‘Japa’ Syndrome And The TETFund Scholars

It is, indeed, difficult to fathom out the reason why persons on government scholarship, who are supposed to be on a mission to acquire more skills to impart both knowledge and character, would permanently bolt out of the country in such a dishonest manner. Some have tended to describe the act in disdainful terms, while others have used hackneyed phrases like “take off” or even “japa”, a word recently added to the lexicon of our local parlance.

Whichever term one chooses to describe it, the bitter truth dogging Nigeria in the face is the rate at which scores of the country’s university lecturers on Tertiary Education Trust Fund’s (TETFund) foreign scholarship have been absconding in recent times. It is quite alarming and disenchanting when it is considered that, unlike the army of our unemployed youths who embark on a voyage in search of greener pasture, these folks who are reasonably comfortable with their jobs as lecturers, along with their thriving side hustle, have simply just given up on Nigeria.
Instead of returning home after their studies to add value to our frail education system, these lecturers have chosen to ‘check out’ like Andrew, a character played by the late Enebeli Elebuwa, starred in a popular TV skit in the mid 80’s, who would throw his traveling bag over his shoulder and say, “No light, no water. Men, I’m checking out.”

Currently, there is no agency that is contributing to the development of tertiary education in Nigeria like TETFund. In most tertiary institutions, especially those owned by the states, projects executed by the Fund dwarf those executed by the state governments.

Adhering strictly to its cardinal objective of providing the badly needed funds to support tertiary education, doling out scholarship and grants to staff in order to enhance productivity and quality of higher education, TETFund is making indelible marks as far as the growth and development of tertiary education in Nigeria is concerned.

Its interventions are anchored on the provision of infrastructure, research grants, as well as training and development of academic staff, among others. Under staff training and development, the Fund disburses scholarship to academic staff through the TETFund Scholarship for Academic Staff (TSAS).

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One of the eligibility criteria for the TSAS is that a beneficiary who must be a lecturer should be bonded by his or her employing institution. Absconding before or after completing the study is a breach of agreement, and no lecturer worthy of being called an academic should be guilty of such an inglorious act.

Unfortunately, here we are, confronted by the sad reality that some Nigerian lecturers, having been sponsored by TETFund, either abscond outright or fail to complete the minimum of their bond before deciding to relocate. To say this ‘japa’ mentality smacks of dishonesty and sheer lack of patriotism is to say the least in the mildest way.
Recently, TETFund Executive Secretary, Sunny Echono, lamented the spate of ‘japa’ among lecturers on the Fund’s foreign scholarship, vowing that he will make the absconded refund money expended on them or be repatriated.

Echono said TETFund would adopt both “soft and hard measures to ensure that the university lecturers who absconded were sanctioned”.

TETFund’s proposal that those who absconded should merely refund in full the money used in training them is too lenient. What is required is a punitive measure and a stronger consequence including having their names backlisted.

Perhaps, it is right time to name and shame these dishonest scholars because in failing to honour the bond they signed of their own volition, they are bringing the lecturing profession into disrepute.

Dearth of lecturers
While the nation continues to cope with the alarm raised by TETFund, the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) is also lamenting the mass resignation of lecturers from the nation’s universities.
For both the universities and varsity education, it is a double whammy. While a sizeable number of lecturers sponsored by TETFund are not forthcoming, those within are resigning.
It is true that poor and sometimes delayed salaries, unpaid allowances and poor infrastructure are responsible for the mass resignation of lecturers. And to address this mass exodus, the government must review the lecturers’ conditions of service by making their salaries and allowances more attractive, and address infrastructure challenges in our campuses.

High rate of ‘japa’
At the current rate, unless something drastic, and perhaps radical too, is done, we may wake up one day to see that the only persons left in the country are politicians, senior civil servants who have unrestrained access to the public coffers and persons who have no means of leaving the country.
During the dark era of slavery, able-bodied Nigerians wailed and kicked as they were forcefully taken to the West. Today, Nigerian youths, most of whom have graduated from tertiary institutions, are ready to take all sorts of risks just to travel to the western countries in search of the proverbial greener pasture.
The International Organisation for Migration (IOM), revealed that no fewer than 260,000 Nigerians approached it for assistance to leave the country this year, suggesting clearly that the nation is standing on the proverbial time-bomb.

In the midst of a high cost of living, shrinking opportunities for access to the basics of life, and dearth of jobs arising largely from leadership failure, hundreds of Nigerian youths are making frantic efforts to emigrate.
Lamentably, it is not only the unemployed youths that are making such moves. Professionals in critical sectors of the nation’s economy are also caught in this frenzy of mass exodus. With an ever-increasing need for manpower, especially in critical areas like health and education, the fact that concerted efforts are needed to halt this terrible menace of emigration cannot be overemphasised.

How on earth can a country in dire need of human resources for health look the other way while its health professionals migrate in droves? The mind-boggling statistics about exodus of health workers where it is estimated that no fewer than 75,000 nurses and midwives left the country in the last five years is benumbing.
According to the World Health Organization (WHO), no fewer than 2,000 Nigerian doctors leave the country annually to either the United States of America, United Kingdom or Canada.

Available records indicate that Nigeria lost over 9,000 medical doctors to these three countries between 2016 and 2018, with yet another report disclosing that no fewer than 727 medical doctors trained in Nigeria relocated to the UK alone in six months, between December 2021 and May 2022.
If the mass exodus of able-bodied youths and health workers is alarming, that of the academics is no less so. Something urgent must be done to reverse the trend. And the time is now!