Hello everybody,

What a heated debate so far!

Thanks for the plethora of emails you inundated me with. Please keep them coming. I will answer everything. As one guy earlier noted, I am currently 'jobless' and looking for how to waste my time.

I agree that Nigerian graduates get jobs. I also had a goodish one before I left. In fact, I know of many, many people, that we graduated together, who now work for big oil/multinational companies in Nigeria. They all studied in Nigeria and never went abroad. I also know of many jobless graduates abroad, especially in the UK that is a saturated place, who are Nigerians. It is really not a bad thing to study in Nigeria, I also did study in Nigeria and that is somehow giving me an edge here now because I am viewed as competitive in just about anything I do, even though I was not the best student while in Nigeria. However, the goal of studying abroad is to widen your chances. Some months ago, I did the Standard Chartered Bank Graduate Development Programme stuff and they even conducted an interview with me on phone. I am sure that would have been a tall dream if I were not currently where I am. If I had finished my graduate studies then, may be I would have been with them today. The HR manager personally asked me if I would be coming to Nigeria in December, but I said no. I have no regrets sha because I am now better of. See, guys, if one has a good job in Nigeria, let one continue working. If one has a job that pays far less than 100K per month and later gets a scholarship to go and study abroad, one should immediately resign and go abroad to study. There are many things we can do with international qualifications, especially qualifications from universities in the top 300 world rankings. First, if your dream is to do a PhD at the best university you can possibly think of, then an international degree will help you do that. Gone are the days when people with any degree from any Nigerian universities were sponsored to go and study in Harvard. Even PTDF and the likes, as you all know, are not that easy anymore. Second, if your dream is to land the best possible job anywhere in the world, then an international degree will help you do just that. The limits are boundless (mathematicians, is this well said?). Finally, studying abroad makes you break the barrier of obtaining a visa to any countries forever. You can easily attend conferences here and there. Your visa will be stamped every time. Getting a US visa was a piece of cake for one of my Ghanaian colleagues here. She just went there for a conference, stayed for just three weeks and came back. She has forever sealed the deal of getting a US visa. I could go on and give many, many more examples of several people. I would have used my own example again, but I don't want to sound pompous. For me, getting any visa is now a piece of cake for me forever and ever, Amen. Again, this does not imply that it is impossible to do well with a degree from our local universities in Nigeria. My elder brother went to one of the worst state universities in Nigeria where cult activities were the order of the day. Yet, he was able to secure a job with one of the top multinational companies in Nigeria, B.. T.b..co, where he worked for years and made some cool cash before he resigned and went to study at one of the respectable schools in the world.

Some of us on this forum just have a natural beef for people studying outside the country. I for one, I never had a beef for anybody studying outside Nigeria even when I was in Nigeria. Why the beef? Do you think they are better than you are? Perhaps no; they are just privileged to study in the UK probably because their parents are rich or they had stellar grades during their undergraduate studies. No one is boasting about that studying in the UK is the best. UK schools saps people's money and yet some of them are just slightly better than what we have in Nigeria. In the language of mathematics, we say the difference between some UK schools and schools in Nigeria is epsilon, where epsilon is bigger than 0. I earlier said this, and I know what I am saying.

Finally, to those who share my reasoning and would like to get the study abroad information, please include in your emails the following details:

Undergraduate degree/final CGPA and class of degree/Alma mater

Proposed graduate programme(s)

Willingness to take the GRE/TOEFL


Thank you, God bless you all, God bless Africa and God bless Nigeria .