Patience* achieved her japa dreams after moving to Europe with her boyfriend in 2022. However, she’s now considering returning to Nigeria because of concerns about their future as a couple.
I got the best news of my life sometime in July 2022.
My boyfriend, Diran*, had applied for a student visa to study for a postgraduate degree in a European country, and he called me that day to share the good news that his visa had been approved.
I was excited for two reasons. Diran had applied once before but didn’t get it. He’d also already deferred his admission once, losing a scholarship in the process. Most importantly, I was excited that he was going to take me along as a dependent.
Diran and I started dating in 2021, and from the first moment we met, it was obvious the guy wanted to leave Nigeria at all costs. We met on a Twitter space where we both complained about Nigeria, and he DM’ed me after. I don’t even think the question, “Will you be my girlfriend?” was uttered. After talking for three weeks, we met up, made out and became an item.
We didn’t live in the same city, so it was a long-distance relationship right from the start. Our busy schedules also made our communication difficult. We both worked in tech, and Diran used his free time applying to every international postgraduate program he could find.
It wasn’t like he had dreams of obtaining a Ph.D. He just thought it was the easiest way to leave. The plan was to get abroad, find work, make money and work on never returning to Nigeria again.
If anything, I think our joint determination to leave the country was what kept us together. It was all we talked about. We could see that Nigeria wasn’t gonna make it, and leaving was the only option. But I didn’t want to go the school route like Diran; I didn’t have the money for it or a family to support me financially like he did, and scholarships aren’t a walk in the park. It was either a skilled worker visa, or I miraculously landed a foreign job.
The period we started dating was when Diran first got denied a visa. So, when he began the process again, it only made sense for him to include me in the visa application. We were committed to each other and knew our journey together would involve relocating at some point, so why not just start then?
Technically, Diran is my husband. We had to forge marriage papers to strengthen my dependent application. He’d jokingly asked if we should get married for real, but I thought it was too quick. Marriage isn’t something you run into so fast like that. My parents wouldn’t even have approved the quick wedding.
Diran and I travelled to Europe in September 2022, but my parents thought I travelled alone. There was no way to explain cohabitation to my very Nigerian parents.
But I was excited. I had finally achieved my japa dream. Things could only get better.
The first few months abroad were great. I kept my tech job in Nigeria, so I only picked up a few cleaning shifts to make extra cash. Diran was also making some money as a research assistant at his school. I hoped, with time, I’d get a proper job, and we could work towards permanent residence. But our relationship started to suffer.
Living together highlighted all our differences. For one, Diran is a morning person who wants to exercise once he wakes up and plays music out loud — he doesn’t “believe” in headphones. I’m very grumpy in the mornings, and all the noise he makes annoys me to no end. I told him about it, and he tried to reduce the volume of his music, but we stay in a very small apartment, and his workout movements still wake me up.
Diran also became more fixated on money. He’d regularly miss classes to take under-the-table gigs because there was a limit to the number of hours he could work on a student visa. That caused a lot of our fights. I didn’t understand why he’d jeopardise his degree. Why couldn’t he just wait to get the degree and use it to get a better job?
His long hours also meant he was hardly around, and we became almost like roommates. Our constant arguments on just about everything didn’t do much for our relationship either. We could be together in a room but would be on our phones throughout that time.
That’s why, as early as 2023, I’d already begun considering ending the relationship, but I worried Diran would think I just used him to get to Europe or he’d try to remove me from his visa. So, I stayed. I didn’t even have anywhere else to go. I’m sure he also noticed that the relationship wasn’t working again, but he didn’t address it.
I suggested we go on a break early this year, and Diran agreed. That was a foolish idea, though, because we’re still roommates, and konji pushed us back together after a week. But we aren’t even together in the real sense of the word. Sex is the only thing we have in common.
I’ve decided now that I’m really going to leave the relationship, but I’m a bit confused about how to go about it. It’s the worst possible time to discuss a break up. Diran failed some exams last year and had to resit. He just recently learned that he failed those resit exams, and it’s looking like he might not get his postgraduate degree. If that happens, he might lose his visa, and that’ll affect me too.
I feel like asking to break up now would just be me kicking someone who’s already down. On the other hand, I know I’ll still leave one day, so won’t that be interpreted as I just hung around because of visa?
I don’t mind returning to Nigeria. That might even be my only option. Like I said earlier, I don’t have the money to apply to a university and switch to a student visa. Pursuing a visitor’s visa is also a waste of time. I’ve tried applying to jobs here that might help me stay, but I haven’t been lucky. I think it’s better if I leave now before Diran has visa issues so it won’t affect my chances of re-applying if I ever need to.
Nigeria is probably at the worst it’s ever been, and I might regret returning later, but I’m just hoping everything will work out. I just have to figure out how to break up with Diran first.
*Names have been changed, and specific locations removed for the sake of anonymity.
Fola* (40) got diagnosed with bipolar disorder and depression at 19 after surviving an abuse-related mental breakdown. She shares her frustrations with how mental illness has affected her relationships, quality of life and her ability to parent her children.
I’ve lived with bipolar disorder for 22 years, but I wasn’t always like this.
Growing up, I was the regular fun-loving child who played with her siblings and stayed over with her cousins during school holidays. But then my uncle started sexually abusing me, and my “regular” life ended.
The first time it happened, I was 10 years old. He lived with my parents for a few months and constantly made me and my siblings touch him. Sometimes, he’d touch us. It didn’t occur to me to say anything, and it stopped when my family moved out of the area, so I just pushed it to the back of my head.
Three years later, my parents separated, and I had to go live with my grandmother. At this time, my uncle was an undergraduate. He also lived in my grandma’s house when he wasn’t at school. I was in JSS 3. The abuse started again and continued on and off for three years whenever he was home on holiday.
This time, it came with threats. He’d warn me to tell anyone unless he’d kill me. I think my mental health issues started accumulating from there. Whenever he wasn’t around, I simply forgot he’d abused me. Then he’d return and begin again. I now know from therapy that forgetting was my subconscious way of protecting myself. I just locked the memories away in my head.
One time in SS 3, I overheard him tell his girlfriend that he’d “destroy Fola’s life”, and I started having panic attacks. My heart raced for days, and I kept having thoughts of death. I was preparing for my WAEC exams, but I couldn’t concentrate. It was like all my bottling up eventually reached a breaking point.
I remember when I finally broke down. It was the day of my chemistry exam for WAEC. I walked into the lab, and my friends were waving at me to join them when I ran out. The school’s secretary had to call my mum to let her know I was behaving strangely. She took me home, and I grew worse. I couldn’t bathe, eat or talk to anyone, and I kept crying.
My mum thought I had acute malaria that was affecting my brain and took me to a hospital. I spent about three months there and honestly don’t remember most of what happened. There was a time when I was unconscious, and the doctors had to resuscitate me. When I started trying to cut myself and drag injections from the nurses, the doctor referred me to a psychiatric hospital.
It took two years of regular hospital visits and consultation for the psychiatric hospital to officially diagnose and start treating me for bipolar disorder and depression in 2001. The doctor didn’t admit me to the hospital, and it took that long for an official diagnosis because I’d blanked out a lot, and it took a while for me to remember specific details.
I also told my mum about what my uncle had done. The family was involved, and the matter ended with begging and assurances that it’d never happen again.
But the damage was already done. I was 19 years old, and suddenly, I was faced with the reality that I’d have to be on medication for the rest of my life.
It took a while for me to adjust. I’d take my medication religiously for a while, but then I’d get tired and refuse to take anymore. I relapsed three times before I accepted that I couldn’t run away from medication.
I almost emptied my family house during one of those relapses. I stopped my drugs and had this huge burst of energy. So, I decided I was going to clean and rearrange the house. It wasn’t even dirty, but I wasn’t thinking straight. I called an aboki and told him to pack everything, even the valuable things. Luckily, my mum returned before he could take them away.
Living with bipolar disorder is one thing. Navigating relationships with it is another thing entirely. At different points in time, men came to me wanting to date me, but once I told them about my sickness, they ghosted me. It didn’t even matter that I was on medication, and I was always upfront about my condition. They just disappeared.
Even when I decided to focus my attention on church and let relationships rest, this sickness still didn’t let me be. I joined the choir but couldn’t meet up with the early hours and vigils required as a church worker.
One of the side effects of my medication is excessive sleep. An average person sleeps eight hours, but I sleep 15-16 hours daily. That also affected my university studies, but fortunately, I still graduated.
I met my husband, Robert*, just after NYSC service year in 2012. We met in a keke, and he asked for my number. I remember he had one small torchlight phone, and I thought, “See the phone this one is using to toast woman?”
Anyway, we got talking, and I immediately told him about my condition. He didn’t mind. He even declared that my uncle was now his enemy and he’d never talk to him if he ever saw him.
Robert and I got married within a year of dating. My mum was happy I’d found a man willing to marry me with my condition because not many men would want someone with bipolar disorder in their house.
The early days of our marriage weren’t too bad. Robert understood that my medications left me tired and always oversleeping, so he helped with the chores. I also didn’t work, so he took care of the bills. I did try to run a salon, but the stress of standing for a long time affected me, and I had to stop.
Then, Robert started hitting me. It wasn’t regular, and it happened when he grew frustrated with my inability to do certain things. He’d complain about it, I’d try to defend myself, and he’d respond with slaps. We moved to a different state after marriage, and none of my family members were close.
