The Role Of People In Diaspora In Community Development/Nation Building
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Ladies and gentlemen, I am honoured to be asked to present a short talk on the role of people in diaspora in community development. In the name of the creator, I commenced.
I do not think there is a need to define terms as I believe my audience are already aware of the meaning of the terms in my topic. Unlike some, who take diaspora to mean those in countries outside of one's country of birth, I will be exercising my poetic licence to extend diaspora canopy to cover people in other places other their hometown, this is because a sizeable percentage of Iwo 'diasporans' are within Nigeria. We will leave them in limbo if they are not covered by the diaspora term, as they also do not qualify as home based since they no longer live in Iwoland. Some of them even visit home less frequently than some diasporans in foreign countries.
Having succeeded in my acrobatics to coopt every Iwo indigene from Port Harcourt to Abidjan , from Abuja to Estonia and from Australia to Accra, it is time to now discuss what their role should be in developing the community they are proud to call hometown.
By the virtue of their exposure to foreign places, culture, peoples and technologies, diasporans are uniquely placed to greatly help the development of their community. Almost all the great civilisations have benefited immensely from their citizens abroad. From western Europe's appropriation of scientific knowledge from Islamic Andalusia to the Chinese 'borrowing' of modern technology and ideas through its citizens in western countries, the list is endless. No nation or community is an island onto itself, and the role of people in diaspora to help their community cannot be overemphasized.
I will highlight few of these roles because of time and space:
A- Ideas transplant
B- Economic Development
C- Cultural exportation
D- Deepening understanding.
1. IDEA TRANSPLANT.
Like I said earlier, every great civilisation has had cause to borrow ideas from others and people in diaspora help tremendously in this regard. It may be in improvement in agricultural practices you come across in Kebbi or Texas. It may be in simple do-it-yourself ideas you see on the streets of Brussels or in the swamps of Niger Delta. If it works there then there is possibility it may work in your community too. The diaspora can understudy this new methodology with the aim of teaching same to relevant people back home.
No idea is too small to be transplanted and no civilization is to great to borrow from others.
Suffice to add that our diasporans are playing this role, but it would be great to see them double their effort in this regard. I'm especially fascinated by the opportunity we have in learning new farming practices that are easy to practice and capable of enhancing yield. Diasporans can come home and implement this new found knowledge and others would follow in suit when they see the positive results. Imagine if our diasporans in east Africa can come home to teach us the secret behind east Africa's success in large animal production.
We can also benefit from ideas on community mobilization and community communication among others, let me point out that not all ideas are worthy of being borrow from as their applicability may be impossible in our clime. But this reality should not stop from taking from others and adapting same to our realities for community development.
2. ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT.
This should not be over flogged as our diasporans, especially those in foreign countries, are already trying their best. They contribute hundreds of billions of naira every year to Nigeria's economy in remittance. This is truly breathtaking and undeniably commendable.
The only thing one can encourage diasporans is to set apart part of their remittance to investment in their community. Instead of giving younger and older ones hand out charity, they should rather find a way of investing in people of their community and also in their community. In fact there could a trust fund established by diasporans strictly for this. Like they say, don't give people fish teach them how to fish. In fact an individual diasporan can notice a product in demand in his place of residence with possibility of import from his hometown. He can then invest in people back home to produce this product in commercial quantity and export same.
3. CULTURAL EXPORTATION. Closely related point above is cultural exportation. Our diasporans are our true cultural ambassadors who can help in spreading our culture and help derive economic benefit from this. Wear our attires, eat our food, spread our language. Perhaps we can make one of our cuisines some things others would crave. Through this, we put our community on the works map, earn foreign exchange for our community and empower our people. Isn't this great?
4. DEEPENING UNDERSTANDING.
Travelling is one of the greatest teachers. We learn new things when we travel, meet new people, engage in new activities. Before our eyes we discover how nonsensical the stereotypes we had about a people. We become transformed. When we come back home, it is our job not to entrench untrue stereotype in order to sound funny. It is incumbent on us to help deepen understanding by presenting nuanced picture of where eve r we've been to. Thank you.
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Written By: Mr Sodiq Alabi
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