BY ONOSHE NWABUIKWU
TO answer the question of whether to japa or not to japa is not that easy. I know it seems like in Nigeria, everyone and their grandmother are japa-ing. It’s one thing to want to japa but there are many complex steps, processes, and considerations. And I think finances, sufficient money might be the most critical factor. Of Nigeria’s much vaunted 200-plus million (real or imagined) population, how many people do you really think can afford to japa?
A conservative estimate from a quick Google search puts the cost of migrating (for 1 person) from Nigeria to Canada at $20, 000 CAD (about 24 million naira). It could be more. How many people especially in this new dispensation can afford that? It’s not for nothing that Nigeria was declared the poverty capital of the world in 2018 by the World Poverty Clock. What this means, at best, is that it’s mostly people with the means that are ‘checking out.’ At worst, there are some people who can’t really afford it but are selling the family land, anything of value and (hopefully not) stealing or doing whatever it takes to check out. Remember Andrew and checking out under the Buhari regime in the early 80s?
Then there’s another category of people, the fresh graduates like the medical doctors who barely finish their final exams before writing tests needed to go to places like the UK and the US, which is sad, but it would be great for those who are in charge to understand the reasons these young professionals are leaving. Some not-so-young professionals would rather japa even when it means starting afresh. Ordinarily, our government should be telling us how they’re working to stem this tide. After all, under the Obasanjo administration, especially during his second term in office, Nigerians returned home or went japa-da-ing. This continued under the Goodluck Jonathan administration. So, instead of gaslighting citizens or thinking up new conspiracy theories, isn’t it better to provide the right environment that would make people reluctant to leave Nigeria?
By the way, this wasn’t how I planned to start this write-up. Something or someone ‘inspired’ me to begin this way. And that person is none other than Prophet Olabisi Adamu of the Ignite Intercessory Ministry. There’s a clip of her saying how Ghana and the UK are more expensive than Nigeria. And how Canadians are unfriendly, or words to that effect. To be fair she’s not the only person or the first to gaslight Nigerians looking for a better life, and for some, it’s literally a choice between life and death. I usually don’t pay much attention to all the japa tales because it’s either someone is trying too hard to paint a perfect picture or telling a sob story of how life is hard ‘abroad.’
Every once in a while, on Naija Twitter, someone would come on to warn people about how ‘abroad’ is very lonely, etc. Perhaps it’s because I went to boarding school as a 12-year-old, far from home with no means of communication, and afterward moved to the big bad wolf city of Lagos. Anywhere can be lonely, especially for introverts like me. It doesn’t make those places bad. In an ideal world, I would live in my expansive house in my village Lampese surrounded by lush vegetation, fruit trees, fresh palm wine and bush meat, etc. At this moment, Fulani herdsmen will not let that dream survive.
Anyhow, that clip from Prophet Olabisi Adamu became the last straw, I was very angry, and I complained to anyone who would listen. Especially because she said that in Canada when you say hello to people, they just ignore you or words to that effect, there are all kinds of people in Canada, the good, the bad, and the in-between but the one thing I can confirm as someone who’s lived in Canada for over 7 years is that most people make real effort to be friendly. Just take a walk in the park and there’ll be people smiling and saying hello as if they’re on some government friendship program. It doesn’t matter if you’re on the phone or if like me sometimes, you really want to focus on where you’re going or on the latest naira-dollar exchange rates. There’s always someone working hard to get your attention just to nod, smile, or compliment you. Haba Madam Prophet. The claim about Canada of course made me wonder about the other claims.
Just to be clear, the issue is not Prophet Olabisi Adamu’s message that people shouldn’t jump into the japa craze. It’s largely her exaggeration and untruths, to put it mildly, and the deliberate ignoring (ignore-ance) of the elephant in (Nigeria’s) room. Instead of removing the log in Nigeria’s eyes, she’s fixating on the specks in other countries while blaming Nigerians who’re the real victims. Yes, there’s a place to advise some people who want to japa for the sake of it. Some of these people have nothing to offer even in Nigeria but somehow are convinced that life ‘in the abroad’ is what they need. Some of these people cannot even survive outside their villages and haven’t managed to survive Lagos or Abujayet. Then there are those who sell and raise so much money that you wonder why they don’t put all that industry to better use in Nigeria. But it’s their life. So long as they don’t resort to illegal means, the best you can do is reason with them and not talk down at them.
But then again, having money is no guarantee in Nigeria as we all pray against Nigeria happening to us. Case in point, award-winning investigative journalist David Hundeyin talks about how his wealthy and well-connected father, head of a family so rich they had their own coat of arms, died at home in Lagos waiting for an ambulance which took several hours to arrive. I am trying to resist but must mention when Nigeria happened to my own father in 2016. He died after travelling on the death trap that’s the Auchi-Benin road, chasing his 13-month pension under APC’s Governor Oshiomhole. He and my stepmother (who was also chasing her pension) fell sick immediately after returning from that umpteenth ‘verification’ exercise. He died a few weeks later. Meanwhile, the entire Akoko Edo local government area didn’t have an ambulance. The hospital he was in didn’t have oxygen. We couldn’t move him to Abuja because the roads…But I’m old enough to know that things used to be far better. We used to have a standard General Hospital very close to my village and so on.
The problem with dispensing “truth” from the pulpit is that it’s usually a one-way street. Otherwise, someone from the audience would’ve asked Prophet Olabisi Adamu whether anyone from the countries she mentioned: Ghana, Canada or the UK has to worry about Boko Haram, bandits, Lakurawa abi lakulala (just learnt this one). How many times does the national grid collapse in these countries? I don’t know if Canada has national grid sef. Just over a week ago, my husband and daughters in Abuja ‘enjoyed’ several days of national grid collapse. They started rationing the electricity in the house courtesy of inverter batteries. Even that was tough without electricity to re/charge them.
While we’re still comparing, although they only do this when it suits them, let’s take a look at the utter lack of accountability from Nigeria’s ruling class. In each of the aforementioned countries, political leaders at least show they’re working to reduce the hardship of their people. Always looking for ways to make life better for their people. It doesn’t matter if they’re just trying to survive in power. It’s mainly because votes count. During COVID, Ghana gave water and electricity free to her citizens. During that same period in Nigeria under the Buhari administration, electricity tariff was increased a few times in one year. While Nigerians are suffering the severest form of hardship, her leaders are living large, allocating to themselves all kinds of largesse. With borrowed money no less! What people like the Prophet want is for the few like her to travel abroad and come back with tales of how “abroad is not all that.”
By the way, Prophet Olabisi is the same person who asked some months ago “who natural hair epp?” in another viral video clip. In fact, after I made this connection, I had an Aha/ ‘aba jò’ moment. Come to think of it, that teaching could be considered more misleading/injurious: telling women they must buy ‘bone-straight’ hair. They should go out at night with men instead of coming too much to church because of their husbands. Again, the fault is not with the message. It’s blowing things out of proportion. It’s the playing to the gallery. It’s okay to advise women to take good care of themselves, to be more outgoing/sociable…But it almost amounts to ‘broke shaming’ when you make some feel insecure about their natural hair. What if they can’t afford artificial hair-it doesn’t matter if it’s human hair cut from a living person. I can’t even begin to understand the self-hatred or inferiority complex that comes from glorifying foreign hair. I rest my case here. Enough said.