Whenever he hit me, he’d quickly call my parents to report to them about how I was in the wrong — I think he was just trying to talk before I did. He never told them about the beatings, and I didn’t say anything either.
I had my first child in 2013. I have three children now, and each time I get pregnant, the doctors change my medication to prevent birth deformities in the kids and so that the trauma of birth and blood loss wouldn’t affect my mental health.
I’ve gone from using four tablets daily to eight, and my energy levels have dropped with each birth. I can’t concentrate well and can no longer do as much as I used to. As of 2015, I could still go to the market, cook in bulk and store soups in the freezer. Now, I can only cook soups thrice a month, and even that is with serious determination.
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I had my last child in 2022, and my doctor instructed me not to have any more if I didn’t want to be totally useless.
My husband is aware of how much childbirth has affected me, but it still doesn’t change the fact that most of our issues are because of my condition. I do try my best. I run a provisions store, which I started in 2023, and I try to go in the evenings when I feel well enough to do so. But then my husband comes home from work and wants me to cook fresh food, but I can’t do it. It’s really affecting our relationship.
To be honest, he tries his best. When he’s in a good mood, he helps me out and tries to make sure I’m fine. He cooks, helps with the children’s school runs and provides for us. But when he’s tired, he takes it to the extreme. He says things like, “What kind of wife did I even marry?” and accuses me of faking my weakness. Does he think I’m happy that I can’t be much of a wife and mother to my kids? I can’t even be actively involved with my children.
Sometimes, I cry all day and question God. Like, why did this have to happen to me? But then I console myself that I won’t live forever. I’ll be gone one day, and the drugs will stop.
I guess Robert’s feelings are valid. I know my condition isn’t the easiest thing to manage, but this is a lifelong thing, and I wish he’d be more understanding. I know he has many female friends he goes to meet whenever he leaves the house angry, but I don’t even mind. If I’m not giving him the joy he wants, maybe it’s okay for him to find it elsewhere. There’s nothing I can do. I can’t stop my medication so I can have more energy because it’d only make my condition worse. So, what’s the point?
I’ve tried to talk to him about how I feel on numerous occasions. Sometimes, he listens. Other times, it’s like, “Abeg, I’m tired of all these stories.” I’m glad he’s even stopped hitting me. I finally told my mum last year, and she threatened to arrest him. He hasn’t hit me since.
In all this, I’m glad I have my family as a support system. Most days, I think less of myself and worry about the things I can’t do. But my mum calls me weekly to talk to and encourage me. She was there when I first broke down and constantly reminds me how far I’ve come. I survived, I have children, and my condition is manageable even with the side effects of medication. I’m grateful to God for the little wins.
*Names have been changed for the sake of anonymity.
Every week, Zikoko seeks to understand how people move the Naira in and out of their lives. Some stories will be struggle-ish, others will be bougie. All the time, it’ll be revealing.
What’s your earliest memory of money?
The first time I saw and touched a ₦100 note. I was five years old and the Central Bank had just introduced the notes. My uncle gave it to me when he came to visit. Of course, I took it to my mum. She hadn’t seen it either. We were both excited.
Let me guess, she helped you “keep it”
Haha. Yes.
I hardly handled money as a child. Finances were tight, and it was difficult for my dad to raise seven children on his civil servant salary. My mum passed away in 2001, so it was just him. He had to be strict with money. I didn’t always understand him, though.
I asked him for a bicycle once, and he said I should grow up, make money like my eldest brother and buy myself a car like he did. I was used to having my way as the last born, especially since he started babying me more after my mum had passed, so this response shocked me.
My dad only began giving me money when I got into JSS 2 because I attended a boarding school. In fact, he handed the money — ₦500 monthly — to my guardian. Then, my guardian released ₦100 to me weekly, and I spent it on snacks.
Sorry about your mum. Do you remember the first time you worked for money?
That was in 2014. I was in 400 level doing an unpaid internship at a research institute when I sold a multi-level marketing company’s products. The products were my sister’s, and I was supposed to help her sell them and make a small profit.
I didn’t make any profit, though. Everyone knew the prices, so I couldn’t add anything. I ended up selling them at the price my sister gave me and returning her money to her. But the experience counts, right?
Haha. I guess
Before that time, I survived university on the ₦5k monthly allowance I got from my elder brother. I lived with him, and my dad sent him my school fees. I’m unsure if the allowance came from my dad or brother; I just know I got ₦5k every four to six weeks.
The first money I actually earned was NYSC’s ₦19,800 allowance during my service year in 2017. The highest amount my account had seen prior to that was ₦14k, and it was because I was trying to save for a phone.
My Place of Primary Assignment was a private school, and they paid me ₦6k extra. I felt like a big boy. I even bought a bicycle — a Palmer that cost ₦20k.
So the bicycle you didn’t get as a child…
Hehe, right? It’s interesting that it’s the first thing I bought when I started making money. To be fair, I served in a village, and a bicycle was the only reasonable means of transportation.
Two months into my service year, I got a part-time teaching gig at a Catholic school. That one paid ₦5k/month, and I juggled both jobs until the end of the service year.
What were your expenses like?
I lived in a fellowship family house, so I didn’t pay rent. But I contributed ₦1500 weekly for food. At that point, I was primarily responsible for myself, and everything I made went into fending for myself and my then-girlfriend, who’s now my wife. It also meant I had no savings when NYSC was finally over.
What did you do after NYSC?
I finished NYSC in 2018 and went back to live with my brother. But I didn’t want to stay home doing nothing. So, with a friend’s help, I got an unpaid gig teaching summer lessons at a school. That went on for a month, and then the school employed me when the new term resumed properly in September. The salary was ₦25k/month, and I taught the primary three class.
I worked there till the term ended in December and didn’t return in January because I got another job. Sadly, I lost my dad to a stroke a week after I got the job.
Damn. So sorry about that
It’s okay. The circumstances surrounding the job were quite funny. I was hired as a medical sales representative on a ₦60k/month salary. There was an extra ₦51k transportation allowance for fieldwork.
But the job was in Lagos and it meant I had to relocate. I didn’t know anyone in Lagos, but I entered bus and started travelling down.
No plan?
The thing is, the company had a general meeting around that period, which was supposed to happen over a period of days. They housed everyone in a hotel for that meeting. So, my rationale was, I’d attend the meeting, stay in the hotel and secure accommodation before we all had to leave.
Fortunately, my sister helped me secure a place with an old friend, and she gave me the news while I was on the bus to Lagos. So, I dropped my load with my girlfriend’s family and took what I needed, thinking I’d move to my sister’s friend’s place after the meeting.
Unfortunately, the friend ghosted me the day before I was supposed to move in with him.
Ah
Luckily, another relative helped me find another place to stay. If not, I’d have probably slept on the streets of Lagos or returned home to my teaching job.
I stayed with that family for about a year before moving to my apartment in January 2020. I paid ₦690k for the room and parlour apartment — the basic rent was ₦400k. The rest was extra agent fees. I also got a ₦1.4m car loan from work to get a car, and my employers began removing ₦20k from my salary monthly to recoup the loan. That was supposed to last four years.
Did that mean you had to work with them for four years?
No, I had the option of paying them off. I worked with them for three years before I found another job in 2022. By then, I’d re-paid about ₦700k out of the loan. Luckily, I got a bonus of about ₦300k for meeting my sales target for the last quarter of 2021.
Then, I took a ₦300k loan from my girlfriend’s mum and gathered all the money with me, plus the bonus to pay off the car loan. After that, I was free to take the car and leave to join the new company.
How much did the new job pay?
₦150k/month. It was also a medical sales representative role, so there was an additional ₦45k transportation allowance and ₦60k car maintenance allowance. That brought my monthly income to about ₦270k. There were also other incentives like leave allowance, 13th-month salary, and double salary for every work anniversary month.
It was a massive upgrade for me. At my previous job, I had to save like mad through the year to make rent. It was like I was just working to live in Lagos. But with my new income, I could relax a bit. I could pay rent without sweating, buy clothes and take care of my girlfriend. I even bought electronics and furniture for my house. My quality of life improved and things started to look up from there.
In May 2023, I landed a job at a bigger pharmaceutical company.
Wiun. Bigger salary?
The basic salary was still ₦150k, but the incentives were much better. I got a ₦170k monthly car maintenance allowance and ₦7k/day transport allowance. Another perk was that I could apply for reimbursement for every other expense incurred on the job.
For example, as a sales representative, I often get gift packages for my clients, complimentary meals and sometimes have to sleep in hotels on official duties. I used to spend out-of-pocket for that before, but it became a thing of the past.
I’m still at the company, and my basic salary has been reviewed three times within the last year because of rising inflation. I now earn ₦625k on average (including transport allowance) monthly. It fluctuates depending on how many days I work in a month. I also get double my basic salary every quarter as an incentive for meeting my targets. Honestly, my standard of living has gone from zero to 200%. I can now buy things without thinking much about it.
There was a time in my life when ₦100k seemed like an impossibly huge amount of money. I couldn’t even imagine spending ₦100k on myself in a whole year, but that’s the same amount I spend on black tax monthly now.
How has your income growth over the years impacted how you think about money?
Earning more has helped me discover easier ways to make money. Apart from my salary, I make money on the side by directly selling company products to hospitals and clients off the record. That brings in an additional ₦20k – ₦100k monthly.
