FOR years governments in Africa have talked optimistically of reversing the brain drain, as thousands of professionals have continued to travel abroad in search of better opportunities than they could find in their homeland.

Now, however, there are signs that some of these skilled workers could be making their way back.

Companies that operate in Nigeria, from small local banks to vast multinationals such as Shell, are scouting the world to find talented Nigerians living abroad whom they might tempt into coming home, promising generous salaries and help with relocation.

Over the weekend, recruiters from Shell, GE, Citigroup and the Lagos-based Diamond Bank visited the Jobs in Nigeria exhibition in London in search of willing candidates.

“In the past, they would have hired foreigners,” says Shola Ajani, the organiser of the two-day event and the founder of the recruitment website nigeriajobsonline.com. “Because there are equally qualified Nigerians living abroad, they might as well hire them.”

Tayo Ariyo, a recruiter from Shell, says the company began a campaign this year to target Nigerians abroad and needed to recruit hundreds of people each year. “We see them as a key source of talent that we haven’t utilised as much as we could have done,” she said. “Given the expansion prospects in Nigeria, we see this as an ideal event to target Nigerians abroad and persuade them to come back and work for us in their home country. ”

According to Mr Ajani, who returned to Nigeria in 2004 after working for 15 years as a public sector consultant in the UK, 1,000 people registered for the jobs fair, which took place on Friday and Saturday.

He says expatriates were leaving the UK to set up their own businesses in Nigeria or to take up jobs in the telecoms industry and in banking, a sector that is consolidating rapidly.

Recruiters at the event believe that Nigeria’s return to democracy under President Olusegun Obasanjo, the Government’s economic reforms and increasing levels of investment in Africa’s biggest oil exporter have also given expatriates cause for optimism. One such is Duke Onoriode, 24, who is studying for a masters degree in investment and finance at Middlesex University. He says he plans to go back despite receiving offers from two investment banks in the UK.

“I think it’s good to go back home and use the skills you’ve gained here to help improve things there. But with around one million Nigerians living in the UK and up to twice that number in the US, the country may need to do more to entice people back,” he says.

Other African countries face the same challenges. AfricaRecruit, an initiative by the New Partnership for Africa’s Development (Nepad), estimates that up to 40 per cent of Africa’s professionals live outside the continent. It is difficult to form a clear indication of the numbers going back, says the International Organisation for Migration, which points out that people are still leaving Africa in large numbers. But Lola Banjoko, the founder of AfricaRecruit, which runs a database of more than 60,000 Africans looking for work in their home countries, believes a significant number are eager to return.

“It’s an increasing trend,” she says. “Things are improving in terms of the private sector in Africa. Telecoms is a classic industry where there are very good jobs. It’s the fastest-growing industry in the continent.”

There are some sceptics, however, who argue that globalisation will only exacerbate the brain drain because Africa cannot attract the best workers.

“People now see opportunities in other countries where they are being paid more,” says Fred Kwoba, executive director of the US-Africa Business Council, based in Boston. “There’s no way any country can develop their policy to reverse the brain drain. The answer is simple. You need to compete. Offer these people what they have been offered by someone else.”

Mr Kwoba, originally from Kenya, says Africans who had gone abroad were already making a contribution through remittances. He cites Ghana, where the central bank recently published figures showing that Ghanaians abroad had sent nearly $4.5 billion (£2.4 billion) in remittances in 2005.

“We are not helping the countries by returning,” he says. “We are helping the countries by staying away and sending remittances.

“Remittances have become bigger than all foreign aid programmes combined in practically all sub-Saharan African countries. Would you rather have those Ghanaians return or would you rather have that $4.5 billion?”

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