Nigeria as a country is in fervent search for development however constrained by brain drain of productive human resources. From this background, this study examined the effects of human capital flight in Nigeria’s economic development with reference to health and education sectors. The methodology of the study is a qualitative design. The study revealed factors/drivers of human capital occasioned with adverse effects on social welfare and labour productivity (as key indicators of economic development) which reflects in poor clinical services, public medic facilities, inadequate health workers and consultants as there are other challenges such as failure of the government to implement recommendations for sectoral reforms, failure of the union of vice chancellors to engage the government on priority needs and, other constraining efforts. From these findings, the study advocated for effective synergy between government and industrial unions of Nigeria’s professionals on welfare and conducive working environment, long term national action-plan to address the challenges of flight of professionals to other parts of the world as among other measures to mitigate human capital flight and boast economic development
Onwuharaonye et al. (Mon,) studied this question.