Japa

Japa is Nigerian slang for leaving the country — for work, study or safety. Borrowed from the Yoruba jà pa (“to run, to escape”), it has come to name the wave of departures since the early 2020s, and the decisions and pressures that surround them.

Key Points:

• Leaving is a loss as well as a gain: people who wanted to go still grieve — the friendships, the status, the ease of being understood. A downgraded job title and an empty social calendar are common in the first year, and often unexpected.
• The people who stay feel it too: parents whose children have all left, partners in long-distance marriages, and colleagues absorbing the work of everyone who resigned.
• What it looks like clinically: adjustment difficulties, low mood and anxiety in the first 6 to 18 months abroad, sometimes arriving only after the paperwork and the housing are settled and there is finally time to feel it.
• Guilt and obligation travel too: earning in a stronger currency usually raises what family expects at home. See also Black Tax.
• In therapy: many people keep working with a Nigerian therapist after moving, because the context does not have to be explained first. Time zones and local licensing rules affect who can see you and how.