The Senior Special Assistant to the President on Foreign Affairs and Diaspora Hon. Abike Dabiri-Erewa, has said that Diaspora Nigerians are making positive waves all over the world because Diaspora people has become a global force to reckon with.

Dabiri-Erewa made the assertion in a keynote speech in Abuja at a one-day Diaspora Innovation Institute and Disruptive Africa Expo and launching of Diaspora membership ID card in collaboration with Centre for Management Development (CMD).

In a statement by her Special Assistant on Media, Abdur-Rahman Balogun, Dabiri-Erewa said, “Nigerians abroad constitute a large pool of skilled, experienced and well-trained human capital which could provide the critical mass needed to drive the country’s growth’’.

Dabiri-Erewa said with 26 countries of the world having full ministries or commissions on Diaspora, Nigeria cannot be alienated but to key into world Diaspora development.

“With official $21 billion remittances from Nigerians in the Diaspora yearly,  President Muhammadu Buhari’s policies on Diaspora seek to reinforce government’s commitment to this increasingly important demographic with a view to engaging them for national development.

“As part of the effort to provide an institutional framework for furthering the involvement of the Diaspora in the affairs of the country, the current Administration created the Office of the Senior Special Assistant to the President on Foreign Affairs and Diaspora, the first of its kind’’, the statement added.