Buhari Laments, Mass Youth Migration to Europe Draining Africa’s Talent Pool

By Derrick Bangura

President Muhammadu Buhari of Nigeria has lamented the enormous migration of African youth to Europe, claiming that it depletes the continent’s talent pool while also generating political conflicts in Europe.
This was said by the president in an article he wrote to commemorate Nigeria’s participation in the ongoing 6th EU-AFRICA summit in Brussels, Belgium.
Buhari stated in an essay published in Politico, an online/offline magazine that is the most prominent journal for the EU/in Brussels, that despite its best efforts, Europe will not be able to find a long-term solution to the problem by bolstering its Fortress Europe strategy.
Instead, he believes that more opportunities for Africans should be developed at home, providing alternatives to taking a life-threatening boat journey to find them overseas.
He advised that economic relationship between the two continents must be recalibrated to focus on job creation.
The president said, “By 2050, Africa’s population of 1.3 billion was set to double, making up a quarter of the world’s total. My country, Nigeria, is set to double its population to 400 million by then, surpassing the United States to become the third-largest nation in the world.
“This means a huge youthful market right on Europe’s doorstep and — with increased trade a growing middle class with money to spend. However, despite burgeoning possibility, irregular northward migration from my continent drains Africa’s talent pool, while provoking political crises in the EU.
“When it comes to the relationship between the European Union and Africa, unfair arrangements have long been skated over for lack of alternatives.
“Increasingly unsustainable, these one-sided deals have provoked calls from both sides of the Mediterranean for a partnership of equals.
“At the EU-Africa Summit, leaders from across my continent will gather with their European counterparts to transform such rhetoric into substance. The EU is currently Africa’s largest trading partner, and Africa is the fastest-growing continent on earth. While each presents the other with great opportunities, as partners, we also share a host of problems.
“Today, the EU-Africa relationship must be shifted toward a new economic arrangement in order to address them. The relationship between the EU and Africa must be rebalanced to power job creation. Unfortunately, today’s arrangements do just the opposite.
“Where some claim preferential trade policies with the EU lend a helping hand to Africa, the real picture is far more complicated. The Everything but Arms scheme grants 32 African countries tariff-free access to Europe’s protected markets. In addition to the fact that this excludes many of the continent’s 54 nations, there remain barriers to Europe’s markets even for countries that qualify.
“Agricultural subsidies to EU farmers, for example, are not the same as external tariffs, but their effects are the same: They reduce the competitiveness of Africa’s exports. More than €50 billion has been invested in keeping European food prices low. African countries are deprived of foreign cash, and agricultural investment is inhibited because their main export market is biased against them. In the future, it is evident what a new economic agreement between our unions should include: It must provide an opportunity for Africa to enter into a fundamentally new economic relationship. For Europe, it must provide the opportunity to abandon a trading strategy that stifles job growth in Africa and impedes efforts to reduce economic migration to Europe. The path forward is clear; all that remains is for a deal to be achieved.