Let’s break down your typical monthly expenses
My wife buys foodstuff in bulk, so I can spend up to ₦150k on food in some months. In other months, I spend as little as 20k. Right now, my brother is my main black tax expense because he’s navigating some financial difficulty and needs help supporting his family of six.
I spent about ₦600k from my savings on my wedding in 2023, so I currently only have about ₦1.3m left. It’s not technically with me, though. I used ₦800k as a company expense, which will be returned to me in a few weeks. I saved the remaining ₦500k in a contribution scheme.
How would you describe your relationship with money?
At this moment, I’m living below my means. I’m not at my final bus stop as per what I want to earn, but I’m not doing badly. Someone once told me that my house rent shouldn’t be more than my three months’ salary. Right now, I can comfortably pay my rent with one month’s salary. I was even planning to get other appliances like a dishwasher and air conditioner because I feel like I’m finally in a good place financially.
But my landlord increased my rent from ₦400k to ₦800k last month. So, it’s looking like my “living below my means” situation might change this year. I still plan to negotiate with my landlord, though. I can pay the ₦800k, but I’m not willing to spend that amount on my tiny apartment. I’d rather move out.
I’m curious. What’s an ideal amount you think you should be earning right now?
₦1.5m to ₦2m/month. The funny thing is, that’s what I should be earning. I work for an international company, and they pay a Nigerian HR company to send our salaries to us. But these Nigerian guys are still using the 2015 exchange rate to bill my company.
I’m not sure if they’re trying to cut costs for the company or just collecting the profit since my company reimburses them with foreign currency. It’s just crazy. If they were using the current exchange rate, my salary would be around ₦1.5m.
That’s actually mad. Is there something you want right now but can’t afford?
Yes. I want to build my own apartment. I planned to purchase land by 2025, but with the current inflation rates, I might have to extend that timeline by about three years. I imagine buying land would cost me about ₦3.5m – ₦4.5m. I don’t even know how much building the apartment will cost.
Is there anything you’d like to be better at financially?
I know I have the opportunity to save more. I can easily save up to ₦400k monthly, but I’m sometimes an impulsive spender. I can just decide to go out this weekend and enjoy my life. If I bring down these impulse expenses, I’ll be able to save more.
I’d also like to invest in dollars. However, the current market volatility is not encouraging. A friend bought dollars at ₦1800 per dollar in March. Now, the dollar has come down, and his money has reduced. So, maybe I should wait.
How would you rate your financial happiness on a scale of 1 – 10?
6. I’m still looking for ways to earn more because I have a growing family, and my expenses will only increase. But right now, I’m content.
If you’re interested in talking about your Naira Life story, this is a good place to start.
From a young age, Omotola* (32) anticipated growing up to make money to care for her struggling parents. However, her parents passed away before she could actualise her dreams, and Omotola can’t help feeling like she failed them.
As told to Boluwatife
Image by Freepik AI
“Mummy, I’ll buy you a car when I grow up.” According to my parents, that was my favourite catchphrase as a child. It was my go-to whenever they caught me causing trouble and trying to avoid a beating.
I may have said those words playfully at first, but they became more than mere words as I grew older.
You know the expression “to be as poor as a church rat”? That was my family’s reality. We weren’t broke. To be broke means you don’t have money right now, but you had it at a point in time. We didn’t. We were simply poor.
My dad was a welder, and my mum worked as a cleaner— the type who walked around university hostels shouting, “Any work?” But even joining their small incomes together didn’t do much to make our lives easy. We lived in a one-room apartment separated by a curtain so my parents could sleep in the “bedroom” area while the four of us kids found sleeping positions on the floor.
The best spot was the one closest to the door, as it meant easy access to the breeze that came in through the net covering on a windy night. As the first child and automatic third parent, I often gave up this spot so my younger ones would be more comfortable. Even when we ate together, I learned to take small bites so they’d eat more.
Sacrificing small comforts for my siblings was something I learned from my parents. Even with how tough things were, I could see the lengths they went to make sure we all went to school and didn’t go hungry.
I remember when my secondary school gave us a week’s deadline to pay our WAEC fees or risk not being part of those who’d write the exams. I knew there was no money and didn’t bother telling my parents, but my mum noticed my sad expression and made sure I told her the problem. When I did, she just told me not to worry.
That weekend, my mum washed so many clothes that her hands blistered. She just asked me to rub ori (shea butter) on them, and off she went to look for more people to give her dirty clothes to wash. My dad also went to everyone he knew asking to borrow money. I eventually paid that WAEC fee with plenty of time to spare.
That’s just one example of how much my parents were willing to sacrifice for their children. What about the time my mum carried my sick sister on her back and screamed in front of the teaching hospital after they initially didn’t want to admit her because there was “no bed space”? My mum knew she had no money for a private hospital and also knew that my sister would die if no one attended to her. So, she stood there and screamed till a doctor came out to treat my sister.
Or is it the period when my dad started helping clear soakaways on our street so he could make extra cash to buy me the medical kit I needed for nursing school in 2010?
Honestly, my parents sacrificed a lot. All their lives, they gave of themselves— not just to me or my siblings but to people around us, too. For poor people, they were really the most generous people ever.
So, yes, my “I’ll buy you a car” catchphrase became more than words as I began to see and appreciate all their sacrifice. It became a promise. My parents just had to reap the fruits of their labour. My grand plan was to finish school, make money, build a house and put them there. They’d never have to struggle again.
But life has a way of spoiling plans.
My dad suffered a stroke and passed away two weeks after I graduated in 2013. I felt like there was a giant hand inside my chest that was squeezing all the blood from my heart. I wanted to die. I couldn’t break down outwardly because of my mum and siblings, but I kept asking myself questions. Why was life so unfair to good people? Couldn’t my dad have waited a bit?
Most of all, I felt like I’d failed him. I had promised to take care of him and repay his sacrifices, but I wasn’t able to do either, and now he was gone forever.
I tried to console myself that I could still provide for my mum and make her proud. She became my new focus, my new driving force to make money so I could spoil her.
I got my first nursing job in 2014 and started sending my mum ₦5k monthly out of my ₦25k salary. I desperately wanted to send more, but the ₦20k left hardly covered my transportation and feeding. I was living from hand to mouth, but I made sure I sent something home.
Things started to look up in 2016. After squatting with a friend for so long, I got a new job that paid ₦80k and could finally afford to rent my own apartment. The plan was to move in with my mum. She always complained about her troublesome neighbours, and I wanted her away from their wahala.
But my mum fell ill shortly after she moved in with me. Family members said it was “ofa” — a spiritual attack and warned me not to give her an injection or she’d die. We went from one prayer house to the other and got different agbo (concoctions) for her, but she didn’t get better. I even secretly treated her with normal medicine against people’s advice, but that didn’t work either. She passed away in 2017.
I was numb for weeks after my mum died. I couldn’t think or feel anything. I don’t remember if I even cried. When it finally registered in my head that she was gone, it was like I’d lost two things: my mum and my purpose.
All my life’s decisions up until that point had been towards making enough money to make my parents proud of me and never have to struggle again. With them gone, what was I working for?
It took me years to get out of that headspace and find purpose again. I have children now, and they motivate me to work hard. But I can’t help feeling like I failed my parents.
Those people sacrificed so much for me, and I never got to repay them. They suffered their whole lives without a moment of rest. I was supposed to give them that rest, but I couldn’t. I know it’s not my fault that they died, but it doesn’t make it better. I’ll never get the chance to appreciate them like they deserve, and it haunts me.
Debt is just like the proverbial shege — it touches everybody. Almost everyone has had to deal with debt at one point or another, either due to money mistakes or urgent needs. I asked six Nigerians to share how they handled debt and what they learned from the experience. Here’s what they said.
I’m a mechanic, and in 2022, one of my regular customers dropped his car in my garage for repairs. His car’s AC system had issues. It wasn’t the first time his car — or even other cars — would spend the night in the garage, but that night, thieves broke into my garage and stole car parts. This customer’s engine — worth about ₦500k — was stolen.
The man refused to hear any explanation and insisted that I had to replace the engine. We finally agreed that I’d pay him ₦300k in instalments over six months. I paid twice but was broke by the third month and begged for an extension. He refused and got me arrested. I spent four nights in jail before a family member borrowed me money to pay for that month.
I still went into more debt during the remaining months because I had to keep borrowing from loan apps to meet the customer’s payment and avoid another prison episode. I finally finished paying all the money I owed to several apps in January 2024.
I don’t pray to experience that kind of situation again. I now try to be careful with the type of cars I allow to sleep over in my garage. If they steal a Benz, what will I do? I also pay for vigilantes in my street for added security. More importantly, I’m now avoiding loan apps. They’re easy to get, but the interest rates will keep you in a borrowing cycle for a long time. It’s better to ask friends and family for loans.
Charles*, 39
I was one of the people who lost their money to MMM in 2016. The worst part was that it wasn’t just my money; I had borrowed people’s money, too.
I was trying to double my profit, so I took my ₦300k life savings, borrowed ₦500k from two other people, and put it into the scheme. When it crashed, I started running away from my creditors. Omo, there’s no swear these people didn’t send to me. I kept blocking their calls, but they always used new numbers to send texts filled with swears and curses.
I only got to pay one of them back in 2019. The other person had died, and I still feel guilty about it today. It’s a bad sign to owe a dead person money. I’ve even seen the person in my dreams a couple of times. I’d have given the person’s relatives the money if I knew any of them. Unfortunately, I don’t, so I just have to live with the guilt.
