KAYODE OYĚRO
On October 20 2016, Nigeria’s business pride, Aliko
Dangote fired thirty-six expatriates working for his
company, Dangote Group and replaced them with
blacks, Nigerians. Fantastic move!
Let me take some time to X-ray why Nigerian business
tycoons import expatriates into their kennels. I am not
in their shoes, so, I cannot certainly tell their reason(s)
for employing whites. But from observation, “technical
competence” and “pride” may be the dominant
rationales.
While the first reason can be excused, I find the
second reason baseless and shamefully ridiculous. I
find the self-gratifying ego of the “I have so and so
numbers of expatriates working in my team” behavior
as a loud belch of inferiority complex.
What is special in having white men work for you when
these guys are sometimes “uneducated folks” who only
acquired one or two skills from technical schools?
Is having them work for you a measure of quality or
success in business?
Okay, let’s agree that these whites employed by
Nigerians were recruited because of their technical
know-how and capability, the question now is: is it a
crime to give Nigerians who also have the same
technical skill and wherewithal the same chance?
Let us put sentiments aside and reel simply on the
wheels of logic. The cost of maintaining an expatriate
in Nigeria is suicidal. As their employer, you pay their
remuneration in foreign currency, any currency they
want – no thanks to the Naira interchange rate.
Second is: you lodge them in five stars hotels all
through their stay – correct me if I am wrong. You also
must get them home-made dishes. This means getting
all their meals from a Chinese restaurant if the so-
called expatriate is a Chinese. The same applies to
others from other climes. Overhead cost will run you
bankrupt if care is not taken.
The savvy Nigerian Industrialist, Aliko Dangote
definitely identified this wasteful spending. Every
business owner is always looking for wise ways to cut
operational costs and still get the best in terms of
quality input and profitable output. Letting go of those
expatriates and replacing them with Nigerians who can
do the job (and who are less expensive to maintain
unlike the money-gulping expatriates) is business
sense for Africa’s richest man. But while his decision is
laudable, must he wait for recession and the
skyrocketing foreign interchange rate to force him
before he can replace those expatriates with qualified
Nigerians?
Let us face it. Nigerians are brilliant, intelligent and
upward-mobile thinking people. We have the brain. Call
my position here sentiments and I will tell you
perception is relative and impression is subjective.
There are amazing Nigerians who are techies and
technocrats in their respective fields of endeavour.
Google is full of thousands of Nigerians in the
Diaspora who are holding key positions and doing
amazingly fantastic, delivery-wise. The black techie
guy that accompanied Zuckerberg of the Facebook
fame to Nigeria the other day is a Nigerian and top
techie at Facebook. He is just one out of many
thousands Nigerians making the waves outside there if
you ask Google.
It is not only in the world of business that competent
Nigerians have been abandoned for expatriates, the
world of sports, football especially, is also replete with
this trend. Many a time in history, the FA had spent
millions of bucks on white coaches when some
Nigerian coaches can do better, with far lesser cost of
maintenance. If you doubt me, scroll down the pages
of history and check the coaches with the highest
number of nation cup wins, world-cup qualifiers and
general performance and you will be waohed!
I think the expatriate glorification phenomenon is a
mindset that must be purged. Call it Inferiority Complex
or Low Self-esteem and you are all correct!
I do not have any qualms with multi-national Nigerian
businesses that employ expatriates on the basis of
merit and not ego. But it is time to reinforce IN ACTION
that the Hamitic Theory is a defeated hypothesis.
Everything good that has ever happened to Africa was
not brought about by non-Africans.
With the biting recession and surging index of
unemployment in Nigeria, other business owners in the
giant of Africa may need to borrow a leaf from
Dangote. They may need to show the expatriates in
their team the exit door and replace them with
Nigerians who have commensurate competence and
experience. Aside that this move is cost-effective for
them, serving them the pink letter and substituting
them with qualified Nigerians is indeed proof of
patriotism.
‘Kayodě Oyero writes from Lagos, South-West, Nigeria.
He tweets @Imodoye_1
