Nigerian youth are leaving their country — giving rise to a movement known as japa

Some young Nigerians are on the brink of making a life-changing decision: Whether to stay in their country and deal with corruption, broken infrastructure and a lack of jobs, or leave and start over abroad.

For many people, that decision will be based on the results of the recent presidential election. Young voters in Africa’s most populous country are registering in record numbers, with many hoping for Labor Party Leader Peter Obi.

But Bola Tinubu, from Nigeria’s ruling party, the All Progressives Congress (APC), has been declared president-elect, with about 37 percent of the vote – the country’s first presidential candidate to win with less than half of the total vote.

The third Obi and other opposition party leaders called the election a “fake”, saying the electoral body had failed to transmit the results electronically, through a system meant to show transparency. He demanded a new vote, vowing to challenge the result in court in the coming days.

“I love my country,” said 32-year-old Cyril Aliemeke Nothing is Stranger hosted by Tamara Khandaker. “But in the last few years … it’s been toxic.

“And it’s born out of insecurity, transportation issues, health care issues, education issues. Everyone just wants to go somewhere they believe is better … and not have to complain about the basics of life.”

Aliemeke is not alone. All movement – dubbed japa – has sprung up from a disenchanted youth looking for an exit. Japan is a Yoruba word that means to leave.

According to a recent survey by the African Polling Institute, 69 percent of Nigerians would move if given the chance – a significant increase from the 40 percent who felt the same way in 2019.

Adu Ayeni, a former radio host in Lagos, recently migrated from Nigeria to England to start a new job. He told CNN that he wanted to for a “better life” in a “better economy” for his family.

Oludayo Sokunbi, a graduate student at Concordia University in Montreal, tweeted he is fed up with this election. He also runs a company called Japaconsults to help young Nigerians apply for admissions, scholarships and jobs abroad.

Young population

Nigeria has a very young population, with 70 percent of people under the age of 30, making up a significant bloc of voters.

In January, Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) chairman Mahmood Yakubu announced in a meeting with political parties at the commission’s headquarters that there were 9.4 million newly registered voters, of which 7.28 million, or 76 percent, were young people.

Voter registration data also shows that the majority of voters, about 40 percentidentified as students, followed by farmers and fishermen at 15.8 percent.

Aliemeke is a supporter of Peter Obi who has been thinking about leaving Nigeria. He lives and works in Lagos, while his family is about 420 kilometers east, in the Niger Delta. He hasn’t visited her in two years because of security concerns.

The young voter explained that most of them were traveling by road and were suddenly attacked by armed men, who then called the victim’s family members for ransom. The alternative is to travel by air, but he says that rising ticket prices are difficult to afford.

At violation of law and order in Nigeria frustrated Aliemeke. He said that he did not want to leave his country, but that he wanted to live in peace.

“Even if I move to Canada tomorrow, I have family here,” he said. “Your mind will still be going back home. You’ll be thinking, ‘What happened to my mom? What happened to my dad?'”

Systemic corruption

In 2015, Aliemeke also became disillusioned with his country’s health and emergency care sector after his best friend died, he said. It took emergency teams six hours to arrive after his friend was involved in a car accident. However, he took her to the hospital, but it was too late. When they entered the building, Aliemeke said his friend took his last breath.

“If I had been called, I would have gone there and I would have saved him myself,” Aliemeke said.

David Hundeyin, a Nigerian investigative journalist, says corruption is “actually woven into the fabric” of Nigerian society.

He said he saw his father die the same way in 2017, after suffering a stroke.

“I called an ambulance, and we kept waiting and it didn’t appear. And he died,” said Hundeyin. Nothing is Stranger. He looked at why exactly the publicly funded service was not working as it should – and said it was an empty tank.

When the ambulance finally showed up, the crew told Hundeyin that they were not allowed to carry the body. He said he found another way to take his father’s body to the hospital, but when he got to the morgue, the officer told Hundeyin that he could not take the body without a death certificate.

Hundeyin said he gave the officer money to issue the certificate “through the back door” and have his father’s body admitted to the morgue.

“Actually, twice in one day, corruption killed my father and then insulted him twice,” he said.

More than young enough

If there is a mass exodus of Nigerian youths leaving the country, Hundeyin said no one in government will see it.

In November, Nigeria’s Health Minister Osagie Ehanire downplayed the country’s loss of doctor, although thousands have migrated to other countries in recent years. According to Hundeyin, they are part of a number of Nigerians working in essential services (along with nurses and teachers) who have gone months without pay.

But Hundeyin warned that the “brain drain” could leave the country without enough experienced medical professionals to train the next generation, possibly compounding the problem for years.

“It’s like that [the government is saying], ‘We don’t need you. Like, you can change at any moment, because there’s only so much of you,'” he said.

Last year, the World Bank reported that the Nigerian economy under the leadership of President Muhammadu Buhari worse than 10 years ago.

The Buhari administration introduced capital controls and policies that kept Nigeria’s currency artificially high as a matter of national pride, according to Reuters. During the last oil price crash in 2016, Nigeria’s central bank adjusted the exchange rate system several times to avoid a large official devaluation. Buhari also closed land borders on trade.

“Nigeria really believes that the country is rich, so it spends money on all the wrong things,” Hundeyin said. “The very strange decisions made by the government and the refusal to invest in things that should be invested in are the reason why professionals are so frustrated.”