Dinah* (29) had to step up financially after her dad’s income loss and eventual death worsened her family’s financial situation. In this story, she talks about turning to loans to fill the income gap. Although she’s grateful she can support her family, she also resents that her sister has it easier.
As Told To Boluwatife
As a firstborn daughter, I started subconsciously putting my two sisters’ needs ahead of my own from a young age.
At first, it was the small things, like sometimes giving them my snacks when they begged after eating theirs. It was also the occasional big things, like when I was 13 and allowed my 11-year-old sister to wear my Christmas clothes because she was upset that my dad had accidentally burnt hers.
I don’t remember my parents pressuring me to do those things. The most they did was encourage me to be a good example to my sisters. They didn’t explicitly say, “Put them first,” but I took the “be a good example” advice to mean that as well.
I started giving my sisters money when I was in uni. My youngest sister was in JSS 1, and she asked for money the most. It wasn’t serious money, though. Whenever we talked, she’d ask me to buy her something, and I’d send ₦2k or ₦3k through my mum or my second sister.
In 2020, just as I completed NYSC, my father ran into money problems. The lockdown affected his import business, and then he made a bad investment choice that wiped out his savings. My mum stepped in, but her salary as a teacher struggled to fill the gap my dad’s income loss left. We were broke.
To make matters worse, my immediate younger sister was in a private uni, and my youngest sister was just about to enter. The financial burden was a lot, and even though my parents tried their hardest to provide, I could tell they were struggling.
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My mum sold her car, and she stopped attending parties. My mum is the biggest owambe Nigerian aunty ever, and her inability to buy aso-ebi and souvenirs to attend her parties was the biggest indicator that everything wasn’t okay.
Fortunately, I got my first job almost immediately after NYSC. My ₦180k salary wasn’t huge, but it gave me some independence. I didn’t have to add to the financial burden at home; more importantly, I could support my family.
I started chipping in for expenses at home: food, gas, electricity and utility bills. Things weren’t back to normal, but we were surviving.
Then, in 2021, my dad died.
We had to deal with two different types of grief: grief from losing my dad, and grief from relatives who swooped in like vultures to reap where they didn’t sow. The main bone of contention was our house.
My dad had built it before he married my mum, and his brother (my uncle) had contributed financially to the building. My uncle even had some of the land documents, and after my dad died, he attempted to take ownership. When the wahala became too much, my mum decided to leave the house for him.
Our financial responsibilities increased from just trying to survive and pay school fees to paying rent. My mum took on extra after-school tutorials to make more money, but it wasn’t enough.
My two sisters’ private university tuition ran into millions. My immediate younger sister worked several jobs in school to support herself, but my youngest sister didn’t have that advantage. She relied on whatever she got from home.
In 2022, I took a loan for the first time to pay part of my youngest sister’s school fees. Her university allowed us to pay the tuition fees in instalments, but at that point, we were owing ₦300k, and exams were close.
My mum couldn’t find money anywhere, and out of the blue, my bank sent me an email that I was eligible for a quick loan. I took out ₦310k and repaid it in six months. But before I finished repaying that one, I took another “quick” ₦100k loan from a loan app. Why? The repayment schedule from my bank reduced my monthly income to about ₦100k, which hardly covered my transportation and living expenses.
That’s where the loan cycle started. The loans were supposed to be emergency options until my salary came, but I was drowning in a sea of interest rates and repayments. I was taking loans from one place to repay another loan. At my lowest, I was owing seven different loan apps a total of ₦800k and fielding harassment calls from their loan collectors.
Things didn’t improve even after I changed jobs in 2024 and started earning ₦300k. My mum also had to take it easy at work because of a lingering wound from a domestic accident — she has diabetes, which affected the wound healing process— so I became the de facto breadwinner.
I often feel like my youngest sister doesn’t fully appreciate the extent to which my mum and I went to secure her education. This babe called me early this year for ₦350k for final year week celebrations. She wanted to buy a dinner gown, do her hair, and take pictures. She knows I complain about loans, but somehow, she just expects me to come through for her.
She has finally graduated, and I’m glad to be free of the financial burden. However, I’m still stuck in a loan cycle. I owe two different loan apps a total of ₦408k, and I borrow from another at least once a month. I think it’s an addiction because I literally can’t do without loans. My salary doesn’t last two weeks, and I must borrow money to stay afloat.
I’ve tried to mentally calculate how I can afford to be debt-free and not have to take loans anymore, but the only way that’ll work is if I can double my income to ₦600k or ₦700k. With the level I am now, it’s not possible.
I can’t really blame anyone for my financial situation. No one forced me to take the responsibility, and I’m grateful I could support my mum and siblings. That said, I can’t help feeling some sort of resentment towards my youngest sister. She got to live a soft life and will probably never have to worry about providing for any sibling.
Why didn’t I also have the luck of coming as a lastborn? Why did my dad have to die? Did I do too much for my family? Will I ever make sense of my finances?
I’ll probably never have answers to these questions, so it’s best not to dwell on them. I just have to focus on trying to live for myself now and see what my life can be without black tax lurking in the shadows.
*Name has been changed for the sake of anonymity.
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