One very profound Yoruba migration proverb is “Ita l’ó máa n na omo padà sílé.” (It is the outside world that beats a child back home). A variant says, “The outside teaches a child to return home.” Like the child beaten back home, migrants are being reminded, often brutally, that escape is not a substitute for fixing the house one ran from.
Now, hostile immigration policies in the developed world have become the cane with which the “outside” disciplines those who fled failing homelands, exposing the illusion that opportunity abroad is unconditional or permanent.
In those days, each time my mother caught any of her six children attempting to go and play in our neighbour’s compound, she would say, “E je ki kainkain ile yin o ta yin nidi.” In direct translation, she meant that we should fasten our buttocks to our father’s compound and allow the ants there to bite us rather than the ants in the neighbour’s home. In other words, no matter how unattractive your home is, it is better to sit there and endure the discomforts than to sneak out into another compound and assume there are no poisonous ants there.
But did we always listen? Of course not. We were children. We always wanted to go to the “other compound.” And somehow, we almost always ended up in trouble. If we did not break something, we would return with bruises from “playing rough.” And then Mummy would report us to Daddy, and both of them would unleash their customised shege. The combination of those two and their premium shege can only be understood by “legends” whose parents were like mine.
My siblings and I eventually learned to be one another’s friends and playmates. We quarrelled, fought, and resolved things among ourselves. We made our beds the way we wanted to lie on them. In those days, our parents were lawgivers and law enforcers. It was hard being their children, but the discipline toughened us.
2025 came in smiling sweetly, wearing a seductive scent and a swag. We embraced her and laid our heads on her succulent breasts. We were so, so sure everything would be cool. So we revved up our Nigeria and told ourselves, “If Nigeria is not liveable, we will go somewhere else.” 2025 smiled, nodded, and encouraged us to go ahead. We sold land and jewellery. We took loans and sent our children to the UK, US, Canada—everywhere we thought the fields looked greener. Couples went with their children. Some even left their children, hoping to return for them. We even had extreme cases where men in their late 40s and 50s sold their homes so they could go into the neighbour’s compound to explore and enjoy the greener pasture.
So how did we manage to turn all those attributes into curses and disadvantages? Why can we not make all our advantages make us a superpower, even if only an African superpower?
2025 continued to smile.
She did not warn us.
More people boarded the Japa train. Then one day, the UK arrived with branded shege.
They called it Changes to Legal Migration and Work Visas.
It started with the May 2025 Immigration White Paper, which tightened the noose around the necks of “earned settlement” with stricter eligibility rules. That was followed by skilled worker restrictions. Jobs our people took for granted suddenly came under “thou shalt not come to the UK to do these jobs.”
By July 2025, the list of jobs eligible for sponsorship was shortened. By July 22, the UK ended overseas recruitment of social care workers by employers. From here on, for international students, the post-study work period (Graduate visa) will be reduced from two years to 18 months for most applicants starting in early 2027. From January 8, 2026, your English-speaking prowess must be far from Pidgin and close to the Queen’s English. Applicants for Skilled Worker and High Potential Individual visas must now demonstrate a B2 level of English proficiency, up from the old B1.
The Immigration Skills Charge (ISC) paid by employers to sponsor foreign workers was increased by 32 per cent in December 2025.
Still, 2025 was adjusting her bra and patting her bone-straight wig, as if she did not know that all these new laws are a pain in the butt.
The UK government’s 2025 proposals seek to redefine settlement as a privilege rather than a right. The UK is now planning to increase the standard qualifying period for Indefinite Leave to Remain (ILR) for many legal migrants from five years to 10 years. These, and many other stinging ants, are lining up to bite Nigerians living and working in the UK.
And 2025 is still sitting unruffled in her low-neckline, sweet pink dress. Who wears pink when everything is going dark?
And if we thought we had heard the worst news of the year, it was because we had not opened Uncle Donald’s Santa Claus duffel bag of goodies. Even 2025 was shaken by the contents.
