Nigeria: What is Failed Japa Syndrome? –CKO
A popular political and public affairs analyst, Charles Kene Ojikwu CKO has proffered detailed information about those who are peddling ideas about failed relocation of people from Nigeria to the United Kingdom, Europe, and other continents of the world.
CKO gave the analysis of the situation concerning the growing number of people championing the course popularly known as ‘Japa Syndrome’ and its failure to favour some people.
He asks what a Failed Japa Syndrome entails:
According to CKO:
It is the constellation of submissions from people who have tried tirelessly in the past to travel but weren’t such successful at it, or those who have traveled but find themselves deficient with what it takes to log into the new land, which requires intellects, skills and hard work with faith and believe in God, they ran back to Nigeria to paint those living abroad badly as if everyone had it rough and suffered like they did which is false.
At times people come to social media to paint how japa is a bad choice, how it is a move of suffering, and how these guys come back to Nigeria and make you feel like it’s all a bed of roses out there. They also go further to tell you that there is nothing palatable abroad.
I will attempt to demystify this…
Often times check those that make these derogatory posts, they’ve lived abroad before or made serious attempts to relocate but it’s either their living abroad was fruitless, filled with sorrow that they had to run back to Nigeria or that they’ve had multiple visa rejections thus can no longer travel anywhere but stay out here in nigeria and try to create a pity movement of fans where they try to deceive people that it is bad out there asking them not to make any professional or career drift to elevate their game of play in their professional and personal and family lives.
On the other end, if you meet someone doing well abroad, they are usually low key in putting up their acquisitions on social media, they buy houses abroad which we all know it’s by mortgage ( you’ll understand that the down payment of mortgage is enough to buy you a fresh house in Lagos or abuja, that’s by the way) or buy in nigeria etc they don’t like putting it out there cos they’ve learnt one thing…the world is too big for you to parade material acquisitions as a way of flexing who you are, the content of who you are resides in the way you treat your fellow human beings and your impact in people’s lives off camera.
Now let me tell you how this works, you can only chose to travel out if you’ve assessed yourself and find it needful, pertinent and very important to elevate your life, career and family generations etc.
You should endeavour to have a skill if you’re not very academically skilled be “artisantly” skilled that you can use your skill to earn cool cash.
Most people say you find bank managers etc travel abroad doing gateman work, and I laugh at this, for me I haven’t seen any bank manager in nigeria that travels to become a gate man. By the way let’s talk about the natural trajectory of life, starting small and days of little beginnings. A man could come into a new place, find out that that he needs some certain trainings and certifications to edge forward and log into the corporate system of the place, eager to do that he understands that it needs some time and efforts, and at the same man won’t that person feed himself and his family? He ventures into some form of job that is below his prior professional standing just to survive for the mean time while preparing himself to gain chances with relevant international qualifications and certifications before he could log in fully into the mould of job that fits his prior professional standing. This is the usual law of nature. You don’t become a bank manger in UBA bank nigeria and come to London to become a bank manager in Barclays Bank London immediately upon arrival without going through a professional refunding and upgrading process which takes time. Are you normal ?
I bet you that if they lift you from nigeria for instance as a UBA bank manager and put you from day one as Barclays Bank manager, you will be the one to ask them please step me down. Cos you know serious consequences abounds by virtue of your mismanagement so no excuses. I have use banking industry to elucidate for you how this thing works, so this cuts across all professional services too.
Now these guys are also good at analysing income, they will tell you this person earns about 2000 dollars and deduct the living expenses and end up with about 400 dollars after these and they will try to water it down. First this people are not telling you that 2000 dollars is a little money for someone with thick grey content and firm artisan skills to earn as money, it is called survival job earnings means you’re doing this for the mean time to survive while trying to figure out how to elevate yourself to the right kind of job where people stay and earn 10,20,30k etc in dollars and still have about 5k and above in dollars post living expenses balance. They also don’t tell you how safe living with little insecurity worries is their gains, they also don’t tell how these people have access to quality education for themselves and their kids also, they also don’t tell you these guys hitherto earns about 200k naira in nigeria but today they can afford to send 200k to their wards in nigeria multiple times a month, which they couldn’t do when they were earning 200k in nigeria. A lot of lies they dish you to discourage you and recruit you to their pity party movement.
If you have strong desire and conviction to travel, ask yourself these questions:
- What am I going to do?
- Am I ready to transform, unlearn, relearn and continue learning?
- Am I artisnatly skilled? Or academically skilled?
- Am I ready to start afresh to re-grow?
- Am I capable of professional shift to a different one and ready to go through the rigours needed to become?
- Am I ready for character upgrade, better interpersonal communication skills that is way different from what I use to do in nigeria?
If your answer to these are In affirmative then your answer is most likely YES.
But…
You must know that japa comes with less social connect, why? Because this is not your fatherland, you live with people you find using plastic smiles to greet each other, you don’t have the luxury of every day cruise and hang out or gbedu. You don’t have the privilege of having family and friends live nearby because IT IS NOT YOUR COUNTRY!
But learn to keep tabs with your own country, maintain a solid presence relatively in your country and don’t japa to be forgotten but japa to make bigger impacts in your homeland and country.
Don’t listen to those that have failed japa syndrome all the time, listen to real people doing real things they don’t usually come to write on social media, it comes from them on one on one chats not on a social media post. People like us that write on social media are here to counter such nonsense narrative always painting it like japa is all about suffering. Na lie o!!!!
CKO…