londoner:

^^^^ really,yet they could all muster up $10 billion dollars in the space of one year to send home, lol.

Each to their own, I wouldn't clean toilets for all the tea in China. Yuk! ! !

I dont either, and thankfully have never had to, but if it were a choice of me cleaning toilets or my children not eating a good meal or having enough clothes for the winter I would clean toilets, without thinking twice.

Even Jesus washed somebody's feet.

I remember when I was at Uni, there was one Nigerian woman who must have been over 60 years old, she used to clean the whole building, which was about four floors. This woman came to work daily so tired and her swollen legs bandaged, climbing the steps one at a time slowly. I used to greet her as "aunty" and the other Nigerians though it funny, (mind you I schooled with some of the children of these Nigerian politicians) and influential people. She sat down and told me how many people are dependent on her and how tired she was at her age.

Because she was working so hard just to keep her family even though you could see she was a bit ashamed. I admired her and remember her to this day.

On the other hand, when one of my friends who I love to bits started displaying her hunger to make yet more money than her millionaire family already had, I felt disgusted at her.

So yes, you are right sleek-p, each to their own.

sleek_p:

Diaspora Nigerians in most cases are  Security guards, 419ers, prostitutes,dish washers, taxi drivers, toilet attendants etc, are these the people we should be proud of?
Make Nigeria a developed nation and you might just end up seating in an office rather than cleaning the office. Goons.

sleek_p,

Why you dey yarn like dis?

Kunle

Well it is not a good comparison to use federal budget to compare remittances from abroad if you really want to know how much diaspora are contributing to the national economy. The ideal thing to use is a GDP comparison which i sated earlier. Our official GDP currently stands at $180 billion. [GDP is total value of economic activity in the formal/legitimate ecomony] The truth is that our real GDP is at least double that cause a lot of economic activity in this country goes unrecorded. Our informal / illegitimate economy might actually be bigger than what formal / legitimate. in other wards our real GDP when our activities are factored in could be as much as $360 billion and that would make the $10 billion Diaspora are sending home to be a paltry 2.7% of out total economy. That to me is not capable of shaking the national economy

This is a skewed reasoning. Why not compare what govt  spends annually with what diasporans send home annually? You are still not accepting the fact that folks in diaspora contribute immensely to  theNigerian economy. Going by your $180b analysis, $10 billion represents 5.5% of the GDP. So you projection of $360 billion as real GPD without taking into account what folks in diaspora send to Naija via unofficial means like carrying raw cash, sending of goods like cars, trucks, wears, computers etc which could could easily be up to $50 billion. So this is still a substantial gain for Naija economy. compare what naija spends in a year with  what folks in diaspora send to Naija in a year. This is no rocket science

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Kunle

Well it is not a good comparison to use federal budget to compare remittances from abroad if you really want to know how much diaspora are contributing to the national economy. The ideal thing to use is a GDP comparison which i sated earlier. Our official GDP currently stands at $180 billion. [GDP is total value of economic activity in the formal/legitimate ecomony] The truth is that our real GDP is at least double that cause a lot of economic activity in this country goes unrecorded. Our informal / illegitimate economy might actually be bigger than what formal / legitimate. in other wards our real GDP when our activities are factored in could be as much as $360 billion and that would make the $10 billion Diaspora are sending home to be a paltry 2.7% of out total economy. That to me is not capable of shaking the national economy

This is a skewed reasoning. Why not compare what govt  spends annually with what diasporans send home annually? You are still not accepting the fact that folks in diaspora contribute immensely to  theNigerian economy. Going by your $180b analysis, $10 billion represents 5.5% of the GDP. So you projection of $360 billion as real GPD without taking into account what folks in diaspora send to Naija via unofficial means like carrying raw cash, sending of goods like cars, trucks, wears, computers etc which could could easily be up to $50 billion. So this is still a substantial gain for Naija economy. compare what naija spends in a year with  what folks in diaspora send to Naija in a year. This is no rocket science

All those Nigeria-no-get-problem people will not understand your post.

sleek_p:

Diaspora Nigerians in most cases are Security guards, 419ers, prostitutes,dish washers, taxi drivers, toilet attendants etc, are these the people we should be proud of?
Make Nigeria a developed nation and you might just end up seating in an office rather than cleaning the office. Goons.