The experience has taught me never to borrow money for any investment again. There’s always risk in investment, and losing money is easy.
Titi, 24
I borrowed ₦100k from my mum’s ajo contribution money to buy sneakers to sell online in 2021.
Before then, I’d been seeing people post items to sell on their WhatsApp and thought it was a good idea. I didn’t know these people didn’t own everything they posted o. They just posted pictures and only bought the items when people paid for them.
My mum kept the contribution money with me for safekeeping, and I thought I could quickly use it for business before she needed it in about six months. That’s how I bought about ten sneakers and started posting on WhatsApp. The business didn’t go as well as I’d hoped, and when the six months came, I only had ₦40k to pay.
I had to come clean with my mum, and she was very disappointed. She had to borrow money to meet up, and I eventually paid her back after some months, but I know I destroyed her trust in me. I should’ve involved her right from the start. She’d have even warned me about the foolishness of using that much money to start a business I’d never tried before.
Joseph*, 22
I used to have a bit of a gambling problem. I don’t gamble as much now, but the dumbest thing I did was gamble ₦80k out of my school fees on a ticket I thought was “too sure” in 2023.
I lost the money, and instead of telling my parents, I borrowed ₦10k from a loan app and bet it on another ticket to triple the money. I lost that one, too. I was too scared to tell my parents, so I kept going to school like everything was okay. I missed four exams because of non-payment of school fees, but I still didn’t tell anybody.
My parents only found out when the loan app called them and told them to make me repay the loan or risk going to prison. I had to tell them everything. They’ve settled the debts now, but I automatically have four carry-overs. Even me, I know I made a series of terrible decisions.
Lizzy*, 29
I went into debt in 2020 after I trusted a close friend and agreed to stand in as a guarantor for him to collect a ₦700k loan from a microfinance bank. He used the money to japa without telling anyone. We only met his apartment completely empty.
Of course, the bank came to hold me when they didn’t see him. I had to repay that loan monthly for the next two years. Thinking about it still annoys me but I know I’ll catch this “friend” one day. He thinks he’s run away, but hand will still touch him. I can’t stand in as a guarantor for anyone anymore, though. I’ve learned my lesson.
Israel*, 33
I got scammed trying to japa in 2019 and lost about ₦1m. I had borrowed that money from a friend who works at the bank with the promise that I’d repay the money once I started working abroad.
But my agent ran away with my money. I was right back at square one, and I had a debt to settle. Fortunately, my friend was very understanding and told me to pay any amount I was comfortable paying monthly. I used a year to finish repaying that money, and he never once stressed me. He even returned ₦300k to me after I finished paying.
When I later asked him why he was so relaxed, he said it wasn’t the first time I’d borrowed money from him, and I always repaid. He said, “I know this situation isn’t your fault, but I know you and trusted that you’d do the right thing”.
That left me with something. We can’t always avoid unforeseen situations like debt, but having a good reputation might just make all the difference in how your creditor treats you.
Every week, Zikoko seeks to understand how people move the Naira in and out of their lives. Some stories will be struggle-ish, others will be bougie. All the time, it’ll be revealing.
What was your first “I have to make this money” moment?
It was after one small nail killed my younger sister in 2000. We were playing outside when she stepped on it. The people we lived with just put bandages on her leg and left her like that. A week later, she started jerking like someone who had convulsions.
They called my father, and he took her to elewe omo (herbal medical practitioners). Those ones asked him to buy something, and he started pursuing some of his debtors to get money. To cut the story short, my sister died.
I was 13 years old, and she was 10. If there was money, she’d have been treated faster. We wouldn’t even have had to live with other people in the first place.
I’m so sorry. Which people were you living with?
I don’t know how to describe the relationship. They were probably distant relatives. But I called the man and his wife Mummy and Daddy.
My parents had seven children — apart from the other children from my dad’s two other wives — and they sent us to live with different family members when it became tough to raise us. My father earned little from his carpenter income, and my mother also made small change as a hairdresser. That’s why my sister and I were sent to live with those people. We’d only stayed a year when the incident happened.
Did you continue living with them?
I didn’t have a choice, even though I was angry. I’m sure they wouldn’t have left their own children like that, but you can’t tell someone who’s feeding you that the meat in your food has too much bone. Also, the man was the one paying my school fees. The only thing I could do was to make some money, so I wouldn’t have to wait for anybody to do something again.
What was the first thing you ever did for money?
I sold empty soft drink bottles in SS 1. This was around 2001-2002. One woman sold soft drinks to my school’s teachers and rich students. She was always at the school’s gate, but I didn’t have money to buy from her. I noticed she always came inside the school to look for empty bottles to exchange with her soft drinks suppliers.
We had plenty of those bottles at home because Mummy also sold them. So, I approached the woman and told her I’d sell them to her. I can’t remember how much we agreed on for each bottle, but she paid me ₦5 weekly for the bottles. I sneaked bottles from the house in my big school bag for six months.
Mummy eventually caught me with the bottles one day. She’d noticed the missing bottles, but there were always plenty of people in the house, so I could say it wasn’t me. The beating I got when they caught me ehn? Ah. it was serious gan. I still carry the scar on my back. After the beating, they called my father to come and take me.
Was that the end of living with them?
Yes. It was also the end of school. My father said, “Since you’ve decided to become a thief, you better start looking for money.”
First, I did labourer work at a construction site near our street. My job was to pack the blocks from where they were spread to dry to the place where the bricklayers used them. At one point, I was also pushing a wheelbarrow filled with stones. For all of this, I got paid ₦50/day.
I only worked there for three weeks because the oga stopped paying after the first week. He was always talking story.
What did you do next?
I started helping a market woman sell poly bags. She’d give me five bags, and I’d walk around the market to sell them to women who were buying things. I think each poly bag was like ₦5. If I sold ten, she gave me ₦1.
The money was too small, so I decided to buy my own poly bags to resell. The profit didn’t make sense so I abandoned it too.
After that, I became a sales boy at a poultry. The owner paid me ₦500/month to stay in the shop and sell eggs. They pursued me after three months because I almost stole all their eggs.
Ah
They beat me and reported me to my father. After he also beat me, he told me I was going to learn carpenter work under him so I’d stop disgracing him up and down.
How long did you learn carpentry?
I’m not sure how long it took me to learn, but I worked with my father from 2003 to 2014. He didn’t pay me, so I made money by adding small small change to the price of materials whenever he sent me to buy them. That’s what I used to hold body.
From 2010, I was the one who did the work for his customers because he started having health issues. Whenever that happened, he allowed me to take the payment. It was a good arrangement. I didn’t have to pay for shop rent and was making money — sometimes ₦10k for a one-week job, sometimes ₦50k.
I even thought I was going to inherit the shop, but I had to run away in 2014 after an issue with a cult group in my area.
What happened?
Woman matter o. I was dating one girl who didn’t tell me she was dating a cultist. When the cultist and his friends came to warn me, I was forming strong man. I said they should let the woman make her own choice.
I realised they were serious when I found a human finger in front of my father’s shop. On the same day, they went to see my mother and told her to warn me to disappear if she didn’t want to bury me. I left Lagos and went to live with an uncle in another state.
What was that like?
Hm. There is broke, and there is — what do you people call it? Sapa, abi? I was deep inside sapa. My uncle had a fish pond, and I started helping him for free.
But unlike the previous places I’d worked where I managed to remove small change, I couldn’t do anything like that because my uncle was always around. If he wasn’t at the shop, his wife and children were there. I was so annoyed. They were feeding me o, but as a man, you should have small money in your hand.
I managed for a year before I convinced my uncle to let me go and learn mechanic work.
Why mechanic?
I didn’t want to learn any work jare. I just wanted to find a way to leave his house without causing a fight. I told him that one of my friends in another state knew a mechanic who didn’t charge a lot of money. He agreed and allowed me to go. He even gave me ₦20k. That’s how I returned to Lagos in 2015.
What about the cultists?
I didn’t go back to my family house. Instead, I went to squat with a friend who lived far from our house. I concluded that Lagos is big, and it’ll be hard for them to find me. Also, one year had already passed. Didn’t they have other people to fight?
Anyway, the friend I stayed with was a yahoo boy and I also wanted to learn the work. I think I have bad luck because police raided my friend’s house and arrested all of us just one week after I started living there.
Ah. They knew he was a yahoo boy?
They suspected. It was one of his neighbours who gave a hint to the police. You know when boys have big generators, sound systems and POP ceilings, everyone begins to suspect them.
My friend settled the case with the police and was released, but I spent four months in prison — they wanted me to bribe them, but I kept saying I didn’t have money. In the end, I had to call my father to look for ₦80k so they’d release me. That was how he even knew I was back in Lagos. Looking for the money took another two weeks.
I was sick for several months after my release. Prison is not a good place. It’s just God that said I won’t die.
Phew. Sorry you went through that
At this point, I was just ready to calm down in one place, make small money and live peacefully. I returned to stay with my uncle in 2016, and he allowed me to use a small space in front of his house to work as a carpenter.
Small small, I started getting clients. The first time I made big money was in 2018. Someone was building a new school and called me to make 250 chairs and tables for her. I made ₦200k in profit. I could’ve made more, but the woman can price ehn. I just took the work because it was my first big job.
I used the money to rent a ₦100k/year apartment and used the balance for my wedding. I also got married that year.
