After japa… When the dream meets reality

By Chioma Gabriel, Editor, Special Features The photograph usually comes first. A young Nigerian stands at the airport, passport in hand, luggage beside him, smiling as family members gather for one last embrace. Someone captures the moment and posts it on WhatsApp, Instagram or Facebook: “Our own is leaving! ” The comments quickly follow: congratulations, prayers, heart emojis and the familiar advice: “Please don’t forget us when you get there. ” In that photograph, everything looks perfect. Nobody sees the uncertainty waiting at the other end – the expensive rent, loneliness, unfamiliar systems, job struggles or the painful possibility that the dream of building a new life abroad could eventually collapse. This is the complicated story of Japa, Nigeria’s popular expression for leaving the country in search of better opportunities. For many Nigerians, Japa is not a fashionable trend.

It is an escape route: the nurse searching for better working conditions, the graduate looking for a career opportunity, the young couple seeking a more predictable future for their children, or the professional worn down by years of economic uncertainty. But what happens after the plane lands? The numbers behind the dream The United Nations’ 2024 migrant-stock estimate counted about 2. 1 million Nigerian migrants living abroad. That figure represents people already living outside Nigeria, not those who left in a particular year. The United Kingdom’s Office for National Statistics estimated that 120,000 Nigerian nationals moved to the UK on a long-term basis in the year ending June 2024, down from 141,000 the previous year. In Canada, Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada recorded 17,446 Nigerian permanent residents in 2023, a 38 per cent increase from 2019. The desire to leave is…