Japa and Ja Pa Da:
A geopolitical context in the Nigerian and Sudanese encounters
By Taiye Olaniyi

Average Nigerian youths of today, jobless and professionals in different disciplines especially in the medical fields have the ambitions to not only travel but stay in Europe, Canada, and the United States of America.

Because of the innumerable bitter experiences associated with the sociocultural and geopolitical economic indices daily trending down the drain of a nation where everything seems falling apart, "Japa" a recent flee and fleeting syndromes are now the vogue, especially amongst the younger elements. Their aging aged parents if could afford and have where to also run to, and whether or not for medicare and "Omugo" by Madam de Madam, are ever ready to move, run out of Nigeria at just the twinkling of an eye.

The situation in Nigeria today is like a bird that perches on a rope as such, neither is it stable nor the rope on which it perches is. The situation now around Nigerians in all the nooks and crannies is full of tribal, ethnic, ethnocentric, and politico-economic despondency. The religious persuasions and faiths of average Nigerians are daily tailor driven into mere external observances, bigotry, and hypocrisy rather than being the true sources of unity of man to the real God of their understanding(s).

The Creator of every living being, everywhere is being appropriated and/ or misappropriated to suit individual and collective religious feelings with the underlying and underlining attitudes of superiority/inferiority complexes attendant to such unprogressive societal configurations.

In today's Nigeria quoting Dr. Kenneth Idiodi, a mystic philosopher, "Religion has been politicized, politics has been religionized while politics and religion have been commercialized". At these triple levels, there is discordance everywhere, and thus, average Nigerians flare to " Japa" and run away from Nigeria at all costs.

Is that the way out? The answer may be "Yes" or "No" depending on one's opinion without any element of mathematical exactitude. Insecurity and violence associated with geopolitical rulership with the least trait of "Leadership" in the political, social, and economic governance by the ruling government and by those in opposition at various levels instigate violence at different levels. The agitations for restructuring, balkanization of Nigeria at geopolitical zones, and maybe secessionist movements may make apt the statement that once galvanized the French Revolution in 18th century France:

" Conditions in the society must be very bad before the men in their large number must be calling for its violent overthrow, for no one would like to lose everything for nothing." Think about it.

The recent Nigeria elections, the unrigged, rigged, clean, and or dirty slates in their processes and processing, the winners and/ or losers, and the results in the declarations by the Independence National Electoral Commission and support and agitations therein and therefrom, the question is, "Which way Nigeria?" courtesy, Sonny Okosun.

Who owns Papa's land, who owns Nigeria, and who are the Nigerians?

"In Youths" an adage goes, "we run into problems, at Old age problems run unto us" Think about it.

The EndSars, its justification and/ or inimical covert and overt insinuations and fallouts, the bandit armies in geospatial sprawls from villages and towns in Northern Nigeria, kidnappings and ritual killings in the Southwest, and the incessant masked and unmasked IPOB and unknown brute and brutal perceived unknown gunmen and their revolutionary thirsts for bloodshed in Southeast Nigeria. Are they all sane or justified to articulate, and be obedient in the continued battering of Nigerians in Nigeria like the Sudanese now daily growing mad and mad against one another over the mundane positions and positioning including the undercover foreign interests by world powers? In Nigeria of old, we were often admonished, " North-South, East-West, Home is the Best," but for those of us at home and those being forcefully sardined back to Nigeria from Sudan, Libya, and what have you, is our Nigeria still the best home or should we continue the brain drain in droves abroad or be bundled and bandied home, "Ja Pa Da" from war-torn Sudan and other lands? Think about it.

The problem with the average human being is likened to the observation of a sage when he intoned, "The greatest lesson of history is that history has no lesson to teach." Methinks it is because average many don't love to study history and its lessons. Think about it.

May 29, 2023, is fast approaching, would Nigerians be sane enough to learn about the lessons of coups, countercoups, war, their skirmishes, miseries, and woes attendant to them including the fiendish extraction of interim government as processes of peacemaking? Making the best of bad situations, and as Jimmy Cliff once sang:

Too many people are suffering

Too many people are sad

Too likable people got everything

While too many people got nothing

Remake the world

With love and happiness

Remake the world

Put your conscience in the test

Remake the world

North, south, east and west

Remake the world...

What lessons of history are we to learn from the aforementioned? Think about it.

"The present generation of Nigerians and even the upcoming ones have no place to call their home. Nigeria belongs to all, and we must all remain here to salvage it together.".

God bless Nigeria.

First published in Metro

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Taiye Olaniyi, a retired Postman of the Nigeria Postal Service, is based in Lagos