Nice
That was my first and only big job. But I was still doing quite well and making small money — at least ₦40k – ₦50k monthly.
2020 was a bad year because of the lockdown and everything becoming more expensive. But I was still surviving small small.
Towards the end of 2022, I started considering finding something else to do.
Why?
The market became somehow. One time, I charged a customer ₦60k for a dining table, thinking I’d use like ₦40k to buy wood and other materials. By the time I reached the market, everything I needed cost ₦55k, and I couldn’t go back to tell the customer that I wanted to increase the money.
I had to buy less quality materials to deliver, but even that caused problems because the customer kept complaining. I started telling customers to buy the materials themselves, but I had to stop when they started trying to make me collect ₦10k-₦20k for workmanship.
I’d also moved from using my uncle’s space to my own shop back in 2019, and paying the ₦80k/year rent became difficult.
I shared my troubles with one of the alhajis in my local mosque, and he asked me to think about a business I could do and get back to him. I decided on okada. It seemed profitable.
Everyone in my town uses okada, and I won’t have to think about looking for money to pay shop rent or buy goods. I told the alhaji and he bought me an okada in 2023.
Has this been more profitable?
It was profitable at first. I made up to ₦6k/day after removing ₦1500 for fuel and ₦300 for tickets. I gave my shop to my wife, and she turned it into a salon. Things were going fine, and I was happy.
But Tinubu came and removed fuel subsidy in May 2023. I first parked my bike at home for one week because fuel became scarce. There’s a filling station near my house, but as early as 5 a.m., you’d see plenty of okadas already lining up. Being first in the queue didn’t even mean you’d see fuel to buy because the filling station people could come at 8 a.m. and say they didn’t have fuel.
I can relate like mad
Even when I finally found fuel, finding customers was another thing. Like other okada men, I had to increase the amount I charged because of the fuel matter. But people were more interested in trekking than paying ₦500 for a journey that usually costs ₦100.
I’ve been riding okada for just about a year, and I’m already regretting it. If not that someone gave me this okada, I would’ve sold it. I’ve just been moving from one wahala to the other. If fuel is not scarce, it’s expensive or even fake.
My okada started having issues late last year because of one fuel I bought from the black market. The mechanic said they mixed the fuel with something. I used about ₦30k to fix the engine when the problem started. Since then, I return to the mechanic to fix another problem at least once every month. That usually takes between ₦10k – ₦15k.
What pains me about this thing is that the alhaji bought the okada new. I should’ve still enjoyed it for a long time before having to repair it every time.
How much do you make these days?
Now, I struggle to make ₦4k daily. Most times, it’s ₦3k — after removing fuel and ticket money. I can’t go long distances because my okada can just start misbehaving. It’s tough, but I’m just trying my best.
I’m considering restarting my carpenter work on the side so I can earn extra cash. I need another income now, especially since I’m marrying a second wife soon.
A second wife?
Yes. She’s pregnant, and I can’t let my child be born as a bastard when my religion allows me to marry more than one wife. I didn’t intend to remarry so soon, but God has a way of doing things.
I hope to sort out the wedding plans within the next three months — I’m spending more money because she’s not living with me. I have to send her own feeding allowance separately. There’s also money for antenatal and medicine. I had to pay half of her ₦80k house rent in January. When we get married, those costs will be reduced.
I’m curious. What are your expenses like right now with your current home?
God is helping us because I don’t really calculate how much I spend. I just spend. But I give my wife ₦3k every two days to cook. We have one child who just started nursery school last term, and I paid ₦14k for his school fees and uniform.
I mentioned my wife has a salon, so she helps to pay for small things in the house like water and the NEPA bill. I pay the ₦150k rent for our two-bedroom house. I thank God for ajo. I make a ₦3k weekly ajo contribution, and it’s what I use to save for rent.
Why do you think carpentry would work now when it wasn’t profitable a few years ago?
Someone advised me to go into making bed frames. I heard it’s easier to make more money on them. Before, I focused on just tables and chairs. If I see ₦100k now, I’ll just make like two or three bed frames and display them in my wife’s salon. I’m sure customers will come.
Have you considered what would happen if they don’t come?
Ah. Are you wishing me bad? I just have to hope because if I can’t hope, I’d better just sit down at home. But if the business picks up, I may consider selling my okada and investing more in it. Let me just get my wedding out of the way first.
Let’s rate your financial happiness on a scale of 1-10
5. I’m not happy with my finances at all, but there’s hope.
If you’re interested in talking about your Naira Life story, this is a good place to start.
Tokunbo’s* first marriage began to crash barely a year after the wedding due to infidelity and constant arguments. He married his current wife while processing his divorce in 2017 and thought he’d finally found a shot at happiness.
Seven years later, he’s struggling with regret and hopes to reunite with his first wife.
I married my first wife, Yetunde* when I was 27 years old, but I’d loved her since I was 10.
We were childhood friends. Actually, she was my childhood bully. We lived in the same estate and we met when my dad bought me a bicycle as a reward for getting the first position in JSS 1. I rode the bike to the farthest part of my street that day, and as expected with children, other boys came up to me and asked me to let them ride for a bit.
I allowed a few boys, and Yetunde came to ask for a turn, too. I refused — not because she was a girl, though. I had a very small stature growing up, and Yetunde, who is two years older than me, was taller and generally bigger than me. I was scared she wouldn’t return my bicycle. She thought I was just being mean and forcefully dragged the bicycle from me. She did return it later, but we became sworn enemies after that day.
Like I said, we lived in the same estate, so we always ran into each other. Whenever Yetunde saw me, she either mocked me by calling me “Stingy koko” or knocked down whatever was in my hands. I’m not even sure how we later became friends. I just know I reported her to my elder sister, and she made her stop bothering me. We became inseparable, and I thought she was the prettiest girl ever.
We started dating in SS 3 and tried continuing in university, but we schooled in different states, and our love didn’t survive the distance. We only communicated occasionally via Facebook and only saw each other thrice over the next nine years. We always had a one-night stand kind of “reunion” each time we saw. One of these reunions led to Yetunde getting pregnant in 2014.
The pregnancy came with serious issues for both our families. Yetunde’s family insisted we had to marry because it was taboo in their village to give birth outside wedlock. My own family said she was older and physically bigger than me, and that meant she’d control me in the house. In the end, Yetunde and I felt we still had feelings for each other, so we married.
It’s safe to say both of us didn’t know what to expect in marriage. We didn’t even really know each other. We’d loved each other as kids and were attracted to each other sexually, but that was about it. Living together opened our eyes to the fact that it took more than childhood love and sex to keep a home.
We fought over the smallest things. I remember how we kept malice with each other for three days because I farted in the sitting room, and it led to a huge fight. Parenting strained our relationship even more. I spent long hours at work, and Yetunde expected me to take over the baby’s needs once I returned because she’d done it all day. But I didn’t think it made sense for me to come home tired at night to start babysitting.
Yetunde resented me for that, and we fought endlessly. We also stopped having sex after our child was born. She just stopped letting me touch her. This was barely a year after marriage.
So, I started cheating. I know I should’ve put in more effort to solve our issues, but I took the easy way out. It was just casual sex, honestly. There was this babe at work who I knew liked me. We got closer when Yetunde and I stopped being intimate, and things just got out of control.
Yetunde found out six months later after going through our chats. She threatened to leave, and I begged for weeks. She only agreed to forgive me if I tested for STDs. I did the test and came back clean, but she said we’d still have to abstain from sex for three months so she could confirm I didn’t have HIV.
I was annoyed at that. It was like she thought I was a child who didn’t know how to protect himself. I still did the test again after three months, but I decided I wouldn’t approach her for sex again. If she really forgave me, she should also make the first move. She didn’t make any move.
I couldn’t cope, so I went back to having affairs. I think Yetunde knew, but she never confronted me again. We grew apart even more, and our conversations reduced to ordinary greetings or if she needed to ask me for something our child needed. I still sent her monthly allowances to care for the home as she wasn’t working. I wasn’t completely irresponsible.
In 2017, I met the woman I’m currently married to — Comfort*. I initially intended to keep her as a girlfriend, but I fell in love with her and stopped seeing other women. Comfort didn’t know I was married.
By now, I was tired of my marriage with Yetunde. I came up with every excuse possible to convince myself we weren’t meant to be together. I thought, if she hadn’t fallen pregnant, I wouldn’t even have had to marry her. Did I have to resign myself to a sexless, loveless marriage just because of one mistake?
I decided to put myself first, so I told Yetunde I wanted a divorce. Surprisingly, she didn’t argue. She just said she wouldn’t move out of the apartment, and I had to keep paying the rent. She also said she’d never give up custody of our child, which was more than fine with me.
So, that same year, I married Comfort. I had to convince her we didn’t need a court wedding because I was still in the middle of divorce proceedings (which she didn’t know), and I heard I could face jail if I tried to remarry legally while still married. We even did the traditional marriage quietly because I didn’t want Yetunde to know and probably tell the court. My family knew about my issues with Yetunde, so it wasn’t difficult telling them of my choice to remarry and keep the whole thing quiet.
I only told Comfort after the court finalised the divorce in 2019. She was angry, but my family joined me to apologise to her, and all went well. I also tried to introduce her to my child, but Yetunde relocated out of the country with her.
I’m still shocked that she didn’t tell me beforehand. If I hadn’t texted her to inform her of my marriage and ask to see my child, she probably wouldn’t have told me they’d left. I mean, I still paid the child’s school fees for the previous term, so it wasn’t like I wasn’t doing my part. I wanted to drag the issue out, but I just told myself it was for my child’s benefit.
