In effect, Africa is giving developmental assistance to the United States. What is left behind is the least educated. This means that Africa will be getting poorer while the United States will be getting more affluent. It is this lunacy that Ngugi wa Thiongo alludes to in The Intellectual Legacy of Pan-Africanism. The mind that wants to be judged against the highest possible professional standards is suspect.
Originality is even more suspect.
Many intellectuals have been hounded to prisons, detention camps, to exile and often into their graves. As long as the devaluing of the intellect continues, glaringly portrayed by those we appoint as leaders, the brain drain will continue unabated.