Money is often a difficult topic in relationships, especially for women who are taught to be patient and understanding in love. But sometimes, what starts as assisting a partner slowly blurs into financial exploitation. From small “urgent” transfers to large debts taken in the name of love, these stories show a clear pattern of how partners can take advantage of trust, age, distance, or emotional closeness.

In this article, five Nigerian women shared what it was like to be in a financially exploitative relationship. 

1. “My Business Began to Fail Because of Him” — Asiya*, 20 

I was 17 when I met him. At that age, I was running an online business, and I’d already started making so much money. He was aware of how much I was making, and that was a mistake because he decided to take full advantage of it. We met in August, and by October, he was already asking me to lend him money. He said he was having issues with his bank and would pay me later. I believed him. 

The first amount I lent him was around thirty thousand naira, and by that same week, he had borrowed up to sixty thousand naira. I kept asking him when he would sort out the issues with his bank, and he assured me he would fix them soon. He didn’t stop there. Even after he failed to repay the previous money he owed me, he continued borrowing from me. If he owed people, he’d send them my contact details, and I’d help him settle the debt. 

My once-thriving business began to fail because of him. Whenever I asked him for my money, he would assure me that he was trying to find a job and that when he did, he would pay me back. Again, I believed him and thought that once I got my money back, I would restock massively. I shouldn’t have had my hopes up because by December, he had borrowed almost two hundred thousand naira. 

While I was trying to hold my business from completely falling apart, he came back to ask for more money. He knew sensitive topics about me, like how my father was abusive to my mother, and he decided to use that route to ask for money. He said his dad had sent his mum and siblings out of the house, and they had nowhere to go, so he needed money to put them up in a hotel. I lent him that money. 

He swore on his life that he would pay me back that week because he had a cousin who would help get him plugged into jobs. I was wary, but I still believed him. Weeks went by, and I kept asking for my money, but he hardly replied to my texts. Anytime he did, he would show me where he was texting his cousin. Later, I found out he was texting himself, and when I finally confronted him about everything, he snapped. He called me a fool and said the reason why he was not successful was that my head was not good. 

In total, the entire amount was about ₦500,000, and at the end of the day, I gave up and left my money for him. Sometimes, when he crosses my mind, I wonder if he used charm on me because how was I so foolish? 

2. “I Wonder if That is His M.O. With women” — Celeste*, 22

A couple of years ago, I was in a long-distance relationship with this guy. He was in Canada, and I was in Nigeria. For the first few weeks, we were stuck in the honeymoon phase, but as the weeks passed, I started to notice red flags, like the fact that he didn’t always have good things to say about his exes, but I ignored them because I was silly in love. 

As our relationship progressed, he started to open up to me about things he was going through. He was very transparent about his financial and mental struggles, and now that I look back on everything that happened with us, I wonder if that was truly genuine or if he was simply using it as a tactic. 

When he started struggling with his job and finances, he told me he needed to go over to his parents’ place and didn’t have anything on him, so he asked me to lend him ₦20,000, which was about 19 Canadian dollars at the time. I sent him the money because I didn’t mind, even though I was a struggling university student. In fact, I was glad that he could even tell me about it. A couple of days later, another expense showed up. He told me he needed to get his WAEC certificate from someone in Nigeria, and since he was broke at the time, he asked me to help him sort out the bill. It was ₦10,000, and he asked me to send the money directly to the woman. At that point, that was ₦30,000, but like I already said, I was really into him, so I didn’t mind. 

Fast forward to a week later, and the stuff he claimed he was going through worsened, and he started getting distant. I understood that a lot was going on with him, so I decided to offer all the comfort I could from thousands of miles away. While I was doing that, he sent a message saying he could no longer handle a relationship and wanted us to break up. Turned out the reason for the breakup was a new girl. I was disappointed and wanted to get my money back because it wasn’t necessarily a gift, and I was a broke student then, but I didn’t get it back because he completely ghosted me after the breakup. 

A year after the breakup, he reached out to “apologise” for how he’d handled it, and I accepted it because I’d moved past it, but then I used that opportunity to remind him he was still owing me money. That was where it got complicated again. He began to ghost again once I started asking for my money, and whenever I called him out on it, he would apologise. It became a rinse-and-repeat situation that spanned over three months. I think it was when he realised that I was like a dog with a bone when it came to things that mattered to me was that he finally decided to send the money back. 

