Beyond the Visa: Why the ‘Japa Syndrome’ is a National Emergency We Must All Fix –By Muhammad Bashir Abdulhafiz

Almost every evening, my social media timeline transforms into a departure lounge. There is the photo of a friend holding a Turkish Airlines boarding pass with the caption ‘Greener Pastures’. There is the WhatsApp status update of a former classmate standing in front of the Toronto skyline, finally at peace. I also feel it when I see other brilliant friends, the ones who once dreamed of building power plants in Kaduna, Plateau, Lagos, or Kano, and tech hubs in Enugu, Sokoto, Bauchi, or Portharcourt now strategizing about how to convince a Visa Officer at the British High Commission that they will return home. And while I respect the individual right to seek a better life, I must speak frankly about the quiet, devastating cost to the economy of the country we claim to love. We call it ‘Japa’, the act of running away swiftly. We treat it like a liberation movement.

We celebrate these departures as victories. We throw ‘Farewell Parties’ with more enthusiasm than wedding receptions. And why shouldn’t we? For a young Nigerian, securing a study visa to the UK, a work permit in Canada, or a tech relocation to Berlin often feels like winning a lottery of safety. It is an escape from a system that seems to have drawn up the blueprint specifically to frustrate the young, the brilliant, and the ambitious.

But as a patriotic Nigerian who loves this country deeply, not for what it is right now, but for what it could be. I find myself grieving. We are not just losing people. We are actively hollowing out the engine room of our economy. And the bill for this exodus is coming due, not in dollars, but in the silent collapse of our essential services and our national dignity.

Whenever this topic comes up, someone inevitably says: ‘But they send money home. Remittances are propping up the Naira!’. This is true in the short term. Our brothers and sisters in the diaspora sent millions of naira home last year. That money pays for school fees, builds houses in the village, and keeps families fed.

However, let us look at the price we pay for that money. To send that millions of naira home from Canada, that young Nigerian doctor had to spend six years in the University, then endure a year of internship and a year of NYSC, all funded by struggling parents and relatives. We trained them. We invested in their brains. And the moment that brain becomes productive, we export it for free to the National Health Service (NHS) in the United Kingdom, Canada, Germany, or Australia. We essentially subsidize the healthcare of British pensioners while our own patients cannot find a specialist in Nigerian hospitals.

The effects are not abstract. They are visible and painful.
First, the Healthcare Time Bomb. Nigeria has one of the lowest doctor-to-patient ratios in the world, not because we don’t produce doctors, but because they are all in practice in North America, Alabama, Florida, Louisiana, Mississippi, Texas, Bahrain, Iraq, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, or United Arab Emirates. In 2023, the Medical and Dental Council reported that a staggering number of our trained doctors had requested letters of good standing to emigrate. Who is left behind? The system is now held together by a few weary, overworked consultants and a new batch of fresh graduates who are just waiting for their licensing exams so they too can Japa. The effect on the economy? A sick workforce is an unproductive workforce. And a nation that cannot guarantee the health of its people cannot attract the long term foreign direct investment it desperately needs.

Second, The Education Cycle. Go to any public secondary school in Nigeria today and ask for a Science or Mathematics teacher. You will likely find a corper serving their NYSC year, or a retired teacher called back out of desperation. The young, dynamic, brilliant, and tech-savvy graduates who should be inspiring the next generation of inventors are teaching in Dubai or working as Care Assistants in the UK. The Senior Registrar who should be teaching Housemanship is now a Junior Doctor in Ireland. The veteran Editor who should be teaching young journalists about ethics is now a Communications Officer for a council in Birmingham. The effect on the economy is subtle but profound: a decline in productivity and professionalism. Although, these are roles far below their qualifications. They are doing it because the minimum wage in Nigeria cannot cover their transport and other expenses. As our education sector bleeds, we produce a less competitive graduate. The less competitive the graduate, the more the private sector relies on expatriates that abandons the Nigerian market entirely. It is a descent into a knowledge intensiveness.

Third, The Innovation Void. Nigeria is a nation of hustlers, but a start-up ecosystem requires a critical mass talent and collaborative efforts to thrive. When our best software engineers, doctors, product managers, and data analysts all move to London, Bahrain, Iraq, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Oman, or Texas, they are building the GDP of those countries. They are paying taxes to foreign governments, and fixing foreign infrastructures. They are not just leaving poverty, they are leaving the stress of being the only competent person in a broken system. When they leave, the system doesn’t just shrink, it stalls. The next ‘Paystack’ or ‘Flutterwave’ will not be built in Yaba if the room is empty. We lose the tax revenue, we lose the job creation multiplier effect, and we lose the global bragging rights.

