Analysts weigh in on US advisory council visit to Nigeria

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Abu­ja — A U.S. advi­so­ry coun­cil on African dias­po­ra engage­ment is in Nige­ria on a mis­sion to dis­cuss dias­po­ra-led invest­ments across sec­tors includ­ing edu­ca­tion, health, tech­nol­o­gy and the cre­ative indus­tries. Ana­lysts weigh in on the pur­pose of the visit.

Del­e­gates to the 12-mem­ber President’s Advi­so­ry Coun­cil on African Dias­po­ra Engage­ment were in Nige­ri­a’s eco­nom­ic cen­ter, Lagos, Mon­day for talks with cre­ative indus­try play­ers. It was the coun­cil’s first meet­ing in Africa and sec­ond overall.

Accord­ing to an offi­cial state­ment, meet­ings with gov­ern­ment, civ­il soci­ety and pri­vate sec­tor play­ers in Nige­ria are also sched­uled to dis­cuss invest­ments in edu­ca­tion, entre­pre­neur­ship, health and technology.

God­b­less Otubu­re, pres­i­dent of the non­prof­it Ready­toLeadAfrica, said the vis­it is timely.

“I think it’s a strate­gic meet­ing; it is impor­tant espe­cial­ly at this time where we have a lot of chal­lenges around the world, with­in the sub-region and specif­i­cal­ly in Nige­ria. They under­score the val­ue that the Unit­ed States places on its rela­tions with not just Nige­ria but the African dias­po­ra com­mu­ni­ty in the Unit­ed States,” said Otubure.

The coun­cil was set up by the U.S. gov­ern­ment last Sep­tem­ber to advise on ways to fos­ter eco­nom­ic, cul­tur­al, social, and polit­i­cal rela­tions among African com­mu­ni­ties and Africans in the diaspora.

Author­i­ties say the Nige­ria vis­it under­scores the coun­cil’s effort to build part­ner­ships and pro­mote invest­ments that can sig­nif­i­cant­ly ben­e­fit the African con­ti­nent and its dias­po­ra communities.

Accord­ing to a 2018–2022 Amer­i­can Com­mu­ni­ty Sur­vey, 45.3 mil­lion for­eign nation­als live in the Unit­ed States, with an esti­mat­ed 2.1 mil­lion com­ing from sub-Saha­ran Africa.

Cana­da, Ger­many, Italy, the Unit­ed King­dom and Unit­ed States have the high­est num­ber of Nige­ri­ans liv­ing abroad.

Last year, Nige­ria account­ed for $19.5 bil­lion or about 35% of sub-Saha­ran Africa’s total remit­tances, accord­ing to a World Bank report.

Otubu­re said the coun­cil’s vis­it will add a bet­ter struc­ture for invest­ments on the con­ti­nent by Africans in the diaspora.

“When you put a struc­ture to the invest­ment that dias­po­ra com­mu­ni­ty in the U.S. espe­cial­ly of African descent are mak­ing, then you cre­ate more ties,” he said. “Peo­ple are able to see that what they have in the U.S. is what they’re also look­ing at cre­at­ing back home and you export cul­ture, edu­ca­tion best prac­tices. This meet­ing is very impor­tant because a lot of con­ver­sa­tions around the African Con­ti­nen­tal Free Trade Agree­ment — what is the role of the African com­mu­ni­ty in that? How do they bring that con­ver­sa­tion to the U.S. market?”

Roti­mi Olawale, co-founder of the non­prof­it Youth Hub Africa, also spoke about the coun­cil’s visit.

“The vis­it is a wel­come devel­op­ment as you know the U.S. is look­ing for ways to max­i­mize rela­tion­ships with oth­er coun­tries by focus­ing on the dias­po­ra. Nige­ria is one of the most edu­cat­ed migrant groups in the U.S. and Nige­ria is also lead­ing in terms of the remit­tances on the African con­ti­nent. There are quite a lot of ben­e­fits if we har­ness the pro­fes­sion­al­ism, expe­ri­ence and tech­nol­o­gy know how — that the dias­po­ra can con­tribute,” said Olawale.

The coun­cil will dis­cuss youth and women empow­er­ment, and the pro­mo­tion of cre­ative industries.

The team will hold meet­ings in Abu­ja on Tues­day and Wednes­day before departing.