The sending countries include Nigeria, Ethiopia, South Africa, and Ghana. Nigeria has 100,000 immigrants in the United States alone. Nigerians and Africans are the most educated ethnic groups in the United States. The wars in Ethiopia, Sudan, Angola and Zaire contributed to the brain drain problem. Brain drain makes it difficult to create a middle class consisting of doctors, engineers and other professionals.
Brain drain gives rise to poor leadership and corruption.
A large educated middle class will ensure that political power is transferred by ballots instead of by bullets. When the medical doctors emigrate to the United States, the poor are forced to seek medical treatment from traditional healers while the elite fly to London for their routine medical checkups. Nigerian government officials are using tax payer's money to travel abroad for routine medical check-ups and malarial treatment. It is the best and brightest that can emigrate, leaving behind the weak and less imaginative. It means a slow death for Africa.