Japa: Why I Granted Controversial BBC Interview – YouTuber Emdee Tiamiyu

YouTuber Emdee Tiamiyu has revealed why he granted the controversial BBC interview on Japa.

Newsone reports that a  Nigerian YouTuber, Emdee Tiamiyu, who claimed in an interview with BBC that Nigerian students do not travel to the United Kingdom because of degrees but for greener pastures, has finally opened up on why he made the assertion.

This online news platform understands that Emdee Tiamiyu has been under heavy fire on social media after the British Home Secretary, Suella Braverman announced in a statement on Tuesday, that beginning from January 2024, Nigerians and other international students are barred from bringing in dependants into the UK.

Recording from his home in a Birmingham suburb, Emdee Tiamiyu promotes himself to thousands of subscribers as YouTube’s number one guide to “scholarships, fellowships and japa-ships”.

That last word, japa, is the Yoruba term for “to leave”, he explains. It is a buzzword among Nigerians eager to escape their country’s problems with corruption and poor governance.

“People are looking for alternatives,” he says. “They want to escape Nigeria.”

In the interview with BBC, Tiamiyu offers advice on navigating immigration systems like the UK’s and says for most people the only legal and broadly accessible route is through the education system.

“The student route is more like an answered prayer,” he says. It is a “big bracket that’s able to take a lot of people, the ordinary people”.

Speaking with BBC, Emdee Tiamiyu asserted that “It is not like they [Nigerian students] need the degree, they need the degree as an access road to come into the country. So, a lot of these people their priorities shifted real fast…It’s not really about their education.”

Newsone Nigeria reports that a clip of the BBC interview Emdee Tiamiyu granted went viral shortly after the UK banned foreign students from bringing in dependants. The YouTuber earned backlash with many condemning his assertion.

But speaking with popular Nigerian media personality, Daddy Freeze via Instagram Live Session, Youtuber Emdee Tiamiyu said he made the assertion because he was being “real”.

He said, “I do know I would have to find the balance between being real and being diplomatic. If you want to be real, you will offend people. People don dey curse you since because you were mentioning why are they japaring [migrating abroad]…”

Reacting, Daddy Freeze added that he doesn’t have a problem with what the Youtuber Emdee Tiamiyu said but where he said it was the problem.