The Group Chief Executive Officer of the International Facilities Services Limited (IFS), Dr. Tunde Ayeye, has revealed that he closed 80 hospitals in Ikoyi and Victoria Island within two months because of the lack of medical staff that was occasioned by the “Japa” syndrome.
Ayeye said this yesterday in his keynote speech at the Breakfast Forum of the Nigeria-South Africa Chamber of Commerce (NSACC).
The theme of breakfast was “The Future of Work and Workplace: A Looming Crisis.”
He said: “The point I want to make is that in the last two months our healthcare business has shut down 80 hospitals in the Lagos Island alone due to dearth of skills because of ‘Japa.’
“Now we closed 80 hospitals and I am not talking about the whole of Lagos State. I mean in Victoria Island and Ikoyi alone because of all these challenges.
“The question we should be asking is whether the graduates we are producing are ready for the labour market?”
He said that this should be the major conversation business people and the nation should be having with the hope of coming up with sustainable solutions.
“It is one of the toughest challenge big businesses are facing in the country.
“The truth of the matter is that I believe that our human capital situation is really at the precipice of major crisis and we need to address this very decisively in a structured manner,” he said
Ayeye described the mass exodus of skilled manpower out of the country as a manifestation of mental behavior that is charactised by behaving irrationally and taking irrational decisions.
He said: “Is this thing we are calling ‘Japa’ a community mental problem?” adding that his organization is taking technologies like internet-of-things and applying them to hospitals.
“Right now, we have introduced robots because I cannot get good managers,” he said.
In her welcome address the Chairman of NSACC, Dr. Ije Jidenma, said that the theme is urgent because across Africa and the globe, “are witnessing seismic shifts in how, where, and why we work.
“Some call it transformation. Others call it disruption. But what we all recognise is that the world of work is keyed for spiralling change that has not been experienced in recent time.”
She said that technological displacement in the form of AI, automation, and digital tools are reshaping job roles faster than we are retraining for them.
A Psychiatrist and the Founder of Life Core Academy, Professor Adeoye Oyewole, said that it would be good to explore the mental dimension of the “Japa” syndrone.
Oyewole said: “Japa is like a mass delusion. ‘Japa’ means to flee, to run, to escape, which are only acceptable in the face of war or natural disaster. That is why our people go abroad and seek asylum and after two years come home.”
He also said that the Gen Zs have signs of psychosis because they are more on the cloud, adding that “they are products of the internet, where they draw their information.”
Speaking in the same vein, the An Associate Professor and Chief Executive Officer of Precise Financial Systems, Dr. Yele Okeremi, said that the “Japa” syndrome is being propelled by what is identified in psychology as simply the law of being scared of being left behind.
Okeremi said: “It does not matter whether it looks good or bad, human bei does not want to be left behind. That is the psychology of overtly optimistic decisions when the market is booming and overtly pessimistic decision when the market is dooming” adding that “the problem is that the things these people are looking for cannot be provided in Nigeria for now.”
However, the Director of Human Resources, Airtel Nigeria Limited, Ms. Adebimpe Ayo-Elias, Adebimpe Ayo-Elias: attributes work ethics of the Gen Zs to values children imbided from their families during their formative age.
Ayo-Elias said: “We should not stereotype them. They are more interested on the purpose of your organization and it incumbent on us to listen to them and foster relationship with the millennial.”
An Executive Coach, Mr. Fela Durotoye, called for re-alignment of vision because the way the Gen Zs are wired to be mission and vision driven.
Durotoye said that “if your vision is not strong enough your work offer may attract them but cannot retain them.”
