Meltdown: Nigerians flee US?

By Olaolu Afolabi

Foreign currenciesThe financial meltdown began in the United States, affecting banking, housing and credit, and has gone global. It has affected economic activities worldwide, making both corporate and consumer credits hard to get.

As the crisis bites on, financial institutions appear to be worst-hit.

Around the world, a large number of the institutions have been taken over, declared insolvent or liquidated.

Other sectors affected include the automobile industry, retail companies and airlines, which, due to the credit crunch directly resulting from the troubled financial institutions, have witnessed a steep decline in customer patronage.

As a result, massive job cuts have been carried out by companies in order to survive.

For now, it is all a game of trial and error! No one can say with certainty what could be done to bring economies back to the pre-meltdown era. Stimulus packages, bailouts, among others, are being used by national and transnational authorities to tackle the meltdown.

A direct result of the meltdown has been the emergence of recession in the global economy. The United States, Japan, and most European countries have acknowledged that their economies have entered into recession.

US president, Barack Obama, recently signed into law, a staggering $787 billion recovery package that he hopes will help boost an economy in freefall with a combination of government spending and tax cuts and credits.

But in spite of this, an alarm was raised recently that some Nigerians were leaving the United States because of recession.

But in a reaction, a Nigerian said he had not heard of any Nigerian leaving the US because of the recession.

He said, “If anything, Nigerians are staying put in the US and Europe with the belief that a US recession is still a ‘heaven,’ compared to Nigeria’s.

But it could be confirmed that some Nigerians in the United States have said they are returning home following the impact the global financial crisis is having on the American economy.

In a recent report, a Nigerian living in New York, Paul Onuka, was quoted to have said his family of four was relocating from the United States to Nigeria, because he and his wife had lost their jobs.

“Initially, we have no desire to go home, as we are enjoying our jobs here, but now we are going back to Nigeria because of the present situation,” Onuka was quoted to have said.

Another Nigerian immigrant, who identified himself simply as Kanu in the report, said, “The feeling in the city is that if foreigners have lost their jobs, then they should leave the US to save themselves from unnecessary hardship.’’

He said the economic situation in the States was “very serious and affecting those of us not working,” adding that many Nigerians and other Africans had recently lost their jobs and were finding it difficult to make ends meet.

“Here, it is bills upon bills which you have to pay or the services and utilities will be switched off,’’ Kanu, who formerly worked at Circuit City, a household retail store in New York, lamented in the report.

The company where he worked was among numerous others that had recently closed down, attributing the closure to the current economic crisis facing the global economy.
According to reports, some Nigerians, who lost their jobs or businesses due to the global meltdown, had resorted to either driving taxis or engaging in other menial work to cope with the situation.

The reports indicate that a large number of Nigerians in the diaspora were recently sighted at the Nigerian Consulate in New York processing their old or expired passports for the new e-passport to enable them travel to Nigeria.

A great number of them, according to the report, who had already acquired American citizenship, were also seen processing entry visas to return home.

To confirm the development, according to a report, an official of the Nigerian Consulate in New York, who preferred anonymity, said “the consular section had recently witnessed an upsurge in the number of Nigerians in the US processing travel documents to return home.

“We have, from late last year to date, issued hundreds of visas to Nigerians with American passports and also replaced the passports of others, who either lost them or needed the new e-passports,” the official said.

But the most sympathetic thing is that if these people left the US for Nigeria, what would they come to do at home?

Their trooping en masse into the country might cause untold hardship to some of their relatives to whom they would take residence and on a final note, it would have impact on the economy.

Already, the US had witnessed a significant stock market drop, which preceded the beginning of the country’s recession. About 50 per cent of the cases of significant stock market decline came only after the recessions had already begun.

As these immigrants planned to leave the United States and other big economies, who were taking measures to cushion the effects of global economic recession, the World Bank has warned that a full-blown socio-political crisis is imminent in Nigeria and other African countries owing to the recession.

The bank‘s Vice President for Africa, Mrs. Oby Ezekwesili, in a paper entitled: Africa: Dealing with the Global and Financial Storm, said most African countries were already falling short of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), including halving poverty by 2015.

A Nigerian living in the United States said, “I know of a few who had returned in the last two years, but no massive migration like what was being said. I think people who are returning are doing so temporarily.

“Nigerians were going back long before the recession hit full force. That’s what I thought. Some Nigerians have been going back for reasons other than the recession. Any Nigerian going now had plan to go before.”

Another Nigerian in the US said, “I know a couple of friends who go and come back more often. But I can say yes to that of Latinos. I usually go to this neghbourhood farmers’ markets on weekends to buy fish and meat. I was surprised a couple of weeks ago because this area, which was always bubbling, was almost empty.”

A banker, who worked with a new generation bank in Nigeria, confirmed that the volume and value of Western Union coming into the country had reduced. He said banks now witnessed a surge of money transfers from Nigeria to the US and Europe, as Nigerians at home are trying to assist those abroad to cushion the effect of the global economic crisis.

A Nigerian was quoted to have said that, “What surprised me is that some people are sending money from Nigeria to those living abroad. That defies the known conventional wisdom. If it’s, indeed, happening, it’s happening with very tiny number of rich families in Nigeria.

“In the last 10 years, the middle class, which was almost extinct in Nigeria, is gradually re-emerging again. There are lots of Nigerians in well-paying jobs (banks, telecoms, oil, consultancy etc), who can afford to buy brand new cars and buy homes in all those new sprawling estates in Victoria Island extension.

“These are hardworking Nigerians making a honest living. The new Nigerian middle class is financially comfortable. So I am not surprised that a few of them can afford to send money out to help their brothers abroad who have recently lost their jobs as a result of recession.”

Additional information got from the internet.