“Japa Syndrome”: The Implication of Brain Drain and Migration on National Development

Abstract

The trans-Atlantic slave trade was a practice that resulted in theforced removal of millions of our ancestors to foreign countrieswhere they had no prior knowledge. Able-bodied men were amongthe few remaining males, while women, children, and our land wereleft without any males. Many African mindset experts believe thatthe slave trade prevented the richly endowed continent fromdeveloping, both in terms of its population and natural resources,as stated by Walter Rodney in his 1972 publication How EuropeUnderdeveloped Africa. This migration has returned after more than200 years, although in a different shape than the one they were inbefore shipped away involuntarily, while the former is a deliberatemethod of looking for a way out of Nigeria. This occurs in twoways: on the one hand, those who are educated look for ways toput their skills to use because the country lacks favourable platforms,a phenomenon known as brain drain; and on the other, those whomove in search of greener pasture even when they have nothing tooffer to the country of their destination, a phenomenon known asemigration.