Most people spend the first year of their japa journey watching YouTube videos, following diaspora accounts on Instagram, and occasionally saving random information in Notes apps they never review. Lots of energy, not much forward movement.
Then something shifts, maybe a friend gets their visa, maybe the naira drops again, maybe a frustrating week at work crosses a line and suddenly the vague idea becomes urgent. And urgency without preparation is how people make expensive mistakes.
Before you start collecting documents, before you pay anyone anything, before you tell your family your timeline, there are 20 questions you should be able to answer honestly. Not perfectly. Not with certainty about every detail. But honestly, with real knowledge of your own situation.
This article asks those questions. Some will be easy. Some will expose gaps you did not know you had. Both outcomes are useful.
Quick Summary
- Most japa plans stall not because of money or opportunity but because of unexamined assumptions about eligibility, timeline, and what abroad life actually costs.
- These 20 questions cover five areas: eligibility and route, finances, documents and preparation, personal readiness, and long-term planning.
- You do not need to have perfect answers to all 20 before you start. But you should know which questions you cannot answer yet, because those are your preparation gaps.
- Honest self-assessment now saves significantly more time and money than discovering the same gaps after you have already started applying.
- This exercise works best done twice: once now, and once again in 3 months, to measure how much has changed.
Part 1: Eligibility and Route (Questions 1 to 5)
These questions test whether your japa plan is attached to a real, specific legal pathway or whether it is still a general idea.
Question 1: Which specific immigration route am I planning to use, and have I read the full official eligibility requirements for it?
“I want to go to Canada” is not a route. Express Entry Federal Skilled Worker Program with a minimum CLB 9 IELTS score and a WES-assessed degree is a route. If you cannot name your specific route and describe its core eligibility criteria without Googling it right now, your plan is still at the information-gathering stage, not the preparation stage.
Question 2: Am I currently eligible for that route, or am I planning to become eligible?
These are very different situations. If you are eligible now, you can start the process. If you need to improve your IELTS score, complete a qualification, or accumulate more work experience first, your realistic start date is further away than it may feel. Be honest about where you currently sit.
Question 3: Is my profession recognised in my target country, and have I checked with the relevant regulatory body?
For regulated professions (nursing, medicine, pharmacy, engineering, law, accounting), a Nigerian qualification is not automatically accepted abroad. The assessment process for some professions takes months. If you have not checked whether your specific Nigerian qualification is recognised, you may be planning a route that requires a step you did not know about.
Question 4: If my primary route does not work out, do I have a backup route?
Immigration pathways get more competitive, rules change, and circumstances shift. An applicant who has identified only one possible pathway has no resilience if that pathway closes or becomes more difficult. What is your backup?
Question 5: Have I spoken to at least one Nigerian who successfully used the same route I am planning, within the past 12 months?
Not YouTube. Not a WhatsApp group. Someone you can actually have a conversation with who has recent, first-hand experience of the specific route you are targeting. The japa landscape changes quickly. Information from two years ago may no longer be accurate.
Part 2: Finances (Questions 6 to 10)
Money questions are where most japa plans reveal their biggest gaps. Answer these without rounding up.
Question 6: Do I know my specific savings target in destination currency, not naira?
“I need a few million naira” is not a savings target. The UK Student visa financial requirement, or Canada’s Express Entry settlement funds, or the cost of relocating to Australia are all figures in GBP, CAD, or AUD respectively. Do you know the current official figure for your specific visa type, converted to naira at today’s rate?
Question 7: How much have I actually saved toward that target so far, and is it in an account that shows consistent savings activity?
Not what you have saved across all your accounts for various purposes. Specifically toward your japa target. And is it in a dedicated account with a consistent savings pattern, or is it scattered across accounts with no clear narrative?
Question 8: At my current monthly savings rate, when would I reach my target?
Do the actual maths. Monthly savings amount, divided into the gap between current savings and target. The result is the number of months remaining. Is that timeline acceptable to you? If not, what specifically has to change?
Question 9: Have I budgeted for the first 3 to 6 months of living costs abroad, separately from my visa costs and flights?
Many people budget for getting there but not for surviving the first months before income stabilises. Living in London, Toronto, or Sydney before your first paycheck is expensive in a way that does not feel real until you are there. Do you have that buffer, separately accounted for?
Question 10: Is my bank statement going to support a visa application right now, or does it need work?
Pull out your last 6 months of statements and look at them as a stranger. Is your income consistent with your employment letter? Is the balance building steadily? Are there any large unexplained deposits? The answer to this question tells you whether you can apply now or whether you need to spend the next 3 to 6 months cleaning up your financial evidence first.
Part 3: Documents and Preparation (Questions 11 to 14)
These questions test whether your practical preparation has started or whether it is still theoretical.
Question 11: Do all my key documents show the same name and date of birth, exactly as they appear on my passport?
Your passport, birth certificate, degree certificate, WAEC result, NIN, and bank statements. Compare them. Any discrepancy is a document inconsistency that needs a sworn affidavit or deed of name change before you can submit a visa application. How many discrepancies do you currently have?
Question 12: Has my passport been checked for validity, blank pages, and condition?
Does it have at least 12 months of validity remaining? Are there at least 2 to 3 blank visa pages? Is the data page clean, undamaged, and does the MRZ strip at the bottom look clear? If you cannot confidently answer yes to all three, your passport needs attention before anything else.