If only you understood the IMPORTANCE of those low level workers to the overall functioning of a civil society, you would maybe appreciate and respect people who do those jobs.

Your families are lazy and hungry, hence you have to support them, whats the big deal in that? Abeg, lets here word - Imagine Indians in the UK raising a topic that they send so so and so to their family in India- you lots are illiterates and your foolishness is begining to amaze me.

tosh_acer:

Your families are lazy and hungry, hence you have to support them, whats the big deal in that? Abeg, lets here word - Imagine Indians in the UK raising a topic that they send so so and so to their family in India- you lots are illiterates and your foolishness is begining to amaze me.

Hmmm, somehow it seems the blue contradicts the red - just an observation.

^^^ lol

wish we can channel all these energies on dealing with those wicked leaders of ours.

The fact is Nigeria has no tourist, the only tourist they have are the diasporas, in many countries Tourism is the highest earners and contribute well over 75 % to their GDP's. Example South Africa and Egypt 2 of African's leading economy relie heavely on tourism. The contributions of our official tourist who happen to be diasporas must not be undermined or devalued rather it should be commendable. The 10 billion figure is 1/8th of all money sent to Naija.

Most people still travel with their cash, why go through the official route and change your ££s for 251 at official rate when you can do it at the un-official rate at 275.00 that is a lot diffrence especially if are changing huge sums of money. I traveled to Nigeria for just one week for Gani's funeral in September 2009, and I had £500.00 for that week, not a penny of this amount came back with me to England. I beleive the number of diasporas that travel like this week in week out are innumerable.

nigerians have this big man mentality which translates to having false image of ourselves.

asha 80:

nigerians have this big man mentality which translates to having false image of ourselves.

Sorry I got your point, but I dont know how to relate it to the issue at hand / topic.

It is good to know that we have contributed to our economy.Imagine a country with 70% of its people living below poverty level all due to corruption in high places.The government should learn from the Nigerians in diaspora to be passionate about its people for i tell you if not for passion it will be hard to spare a penny cos it don't come cheap. we can even do better if the government lift the unnecessary ban on vital things like second hand clothes,used fridges the list is endless some times you have the need to give this things to your loved ones but no it is prohibited how can a poor country like Nigeria prohibit things like used items not even the UK do,no sensible government will do a thing like that it is all politics what they have succeeded in doing is kill competition in the market. Imagine how much the country will make through custom fees, am so sad cant even send my used items to my younger ones.

asha 80:

nigerians have this big man mentality which translates to having false image of ourselves.

Trudat!

ednaa:

It is good to know that we have contributed to our economy.Imagine a country with 70% of its people living below poverty level all due to corruption in high places.The government should learn from the Nigerians in diaspora to be passionate about its people for i tell you if not for passion it will be hard to spare a penny cos it don't come cheap. we can even do better if the government lift the unnecessary ban on vital things like second hand clothes,used fridges the list is endless some times you have the need to give this things to your loved ones but no it is prohibited how can a poor country like Nigeria prohibit things like used items not even the UK do,no sensible government will do a thing like that it is all politics what they have succeeded in doing is kill competition in the market. Imagine how much the country will make through custom fees, am so sad cant even send my used items to my younger ones.

Welcome to Nairaland. Your 1st post and quite sensible too.

Wait oh, don't close the account for 2009 yet, dem never add xmas money yet oh

I worry about all these stats, especially the ones on GDP.

That the World Bank is drawing attention to remittances makes it significant in my view. All these trillions people are talking about, is that money truly generated in Nigeria? Apart from crude oil proceeds, and of recent telecom license sale proceeds, I am not sure exactly how all that $180bn is generated in Nigeria. It's not an industrialised country, we don't have large-scale export except for petroleum and natural gas, and the majority of the people live on a subsistence income either garnered from the government, or from relatives at home or abroad. So I wonder why we would discountenance the remittances.

I think the $10bn is probably like 10-20% of the true amount. Most people send money through people, not through Moneygram and Western Union. Most of the people in Nigeria don't pay tax, especially people who run their own small-scale business. Any business that earns revenue from the consumer market may be indirectly making money from these remittances. If MTN sells recharge cards to someone who is not working or is dependent, possibly on a relative abroad nko? Many of MTN's 20 million plus customers in reality fall into that category anyway. Would you say that money was truly generated in Nigeria? If MTN repatriates these funds to SA,and it is ploughed into the local economy there, it basically means the Nigerians in the Diaspora are indirectly funding SA, adding to the GDP of that nation!

