This is one of the most powerful descriptions I have read of a reality many of us prefer not to confront.
We have become so accustomed to describing Nigeria only through its failures that we sometimes no longer see the country as a diamond in the rough—or recognize the roses still growing among its thorns.
There is much that is broken.
There is much that must change.
There are legitimate reasons why people leave, and there should be no condemnation of those whom life, work, family or even God has led elsewhere.
But there is another side of the conversation.
What do we lose when we begin to believe that opportunity, dignity and significance can only be found somewhere else?
In a deeply reflective post, Eche Emole writes:
“At 15, I couldn’t wait to leave Nigeria for America. It took me 20 years to understand what I traded away.”
He describes the immigrant bargain with unusual honesty: the degrees, the larger rooms, the carefully moderated accent, the documents kept ready at the border, and the silent knowledge that one’s right to remain may still feel conditional.
Then comes the line that stopped me:
“Opportunity is portable. Security is not.”
You may acquire education, access, titles, residency and economic opportunity elsewhere, yet still carry the uneasiness of knowing that the ground beneath your feet was, in some sense, lent to you.
As he puts it:
“We traded belonging for access. And we called it ambition.”
That is a difficult sentence.
Not because everyone who emigrates has made a mistake, but because many of us have never honestly counted the full cost of leaving—or considered the possibilities of building where we began.
You can read Eche Emole’s original reflection here:
THE GROUND THAT SUSTAINS US
My wife once shared something from her nutrition training: that the foods best suited to sustain people are often found within the region in which they live or were raised.
I tried to verify the more specific claim that the appropriate foods for one’s body must come from within a strict 100-kilometre or 100-mile radius. I could not find sound scientific evidence for such a biological rule.
The “100-mile diet” is better understood as a local-food and sustainability movement, not a proven law that every person’s ideal nutrition is geographically fixed.
However, there is still wisdom in valuing diverse, seasonal, minimally processed and locally available foods—especially traditional crops adapted to their environment and culture.
So perhaps the deeper principle remains useful:
Sometimes the ground on which we stand already contains more of what can sustain us than we have been trained to recognize.
That principle extends far beyond food.
It applies to culture.
Language.
Identity.
Calling.
Enterprise.
And national development.
THE STORY OF PROFESSOR AKINWUMI ISOLA
This reminds me of a story my mentor, Dr Tunde Adegbola, once shared, which later became part of one of my teachings.
Professor Akinwumi Isola began his university education in French. His first degree was in French before he later pursued postgraduate study in Yoruba literature and African literature.
He eventually became one of the most important scholars, writers, translators and promoters of Yoruba language and culture.
As Dr Adegbola recounted the story, Isola was working towards advancing further in French when a professor challenged him with an uncomfortable truth:
No matter how brilliantly he mastered French, it would never belong to him in the same way it belonged to the French.
He was encouraged to turn his intellectual energy towards the language and cultural inheritance that were already his.
That decision did not make him smaller.
It made him distinctive.
Professor Isola went on to become a poet, playwright, novelist, actor, translator and scholar of international standing.
His work carried Yoruba thought and expression into universities, conferences, literature, theatre and film around the world.
He translated major works, including Wole Soyinka’s Aké: The Years of Childhood and Death and the King’s Horseman, into Yoruba.
The lesson is not that we must reject foreign languages, education or opportunity.
The lesson is that we must not become so successful in what belongs to others that we abandon what has been entrusted to us.
Professor Isola did not become globally relevant by running away from his roots.
He became globally relevant by going deeper into them.
He reached the world because he first embraced what was his.
A NECESSARY BALANCE
Let me balance this carefully.
Some of us have been genuinely helped, enlarged and strategically positioned by living outside our country of birth.
We have received education.
Exposure.
Capital.
Safety.
Networks.
Professional opportunities.
And experiences that may not have been available to us at home.
That is not something to despise or apologize for.
But privilege must become responsibility.
The purpose cannot simply be personal escape.
Even when we live abroad, acquire another nationality or build successful careers elsewhere, we must remember our people and the land from which we came.
We can invest.
Mentor.
Teach.
Build institutions.
Transfer knowledge.
Support credible local enterprises.
Open doors for others.
Preserve language and culture.
Help repair systems.
And use global access to strengthen local capacity.
The question is not merely:
“Where can I prosper?”
It is also:
“Who is meant to prosper because I was given this opportunity?”
JERUSALEM STILL COMES FIRST
Jesus described the movement of witness in Acts 1:8:
“You shall be witnesses to Me in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the end of the earth.”
The movement was outward, but it began at home.
Jerusalem.
Then Judea.
Then Samaria.
Then the ends of the earth.
The sequence matters.
Global reach was never intended to erase local responsibility.
Our “Jerusalem” may be our family.
Our neighbourhood.
Our city.
Our profession.
Our church.
Our culture.
Or our country.
We should go to the ends of the earth.
But we must not become so fascinated by the ends of the earth that we forget Jerusalem.
THE QUESTION BEFORE US
Nigeria is difficult.
Building here can be slower, more expensive and more frustrating than it should be.
The system can punish sincerity.
Institutions can disappoint us.
People we love can be wounded by the very country they are trying to serve.
This is not an attempt to romanticize dysfunction.
But neither should dysfunction blind us to destiny.
There are still things we can build here that no one else will build for us.
There are problems whose solutions may become our greatest opportunities.
There are languages, communities, institutions and future generations that require people who refuse to abandon the field.
Perhaps the question is not whether everyone must return physically.
Perhaps it is:
Have we returned in responsibility?
Have our knowledge, resources, networks and opportunities returned with us?
Are our people better because we travelled?
Is our land stronger because we succeeded?
Have we merely escaped the problem—or have we acquired the capacity to help solve it?
Eche Emole ends with a profound question:
“How long do we keep running before we stop, and build where we stand?”
That question deserves more than applause.
It deserves an answer.
Opportunity may be portable. But belonging carries an assignment.
And whether we live in Ibadan, Lagos, London, Toronto, Vancouver, Atlanta or anywhere else, we must never forget:
It always begins with Jerusalem.
— Francis E. Madojemu
Inspired by Eche Emole’s reflections following his conversation with Iyinoluwa Aboyeji on the Afropolitan Podcast, and by a story about Professor Akinwumi Isola shared by Dr Tunde Adegbola.
Original Eche Emole LinkedIn post:
https://www.linkedin.com/posts/eemole_at-15-i-couldnt-wait-to-leave-nigeria-for-ugcPost-7481008234389024769-Nt1e/
