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  • In this week’s episode of Navigating Nigeria, Citizen spoke to Naomi*, a 22-year-old Cameroonian who migrated to Nigeria under special circumstances. She talked to us about the process of getting in, her experience with Nigeria’s educational system, being in darkness for the very first time in her life and why she thinks Nigerian police are the worst.  

    Walk us through your experience.

    Where do I start? I was born in Cameroon. My dad is someone whose job takes him around a lot. So we sometimes moved with him. Today he could be in Mali, tomorrow Niger, next Togo, and so on.

    He got a job in Nigeria and it was time to move again. We weren’t supposed to move with him this time around, but there were a lot of family issues happening in Cameroon. You know those kinds of issues where your dad’s family doesn’t like your mum’s family and vice-versa. This was why we had to relocate.

    The arrangement for relocation was taking longer than usual and I really wanted some stability to move on with my own life. I was tired of the constant moving. Eventually, we found our way to Nigeria and it was a totally different experience for me.

    What was the first thing that surprised you?

    For starters, the schooling system here is totally different from what I had known. I went to register for WAEC at a secondary school in Fagba as an external student. It was a “special center”. Omo, I wrote WAEC and failed woefully. I got F’s everywhere. I started hearing talks about how to handle “expo”, that there’s a way to “dub”. 

    Lmao.

    I used to think of myself as a scholar because the competition was quite tough in Cameroon and I was acing it. Nigeria humbled me.

    I think part of what affected me is that Cameroon is majorly a French-speaking country. Although I stayed in the English-speaking part, we had to adapt to the French standard. 

    Another difference I noticed was that in Cameroon we had off days for school. I think ours was Wednesday. So school was four days a week. Here in Nigeria it’s everyday.

    Anyway, I wrote WAEC again and this time I was more attentive and passed. Then I wrote JAMB too and passed.

    Nice!

    I got admitted to study medicine and surgery in UNILAG. 

    But ah, the competition was too much and exhausting. I had to drop out. I went back again to take up psychology and I’m almost done now.

    How has life in Nigeria been for you?

    I would say it has been interesting for me. First off, stepping into Nigeria was the first time I ever experienced darkness in my life. I passed out when I saw my shadow. That is something I’ll always remember. 

    When we first moved in, we hadn’t wired our house. So my mum lit a candle that night. I came out of my room and saw this mighty shadow and screamed. I ran to a corner of the room and this shadow followed me. I saw it and passed out. They took me to the hospital after. My mum couldn’t explain to people that it was my first time seeing the shadow of a candle.

    Lol.

    Secondly, I remember that when I was trying to register for JAMB, I was told that northerners in Nigeria have a better chance of getting admitted. And my name sounds like someone from the North, so I went to get documents claiming that my state of origin was from the North. 

    The immigration process was something else. They told us that residential fees, work permits and all would come at outrageous prices. My dad had someone who advised him to take shortcuts. To even get Nigerian citizenship I think the law says you must have lived in Nigeria for fifteen years. See, I got my Nigerian passport through magomago. The forgeries were done so well. My National Identification Number and all were attached to one northern state.

    I also had to deal with a lot of bullying. In my first three years here, I had five cases with the police that centered on bullying. I had lots of fights with girls who sometimes beat me up. 

    In 2017, three girls beat me because apparently, they thought I stole the boyfriend of one member of their clique. I was living around Shomolu then to give you an idea of my environment. I was beaten up so badly, I spent one week in the hospital. Crazy times.

    Wow.

    My friends at the time wanted to handle the matter their way but I felt the police would do a better job. My mistake. My experience with the Nigerian police was bad. They’re very terrible at their jobs. I went there with my clothes all torn and covered in blood and they told me to pay them before they’d attend to me. 

    I transferred ₦5,000 to them. They still asked me to buy fuel for their vehicles. The whole process was irritating. Another thing I learned too is that no be who report to police first dey win case. Sometimes, you just have to take matters into your own hands.

    My parents were angry because they felt I wasn’t adapting to life in Nigeria. I had to create a narrative in my head that I wouldn’t allow myself to get into police trouble again.

    Any takeaways?

    All in all, I do enjoy Nigeria. The experiences are what keep you on your toes. If I hadn’t come here, I don’t think I’d be the way I am now. I’m now street smart and know a lot of things. 