Kobojunkie:

If only you understood the IMPORTANCE of those low level workers to the overall functioning of a civil society, you would maybe appreciate and respect people who do those jobs.

Absolute truth.

AjanleKoko:

I worry about all these stats, especially the ones on GDP.
, 
[b]I think the $10bn is probably like 10-20% of the true amount. Most people send money through people, not through Moneygram and Western Union. [/b]Most of the people in Nigeria don't pay tax, especially people who run their own small-scale business. Any business that earns revenue from the consumer market may be indirectly making money from these remittances. If MTN sells recharge cards to someone who is not working or is dependent, possibly on a relative abroad nko? Many of MTN's 20 million plus customers in reality fall into that category anyway. Would you say that money was truly generated in Nigeria? If MTN repatriates these funds to SA,and it is ploughed into the local economy there, it basically means the Nigerians in the Diaspora are indirectly funding SA, adding to the GDP of that nation!

We need to be careful. 10-20% would bring the amount remitted to Nigeria to $50 to $100b! The World Bank employs professional statisticians and economists in arriving at these figures. These estimates are not the sum total of moneys sent through Western Union and Moneygram - far from it. That would not be scientific. Other means are employed to calculate or factor in moneys sent through other means - including illegal ones. The Bank says the figure is an estimate. It is possible for the $10b figure to an underestimate, it is possible too for it to be an overestimate.
I am not discountenancing the money sent from abroad, of course. Like I said in an earlier post, nobody picks money on the streets, even if it is one naira. Just correcting a fact.

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Kunle

[color=#990000]Well it is not a good comparison to use federal budget to compare remittances from abroad if you really want to know how much
This is a skewed reasoning. Why not compare what govt spends annually with what diasporans send home annually? You are still not accepting the fact that folks in diaspora contribute immensely to theNigerian economy. Going by your $180b analysis, $10 billion represents 5.5% of the GDP. So you projection of $360 billion as real GPD without taking into account what folks in diaspora send to Naija via unofficial means like carrying raw cash, sending of goods like cars, trucks, wears, computers etc which could could easily be up to $50 billion. So this is still a substantial gain for Naija economy. compare what naija spends in a year with what folks in diaspora send to Naija in a year. This is no rocket science

There is no point in deceiving ourselves what your diaspora folks send home is just a tiny fraction of our GDP[economy] it might be a lot to some of you who personally receive it but in the larger economic picture, it is no biggie. You would be amazed the number of Nigerians sending money to support their relatives abroad especially in this times of global meltdown. Comparing remmitance with federal budget alone is very shallow and narrow minded as the federal budget is not a good measure of the level of economic activity in this country.

Londoner,

Thank you for that story. That was the African in you to respect that woman. In Nigeria most of our drivers when I came back home were much older, we call them baba and the cleaners or secretaries were called mama. That was Nigeria, I do not know about today when young boys ask elders to postrate for them.

Many of us do not do nasty job today abroad but I remember through my first couple of weeks after I left my tie at home and started looking for real buru. I got to a car wash at 5 a.m by an ad. I saw the previous day. When I was rejected, I cried and decided to go back to Nigeria like a mommy's boy. What I see here is that after all these many years, many Nigerians still do not respect the dignity of labor.

So I saw this man in Nigeria while in the bus cleaning one of those nasty gutter. Many of the people held their noses and some even saying it out that they will never do that type of job. I asked them if that man changed the shovel he had to a gun demanding money from them, would they respect him? They all looked at one another.

A man who has no respect for the dignity of labor will steal and that is what we have here amongst Nigerians who are not well exposed while overseas because they get looted money sent to them and even worse for those who never left Nigeria not realizing the need for buru or why some remained illegal immigrants even in small African countries.

There were two graduates in Nigeria long time ago who started a biz of picking rubbish up from private companies. Today, they are so big, they have diversified. I will not mention names but that was in Nigeria under the nose of these losers. They have never been productive anyway, they only spend pounds and dollars they never worked for.

londoner:

I dont either, and thankfully have never had to, but if it were a choice of me cleaning toilets or my children not eating a good meal or having enough clothes for the winter I would clean toilets, without thinking twice.