Advice to Three Corners of the Nation.
This is a complex problem. There is no single government memo that will stop a young man from choosing a life where he doesn’t get disturbed by the sound of a generator. This is not a hopeless situation, but it requires brutal honesty and immediate action from all sides.
1. To the Young Nigerian Graduates, I know the Naira is weak. I know the insecurity is real. I am not asking you to be a martyr. But I am asking you to be strategic, not just desperate. I understand the urge to Japa. I feel it every time the power goes out in the middle of a deadline. I feel it when I see the state of our roads. But I urge you to consider this: Go, but have a return plan. Do not just be an economic refugee. Go abroad and acquire specialized, and world-class skills that we cannot get here. Gain the global exposure and the financial capital. But build a bridge back home. Invest in that property. Start that remote company that hires back home. Lend your voice to policy debates. If every smart person leaves permanently, the country will never be fixed for those who cannot leave. Be a boomerang, not a permanent exile. Let us change the narrative from ‘Escape’ to ‘Strategic Advancement’. Your Nigerian passport may be weak, but your Nigerian resilience is a superpower in any foreign market. Do not burn that bridge, reinforce it.

2. To the Nigerian Citizens, we are complicit in this crisis. We have created a culture where the only validated success story is the one with a foreign accent. We have a habit of seeing corruption and bad governance as a sport spectation. We watch, we tweet, and then we move on. The brain drain will not be solved by a government alone, it will be solved by a society that demands more from its leaders. The reason our graduates leave is because they know that without a ‘connection’, their First Class degree is just decorative paper. We must push for a culture where jobs are given based on competence, not tribe or religion. When we see nepotism in our local government secretariat, we must speak up. When we have the means, let us patronize Nigerian professionals. If you can afford it, see a Nigerian consultant before flying to India for a check-up. Use Nigerian architects, Nigeria engineers, Nigerian doctors, Nigerian managers, and Nigerian accountants. We must stop the mentality that ‘Foreign is always better’. That mindset devalues our own currency, our nation, and our own people.

3. To Those in Authority, this is the hardest truth for the political class to swallow. Nigerian youths are not leaving because they want to experience snow. They are leaving because the Nigerian state has failed to provide the basic infrastructure of dignity. You cannot beat the global market for labor with patriotic speeches. You can only compete with Quality of Life. You spend millions on foreign trips and bulletproof cars. Yet, you pay a doctor a salary that cannot cover his rent. That doctor will eventually look for a way to Japa. You must benchmark salaries to the cost of a decent life. A teacher who can afford a small car and a modest home will stay and teach the next generation. It is simple economics. The fastest way to keep talent in Nigeria is to give them hope that their effort will be rewarded, not their uncle’s connection. Until we run a system where the First Class graduate from UNN has the same shot at the CBN job as the Governor’s nephew, the exodus will continue. You must lead by example in appointments and in the civil service. If the system is fair, the people will stay to defend it. You cannot ask a young couple with a new baby to stay in Nigeria if they have to drive through armed robbery zones on a bad road to get to a hospital with no light. Security and electricity are not amenities, they are the bedrock of a productive economy. Fix these two things, and you will see the line at the passport office shrink by 70%. Let us make Nigeria the place where the tech talent wants to be, not the place they are desperate to leave.

I dream of a Nigeria where the Japa conversation is reversed. Where our passport is strong enough that we travel for vacation, not for survival. Where a brilliant young Nigerian in Canada looks at the opportunities in Lagos and says, ‘You know what? It’s time to go home’. That Nigeria is possible. It requires the youth to be clever, the citizens to be intentional, and the leaders to be humble enough to realize that a nation’s true GDP is the Gross Domestic Peace of Mind of its people. Until we provide that peace of mind here, the flights will keep leaving, and the future will keep departing with them.

We do not want to leave Nigeria. We love this land. We love the jollof rice, the banter, the can-do spirit of the roadside vulcanizer. We leave because the system has made staying a form of self-sabotage. The brain drain is not a natural disaster. It is a man-made crisis of policy neglect and social decay. And because it is man-made, it can be man-solved. It requires the youth to think long term, the citizens to hold power accountable, and the government to finally treat its human capital as its greatest asset, not an export commodity. The day Nigeria becomes a place of opportunity again, we will not need to run. We will walk, with purpose, back home.

God bless the Federal Republic of Nigeria.

Muhammad Bashir Abdulhafiz wrote from Jos, and can be reached via abdulhafizmuhammad81@gmail.com instantly.