Talking Brain Drain And Beyond (Part I)
The term brain drain is usually used to describe the exodus of a country’s intellectuals to foreign lands, mainly for greener pastures. The issue is considered so significant that Vice President Dr. Mahamudu Bawumia recently attributed Africa’s underdevelopment to the massive brain drain it suffered in the post-colonial era.
But that is just one face of the coin.
In our considered view, however, a nation’s brains do not necessarily have to travel out for greener pastures to be considered as draining away. We dare say that brain drain includes the failure of the people to adequately tap the talents of the citizenry, whether they travel out or not.
To what extent have we capitalized on the talents of Professor Francis Kofi Ampenyin Allotey, the Ghanaian mathematician and scientist who formulated the technique used to determine Matter in Outer Space before he passed?
The same can be asked about Nana Kofi Drobo III, the Ghanaian herbalist and high priest of the Kwaku Fri Shrine, who was murdered just at the time he was about to declare and launch his new-found cure for HIV/AIDS.
THE PUBLISHER thinks the recent passing of more leaders makes the picture more scary.
On 29th June, 2018, we lost William Edmund Davidson Paa Kwesi Amissah-Arthur, a valuable economist, academic and politician at the prime age of sixty-seven.
A fortnight later (12th July, 2018), we again lost a veteran politician, economist, distinguished technocrat and elder statesman, Mr. Joseph Henry Mensah at age eighty-nine (July 12, 2018).
Reports say some critics and observers, at a point, even wondered whether he would not have been awarded the Nobel Prize in Economics, if he had been a white man or a European.
Four weeks later (18th August), we woke up to the sudden death of Kofi Atta Annan, the 7th Secretary-General of the United Nations who led the world body through one of the most turbulent periods of its 60-year history, and co-recipient of the 2001 Nobel Peace Prize.
Kofi Annan was awarded the Peace Prize for having revitalized the UN and for having given priority to human rights. The Nobel Committee also recognized his commitment to the struggle to contain the spreading of the HIV virus in Africa and his declared opposition to international terrorism.
And as if that was not enough, the death of Vincent Cyril Richard Arthur Charles Crabbe, former Justice of the Supreme Court was announced on 7th September, 2018 at age ninety-five.
The paper wishes to call on governments and stakeholders to find a way the country can benefit from the talented living heroes before they are called to glory.
To us, brain drain is ongoing on the blind side of many because we have limited ourselves to those who travel out of the country.
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