Even Jesus washed somebody's feet.

I remember when I was at Uni, there was one Nigerian woman who must have been over 60 years old, she used to clean the whole building, which was about four floors. This woman came to work daily so tired and her swollen legs bandaged, climbing the steps one at a time slowly. I used to greet her as "aunty" and the other Nigerians though it funny, (mind you I schooled with some of the children of these Nigerian politicians) and influential people. She sat down and told me how many people are dependent on her and how tired she was at her age.

Because she was working so hard just to keep her family even though you could see she was a bit ashamed. I admired her and remember her to this day.

On the other hand, when one of my friends who I love to bits started displaying her hunger to make yet more money than her millionaire family already had, I felt disgusted at her.

So yes, you are right sleek-p, each to their own.

Hmm. Are you saying the World Bank is infallible? To a large extent, I suspect those statisticians will base their estimates on published remittance figures from agencies like Western Union, as well as surveys and interviews with a sample of Nigerians in the Diaspora. That's guaranteed to be off the mark, as a lot of people would probably not let on just how much they send home informally.

But that's not the point anyway. Whether $10bn or $2bn, I am much more concerned about our so-called stated GDP. We say we generate, what, $180bn GDP locally? My question is, how?
Now I'm no economist but. . . when you look at our local economy, we don't really produce anything. We export oil and natural gas, and government taxes multinationals, which form like 90% of tax-paying business. The banking sector to a large extent depends on government funds, individuals and SMEs to a large extent do not pay tax, or are undertaxed, and nowadays government is not even financing infrastructure projects anymore. We have a huge unemployed labour force, very few small-scale enterpreneurs, and hardly any infrastructure that can support growth.
To a large extent, government revenue, either from oil proceeds or IGR, is likely to be repatriated as we don't even have local expertise to support government projects. They hire foreign contractors for just about everything, or even spend more by their so-called local-content policy, which merely creates a class of middlemen or brokers. To cut a long story short, the bulk of the funds in the system finds its way out to other economies.

If the $180bn story is true, I'd like to know what it is made up of. Maybe you guys can provide some insights. But I suspect that, just in the same way that local funds are largely outside the banking system, this so-called GDP may just be made up of a significant chunk of repatriated funds from Nigerians abroad!

I for one I am a business man living in the UK- my business is in Nigeria and I do the opposite of what these folks are happy about - my business in Nigeria sustains me here, i.e. I receive money from Nigeria to live here, meaning, I dont lift a finger as per work here, what is the big deal in sending money home? The big deal, to me, is being able to live and sustain yourself from your business back home, that is what we are talking about.

AjanleKoko:

Hmm. Are you saying the World Bank is infallible? To a large extent, I suspect those statisticians will base their estimates on published remittance figures from agencies like Western Union, as well as surveys and interviews with a sample of Nigerians in the Diaspora. That's guaranteed to be off the mark, as a lot of people would probably not let on just how much they send home informally.

But that's not the point anyway. Whether $10bn or $2bn, I am much more concerned about our so-called stated GDP. We say we generate, what, $180bn GDP locally? My question is, how?
Now I'm no economist but. . . when you look at our local economy, we don't really produce anything. We export oil and natural gas, and government taxes multinationals, which form like 90% of tax-paying business. The banking sector to a large extent depends on government funds, individuals and SMEs to a large extent do not pay tax, or are undertaxed, and nowadays government is not even financing infrastructure projects anymore. We have a huge unemployed labour force, very few small-scale enterpreneurs, and hardly any infrastructure that can support growth.
To a large extent, government revenue, either from oil proceeds or IGR, is likely to be repatriated as we don't even have local expertise to support government projects. They hire foreign contractors for just about everything, or even spend more by their so-called local-content policy, which merely creates a class of middlemen or brokers. To cut a long story short, the bulk of the funds in the system finds its way out to other economies.

If the $180bn story is true, I'd like to know what it is made up of. Maybe you guys can provide some insights. But I suspect that, just in the same way that local funds are largely outside the banking system, this so-called GDP may just be made up of a significant chunk of repatriated funds from Nigerians abroad!

