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.
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What’s your earliest memory of money?
I remember being around seven or eight years old, watching my mother meticulously count naira notes into small nylon bags. She ran a small bukka, and my elder sister and I would go straight there after school to help her.
Then, after closing up for the day, we would sit with her on a wooden bench to sort the cash. Sometimes, my mum gave us ₦20 or ₦50 each as a reward for working hard.
What was money like at home?
Money wasn’t abundant in our house, but we always had food because of my mum’s business. My father was a bricklayer who worked on building sites. He didn’t make much money, but he tried his best. While we didn’t get things like new clothes or shoes, I don’t think my sister and I were ever sent out of school for non-payment of fees.
My dad strongly believed in not doing more than his ability. If he knew he couldn’t comfortably pay for something, he wouldn’t even start it. I remember wanting to go to a private secondary school that my neighbourhood friend attended. My dad said, “If I pay for this term, where will I see money for next term?”
Also, my dad was proud in that he never begged for financial assistance or expected others to help him. He always said, “If you don’t sweat for your money, it won’t last.”
I used to think that didn’t make sense. Why not take free money if you can? Must you suffer for money? Now that I think about it, considering how my life has gone, he was probably right.
Let’s start from the beginning. When was the first time you worked to earn your own money?
That was in 2013, right after I finished my OND in Hospitality Management. I got a job as a waiter/receptionist at a hotel in Ibadan, earning ₦18,000 a month.
I used my first salary to buy my friend’s old Tecno phone. I was supposed to pay him ₦25,000, but I never paid him the balance. I spent three years at that hotel, and my salary only increased once, to ₦22,000. In 2017, I decided to relocate to Lagos to look for bigger opportunities.
Did you find these opportunities?
Yes. I moved in with a friend in Ikorodu, and with his contacts, I got a job as a front desk officer at a hotel in Ikeja. I initially thought my new salary of ₦45,000/month was an upgrade. But after paying transport costs, contributing to household expenses, and buying a few clothes to look presentable, I was living from hand to mouth.
By 2019, I had moved up to supervisor, and my salary had risen to ₦65,000. That was also around the time I discovered sports betting.
How did you get into gambling?
It started as normal gisting during weekend football matches. The other guys I worked with at the hotel would always talk about codes and sure odds. It never really interested me until one night when one guy won ₦75,000 on a ₦500 stake. I thought, “What’s the harm in trying?”
I started playing with ₦200 or ₦500 here and there. I mostly lost, but I won between ₦5,000 and ₦15,000 a few times, and it felt like free money. Slowly, it became a regular habit. My ₦65k salary wasn’t big money, and I was spending almost everything trying to survive. Betting gave me hope that I could win extra cash someday and make my life easier for a while.
Did this hope ever come true?
The life of a gambler is funny because I never really made any significant money from that 2019 to 2024, but I kept gambling almost every week. It was just loss upon loss, with small wins of about ₦15,000, or at most ₦40,000, here and there.
Anytime I wanted to stop, I would think, “What if today is the day I win big?” If I calculate it, I was spending at least ₦15,000 on sports betting every month. Of course, that meant my already small salary was no longer enough to manage, and around 2021, I started regularly taking loans to supplement it.
Loan apps?
It was a mix of loan apps and small small loans from work colleagues. I always tried to avoid loan apps as much as possible because of the interest rates.
I promptly repaid the loans I took from colleagues because they saw me every day, and I couldn’t escape them. The apps were a different matter. I hardly paid them back. At one point, I was changing SIM cards every two months because loan apps kept disturbing me with calls.
In 2023, I moved to another hotel as a manager, and my salary increased to ₦80,000. The new job came with accommodation, so the money I spent on transportation reduced. I also started seriously dating a colleague. She was one of the kitchen staff, and I really liked her. This decision would come back to bite me later.
In mid-2024, gambling finally paid me big.
Tell me about it
It was a huge stroke of luck. I got very sure odds from a punter and bet ₦20,000 on a multiple-game ticket of about 20 games with crazy odds. I had played similar multiple bets like that before, even with “very sure odds”, but one or two games always cut the ticket.
But that day, I just had a feeling something good would happen. And I was right. By the end of the night, I had won a little over ₦20 million.
What goes through a man’s mind when he wins ₦20 million just like that?
Omo. I think I ran mad for a minute. I screamed so loud that some hotel guests on the floor above my room woke up. I couldn’t breathe. I checked the screen like ten times. I withdrew ₦500k first just to test if it was real. When the bank alert dropped, I just started crying. I felt like God had finally answered my prayers.
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What did you do with the money?
The very next morning, I called my girlfriend. She was about three months pregnant at the time, and that period had been really tough for us. Her family was putting pressure on us to marry, saying it was against their tradition to have a child outside wedlock.
I had been trying to push back and get her to abort since I didn’t have money, but once I won that money, I decided our story had changed. I told her God had blessed us and that our wedding was finally happening. She was happy too, and we started planning immediately.
To show how stupid I was, I didn’t think of a business I could do with the money, or even investments. Instead, my priorities were: the wedding, securing a house, and settling down.
How much went into the wedding?
In total, I spent about ₦3 million on the traditional and white wedding. I wanted to impress her family and show them that their daughter was marrying a real man. I also bought a used Toyota car for ₦3.3 million and rented a one-room apartment for ₦800k.
