Migration and National Development: The Japa Syndrome as a Trans-Generational Literary Discourse

The twenty-first century has witnessed an unprecedented increase in mobility, migration and dislocation. In recent times, it is evident, from media reports, that what is in the minds of many Nigerians is to japa. All these can be attributed to the colonial enterprise, post-colonial disillusionment, globalization, and the vicissitudes of living in the modern world. Literature, in its verisimilitude nature, has captured the development in its trans-generational discourse, from Achebe to Adichie. However, the application of post-colonial theories to migration and its implications for national development appear only in scratches. It is in this regard that this paper adopts both migration and post-colonial literary theories to examine the generational changes in migration studies vis a vis their implications for national development in Nigeria. The study argues that migration as a human factor has both positive and negative impacts on development, as portrayed in selected novels written by Nigerian creative writers. It is, therefore, preoccupied with the historical development of migration in the Nigerian literary landscape, the recent deluge of numbers of migrants, and the fate of migrants of different hues, as well as the ways in which their experiences can be transformed and channelled into developmental engagements. The aim is to contextualize migration in literary studies for national development.