In my head, I was finally getting a new shot at happiness. I’d tried marriage, and it didn’t work out, but I had a second chance. I was also on civil terms with my ex and didn’t need to hide anything from Comfort again. I could now be happy without feeling guilty or thinking of another woman outside.
And I was happy. Comfort even encouraged me to attend church more, and I gave my life to Christ in 2021. Since then, I’ve been serious with God and feel like a new person. But I’m now navigating a new kind of guilt: regret over divorcing Yetunde.
I listened to a sermon in 2022 about how God hates divorce, and since then, I’ve been struggling with feeling like I made a grave mistake. The Bible says, “Whoever divorces his wife and remarries has committed adultery — except the wife was unfaithful”. Yetunde wasn’t unfaithful. She didn’t even do anything to me.
No matter how I try to reason it in my head, I feel like I’m constantly living in sin by staying married to Comfort. It’s even affecting my walk with God. I feel like I call myself a Christian, but I’ll still go to hell because of this one mistake. I’ve never discussed this with Comfort.
Some church elders I’ve spoken to about my concerns have suggested reconciling with Yetunde and probably letting Comfort go since we don’t have children together yet. But first, I don’t even know if Yetunde wants to come back. I know she isn’t married, but she might not want to have anything to do with me again. Second, what do I tell Comfort and our families?
I wish I’d made better decisions and generally been a better person, but I can’t turn back the hands of time. I just know I need to make a final decision soon because I can’t continue living like this. Comfort already thinks I’m cheating because I’m constantly acting distant. Maybe I’ll gather the courage to beg Yetunde and hope she forgives me and returns. Or maybe I should just let Comfort go and live alone for the rest of my life. I don’t know.
*Names have been changed for the sake of anonymity.
This is debatable, but the most dangerous venture, apart from dodging a Nigerian mother’s slap, is investing in land — especially in Lagos. If it’s not the fear of getting scammed, it’s navigating “omo onile” and hoping you aren’t buying land in an area that’ll be demolished by the government in the future for one reason or another.
However, land remains a valuable long-term investment option, and you can invest safely by following these tips I got from discussing with Grace Ogunlaja, the lead consultant at I-Brow Properties.
Check for the type of land
Not all land in Lagos is for residential purposes. Some have been earmarked for agricultural, commercial, or even mixed use. Buying a residential land and using it to produce pure water may earn you visits from the authorities, and you’ll probably lose ownership. Some lands can even be in locations under territorial dispute. You can verify the type of land at the state Ministry of Lands (or Lands Bureau).
Does it have a title?
You should always confirm the land title with the land seller or real estate developer. Do NOT purchase any land without a title.
A title can be the Certificate of Occupancy (AKA, C of O) or Governor’s Consent. The C of O is a state-provided document demonstrating land rights to an individual; It proves ownership. Governor’s Consent is given when someone buys land that already has a C of O and wants to notify the Governor and the general public that the land has a new owner.
Land title differs from the deed of assignment or receipt the land seller gives after purchase. Those documents just indicate that you’ve bought something. You still need to confirm you didn’t buy stolen property, or worse, land that’s been mapped out for government purposes. Like a coastal road project, for instance.
Run away from “freehold”
Some real estate agents in Lagos will try to sell you land and claim it has freehold rights, meaning you own the land in perpetuity (or forever) and can use it for anything. This doesn’t exactly work because all land belongs to the government. Also, freehold isn’t exactly a land title, and chances are that the land isn’t free from government acquisition. When in doubt, always verify at the Ministry of Lands.
Go with your own surveyor
The seller may try to convince you that the land already has a registered survey plan approved by the State’s Surveyor General, but those can easily be falsified. You should always go with your own surveyor to pick the land coordinates and verify them at the ministry.
Get familiar with the authorities
When buying land, you must verify everything with the Ministry of Lands because land issues quickly become complicated in Lagos state. If proper verification isn’t done, you risk losing your investment.
Also, verification doesn’t end with buying the land. You also need to obtain building approval from the state government before doing anything on the land. If you build something different from what was stated on the approved building plan, the government has the right to demolish it without giving any compensation.
Remember: The government can come for your land
It’s important to make peace with the fact that the government can claim land for major projects at any time, even if the owner has a C of O or Governor’s Consent. The only difference is, having the correct land titles gives the owner the right to sue the government or collect compensation. The owner has no compensation or fighting rights if it’s untitled land.
Every week, Zikoko seeks to understand how people move the Naira in and out of their lives. Some stories will be struggle-ish, others will be bougie. All the time, it’ll be revealing.
When did the hustle start for you?
1987. I was 17 and had just run away from home. I squatted with a friend whose mother sold ice water, so I started helping her hawk, too. Although she didn’t pay me, she fed and allowed me to live in the one-room apartment she shared with my friend.
It’s not like I hadn’t hustled before sha. My mother had a restaurant, and I always helped her cook and serve guests. But hawking ice water was the first thing I did on my own to survive.
Why did you run away from home?
I was a young, stubborn woman who wanted to experience life by making her own mistakes. I grew up in Ajegunle — a popular slum community in Lagos — and it was easy to follow the wrong crowd. You know, the type that drank and partied with area boys.
My stepfather always tried to discipline me. To me, it was like the man just didn’t want me to shine or was only trying to prove seniority. This led to us fighting a lot, and my mother was always on his side. So, I left home immediately after finishing class 5 — what you people call SS 3 now.
Did you have a plan, though?
Freedom was the only thing on my mind. I squatted with my friend for a year before her mother brought someone she was seeing to live with us. It was obvious that time had come for me to leave.
I squatted with another friend and got a job at a nearby canteen. My job was to keep the place clean and wash the plates. I can’t remember how much I earned, but it may have been around ₦200/month. ₦200 was enough to buy foodstuff — for me and my friend — to last at least three weeks.
Ah. Why wasn’t I born in the 80s?
Funny enough, we also complained about things getting expensive, but things were so much better then, compared to what our eyes see now. I was living well on that ₦200. I even saved out of it to pay to learn nursing in 1989.
Like nursing school?
Nursing school, ke? It was auxiliary nurse training. I paid a doctor some money, and he trained me in his clinic for two years.
Why did you decide to go into nursing?
I was tired of working at the restaurant, and nursing seemed like a more distinguished job. So, I asked around and found the doctor who trained me. I also worked for him during those years at his clinic. He saw that I was a fast learner and retained me after the training, paying me ₦1k/month.
Was that good money for 1991?
Somewhat. It was a small clinic, and I wasn’t an actual qualified nurse, so I was earning quite well at my level. It was enough to move out of my friend’s house and rent my own apartment.
Also, I mended my relationship with my family around this time. My mother reported me to one of my aunties in the village, and the woman appeared in the clinic one day to talk to me. Since I was now on good terms with my mother, I started sending money home once in a while. I wasn’t making money only from my job, though. I also started selling okrika (thrift clothes) in 1992.
How did that work?
You know I mentioned that I worked in a small clinic? Well, it’s not every time we had patients. The clinic had a verandah at the back that opened up to a major street. People always passed by, and I thought it was a great spot for an okrika business.
I used to buy the clothes I sold from Katangua market and display them on the verandah when work was slow. Thankfully, the doctor didn’t have a problem with it. I made roughly ₦4k in profits monthly from the clothes. That time you could buy up to ten shirts with ₦100.
My salary was ₦3k/month when I left the clinic. I spent five years there. I sold okrika throughout the years I spent at the clinic.
Why did you leave the clinic?
The doctor married a new wife who started complaining about my okrika business. I think the woman just didn’t like me. She helped her husband run the clinic, and one time, she put me on night duty for a month. I got angry and resigned. After I left, the woman started selling okrika at my spot.
What did you do next?
I got married and moved out of the area in 1997. I tried to continue selling okrika, but it was difficult to manage during pregnancy. There was one time I went to the market to buy more clothes to sell during my third trimester, and I fainted at my customer’s shop. She warned me seriously not to show my face until after I’d given birth.
While at home, I found another business idea.
What was that?
Jewellery. I lived close to a local government office and noticed that the staff loved owambes. I used to take my okrika to the offices to sell to them, but most of them either wore corporate clothes or ankara. However, they all wore jewellery. So, I decided I was going to sell that.
I started with watches and costume jewellery sets. I’d load them in my bag and go from office to office. The good thing about the business was that I could sell a ₦800 or ₦1k watch for ₦3k. The more expensive, the better. Office people like to dress well, and these ones thought that “expensive” meant quality.
Most of my customers bought on credit because they were salary earners. They only paid me at the end of the month. But it wasn’t hard to collect my money because the local government paid in cash then. The staff would all line up at the bank on salary day to withdraw money, and me too, I’d wait outside for them. Immediately I saw any of my customers come out, I’d go meet them to collect my money. They couldn’t tell me stories because we were in public.
Hehe. I love it
That was a good period for me, and I made a lot of money. My husband and I bought our first land for ₦100k in 2000. Unfortunately, we lost it years later to a land grabber — I mentioned it so you have an idea of how well the business was going.
In 2001, I bought my first mobile phone and SIM card. I think it was a Nokia 3310, but I know it cost ₦18k. The SIM card was also ₦18k. It’s hard to believe that these telecom companies basically give out SIM cards now.
