JAPA STATE OF AFFAIRS

Migration is as old as mankind. It must be that once man realised himself, he simply moved, even if it was for no just cause besides curiosity. Today, most of us live in places different from where our parents once lived, sometimes to be reunited with them, only in death with what is left of the containers of our souls, which lacks the ability to acknowledge or recognize the presence of the other, even though we feel that kind of proximity in death (by burying one close to one’s ancestors and relatives), should ordinarily bring about a kindling of the souls thereof. However, if we believe that souls are not bound by time and spaces, then it shouldn’t be an issue if one was buried far away from one’s place of origin, or relatives. In this case a soul will most likely linger closer to where it’s body is interred, as much as it will also flow along in the places where it experienced life in a body the most, but I digress.

The reasons for migration vary, from the mundane to the very existential, and I’ve always maintained that regardless of the which we consider it to be, they remain very valid as they are personal, at least to the one migrating, since only s/he who wears the shoe, knows where it pinches. The common denominator is such that the migrant is seeking something better than what subsists where he or she is coming from, whether it be for economic, health, social or security reasons etc, to escape persecution, or to further ones academic pursuits, or even just for the fun of it, in visiting places that have sights and sounds one cannot find in ones immediate and/or native environment, and decide to remain there either for a lifetime, or for as long as one feels comfortable.

Japa is associated with migration of Nigerians to greener pastures, in this present times owing to lack of belief that things can and will get better, ever again in Nigeria. Added to that is the sense of escape that it connotes. Escape from deprivation and hardships, from a society that can hardly meet the yearnings, hopes and aspirations of its people. It mirrors the loss of faith in the ability of political leadership, or rulers to turn things around, and since this started mainly while President Muhammadu Buhari superintended over the affairs of Nigeria, it is attached to his legacy. While some West African countries, especially the francophones, had the military intervene by popular demand of the masses, the Nigerian masses simply opted to leave, before the proverbial “Nigeria, happens to them“.

One of the enablers of Nigeria’s Japa phenomenon was the demand for skilled workforce by the west, that even before the Covid pandemic was suffering from a deficit, due to the fact that those societies were tilting towards the ageing, occasioned by better and advanced health care. This unsavoury situation was further exercabated by the Covid-19 pandemic which wiped out not just a sizeable number of the population, including the workers and skilled labour, but impacted greatly on the health care, educational and other sectors of the society that ensures the survival of states. When the opportunity for movement that these unfortunate situations created arose, willing Nigerians frustrated by situations at home, took it “with their full chest“.

Not only did families just up and left, entire departments with their team lead, in hospitals, banks, schools and the likes, moved en block, keeping up with each other’s progress in the whatsapp chat groups that they set up for their emigration pathway purposes. Some of the men opted to send their wives and kids abroad, while they stayed back to make the dough, with most stating amongst their reasons to be, a better life and opportunity for their children. Along with the positive stories that we became regaled with on social media, with pictures and videos to boot, were also the not so palatable ones, including of scammers taking advantage of desperate Nigerians, who think they’ve landed “carer” jobs for instance, in places like the UK, only to find nothing of such, after paying so much for the so called jobs that “sponsored” them, and accommodation, after landing in their destinations abroad, only to find themselves on the streets, and in shelters, living on the kindness of others.

In recent times, it is the story of those who successfully reached their destinations, got the jobs they left Nigeria for, or the academic pursuits they had in mind, that have been trending, because of the instant blow it caused several families, especially those who left Nigeria as couples or as families, with their children. Many African men with the usual patriarchal ego, got to these western societies, only to discover that, unlike in their countries of origin, the woman is the de facto head of the family, and government defers to them, rather than the men, or husbands. The men been the ones to leave the house whenever there’s a misunderstanding, regardless of who pays the bill or rent for the apartment.

This state of affairs is interpreted in the mind of the Nigerian man as an imbalance, and soon enough he might want to assert himself, only to get further into trouble with the state. Sometimes, it’s the parents that get into trouble in their attempt to deal with their wayward children, the way they learnt to do back home. Situations where one of the spouses have to go on ahead, with the hope that the other joins up later, also presents its peculiar challenges, in the sense that both parties may end up meeting a different version of the other when they eventually unite, especially when the one that emigrated earlier seems to have moved on, in body, mind and soul. The impact on the family, and in relationships remain for now, one of the distressing areas of the Japa syndrome, which only time can begin to blunt with experience, and with the latest recruits doing much to avoid the pitfalls of their predecessors.

If the destination in life is death, then the most meaningful part of life, is the journey itself. It was Jean De La Fontaine who said “One often meets his destiny on the road he takes to avoid it”, for which reason I do not blame those who’ve braved the odds to make such moves, and also because no one knows tomorrow, as the one who is vehement about staying today may just be at the forefront leading the charge of leaving, tomorrow. Those facing hardships as migrants, and have become the face of bashing and online trolling today, may use today’s stories as testimonies to their “never say die” attitude, that will get them to their lofty height tomorrow on foreign soil. Indeed, there truly is no Utopia or an Eldorado anywhere, but whatever massages ones’ self actualization, even if it is in the minutiae of things, especially regarding migration shouldn’t be invalidated, or written off as flimsy, for anyone even if in the end it appears that one is back to square one. The journey of life, counts more than the destination. We Move.


‘kovich