Japa, Remote Work and the New Nigerian Remittance Economy

Dapo never left Nigeria. He works, full-time, for a software company headquartered in Austin, Texas, logging in every morning from his apartment in Yaba, paid entirely in dollars, deposited into a domiciliary account before he converts whatever he needs into naira at a rate dramatically better than his local-currency-earning peers can access. He represents a quietly growing segment of Nigeria's economy: workers participating in the 'japa' wave's financial upside, dollar-denominated income, without the actual emigration that the term japa, Yoruba slang for fleeing or escaping, originally and still primarily describes.