₦airaland Forum

Adedamola Adedeji is a young dentist living in Nigeria. She says she has a fulfilling career and earns a middle-class salary by Nigerian standards. But she has decided to leave behind everything she’s ever known, including her recently widowed mother.

According to a 2022 survey, 70% of Nigerians aged 15 to 35 would leave the country if they could. The wave of young Nigerians leaving the country is what many are calling japa, a Yoruba word meaning “to flee”.

Following the end of the 2020 #endsars protests, emigration numbers in Nigeria have spiked to the point where some Nigerian legislators have called japa a national emergency.

The word “japa” has become a cultural movement in Nigeria over the past few years. There are memes about it, songs about it and even companies built around it. It has become the theme word for a generation of Nigerians emigrating from the country in search of a better life.

Adedamola Adedeji goes by many names. Damsel, Dam Dam, DM, but most people call her Damola. She’s one of many young Nigerians who have decided to leave the country. Damola is a dentist with a fulfilling career, and she’s chosen to move to Canada to restart her life. She’s decided to japa.

Damola’s story is essentially the African story. Young people on the continent, frustrated by lack of opportunities, are taking matters into their own hands. Nigeria’s economy has been on a downward spiral for the past decade, pushing many young people to search for greener pastures abroad.

In 2022 alone, 22,000 Nigerians moved to Canada through its permanent resident programme, an increase of 7,000 from the previous year.

Damola’s decision to relocate was made in September 2023 when her diabetic father was rushed to the ER. He needed a down payment of 1.6 million naira ($960) to even be admitted.

“I think one of the things that’s hounded me for a long time was the fact that I realised that in Nigeria, if you don’t have money, you will die,” Damola says.

In her lifetime Damola has watched her family fall from upper middle class to “much lower than middle class”, through no fault of their own.

Since the election of President Bola Tinubu it’s been difficult to keep up with Nigeria’s increasing cost of living. Damola saw many friends leave the country to find more promising lives overseas. Two of her siblings left in early 2023.

“I knew that I wanted to leave when I saw that they could leave as well. If there’s a way to leave, why not?”

Medical professionals are leaving Nigeria at a staggeringly high rate. At the start of 2023, the president of the Nigeria Association of Resident Doctors reported that 2,800 resident doctors had left the country in two years. A survey of its remaining members revealed that 85% of them had plans to leave.

The head dentist at Damola’s clinic, Dr Aisha Tayo Adewale, said she had a complete staff turnover in the four years since she started her practice, adding: “I love my dentists, but at the same time, I’m not blind. I can see what is going on in the economy. I can see what is going on in the environment. I can’t be selfish and say, ‘oh, they shouldn’t japa’.”

Damola boarded a plane for the first time in her life on 29 September. She had a one-way ticket to Toronto.

The date was meaningful – just two days before Nigeria’s independence day. It marked both a year since she had begun her emigration process and nine months since losing her father. Her mother was at the airport to bid her farewell.

“This japa, it’s robbing us, the parents, of having a close relationship physically with our children,” says Damola’s mum.

WhiteIverson:
F

ednut1:
Get visa for your mother make she come visit. The japa wave of 2016 actually helped with unemployment. Those that left had to be replaced by those without jobs or the underemployed ones.

SocialJustice:
Not all parents are built for life abroad.

TheWitchKing:
According to you , you don make statement abi.

“I think one of the things that’s hounded me for a long time was the fact that I realised that in Nigeria, if you don’t have money, you will die,” Damola says.

SocialJustice:
See this chicken wants to go into New Year with frustration. I wish you the best, little child.

Proudlyngwa:
Nigeria should keep on subsidising workforce for the whole world, especially medical students by giving them almost free education.
This people dont know what government does for them, yet they are the first to condenm and criticise.

Government should stop funding tertiary institutions and focus on primary, Secondary, technical and vocational studies , which is the
bedrock of any society.

SocialJustice:
Not all parents are built for life abroad.

ednut1:
i said visit not relocate. Wetin dey abroad that they are not built for it. Smh

zagorakis:
No tell government to stop funding education totally.