“The West of Their Imagination”: Transnational Impression Management and Canadian Migration in the Nigerian Youth Imaginary

Abstract: This article examines the perceptions of Canada by Nigerian youths who have a desire to immigrate to Canada. It explicates why Canada remains an attraction to prospective immigrants in spite of documented accounts of racial discrimination against racial minorities in Canadian society. Based on semistructured and focus group interviews with thirty-five Nigerian youths, the study demonstrates that Nigerian youths chose Canada because the Canadian postsecondary education system can provide them with foreign credentials that will give them access to economic power and social prestige in an unfair and unequal Nigerian society. The youths are also impressed by the transnational lives of their peers and social groups residing in the West. Although the youths criticize the dysfunctions of key institutions of Nigerian society, especially the education institution, they do not deplore social inequality per se.