Japan Syndrome: Lawyers cue for travel visa, relocate in droves

By Ezurike Ugochukwu

Unable to make up a comfortable living owing to galloping inflation in the country, insecurity and others, many lawyers especially younger ones have relocated abroad leaving many law firms in daily search for replacements.

Giving his memoir, a lawyer, Stanley Alieke, narrated how his visit to a law firm of a very senior lawyer who happens to be a close friend of his who in the course of their discussion intimated him of how lawyers have been moving away from his firm.

According to his friend, about fifteen lawyers have left his firm in the three cities they have their branches only this year.

Expressed concern that the situation has put them in the corner of scouting for lawyers to employ therefore sought his help to refer some lawyers to the firm.

Alieke, lamented thus, “I couldn’t even imagine why lawyers would resign from a law firm which has been the dream of some lawyers to work in. To be fair, it is not just his law firm that is losing manpower, even most of the A-list law firms in Nigeria that I know of are also losing huge numbers of lawyers on a daily basis.

“Almost every week I see law firms advertise vacancies on LinkedIn to replace a lawyer who exited the firm so as to boost their manpower.

“I can tell you for a fact that lawyers are really relocating in great numbers, some are relocating to further their studies with the intent to come back to Nigeria once they have acquired additional degrees while some are relocating permanently never to look back.
“Unfortunately for the law firms, the lawyers leaving are those who have stayed long in the firm and who have mastered the job, the ones left behind are the upcoming lawyers who are still under tutelage and can’t cover up for the lawyers that exited.
“I even felt sorry for my senior friend as he was telling me how he himself is the one who does draft some of the court processes at the moment due to the fact that the other lawyers remaining are swamped with other engagements.

Not just law firms are losing lawyers to the japa drive, the number of health workers relocating is outrageously high too, same with tech bro/ tech sis, same with bank and financial institutions workers, same with engineers. In fact, I often hear a joke that some Nigerian banks do resume work on Mondays to find out that the whole of their IT staff have japa’d over the weekend.

“The Japa drive is no longer a joke, it is causing a serious brain drain which is not just impacting the Nigerian economy, it is also ruining businesses and killing startups.”

Many businesses today he said are losing their best staff to some European or Canadian firms, “It has gotten to a point where every business owner needs to be worried. You can resume work after a weekend break and find out that your best staff or a key member of your organization have left the country in search of a greener pasture.”

Regretted the ugly situation of the matter wherein only those in the country are the ones who are held back by either financial requirements to make up or are held by other factors beyond their control.

A contributor by name Jacob Egharevba said that a time will come when the government will kneel down to beg the youth to come and take up some of those jobs they have refused to give them now.

By the time the brain drain takes it’s toll on the country, they will understand the damages they have caused.

He stated, “The private sector would suffer more for it because they alone eat the profits from their businesses, paying their staff miserable and intangible amount per month.

He said, “It is a gunless revolution that this japa phenomenon depicts. The government needs to be serious with the affairs of the youth by fixing meaningful salaries and wages for both private sector and government cycles. No youth, no nation.”