Gross Domestic Product[GDP] is the total value of goods and services produced in an economy within one year net of external trade. It gives a fair idea of the size of the economy of the country in perspective. However to know the real or average impact on it's citizens we also have what we call the per capita income which is the GDP divided by the population of that country. In our case our per capita income currently stands at $1200 per person[capita] which is really small. What this means is that the average Nigerian earns $1,200[N180,000] per anum. So in real terms whilst $180 billion dollars might sound like a lot of money, for a country with the population of Nigeria it is still very small. In the U.K their per capita income is over $60,000 whilst our neighbouring Ghana per capita is almost $3,000.


PS: The above figures of Nigeria's GDP are merely official figures which are far from accurate, it is my opinion that our GDP is much higher than that.

The figures for GDP are pretty accurate since of couse they don't by definition include remittances but rather the total value of goods and services produced in a country.
So what they count are exports and goods and services produced and consumed locally.
Of course you don't expect them to include proceeds from activities like 419 and drug trafficking.

how much of this money is from yahoo yahoo deals?

I checked the world bank's website. actually the $10B is remitted in 2008.

tensor777:

The figures for GDP are pretty accurate since of couse they don't by definition include remittances but rather the total value of goods and services produced in a country.
So what they count are exports and goods and services produced and consumed locally.
Of course you don't expect them to include proceeds from activities like 419 and drug trafficking.

The figures can't possibly be accurate as at least 50% of the economic activities is informal and illegal sector which does not go recorded. Most Nigerains don't make tax returns hence goverment is not able to capture this activity a record it as a part of our GDP. Calculation of GDP does not allow for estimates only officially recorded data is acceptable. But whilst over 90% of economic activites is captured and recorded in the western world less than 50% is captured in countries like Nigeria hence our GDP figures are faulty. I think the problem is the econmic fathers employing the same standards for all countries irrespective of their level of development. However this leads to faulty economic planning as the realities on ground are not captured. For instance in 2001 when MTN first rolled out their network in Nigeria they planned to build a much smaller network based on the low GDP and per capita income figures they were supplied with, it took them only three months to realize thiere was something wrong with the figures as their revenue projections for one year was surpassed in only three months, they went back to the drawing board and expanded but they could't keep up with the demand which they already planned for base on our faulty GDP figure. This then made the then MD of MTN to declare that our GDP figures must be grossly understated as the Average revenue per subscriber then was even higher than some supposedly richer european countries. Today MTN Nigeria is by far richer than it's parent company in South Africa even though there is a lot more competition in Nigeria [over 20 operational telcos] as opposed to only four operators in South Africa. This is even a pointer to the fact that Nigeria's GDP is potentially larger than South Africa's cause G.S.M business penetrates all levels of the economy and revenues derived from there is a good reflection of the strength of the economy in real terms becos the income from the informal and illegal sectors which GDP doesn't capture goes into G.S.M revenues as such a good statistican can determine a more accurate GDP using the average percentage of income spent on telecommunications by Nigerians and extrapolating it to get a more accurate figure

Well as far as agriculture is concerned Nigeria does produce an amazingly wide variety of products, including cocoa, grondnuts, palm oil maize rice sorghum millet yams rubber, cattle, sheep goats timber fish and cassava of which Nigeria is the world leader in. Agriculture accounts for over 18% of GDP and employs 70% of the populace.

Furthermore Nigeria does have light and heavy industry which accounts for 50% of GDP. Proucts here include crude oil, natural gas, solid minerals, textiles cement hides and skins processed food construction materials chemicals ceramics and ship construction

Last but not least and thanks to the SAP program of the mid-eighties the service industry accounts for over 30% of GDP. Included here are banking insurance, legal and accounting services, public sector services, medical and pharmaceutical services, transport and automobile services, wholesale and retail merchandise and the entertainment industry

Moreover unemploynent rate in Nigeria is about 5%. Yes the jobs may not all be in air-conditioned offices but they are still jobs from which Nigerians earn income and what's more the goods and services produced are tangible and easy to record or failing that for a trained statistician or econometrist to estimate.

So for anyone here to come and state that the figures are inaccurate or that Nigerians are being sustained by remittances  is  being disingenuous