Japa: Citizens’ mass exodus; a reality check for Nigeria

Japa: Citizens’ mass exodus; a reality check for Nigeria

PREMIUM TIMES EDITORIAL

Nonetheless, cynics, especially medical practitioners, say the worst is yet to come.

The increasing wave of emigration of Nigerians to other parts of the world provoked more public attention penultimate Thursday with the official revelation that Nigeria Immigration Service (NIS) issued a total of 1,899,683 passports in 2022, the highest in a single year, and in the last seven years. The reason for the demand for passports is not difficult to fathom. The situation in situ is dire for a broad spectrum of professionals, artisans, and even those without any skills, hence the desperation to search for opportunities in other climes for survival.

Admittedly, the craving of professionals to ply their trades abroad is not new. The urge birthed the “brain drain” syndrome in academia in the 1980s. Medical doctors, nurses and students followed suit; but the exodus of those years cannot be compared to the current scale. The situation has made the phenomenon called “Japa” – in Yoruba language, which means to run, or escape – as comic an issue, as it has become a national concern.

While Nigerian universities have almost been denuded of their best brains, the health sector is being haemorrhaged by the United Kingdom, United States, Canada, Saudi Arabia and others with their perennial demand for our medical workforce – consultants, general medical practitioners, nurses, pharmacists, radiologists and other paramedics – to make up for their human resource shortages. Rising global health challenges, Brexit-induced labour migrations and early retirements, have created these opportunities. The effect of this is becoming evident. The patient-to-doctor ratio in Nigeria is now 3,500 to 1, as against the World Health Organisation (WHO) recommendation of 600 to 1. This does not give room for efficiency.

Nonetheless, cynics, especially medical practitioners, say the worst is yet to come. In a plaintive account of his case, Dr Kunle Ibisola, an erstwhile junior doctor at University College Ibadan (UCH), now working with Scotland National Health Service, told the BBC recently that he never planned to leave the country but existential realities constituted the final push factors. He said, “The main reason I left is salary, and the cost of living. Some doctors didn’t get paid for six to nine months, because there was an issue with the federal payment system. Some senior colleagues couldn’t afford to drive to work or send their children to school. That was an eye-opener for a lot of people.”

There are thousands of Ibisolas out there who can no longer bear the ossified and choking socio-economic conditions in Nigeria. Last November, the Chief Medical Director of the University College Hospital (UCH) in Ibadan, Professor Abiodun Otegbayo, disclosed that 600 doctors resigned in one year. At least 15 of such high calibre manpower resign weekly, he stressed. About 10,296 Nigerian doctors are practising in the UK alone, says the Nigeria Medical Association (NMA). With emigration as the dream of most doctors, including those still in training, the country is in for a more corrosive hit. The only way to buck the trend is for the authorities to address challenges of poor remuneration, lack of modern facilities to work with, insecurity and underemployment that drive the mass exit.

As the environment is unfriendly to medical personnel, so it is for other professionals. A Nollywood actor, Omotola Jalade Ekeinde, who relocated to the US two years ago, has seen the gulf between her new abode and here – a difference in how societies are organised, with opportunities and social amenities available for career advancement and a better life, as against the disorder and dysfunction she left behind. She thundered: “I’m deeply frustrated at the depth and volume of the needless suffering Nigerians go through…why (is it that) people must suffer to get anything done?”

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