum. It is no wonder that the US is now home to some of Nigeria’s most vocal champions of ethnic nationalism.

With continued decline in the economic fortune of the average Nigerian at home, the expatriate population’s potential role in nation building looms larger by the day. Western Union and other global financial services do brisk business transferring money to Nigeria from a large expatriate population that regularly repatriates funds to support the extended family and execute personal projects. But Diaspora Nigerians still lack the capacity to meaningfully influence the politics and governance of the country. Whatever help that emanates from the Diaspora is insufficient to begin to address the immense need at home. Such help is akin to applying a Band-Aid over a weeping wound; the salutary effect is ephemeral at best. Diaspora Nigerians lack credible organizational platforms with which they can mobilize themselves effectively to influence the politics of their host or home countries. Even within an ethnocultural group, there are diverse perceptions of what the real issues are and thus no consensus positions exist on the best way forward. Within such groups, splinter factions emerge and pursue their respective agenda, some of which may totally contravene those of their rivals. A lot of heat and noise may be generated in the process, but when the dust settles, there is usually nothing of substance to show for all the effort.

The richest, most educated and most sophisticated group of Africans is found in North America. The majority are descendants of precolonial forced migration from Africa via the trans-Atlantic slave trade. The new wave of African immigration in postcolonial era constitute the brightest minds and skilled manpower that voluntarily left the continent to live in the developed economies of the West. This new wave of immigrants is commonly regarded as the African brain drain. The term "brain drain" connotes a waste of colossal proportions. In relative terms, the African brain drain is looked upon as a superfluous resource for the host countries, which do not really need it, because they have enough of their own. It is like trying to sell coal to the City of Newcastle which already has an abundance of the black stuff. The African brain drain does not fetch its worth in gold outside Africa because host countries often treat it as a surplus commodity. In some large cities of the US, for example, it is not unusual to see PhD holders operating taxicabs or performing other jobs that don’t match up with their level of education or training. This valuable manpower could be more effectively utilized in African countries where brain drain has compounded the complexities of nation building.

The platitudes that have been proffered so far to justify the persistence of African brain drain are neither tenable nor acceptable. Some African governments are trying to correct this anomaly but their methods have yielded imperceptible results. Some have suggested special incentives for attracting expatriate Africans to return and live in their home countries. There are obvious difficulties in utilizing this approach. Should a Nigerian citizen, for example, be offered preferential treatment in the workplace because he has the option of emigrating overseas while his compatriots cannot? Others have opined that implementing proper developmental policies by African governments should act as magnets that can reverse the present brain drain trend. But how does a government accomplish the feat of outstanding economic development when the cream of the country’s intellectual and skilled manpower has opted to remain out of reach? It is like a chicken and egg phenomenon. If any group can break this impasse, it must be the individuals that constitute the African brain drain. When all the chips are down, patriotic Africans must decide for themselves whether to squarely confront the challenges of contemporary Africa or continue to revel in the illusory comfort of their havens overseas.

In precolonial era, the plague of Africa was the forcible exportation of Africans to provide cheap labor for building the Western economies. At the dawn of 21^st Century, enlightened Africans have chosen to continue the same pattern of exportation of African manpower that conjures memories of trans-Atlantic slave trade. We may now travel with the comfort of jet airplanes instead of the slave ships of a bygone era but the impact of exportation of scarce African manpower overseas, where it is hardly needed, is reminiscent of human enslavement. The pan-African movement that peaked organizationally in the early part of the 20^th Century envisioned a scheme to repatriate millions of Diaspora Africans, who were brutalized by slavery, back to their homelands in Africa. A new exodus will be essential today to enable Africa to reclaim and redeploy its most important resource for a survival struggle that has now reached epic proportions. Brain drain is actually a worse form of human enslavement because the victims are made to volunteer to this exploitative arrangement thereby making it more difficult to contain and reverse the process. Continuation of African brain drain, as the continent slides further into misery, is the worst predicament that faces the Black man today. The brain-drain plague should be fought with the same level of passion that enabled the abolitionists of yesteryears to end the trans-Atlantic trade in human cargo.