Life in Canada, UK: Tales from two immigrants

The recent pictures on Ayomiposi’s instagram page were the first hint she had ‘Japa’, a term used to describe people leaving Nigeria in search of better opportunities.

BusinessDay had interviewed the 24-year-old Nigeria-trained nurse in January, having taken the IELTS examination twice but failed to secure desirable scores to complete her applications to the UK as a nurse. She had taken other required examinations and passed but the IELTS remained elusive until the third attempt in March. She finally left Nigeria for the UK after passing the examination.

At her old job with a Health Maintenance Organisation (HMO) in Lagos, she wouldn’t state her actual pay but gave the range as being between N73, 000 and N180, 000, whereas she already had a peek into what her future pay – between £26,000 and £30,000 could be in the UK.

“The pay here in the UK is not so great, but way better than back home,” she said.

Before passing the third IELTS, she already started her Nursing and Midwifery Council (a UK regulator for nursing, and midwifery profession) verification, looking for jobs and sending out her CV. She had interviews and finally got an offer.

This was followed by another round of verifications and checks on her certificates and results. When the prospective employer was satisfied, she was sent a certificate of sponsorship with which she secured a visa to the UK.

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“The work in the UK is different because of technology and instruments,” she said, and this makes life easier for her as a nurse.

“It has been an amazing journey but not easy. It is also like starting from scratch but it is worth it, she said, adding that it took her over N1.5 million from when she started the process in Nigeria to finally secure her place as a nurse in the UK.

In another destination favoured by many Nigerians is Aluko, who was a mid-level executive, working with a multinational firm before leaving Nigeria for Canada with his family in November 2018. At the time, he worked as a sales executive with a German company that was operating in Nigeria, but he never really planned to leave.

“The process was not something I was interested in. It was my wife who started it,” he said in an interview, where he declined the use of his real name. “Initially, I was not interested in it because what do I want to do outside Nigeria? I was already flying all over the world.”

According to him, whenever he travelled outside Nigeria, after two to three days, he would already be missing home. He has now been in Canada for three years.

For him and his family, settling in was less challenging for a number of reasons. First, they were going to Canada as permanent residents, so it made it a bit easier to look for a job. Secondly, his wife’s uncle had been based there, so he was able to help them settle into the country. Thirdly, even before arriving in Canada, his wife already got a job.

“We landed on a Saturday and my wife resumed (work) on Monday,” he said.

A masters degree holder and a graduate of pharmacy in Nigeria, his first job on arrival in Canada is what he called “survival jobs”. He did that for a few weeks until he was able to find his feet

“Imagine you are in a place where you have masters and the majority of the guys (you work with) are high school leavers or dropouts,” he said. When the opportunity to get a bank job came, he took it and worked there for four months before finally getting a job with British American Tobacco. For him, it took six months to get a job of his choice, but others are not always that lucky.

“The story is not always the same for everyone who migrates to Canada,” Aluko said. According to him, there are people who have been in the country for two years but still trying to get a stable job. The upside, however, is that, regardless of economic status, “you know you have equal right. The only thing you cannot do is probably vote and be voted for because you don’t have Canadian citizenship.” The citizenship, he said, becomes available after three years of staying without leaving.

At the time of leaving Nigeria, his daughter was about two years old, and the family also has a son now, who is a year and five months old.

“The truth is, no matter how great Nigeria may be, it can’t be like Canada,” said Aluko of his experience. “I can’t think of being sick and the first thing that comes to my mind is medical bills.”

“When we gave birth to my son, the cesarean surgery didn’t take more than 15 minutes,” he recalled. “It is not the case of we are calling the surgeon and the surgeon is in traffic or something like that.”

He has only one complaint; taxes. “What I was earning in Nigeria was not money,” he said. Maybe multiplied by 10 or 15 is what he earns now, but after taxes, his old pay in Nigeria multiplied by 5 is at least what he has left.

Getting the visa was not totally smooth sailing. With an initial attempt for a visitor visa denied, the family applied for a permanent resident visa and got it. Their application took about six months to get approved, but at present, a friend of his has been expecting feedback on an application submitted since October 2019. His mother-in-law who visited this year got her visa approved after a year of applying.