I didn’t plan to leave Nigeria.

Not at first.

But life has a way of pressing your chest until you start considering roads you once swore you would never walk.

 It started the day NEPA took light in the middle of my online job interview. I sat there with my ring light blinking like an apology and my interviewer staring at a frozen version of me. When power finally returned two hours later the job had already been given to someone in Kenya.

That night, I cried. Not because of the job, but because of the helplessness.

Then my younger sister, Ada, came home from school with tear filled eyes because her scholarship was suddenly “on hold.”

My dad had that tired look parents wear when they wish they could do more. Mummy kept humming worship songs just to keep from breaking. It was like all of us were drowning quietly.

So when my friend Chidera told me about “that Canada route,” I listened. I told myself it was just information, nothing serious. But the day fuel jumped price again, and the bus conductor shouted “₦800 from Ojuelegba to CMS,” something in me snapped. I knew I couldn’t keep patching life anymore.

That was when the Japa journey began.

I sold my phone. I sold my sewing machine. Even my Sunday shoes  the silver ones I wore for Christmas  went. Every naira I saved felt like I was cutting pieces from my own skin. The stress was mad. Embassy appointments that kept rescheduling. Agents collecting money and suddenly “not picking calls.” Nights I stayed awake reading IELTS tips while mosquitoes held conference on my leg. I have never prayed the way I prayed during that period.

The day my visa was approved, I didn’t scream. I didn’t jump. I just sat on the floor and cried silently. It felt like relief and guilt mixed together because I was leaving, and my family was staying.

At the airport, Mummy held my hand so tight I could feel her heartbeat in her palm.

“Don’t forget who you are,” she whispered.

“I won’t,” I replied, even though my voice was shaking.

When the plane lifted, I looked out of the window and watched the lights of Lagos scatter beneath me like broken promises. That was the moment it hit me:

I wasn’t running away from Nigeria. I was running toward a chance to breathe.

Life abroad hasn’t been perfect, the cold nearly killed me, loneliness is a whole different kind of madness, and bills don’t smile. But every month when I send something home, every time my sister calls to say she’s back in school because of me, every time my parents bless me over the phone…

…I know the struggle was worth it.

Japa didn’t save me. It transformed me.

And one day, when everything is finally stable, I’ll come back home, not as someone escaping, but as someone who left to grow and returned to give back.

Because no matter the struggle, Nigeria is still the place my heart whispers when it misses warmth.