Nigerian Lawyers Are Running Away; Japa Has Arrived In The Legal Profession By Stanley Alieke

I visited the law firm of a very senior lawyer who happens to be a close friend and as we were discussing he was intimating me on how lawyers have been leaving his firm. He said about fifteen lawyers have left his firm altogether in the three cities they have an office in Nigeria just this year; he said those fifteen lawyers relocated abroad and they are currently looking for more lawyers to employ. In fact, he asked me to help them refer some lawyers to the firm.

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 host 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. Most businesses 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.

Most people that are still in Nigeria are in Nigeria because they are stuck; maybe they cannot afford to relocate, once they can afford it or have gathered enough money to cater for the relocation they are gone.