‘Japa’ to ‘ja pada’?

By: Oladapo Oritsemeyiwa Akande

It is my firm belief that Nigeria’s most valuable natural resource is its people and their raw talent. I must agree though that it is not a 100% bad thing that some of our youths ‘Japa’ in search of greener pastures. This is simply because the country ironically stands to gain when a few amongst them later return to the country of their birth, bringing along with them, new found knowledge and a new way of doing things. Understandably however, much has been said of the flip side of this and the brain drain which Nigeria has been undoubtedly suffering for years. Unfortunately, the regularity of this occurrence reached new heights during the President Buhari administration and is yet to abate.

I couldn’t agree more with Professor Zeblon Vilakazi, the Vice Chancellor of the University of Witwatersrand, recently ranked No.1 in Sub Sahara Africa. During my interview with him for EduTimes Africa magazine, he said something which is as poignant as it is profound. He drew our attention to the fact that when our people emigrate to the US, Canada, the UK and the like, they do not leave their intellectual property behind at home, they take it with them. You may want to take a minute or two to ponder over this.

As I was watching Nigeria’s opening match with Canada at the ongoing Women’s Football World Cup, I couldn’t but wonder what the Canadian team would look like in 5 or 10 years time. Or that of the US, Australia and the UK. I doubt if any of them will be able to field a team without it including two or three players of Nigerian descent at the very least. Like I mentioned earlier, much has been said about the continuous brain drain which is obviously a predominantly negative situation for the country, no matter how one spins it. I must also mention here that having a daughter in Ireland, another in Canada and a son in the UAE may sound wonderfully glamorous but there is a side to it that we may need to give more thought. It is already agreed that brain drain has its obvious economic consequences. However, less obvious are the social consequences such as the subsequent dislocation of families, where members then live thousands of miles apart and may see each other once a year, if they are lucky. But I haven’t landed yet. That isn’t where I’m going with this because that too is quite obvious. I am more concerned about the future, when families who grew up close knit and who (if things had not changed so drastically) when marriage eventually takes them away from their parent’s home, would ordinarily live just a few miles away or at most, a few hundreds of kilometres away, but still within Nigeria. Instead, what do we see? They now live in different countries and more often than not, on different continents. Many of their children born here but especially those born abroad may be lost to Nigeria forever. Except for the few who because their parents maintain strong ties with Nigeria or who are curious enough to want to know about their roots, many may never set foot on these shores. In a few generation’s time, they too will see Nigeria the way African Americans or British West Indians see Africa – that distant land of their ancestors and just as African Americans know little of their ancestry, so would they. It doesn’t sound so glamorous anymore does it? I see very little that’s glamorous about cousins who would ordinarily have been meeting frequently at family functions – weddings, naming ceremonies, house dedications, family meetings and even at burials – instead only really know each other on social media and in the virtual world of Zoom. No, this is not glamorous at all. And much like how Nigeria exports its products primarily in its raw and most basic form only to spend hard earned foreign exchange to import the finished product, we will increasingly face the same thing with our very own people. We export crude oil to import petrol and other refined products. We export cocoa only to import chocolate. We export gum Arabic used in manufacturing vehicle windscreens only to import finished vehicles, we export rubber only to import tyres and we even export timber just to end up having to import ordinary toothpicks. I think you get the point. Now, we lose Nigerian children to other countries and when these children grow up and become somebody, we will employ their services as foreigners, not as Nigerians. Their adopted country and in increasing numbers, their country of birth, is the one that will take the credit for their accomplishments. Not Nigeria. This is a phenomenon that has come to stay. And it is one that will affect the cohesion or lack of it of many Nigerian families. It is sadly a trajectory that will never allow things to return to the way they once were. The typical Nigerian family life, as we once knew it, has changed forever. It is in a Nigerian family that it is no longer considered strange to have members scattered across the globe. One only needs to look at the typical American, German or Japanese family to realise that what has become a norm to us, actually remains an anomaly to nearly all others.

If one thing our President is able to achieve is to renew hope of a better future, which would stem the ‘Japa’ tide, then he would have saved the future of Nigerians in more ways than one. The family would certainly be one of them. It’s obviously too late to do anything about those who have already “japa’d” but with better governance we can only pray they will one day “ja pada” (come running back).

Oladapo Oritsemeyiwa Akande, Editor in Chief of EduTimes Africa magazine is a University of Surrey graduate with a Master’s in Professional Ethics.