Last week, the push came from the NIDO. Now, a group of accomplished Nigerian professionals in the US has expressed their eagerness to come home and invest in the Nigerian economy to fast–track the development of the country.
Some of the professionals, who spoke at the inauguration of the Nigerian-American Business Forum at Florida last Saturday, said they were determined to use their wealth of experience to develop their fatherland.
They said many of them started out from Nigeria where they had free world-class education and were able to compete and succeed on the global stage, pointing out that it is now time to give back to their country.
The forum inaugurated several work groups tasked with fashioning out practicable solutions to some of the challenges currently militating against the development of the country.The infrastructure and technology work group was constituted by professionals within America’s Fortune 500 Corporation, with expertise in engineering, information technology, architecture, electrical power and modern agriculture infrastructure, among others.
A member of the group, Mr. Gboyega Alade, said, “We have been doing great things in America and now, we want to transfer our expertise back home. I am in charge of Smart Cities in Los Angeles; if I can do it for Los Angeles, I can do it for Nigeria. “We have to change the narratives about Nigeria; we are ready to partner with the Nigerian Government”.
The President of the US-based forum, Mr. Kenneth Shobola, said the group could take on any world-class building, engineering and technology project in Nigeria, including road construction.
Mr. Shobola, particularly, urged the federal government to utilise the group’s expertise for the construction of the Lagos-Ibadan expressway, which he said has been under construction since he was young.
As he put it, “We have our Diaspora eager to come home. Most of us here are comfortable and don’t need to come home but Nigeria is our home”. The ball is in the federal government’s court