2001 was also the year I started considering other business opportunities.
Did jewellery stop being profitable?
Something like that. The debt became too much. Some of my regular customers were transferred to other local governments, and I think the government also changed how it paid its staff. Or maybe the bank they used. I can’t recall well now. I just know it became more difficult for me to pursue my debtors and collect my money on time. So, even though I was still making some money, I was close to broke as most of it was tied up in bad debt.
I thought about it for a bit and decided it’d be best to get a shop and expand into shoes, bags and other accessories. That way, I wouldn’t limit my customer base to the local government office.
I found a small kiosk close to the local government office in 2002 and rented it at ₦12k/year. Then, I used all the money I had at the time from my jewellery sales to stock shoes and bags. It was a risk, but I knew I couldn’t start with two bags. No one would enter an empty shop.
Did the risk pay off?
It did. I was already popular in the area, so it wasn’t difficult to get customers. But I still couldn’t avoid credit buyers, so I tried to make up for delayed payments by increasing the cost for people who wanted to pay later. For instance, if I wanted to sell a bag for ₦2k, but the buyer wanted to pay later, I’d sell it for ₦3k. On average, I made ₦20k- ₦50k monthly.
My income went into assisting my husband to provide for the house and our three children. His mum also lived with us from 2000 to 2005, when she passed away. She suffered from a stroke, and a good part of our income went towards her medication too.
In 2006, I moved from the kiosk to a bigger shop where rent was ₦36k/year. I also added ankara and lace to the list of items I sold. Those were the days when people could just buy fabric and sew. I could buy six yards of material at ₦1k and sell it for ₦1800 or ₦2k. I stopped selling these in 2010 and faced my shoes and bags because people were no longer buying.
Do you know why?
It got more expensive — six yards of ankara fabric increased to ₦3k upwards without profit — and more people had more aso-ebi than they knew what to do with. It didn’t make sense to just buy fabric to sew when you’d get a new aso-ebi for someone’s wedding or burial by the next month.
But even though I stopped selling fabrics, I was comfortable. I still sell shoes and bags till now, but I really enjoyed the business during those early years. Some friends offered to help me land a job at the local government, but I laughed it off. Why should I sit in an office for ₦30k/month when I made up to ₦200k in two weeks during the Christmas season in 2015?
Now, I sometimes wonder if I should’ve taken the job because things started changing in 2016.
How so?
Buhari entered, and everything just scattered. I think 2016 was when the dollar first entered ₦300. I buy most of my goods from wholesalers in Lagos Island, who import them. With the rising price of the dollar, everything became more expensive. Fuel prices also increased.
I remember I had this bestseller that my customers really liked: a half-shoe that cost ₦1200 from the market. I always sold it at ₦2k. Then, this shoe moved from ₦1200 to ₦2k in a matter of weeks. People didn’t understand why I was suddenly trying to sell it to them at ₦2500. I was charging even less profit, but my customers still struggled to pay. I went from going to Lagos Island twice a week to restock to once every two weeks.
I began thinking of more ways to make money to cushion the decline and decided to try a business that grew popular in that period.
What business was that?
It was like a mini-provision business. People could no longer afford to buy tins of milo and milk or even full packs of cornflakes, so sellers started selling these provision items and cereals the same way they sell rice — with measurement cups. So, instead of spending ₦2k on a tin of milk, you could ask them to sell ₦500 worth for you, and they’d measure it with those tin cups and tie in a nylon.
I wasn’t too sure about the business — I heard some of the sellers buy these cereals in unmarked bags from factories — but the business was moving, so I decided to try it. I took ₦50k and used it to buy a few 50kg bags of milk, cornflakes, chocolate powder, and sugar. Then, I arranged them in one corner of my shop. This was 2017.
Was it profitable?
Profit is a different matter. It was selling fast because people needed to buy these things in small quantities, but the profit wasn’t much. I could sell a whole bag of milk and only make ₦2k in profit. The profit only made sense when I sold plenty of bags quickly.
But everybody likes good things, and soon enough, almost everybody was selling measurement cereals. It made sales even slower. I didn’t bother at first because I still had my shoes and bags to sell.
However, in 2019, I noticed that I was practically making nothing from it. The cereals got more expensive, and I couldn’t raise my prices too much because of competition. The last straw for me was when the bag of milk I usually bought for ₦16k increased to ₦30k in two days. I decided enough was enough.
So you returned to focusing on shoes and bags
I did. They were still expensive, but at least I didn’t have to sell my whole shop to make ₦1k profit. But business gradually grew worse as inflation grew worse. You don’t expect people looking for what to eat to think about getting a new bag. There were weeks in 2019 when I sold only one bag for the whole week.
Business was far worse in 2020 due to COVID. No one was going anywhere, and for a while, I returned to selling the measurement cereals. I was hardly making anything in terms of profit; I just sold it to have something to do.
In 2021, I decided to start selling ready-to-wear boubou gowns too. They were popular then, and I thought, “At least, if people don’t want shoes, they’ll buy gowns.”
How did that turn out?
It was a saving grace. People loved the gowns. I’d buy them for ₦1500 and sell them at ₦3k or ₦3,500. In addition to the few sales from the shoes and bags, I returned to making at least ₦30k monthly. In good months, I made ₦50k.
But good things hardly last in Nigeria. I began recording a slump in sales in 2023 after the whole fuel subsidy issue. Again, people were looking for how to survive, not how to look good.
As if that wasn’t enough, prices kept skyrocketing. The gowns moved from wholesale prices of ₦1500 – ₦2k to ₦3k, and then ₦4k. Now, wholesalers sell these gowns for ₦6k – ₦8k. By the time I add my profit, it’s around ₦10k. How many people are ready to buy simple boubou gowns for ₦10k? I’m so tired.
I can relate. What’s your income like these days?
My dear, I honestly don’t know. I went to the shop all through last week and didn’t sell a single item. Sometimes, I sell one pair of sandals, make ₦1k profit, and not sell anything again for the week.
It was much easier to make a good profit by selling bags. I could buy a bag for ₦5k and sell it for ₦9500. But when quality bags now cost ₦25k from the market, how much do I sell them for? I can’t even remember the last time I sold a bag.
I’ve been racking my brain about what I can add to my business to make money. I’ve considered a food business, but do I really want to try that with food prices going up every day? I just bought four pieces of shombo pepper for ₦500. Imagine doing that on a large scale.
I’m tired of the whole thing. It’s like I’m always trying to fight inflation, but it keeps beating me back. I’m not sure how long I can continue trying to keep my business afloat. Nigeria doesn’t even look like it’ll get better. My children have advised me to stay at home and rest. But I also don’t know if I’m ready for that. What will I be doing at home? I can’t sit idle.
What takes your money on a monthly basis?
Basically, feeding and transportation. I lost my husband in 2022, so it’s been just me and my last born in the house. My eldest is married, and my other one is in university. I pay school fees for the children still in school, but thankfully, my husband’s family also supports us. I don’t know how I’d have managed otherwise.
God is just good. The economy can be doing its own thing, but I’m not homeless or begging for food.
What’s something you want right now but can’t afford?
I want to send one of my children out of this country. At least, with one abroad, the other siblings can find ways to go too.
How would you rate your financial happiness on a scale of 1-10?
5. Things are tough, but I’m alive with my children. There’s hope.
If you’re interested in talking about your Naira Life story, this is a good place to start.
In 2014, Omolola Akintola left the US for Nigeria with a dream. She’d spent the last seven to eight years getting her degrees — a BSc in Economics, an MBA and an MSc in Marketing — and knew she didn’t want a long-term banking or consulting career.
“I wanted to do something different, something that didn’t already exist,” Lola tells me. “I wanted my own startup so I could solve a problem and impact Nigeria.”
She decided on greenhouse farming. Nigeria’s fine dining scene was on the rise and with it, the need for fresh produce. Lola predicted that it’d be difficult to keep up with importing produce like fresh strawberries and herbs, necessitating a need for all-year-round cultivation — the perfect market for a greenhouse farm.
But setting it up isn’t a small investment. The cost of a small 250 square meter-sized greenhouse averages ₦3m now, and Lola had big plans. Bigger than just one greenhouse.
“I knew what I wanted to do would involve a lot of money,” Lola says. “I planned to stay and work in the US for a few more years to raise capital for the farm and then return. But I fell in love with my partner and returned to Nigeria much earlier — let’s hope my dad doesn’t read this. Greenhouse farming was still the plan — specifically, a 10-year plan. I just needed to work for some years in Nigeria before that could happen.”
Soon after returning to Nigeria, Lola found a job at Access Bank, one of the country’s big four banks.
“I enjoyed my time at Access. I worked in the strategy department, and I felt useful. I loved the fast-paced, exciting environment. I was going to stay at the bank for years so I’d have saved enough for my greenhouse farm.”
However, Lola only spent a few months before she resigned to pursue another business idea.
A “breakfast for the skilled middle-class” business opportunity
Working at the Access Bank head office in Victoria Island opened Lola’s eyes to two things.
First, the 9-5 life for young professionals in Lagos is hard. She had to leave her home in VGC before 6 a.m. if she hoped to beat traffic and get to work by 8 a.m. Returning home wasn’t easier as long hours at work meant she often had to leave the office at 10 p.m.
Secondly, her new lifestyle meant she never had time to grab breakfast or prep food. This wasn’t a problem peculiar to her.
