As Nigeria has faced huge economic challenges in recent years, the number of young people who have sought opportunities abroad has surged. But, as DW's Olisa Chukwumah reports from Lagos, some are making their way back.
Category
🗞
NewsTranscript
00:00Home again after a stint in the UK, Yimeka Owaje is one of a few young Nigerians who
00:09have returned from living and studying abroad.
00:11Like many others, he had gone seeking better opportunities, but Yimeka says he wasn't
00:17prepared for the challenges.
00:19He studied screenwriting in London, but afterwards he found it hard to get work.
00:25He took odd jobs to make ends meet, but after three years, he felt it was time to go home.
00:56Yimeka experienced culture shock.
01:00He was homesick, but he knew that coming back after being abroad wouldn't be easy either.
01:06In Nigeria, it's often seen as failure.
01:25Now he's in Lagos, living out his dreams, teaching improvisation to aspiring actors.
01:37Like the crowd here, Nigeria's population is young.
01:4170% are under the age of 30, but many are leaving, doing jakba, which is a slang for
01:48running away.
01:50The country's economic and other problems mean they feel they have no future here.
01:54I think going abroad right now, I think it's almost necessary, you know, to leave the country
02:06as of right now.
02:07So yeah, I have plans to leave, just because of that, just because of my profession, and
02:11I want to upskill that, and the only way I can do it is in a different country, not here.
02:17Personally, I just want to experience other cultures, other countries.
02:21I don't want Nigeria to be my only reality.
02:24More than three million people have left the country in the last two years, says Nigeria's
02:29Immigration Service, which has issued a record number of passports.
02:35Development experts say people who leave could have a part to play in the country's growth.
02:40They want the government to do more to make returning home more attractive.
02:45Some of them have acquired skills, because going abroad, going to the Western world,
02:48they learn skills, they learn things that they couldn't get from here.
02:52So it's important that we continue to attract this talent, people who have left, who have
02:57learnt things out there, bring them back to come and plug into our industries here.
03:03Yumeka wants to be part of those returning to make things better.
03:07Taking the decision to move back was hard, but he had support from his family.
03:12I was very happy to have him back, extremely happy.
03:15Him knowing that he could come home, and there wouldn't be that reproach of, oh, you went
03:21away.
03:22Wait for the consequences, come back, there are different things that you can do.
03:26So hard decisions, but no regrets whatsoever.
03:30Yumeka says he is here to stay.
03:33I feel more comfortable, I feel happier, and that is what matters to me more than anybody
03:40else's opinion of what I should have done.
03:43But the lure of opportunities abroad continues to attract many young Nigerians.
03:49What, the hug?
03:50Which hug?