Japa; The Financial Ladder

By Franklin. O. O

People will stop at nothing to get the life they envision, which is why the man works a backbreaking job for peanut, steals, attends school, performs ritual killings, acquires a talent, and engages in any action for financial freedom.

Between the ages of fourteen and forty, the typical Nigerian desires to leave the country’s shores, regardless of the country they choose to elope to. This is linked to the fact that civil servants—men chosen by the people to serve them—have generally minimised the economy’s poor state and instead have taken on leadership roles in an attempt to extract money from the populace they are meant to govern.

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Nigerians have come up with ways to escape this agony they call life, both legally and illegally. Some even use the desert, which is commonly referred to as “Europe by road.” Many people have been ensnared by the Sahara desert, and many more are stranded in Libya and other African nations where they are no longer able to travel beyond the sea. The number of educated Nigerians leaving the country for other African nations has grown since the turn of the twenty-first century.

According to SIHMA, 2014, many Nigerian migrants establish transnational networks by effectively integrating into their host communities and staying in touch with their Nigerian relatives. However, due to arrests of Nigerians exploiting fake documents, illegal settlements, and criminal activities overseas, Nigerian emigration has a reputation for being highly criminalised.

Nigeria is ranked second in Africa after Somalia, according to recent news reports that 3,690 Nigerians will be deported from the United States of America as illegal aliens as a result of President Donald Trump’s new policies, according to a document created by US Immigration and Customs Enforcement, Enforcement and Removal Operations. Additionally, it explained that 1,445,549 non-citizens with final removal orders are listed on ICE’s non-detained docket as of November 24, 2024. Mexico and El Salvador are the two countries with the highest rates of deportations, with 252,044 and 203,822, respectively, according to the document titled “Noncitizens on the ICE Non-Detained Docket with Final Orders of Removal by Country of Citizenship.”

Since these illegals violate the law, President Trump referred to them as criminals. People are expected to obey the rules and submit to the whims and caprices of the government, whether it is a functioning nation or one with a dysfunctional one.

It is well known that everyone aspires to live a better life, which is why people do anything. Bola Ahmed Tinubu, the president of Nigeria, signed the minimum wage bill on July 29, 2024, which would have paid workers N70,000, but it hasn’t gone into force yet. N33,000 is still paid to members of the National Youth Service Corps (NYSC), a program designed to train recent graduates.

MTN raised their data prices by more than 200%, charging N6,000 for 15GB of data each week, compared to N2,000 at first. The difficulty experienced by the average person was exacerbated by the 2024 fuel price explosion, which reached over N1000 per litre. On the economic scale, a man making N70,000 is strictly considered poor. In addition to the high cost of essentials, the value of the country’s currency has also declined.

Considering all of these factors, graduates believe that the best option to improve their lives is to leave the nation. Some people do everything in their power to just depart for any adjacent nation because it would take years of accumulation of their earnings salary to pay for a travel visa and passport.

Unskilled workers also view emigration as a means of obtaining a better living. Some people move with good intentions rather than with criminal intent, and these individuals make up the majority of the population.

However, Nigerians, who are dispersed throughout the world, are known for their hustle and will do whatever it takes to improve their lot in life, which the government of their nation has failed to give.

JAPA should serve as more than simply a financial ladder; it should be a barometer of exposure and a means for individuals to travel to sophisticated countries to solidify concepts and trends before returning as elites to further improve their own nation.