I don’t have a problem with giving my partners money when they need it, but the fact that he ghosted me a couple of weeks after I sent the money makes me wonder if that is his M.O. with women. Ask them for money and ghost them afterwards. 

3. “In an Indirect Way, I Contributed to His Drug Addiction” —Noor*, 22

My ex-boyfriend and I were together for 2 years. 4 months into our relationship, he called to say he urgently needed money. He told me he went to get fuel, but his bank app stopped working. He added that he didn’t want to disturb me, but no one was picking up his calls. I was completely into him at the time, so I didn’t think much about it and sent it. He promised to pay me back the next day, but he never spoke of it again, and I never asked. 

This happened about three times during the relationship. It was for different things, like oh, he was at the supermarket and his bank app was giving him issues, and he didn’t bring his card again. At first, I didn’t mind, but as he went on, I got angry because not only was he spending that money on something else that I wasn’t aware of, but he kept promising to give it back. I detest false promises. I wasn’t even asking him to send it back. 

It was after our breakup that I found out what he was spending the money on. One day, I was conversing with our mutual friend when he let me know that my ex-boyfriend was spending all the money he borrowed from everyone on drugs. I immediately became hurt by that news. I didn’t care about the money, really, but I do regret sending money to him because, somehow, in an indirect way, I contributed to his addiction to drugs. 

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4. “He Said He Didn’t Force Me to Contact Loan Apps for Him” — Aaliyah*, 20 

This happened during my university vacation. My ex-boyfriend, Ade, was a successful Yahoo boy, but one day he hit a financial roadblock and, since most Yahoo boys hardly save money for rainy days, became broke. He didn’t have clients, so he couldn’t make money, and for weeks it was so bad that he had to call me on a fateful afternoon to ask for money. Now, this is something you must know. He has never asked me for money. It’s usually the other way round, so I didn’t mind when he came to ask me for money, but unfortunately, I didn’t have it, so I decided to go the loan app route. 

The unfortunate thing about loan applications is that their interest rates are staggering. For example, if you ask for ₦10,000, they can ask you to pay back ₦19,000, and if you don’t pay back on the appropriate date, they’ll continue to increase the interest and harass you with calls until you pay back. I borrowed ₦121,000 for him. That was a mistake. 

A few weeks after giving him the money, we started having a series of issues, mostly centred on the money. Ade had finally bounced back with his clients and was making money, but he refused to pay the loan. It was a very tough period in my life because every time the interest rate increased, I would get heart palpitations. The money increased from ₦121,000 to ₦300,000, and it made me cry a lot. I didn’t have the money, and my ex-boyfriend wouldn’t pay it back. Every time the loan apps used a new number to call me to get their money back, I would freeze. I heard from someone that loan apps often have your BVN on file, so they can track down your family members and harass them, too. Anytime my father’s phone rang, I would get immediately scared and wonder if they’d finally reached my parents. 

I thought I could get Ade to cave in if he saw evidence of me being harassed by the loan apps, but he was not moved. His reasoning was that he didn’t force me to download loan apps and borrow money from them. I was in shock when he said that. I thought I was doing the right thing by borrowing money for him because I felt he would do the same for me. 

This incident pushed me to end our relationship, but I had to keep texting him to at least send me half of the money, because how am I going to afford paying such a huge debt? It was later that I finally came to my senses and realised he would not send me back the money, and that he was only still texting me because he loves holding me back. Thinking I would agree because of the money, he asked to get together, but I know better now. 

I have still not paid the loan, but I am not with him anymore, and that’s a small mercy. 

5. “He Took Advantage of Our Age Difference” — Kikelomo*, 20

I was dating someone when I was a bit younger. I was 17, and he was 21, so it was a four-year age difference between us. At the time, I didn’t fully comprehend how uneven our relationship was. He didn’t really do anything for me, but back then, I didn’t think much of it. I assured myself that relationships weren’t necessarily built on material things, and love was expected to be simple. Maybe I was just being an understanding girlfriend. 

It started small. ₦5,000 today. An “urgent” ₦2,000 tomorrow. He always framed it like it was temporary, like he’d sort things out soon and repay me. And because the amounts weren’t much to obsess over, I didn’t question it. I didn’t even see it as a pattern at first. 

Over time, it began to pile up. One request transitioned into another, and before I knew it, I started to pay attention to how constant it was. He was always going through one thing or another. There was always a money-related story every week. 

Looking back now, I realise how young I was, so it made sense that he took advantage of that. 

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