Over the years, Nigerians abroad have been portrayed very negatively. Headlines are made out of drug peddling, human trafficking, cybercrime, and fraud when a Nigerian is involved.
Meanwhile, many Nigerians in the Diaspora are contributing tremendously to the development of their host countries.
Usually, when a Nigerian breaks a record, nothing of the individual’s Nigerian origin is mentioned. The resident country usually takes all the accolades while the individual and his country of origin are left for the public to figure out.
Rev. Father Hassan Matthew Kukah, Catholic Bishop of Sokoto Diocese affirmed, in the following words, the aforementioned fact about the excellence of Nigerians in diaspora:
“Look at what has happened to us in England. In one fell swoop, seven of our sons were elected into the British Parliament, an unprecedented feat in the history of democracy anywhere in the world. The following week, England won the Under-21 World Cup with the assistance of five young men of Nigerian descent.”
Matthew Kukah
In any great center of learning around the world, there are several Nigerian academics teaching and researching, and many Nigerian students as star academic apprentices.
The country is laden with notable football players of Nigerian ancestry in European leagues, musicians creating innovative rhymes in several countries, likewise writers such as Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, Biyi Bandele Thomas, among others.
According to reports, history was made at the recent Howard University’s 148th Commencement Convocation in Washington DC, where out of 96 graduating Doctor of Pharmacy candidates, 43 were Nigerians. And out of 27 merit awards winners, 16 were also Nigerians.
Research has it that there are over 15 million Nigerians living, working or studying in different parts of the world.
Highly resourceful, Nigerians do well in most countries where they land. As a survey showed, Nigerians in the U.S. are one of the highest educated migration groups.
Similarly, it has been found that U.S. public schools are increasingly being filled with black and Hispanic students, but “gifted” children identified in those schools were mostly Asians. Of particular interest is the revelation that among the most prominent immigrant students are Nigerians.
In fact, Nigerians are doing extraordinary and remarkable things abroad. This cuts across different areas, bits, and talents. They are those that the nation could be proud of at any point. Here is a list of some of them.
Akinwumi “Akin” is the President of the African Development Bank. He previously served as Nigeria’s Minister of Agriculture and Rural Development.
Until his appointment as Minister in 2010, he was Vice President of Policy and Partnerships for the Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa (AGRA).
A graduate of the University of Ife, (now Obafemi Awolowo University) Adeshina also previously worked at the Rockefeller Foundation.
Oteh is the Treasurer and a Vice President of the World Bank. She became the Director-General of the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) in Nigeria in January 2010. She was responsible for the regulation of Nigeria’s capital markets, including the Nigerian Stock Exchange.
Ms. Oteh is credited for sanitizing Nigeria’s capital market during her time as the Director-General of the Securities & Exchange Commission (SEC).
She is from Abia State and studied at the University of Nigeria, Nsukka, earning a first-class honors degree in Computer Science. She went on to the Harvard Business School where she obtained a master’s degree in Business Administration.
She co-edited the book African Voices African Visions.
Barkindo is the secretary-general of the Organisation of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC). He was also the former special assistant to Late Rilwan Lukman, also a former secretary-general of OPEC. He was appointed as the group managing director of the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) in 2009.
Barkindo is from Yola, Adamawa State. He completed academic degrees from Ahmadu Bello University, Zaria, Nigeria, with a B.sc in political science and Southeastern University (Washington, D.C., USA).
He earned a postgraduate diploma from Oxford University and was awarded an honorary doctorate from the Federal University of Technology Yola.
Dr. Ali Pate is the Global Director, Health, Nutrition and Population (HNP) Global Practice of the World Bank and the Director of Global Financing Facility for Women, Children, and Adolescents (GFF), based in Washington DC.
Dr. Pate, a U.S. and Nigerian national, was until recently the Chief Executive Officer of Big Win Philanthropy based in the UK. Prior to that, he held several senior positions, including that of Minister of State for Health in the Federal Republic of Nigeria.
He was previously in the World Bank Group where he joined as a Young Professional in 2000 and worked on health issues in several regions, including Africa and the East Asia and Pacific.
Dr. Pate is an MD trained in both Internal Medicine and Infectious Diseases, with an MBA from Duke University. Prior to this, he studied at University College London. He also has a Masters in Health System Management from the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine, UK.
Muhammad Ali Pate was born in the Misau local government area of Bauchi State in Nigeria. Dr. Pate graduated from high school to enter the Ahmadu Bello University (ABU) medical school in Kaduna State, Nigeria.
Babington-Ashaye is an economist, a management scientist and a Chartered Accountant. He regularly collaborates with corporations, governments, non-profit organizations, and individual leaders.
Yemi uses strategy, management and leadership expertise to design and deliver innovative solutions.
A former Director and Deputy Head of Africa at the World Economic Forum, Yemi diversified the organization’s Africa operations and created a pan-African Community of Presidents, Ministers, CEOs and other leaders across sectors, interacting on the global agenda.
As Head of the Global Shapers Community, Yemi developed and executed a strategy to empower youth by building the Global Shapers Community to over 450 cities in 170+ countries and territories.
This included a presence in at least one city in every African country. Yemi designed and implemented a distributed leadership strategy securing over 7,000 members and impacting over one million lives through projects.
Boyega is an English actor known for playing Finn in the 2015 film Star Wars: The Force Awakens and its 2017 sequel Star Wars: The Last Jedi, respectively the seventh and eighth films of the Star Wars series. Boyega rose to prominence in his native United Kingdom for his role as Moses in the 2011 sci-fi comedy film Attack the Block.
He started acting in school plays from an early age right down to his late teens when he trained at the Identity School of Acting, Hackney.
Before his huge breakout role in the latest installment of the Star Wars franchise, he acted in the film adaptation of Half of A Yellow Sun, written by fellow Nigerian, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie.
Notably, he was an acquaintance of Damilola Taylor, the Nigerian schoolboy in England who was gunned down in 2000. The story made major headline news. Boyega received the BAFTA Rising Star Award in 2016.
When Hollywood decides to film a movie based on your life, then you know you’ve hit it big.
The Nigerian-American physician, forensic pathologist and neuropathologist has gone down in history as the first to publish findings on chronic traumatic encephalopathy, changing the face of sports medicine as we know it.
Omalu was born in Nnokwa, Idemili South, Anambra in southeastern Nigeria on September 30, 1968, the sixth of seven siblings. He was born during the Nigerian Civil War, which caused his family to flee from their home in the predominantly Igbo village of Enugu-Ukwu in southeastern Nigeria. They returned two years after Omalu’s birth.
Omalu began primary school at age three and earned entrance into the Federal Government College Enugu for secondary school education. He attended medical school, starting at age 16, at the University of Nigeria, Nsukka.
After graduation with a bachelor of medicine and bachelor of surgery (MBBS) in June 1990, he completed a clinical internship, followed by three years of service work doctoring in the city of Jos.
Omalu holds eight advanced degrees and board certifications, later receiving fellowships in pathology and neuropathology through the University of Pittsburgh in 2000 and 2002 respectively, a master of public health (MPH) in epidemiology in 2004 from University of Pittsburgh Graduate School of Public Health, and a master of business administration (MBA) from Tepper School of Business at Carnegie Mellon University in 2008.
Omalu is a professor in the UC Davis department of medical pathology and laboratory medicine.