“My colleagues had the same problem. The higher-ups could afford to get in-house chefs or maids to bring them food. Married guys didn’t have to worry about food because they had someone else doing that labour for them. But the single men and women — mostly millennials — didn’t have time to cook their own food.”
Lola also noticed something interesting. The skilled middle-class wasn’t willing to rely only on roadside food.
“It was 2015 in Lagos, and people had disposable income. There was always a concert or show happening during the weekend, and people could afford to go. I had 9-5 friends in different industries too, and I knew that the average millennial Lagosian liked going to cafés on the Island to treat themselves to brunch on weekends. What if they didn’t have to wait for the weekend to treat themselves? What if they could have nice, fancy breakfasts delivered to them daily?”
“In business school, we discussed how businesses are gradually going online,” Lola says. “Buildings are disappearing, and people are exploring new ways of doing business. When I got the idea for a breakfast business, I knew I didn’t need to invest resources in a physical restaurant.”
It made economic sense to run her new idea as a subscription-based service, where customers could subscribe to a meal plan, pay and get their food delivered daily. This way, Lola didn’t have to worry about buying ingredients in bulk and hoping that the power supply was regular enough to store them.
She did a trial run with her sister and some friends first. “I’d close from work and prep the meals I wanted to send to them the next day. My menu included local and international (mostly American) cuisine. Most of what I did was self-taught and by reading recipe books. I already had a passion for cooking and wanted to attend culinary school to get professional skills, but that would’ve meant sponsoring myself and an additional two years of study. So, I decided to just start.
I’d wake up really early to cook and send the meals through my sister’s driver to save costs. Interest grew when other colleagues at work noticed my sister and friends having meals like tortilla wraps and quesadillas for breakfast.”
The referrals flew in, and Milk and Honey became a full-fledged business in 2015. Lola offered different meal plans, from the Bronze subscription plan (breakfast-only) at ₦7,500 weekly to the Platinum plan (including lunch) at ₦20k/weekly, with customised recipes designed to replicate the fine dining experience.
She did that for a few weeks before deciding she could no longer juggle it with her 9-5 at the bank.
“But I was wary about leaving because I had senior colleagues who loved me. Fortunately, I had to report to the NYSC orientation camp soon after, and I used the opportunity to resign. I couldn’t bring myself to do it face-to-face.”
Without the distractions from her 9-5, Lola could now give her full attention to building her business. And she did exactly that, but there was a lot to figure out.
“I was new in the country with a lot of theoretical knowledge. But I didn’t know how to get the right people to bring my vision to life. I was building a tech-enabled startup, so I needed to know where to find experienced website developers. Also, I knew the kind of packaging I wanted, but I needed someone who knew how and where to get materials to make it happen. My lawyer-sister helped with filling me in on legal registrations and regulations, but I needed someone who knew how to run a business specific to Nigeria — a partner.”
Olumide Akinsola became that person. Introduced through mutual friends, Olumide was the key to connecting Lola to everything she needed for her new startup.
“Olumide had a guy for everything,” Lola says. “We discussed the brand image, website and operations. It was like a meeting of the minds. He immediately saw the vision and ran with it. We created a system and knew it would work. We were creating the next big thing.”
Slow and steady [and expensive] growth
Naturally, running a business involves spending money. While Lola didn’t have to invest in a physical restaurant, she had to spend on chefs and kitchen assistants, branding, digital marketing and delivery bikes.
“I didn’t get external funding, and my parents’ support only extended to them allowing me to cook out of the home kitchen and using my dad’s car for delivery initially,” Lola explains. “I get it, though. My dad didn’t understand why I left my US degrees to come and cook.”
However, as Milk and Honey’s clientele expanded to over 300 subscribers, running the business out of her parents’ kitchen became impossible, so she had to rent a ₦1.1m/year kitchen space and office.
“I’d saved about $20k over 7-8 years working summer jobs in the US, and most of it went into keeping the business running between 2015 and 2018. It shouldn’t have cost that much, but like Temple Run, Nigeria kept bringing us new hurdles to jump over.”
Inflation and the adverse effects of government policies
In 2017, the Lagos State government announced a ban on commercial motorcycle (okada) and tricycle (keke) movements on major highways, bridges and roads. This wasn’t the first time the state would restrict bike activities — the last ban was in 2012 — but the new ban affected hundreds of routes, including Yaba, Surulere, Ikeja and the entire Lagos Island. These areas were the major hotspots for Milk and Honey’s activities.
Image: Tribune Online
“We initially bought two bikes for delivery,” Lola says. “But when the government impounds one, you have to go and beg, which affects delivery time. At one point, it was like we had to buy proper motorcycles that didn’t look like okada.
We did that, but we still ran into problems. When it became too much, we partnered with Gokada — the government allowed their bikes on the road. That cost us an extra ₦5k/day for each bike.”
With Nigeria’s age-long power supply problem and the need to keep generators running to preserve ingredients, Lola also had fuel price increases and scarcity to worry about. In 2016, fuel prices rose from ₦87 to ₦145 and maintained the same price between 2017 and 2018. However, frequent scarcity increased the price slightly at several points in the same period.
“It was just hard. I had to maintain relationships with several fuel station managers because no one knew when fuel would suddenly become scarce again.”
On top of all that, the naira kept falling against the dollar. By 2017, it had fallen to ₦300/dollar as against ₦197 to the dollar in the previous year. For an importation-heavy country like Nigeria, this led to a steep rise in the cost of packaging material Lola needed to keep her business going.
“We tried multiple things to keep our costs low. We started a recycling drive and encouraged our customers to return their plates for a discount, but it didn’t do much to minimise expenses,” Lola explains. “I also never paid myself a salary — even though I made sure my eight regular staff were never owed, but it was a lot of money. We had no choice but to increase the prices of some of our plans.”
Even as Milk and Honey was fighting for its life, the customers were fighting for theirs, too.
“People could no longer afford to pay ₦7,500 weekly (without delivery) for breakfast. It wasn’t like they were moving to different brands. There were just more important things they had to pay for or prioritise. When I started the business, I argued that people would always eat. Now it became clear that, yes, people would always eat. But what they ate was a different question. Bread and eggs could fill them just as much as a BLT sandwich.
For most of my bronze plan subscribers, the service was initially a small price to pay for luxury. But when the economy took a nosedive, it became a luxury they couldn’t afford. There just wasn’t as much disposable income to work with. We lost 70% of our bronze subscribers in 2017”.
Trying to stay ahead of the curve
In a quest to stay afloat and reinvent the wheel to continue serving her customers, Lola started offering health-based meal plans in 2017.
“I got a dietician, and we started offering nutrition consultations to create meal plans for people with dietary restrictions who wanted to stay healthy.”
Of course, this service was mostly used by the richer middle and upper-class who could afford to care about what they put in their mouths. The problem? This target audience was a tiny portion of Milk and Honey Gourmet’s initial customer base.
“I had to gradually abandon the idea that our service would be for the global millennial. I had to focus on older rich people, and this category isn’t necessarily online. I needed to re-invent Milk and Honey if we wanted to make enough to keep running. That would involve a new form of branding, marketing and the whole works.”
Making the difficult decision to exit the business
By 2018, it became clear that the economy was deteriorating faster than it was trying to improve, and everyone was struggling. Even Lola’s husband, who’d initially refused to leave Nigeria, had decided it was time to leave.
“At the end of the day, I didn’t really leave Milk and Honey. I left Nigeria,” Lola says. “I’d already calculated that the pivot to an older market was what we needed, and we could turn profitable in the next two to three years so I could take a step back and let the business run on its own.
But Nigeria just wasn’t working. Did I want to stay because of all the time and money I invested or because I thought Nigeria would get better? What if the upper class also have to make tough decisions and decide our services are an unnecessary luxury?”
Lola left Nigeria for the UK in December 2018 after giving her customers a month’s notice to shut down operations. She sold the remaining bikes and donated most of her cooking equipment.
“I rarely talk about Milk and Honey because giving it up was so sad. I’d invested everything into it; my finances and my mental and physical health, and for a while after it ended, I lost my confidence. I did everything by the books, and while that always resulted in success, I was suddenly introduced to the possibility of failure. That fear followed me into the other dreams I tried to pursue.”
As our conversation ended, I asked Lola what the experience has taught her about doing business in Nigeria and what other prospective business owners might benefit from knowing.
“Nigeria discards economic principles. I have a degree in marketing and knew all the fun things to do to make a business work, but one plus one was no longer equalling two. The government can announce a new policy, and you may think it’ll have a positive effect. But it doesn’t because they don’t follow through with all the other things that should make the policy work.
For instance, the government can announce it wants to tackle inflation by releasing funding. That should work, right? At the same time, the same government can decide to stop importation and allow only one person to produce an item. Or they sell forex cheaper to that person. It causes chaos. The word for the Nigerian economic market is just chaos. Some businesses are still making it work regardless, but it’s exhausting. All your permutations and projections can mean nothing at the end of the day.”
On what she thinks might help, Lola says, “So many businesses would do much better if the electricity and transportation problems were solved. If someone comes and solves just those two problems, I’d say they did a wonderful job.”
Ten years later, Lola isn’t the same person who stepped into the country with big dreams.
“I don’t think I’ll return to Nigeria. Many people are doing greenhouse farming now too, so no one needs me. I might consider returning for a vision that has to do with the girl child. If I’ll be helping save a million lives, then I can come back. Otherwise, I’m fine where I am.”