Question 13: Do I know which documents need authentication through FOMFA and which do not?
Authentication at the Federal Ministry of Foreign Affairs is required for several document types before they are accepted by foreign immigration authorities. Have you identified which of your specific documents need this, and have you budgeted the time (2 to 4 weeks minimum) and cost for it?
Question 14: Have I taken (or started preparing for) IELTS, and do I know which specific IELTS version my route requires?
Standard IELTS Academic and IELTS for UKVI Academic are different tests. Canada Express Entry uses IELTS Academic or General. Australia uses IELTS Academic or General. If you are going to the UK for a Student visa, you almost certainly need IELTS for UKVI Academic, not standard IELTS. Do you know which one applies to your specific route?
Part 4: Personal Readiness (Questions 15 to 17)
These are the questions people skip because they feel less “practical.” They are not less important.
Question 15: What am I actually going to abroad life, not away from Nigeria?
This is not a philosophical question. It is a practical one. People who move abroad primarily to escape something often find that the discomforts they wanted to escape follow them in different forms. People who move toward something specific (a career goal, a qualification, a family connection, a professional development path) tend to handle the genuine difficulties of abroad life more effectively. What is your “toward” answer?
Question 16: Have I had an honest conversation with the people my move will directly affect?
A spouse, children, parents who depend on you, a business partner. Moving abroad is rarely only your decision when other people’s lives are directly connected to yours. Have you had the real conversation, not just informed them, but actually discussed the implications? If not, why not?
Question 17: Am I prepared for the reality that abroad life is not what Instagram shows?
Cold weather that is not romantic. Isolation that is not temporary. Workplace cultures that are different in ways that are not immediately comfortable. Financial pressure in your first months that does not resolve as quickly as you expected. None of this means japa is a bad idea. It means the adjustment is real and it helps to be mentally prepared for it rather than shocked by it.
Part 5: Long-Term Planning (Questions 18 to 20)
Question 18: What is my 3-year plan after I arrive?
Not a detailed document. Just a general direction. Year 1: settle and stabilise employment. Year 2: begin working toward PR or next immigration milestone. Year 3: specific career or financial target. If you have no sense of what you are building beyond arrival, the first year abroad can become directionless in a way that affects your work performance and immigration status.
Question 19: What is my plan for the obligations I am leaving behind in Nigeria?
Property, business, elderly parents, children who are staying, financial obligations. Who manages these in your absence? What arrangements have you made, formally or informally? People who leave without addressing these often spend their first months abroad trying to manage Nigerian crises remotely, which is significantly harder than sorting them before you leave.
Question 20: If my visa is refused, what is my plan?
Not because it will be. But because knowing the answer changes how you prepare. An applicant who knows they can identify the refusal reason, address it, and reapply is less likely to make desperate decisions (like paying unregistered agents or staging bank accounts) under pressure. An applicant who treats refusal as unthinkable is more likely to cut corners hoping to avoid it.
What This Exercise Reveals
Tunde, 30, an accountant from Lagos, sat down with these 20 questions after a particularly bad week at work. He thought he was ready to japa.
Questions 1 and 2: He had a general sense he would “do Canada Express Entry” but had not checked whether his WES-assessed degree and IELTS score would give him a competitive CRS score. He did not know his approximate CRS score.
Questions 6 and 8: His savings target was vague. He had about 800,000 naira saved. He did not know the current CAD settlement fund requirement converted to naira.
Question 11: His WAEC result had his middle name. His passport did not. He had not noticed this before.
Question 14: He had done standard IELTS General Training, not Academic, and not UKVI. For Express Entry, General Training is fine. But he had been loosely thinking about UK options too, for which he would need UKVI Academic.
None of these gaps were fatal. All of them needed to be addressed before he could submit any real application. The exercise did not discourage him. It gave him a specific list of things to fix, which is significantly more useful than a vague plan.
Frequently Asked Questions
How do I know if I am genuinely ready to start my japa process? You are ready to start when you can answer questions 1 to 5 specifically and honestly, have a clear savings target with a timeline to reach it, and have identified your key document gaps. You do not need to have resolved everything to start. You need enough clarity to take purposeful next steps rather than random ones.
Is it possible to japa without a clear long-term plan? People do it, and some manage fine. But the patterns that most commonly lead to difficult first years abroad involve arriving without a financial buffer, without clarity on next immigration milestones, and without a plan for Nigerian obligations. None of those require certainty. They require minimum viable planning.
What if I answer most of these questions and realise I am not ready? That is the most useful possible outcome of this exercise. Knowing you are not ready gives you a specific preparation agenda. Not ready is a position you can move from. Not knowing you are not ready is much more expensive to discover after you have paid visa fees and missed a start date.
Use the Gaps as Your Preparation List
Every question you could not answer clearly is an item on your preparation agenda. Write them down.
If you could not answer question 6, your next step is calculating your real savings target in destination currency. If you could not answer question 11, your next step is a document audit. If you could not answer question 14, your next step is confirming which IELTS version your route requires.
The questions are designed so that each unanswered one points you toward a specific action. Do the actions.
Come back to this article in 3 months and answer the questions again. Measure the progress. That movement from where you are now to where you need to be is what japa preparation actually looks like.
DeyWithMe has tools, guides, and checklists that address almost every gap these questions might reveal, from CRS score calculators and document checklists to savings planners and route eligibility guides. Start with whatever question you found hardest to answer.