During the wedding preparations, my wife introduced me to a man who looked to be in his early 40s. She called him “small daddy,” and said he was her cousin from her mother’s side. Apparently, he had been the one taking care of her since her dad lost his job.
Small Daddy was a real estate developer and seemed extremely knowledgeable about property. Remember, one of my plans for the money I won was to secure a house. He convinced me to buy a plot of land and build a house in Ogun State.
He sha packaged it and said ₦12 million would get me the land, secure all the documents and complete like 40% of the building. Then I could give him money in instalments over the next couple of months to complete the building.
Did you agree to this?
Yes. My wife strongly vouched for him, and I felt it was better to work with a relative. At least, if anything went wrong, I could get the family involved.
So, towards the end of 2024, I gave him ₦12 million in three instalments to buy the land and start building. In January 2025, I started asking to visit the site. Up until then, Small Daddy had been sending pictures and videos of the supposed construction. Every time I tried to visit the site, my wife would give an excuse. It was either that he was out of town inspecting another project, or someone was sick.
One Saturday morning, I told my wife I was going to the site, whether Small Daddy was around or not. I traced the site address he had written on the receipts he gave me. You won’t believe what I saw when I got there.
What did you see?
Absolutely nothing. Just bush and some farm land where the villagers were farming cassava. By now, neither my wife nor Small Daddy was picking up my calls. Confused, I showed the villagers the land receipts, but they said the names on them were unfamiliar and that they didn’t know of any land that had been recently sold.
To cut a long story short, I returned home and didn’t meet my wife and our one-month-old child. She had packed every single thing in the house, down to the last spoon. I had only left the house for like four hours o.
Ah. Do you know where she went?
Till today, I haven’t used my eyes to see her. She just dropped the child off with her parents and disappeared. Our neighbour said he saw her packing that day and that Small Daddy had come to pick her up with a truck. When the neighbour asked what was happening, she said we were moving to our new house.
Her family still claims they don’t know where she is, but I think they’re lying. It was also from making enquiries about her whereabouts that I learned Small Daddy wasn’t even her relative. He was her long-time boyfriend from her university days. They must have planned the entire thing together the moment she told him I won ₦20 million. That’s how they ran away with my money.
Damn. How did you process that level of betrayal?
I fell sick and couldn’t sleep for days. I would just sit on the floor of my room staring at the ceiling. I’m not sure how I managed to go to work during that period. Anytime I thought about the fact that I won ₦20 million and lost it all within seven months, my head would just start paining me. It’s by God’s grace that I didn’t run mad. It still feels like a dream.
Some people suggested using the police to track them, but I had already spent the whole ₦20 million and didn’t want to waste money I didn’t have on police. I believe I’ll catch her one day, sha. Our child is still with my wife’s family, and I have people who will notify me if they see my wife around the area.
What’s your income like these days?
I’m still working as a hotel manager, earning ₦85,000/month. I had to return to living in the hotel sometime last year because I couldn’t afford rent again.
My car has been at a mechanic’s garage for months. The engine has problems, and I’ve been constantly fixing it. The only solution now is to buy another one, and that will cost about ₦800k – ₦1.2 million, which I don’t have. I’m not sure why I bought a car in the first place. Maybe I felt every millionaire needed to have a car. Plus, the money felt like it would never finish then. See me now, I’m worse off than when I won it. There’s absolutely nothing to prove that kind of money passed through my account.
Funny enough, I didn’t even tell my parents about it. They know I won some money, but I didn’t tell them the full amount. They assumed that was what I used to fund my wedding. They know my wife left me for another man, but don’t know she took my money. Imagine if my dad knew how much was involved. He would insult me so much.
But I still believe I can make it again. I’m still betting, and I just need another big win.
You’re still gambling?
I don’t have a choice. The hope that things can change any day is what is keeping me going. I haven’t won anything since I started betting again, but it can happen. If I make another big win, I won’t tell anybody. I’ll just make my moves in silence.
I’m also trying to be reasonable. I try to bet only ₦10,000 a month, so it won’t pain me too much if I don’t win anything. I also started a ₦10,000 monthly ajo contribution this year. I’ll collect mine in December and think of a business I can start.
Let’s break down your typical monthly expenses
I get small tips occasionally from guests checking in, which adds maybe ₦10,000 to ₦15,000 extra to my pocket monthly.
I still take loans from colleagues and loan apps from time to time, so that’s what the loan repayments are for. Currently, I owe about ₦55k in total: ₦10k to a colleague and the remaining from a loan app.
Is there an ideal amount of money you think you should be earning?
I believe I could do a lot if I were earning ₦200k/month. I would be able to save and think about what I can do with my life to earn extra money. Right now, it just feels like I’m stuck with no clear direction.
I still believe very much that my luck can shine and I can win big again, but I don’t know exactly when that will happen. So, for the meantime, I’m just waiting and hoping.
Do you ever feel like the gambling itself is keeping you trapped?
Sometimes, when I lose a ticket, I blame myself and wish I had never even started betting in the first place. Maybe if I had not won that ₦20 million, I’d have abandoned betting at some point since I wasn’t getting anything from it. But that money showed me what was possible. I’m not sure I can just stop totally. I’ll just be thinking, “What if?”
Hmmm. How would you rate your financial happiness on a scale of 1-10?
2. That’s because I’m alive and still have a job that provides me with accommodation. But I’m nowhere near happy with where I am in life right now.
If you’re interested in talking about your Naira Life story, this is a good place to start.
Find all the past Naira Life stories here.