Even yours sincerely is seething—very angry that I paid for a five-year visa that I will not be able to use. I hope Uncle Donald is reading this. My B1/B2 visa is now sitting lame in my passport. I heard it also affected F, M, and even J visas. I guess all alphabets are in trouble in this Trump trouble. Even those who have Green Cards and citizenship are in trouble. Of course, our pregnancies have been told to stay out of America. Under the new ban, U.S. citizens seeking to bring over their spouses and children from travel-banned countries will be unable to do so, unless they manage to fulfil a few extra righteousness.
“The new ban no longer contains an exemption for Afghans who assisted the US war effort in Afghanistan (2001 to 2021). Those Afghans put themselves in mortal danger to help the US, and there are an estimated 260,000 of them who remain abroad waiting for entry to the US. Some are in third countries, but many remain in Taliban-ruled Afghanistan and thus face risks to their freedoms or lives.
Even Afghans who have made it to the US on a Special Immigrant Visa or who are otherwise there legally are fearful that they will be deported.”
I brought this last part to pull the ears of those Nigerians already planning how to enter America by fire or by force. Trump means business. Do not think up any of your Nigerian slangs on this matter. Staying wise and safe should be your motto now. Borrow yourself brain and shelve all plans to outwit Trump. Right now, he holds the aces. If Afghans who “put themselves in mortal danger to help the US” are not exempted from bans and restrictions and those already in America are “fearful they will be deported,” Nigerians desperate to leave Nigeria should look beyond the UK and the US.
I am embarrassed on behalf of all of you Nigerians reading this. We should all be ashamed. Yes, no man is an island, but why is Nigeria not the country everybody wants to visit and live in?
We have great hills.
We have awesome waterfalls.
We have beautiful beaches.
We have minerals of all kinds under our soil.
We are brilliant people.
We are patient, long-distance runners.
We are rugged.
So how did we manage to turn all those attributes into curses and disadvantages? Why can we not make all our advantages make us a superpower, even if only an African superpower?
A land flowing with milk and honey is now queuing to buy sugar in other countries. We are being threatened by all the letters of the English language, all because we failed to do what we should have done when we needed to do them.
The people who call themselves lawmakers have not been able to find the right English to write a law that will make our gold, for instance, as useful as our oil. They prefer to pass bills that enable the President to borrow more money. The Nigerian Police have not found the right way to use our NIN and BVN to track criminals. They are busy somewhere, as you read this, calculating how much they will make from issuing tint permits every year. How did we end up with leaders like the ones we have had? Quickie, two-minute leaders who can neither thrust deep nor last long. They leave no memorable performance—leaders you do not yearn for.
According to the American Immigration Council, “the country most heavily impacted by the new restrictions is Nigeria. Over the last decade (excluding the COVID years of 2020 and 2021), Nigerians received an average of 128,000 immigrant and non-immigrant visas on an annual basis. Nearly all of these visas will now be restricted, blocking legal immigration from the most populous country in Africa.”
In addition, two of the newly banned countries, Senegal and Côte d’Ivoire, qualified for the World Cup in 2026, which will mostly be held in the United States. Under the new travel ban, any fans of those countries who don’t have valid visas as of January 1, 2026, will be barred from getting them and unable to attend the games in person.”
Well, at least Nigeria will not need to sponsor hundreds of people to “go and support our players”. It won’t kill us to watch football where we can rewind and fast-forward, for once.
On a serious note, won’t Canada, Australia, and others soon follow with restrictions because ‘bi iya nla ba gbeni san’l?, keekeeke a ma g’ori eni?’ When a big tragedy knocks you down, it gives smaller misfortunes the opportunity to jump on you. Won’t Gambia and Mauritania one day also tell Nigerians they cannot bring their trouble to trouble their lands?
When will our leaders start leading in ways that will make everybody stop looking down on us? When will they start doing instead of boasting like Okobo, the impotent bridegroom?
And 2025 is still smiling. Only God knows the next shege she has planned.
*Egbemode ([email protected]).
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