To emigrate from Nigeria when staying feels impossible — a word for leaving that carries both urgency and resignation.
Japa is what young Nigerians say when they're leaving the country — not for vacation, but because staying feels impossible. It's a Yoruba word that means to flee or run away quickly, now carrying the weight of a generation's exodus. You'd say 'I want to japa' the way someone else might say 'I need to get out of here' — except this isn't about a bad day. It's about systemic collapse.
The word existed in Yoruba for generations, used when farmers chased birds from crops. Then 2020 happened: economic freefall, the #EndSARS protests, government forces opening fire on peaceful demonstrators at Lekki. A rapper named Naira Marley released a song called 'Japa,' and suddenly the word stopped being about birds. It became about doctors leaving for the UK, engineers heading to Canada, tech workers relocating to the US — anyone with the means to escape.
Japa captures something brutal: the acknowledgment that your country has failed you, and survival means leaving. It's pragmatic, not nostalgic. It's urgent, not hopeful. When someone says they want to japa, they're not dreaming of adventure abroad — they're calculating visa requirements and pooling resources because staying feels like waiting for nothing to change.