    Nigerians are lovely and very sociable. In Cameroon you could be in an estate with your house close to others and you’d die inside with no one noticing. In Nigeria, people know you right to the compound you reside in. If they don’t get to see you for days someone will come knock on your door. “Ah, e don tay wey I see you o, how far?”

    I really love that and the attention they pay to their surroundings. If I ever get to leave Nigeria I won’t take my experiences for granted because it has really shaped me.

    *Name changed to protect their identity

  • For this week’s episode of Navigating Nigeria, we spoke to Mark*, an IT and networking specialist who is dealing with a huge electricity bill after being swindled by his landlord.

    In the wild adventure that is house-hunting in Nigeria, there are chances that an unsuspecting tenant can be tricked into getting a house with heavy electricity arrears among other issues. This is Mark’s experience about the pains of estimated billing and the dishonesty of some landlords. 

    Walk us through your experience getting an apartment in Lagos

    I started house-hunting in early 2020, just as we were entering the lockdown proper. Lagos being what it is, has a high demand for residential buildings. It wasn’t easy at all. The process of jumping from one agent to another was so annoying. You’d have to pay an agent fee for anyone you came in touch with. And you’d still have to pay their transport fares.

    There are multiple agents for one property and when you call them, they’ll tell you agent fee is ₦5000. I found a way to negotiate it down to ₦2000 although this also depended on the nature of the apartment. Several agents took me around. I couldn’t find anyone to my taste because it felt like all the places I was taken to were shacks. And the landlords really don’t send you because they know that if you don’t take it, someone else will.

    I was just walking on my own one day and was fortunate enough to see this bricklayer working in front of a building still under construction. I stopped to ask if he could give me the contact details of the house owner or the agent in charge. He told me all the apartments in the building were already taken, even though it was still under construction. Imagine the extent people go to secure houses in Lagos.

    Wow.

    Anyway, he told me there was an available place somewhere he had finished working on, somewhere around the Palmgrove-Shomolu axis. Lucky me! When I got to the location I found the only available room left there — it was a one room self-con with a bathroom and kitchen and it looked quite spacious. I didn’t waste time, I took it. I paid ₦300,000 for the rent. Agent fee, agreement and damages took ₦50,000 each, so in total I paid ₦450,000. Service charge came down to ₦5,000 a month.

    The next week, I moved in. This was in June 2020. The building had 14 flats of different sizes in it. Before paying the rent I confirmed with the landlord about any outstanding bills —  Electricity, water, service charges and all. He promised that we would be getting a prepaid meter and made me feel at ease and I believed I was getting a very good deal.

    So, I settled in my place. The first three months were smooth. We were paying our electricity bills at ₦2000 per occupant which seemed fair enough even though I didn’t have appliances at the time. In the fourth month I started noticing some hidden charges in the light bill. Electricity distribution officials would come around to harass us. They’d tell us we had some things to pay. From ₦2000 it went to ₦3000, then ₦5000, then ₦7000. When it got to ₦7000, I knew there was a problem as it wasn’t normal anymore. The bills we started getting were outrageous, the type that printing presses or industrial companies accumulate.

    Our light bill as a whole moved from around ₦100,000 to ₦200,000 per month. Don’t forget that the landlord had promised that I’d get a prepaid meter. He didn’t fulfill that promise and so the Ikeja Electricity Distribution Company (IKEDC) was charging us based on estimated billing. If we were only billed based on three meters — which was what the house had at the time — it would have at least been bearable. 

    We later found out that the landlord had opened extra accounts with IKEDC for the prepaid meters that were yet to arrive. So we were receiving estimated billings for the yet to be installed meters. They opened 10 accounts like that for that building.

    Ah!

    To make matters worse, I found out that the house had accumulated a power bill of ₦3 million before I even became a tenant. At first, we thought it was a joke because the landlord said he had cleared every debt. He swore to God and everything, asking us to confirm from outsiders. We tried everything, including going to IKEDC’s office to confirm the authenticity of our landlord’s claims. The IKEDC officials showed us the account and we saw the bill for ourselves. An outstanding bill of ₦3 million was passed down to us.

    This three million was aside the prepaid meter accounts that were opened for us. So while we were even thinking of how to resolve that debt, another was piling. Every month, we were receiving estimated billings for these prepaid accounts. Some months we’d receive bills as high as ₦700,000.

    What?

    See ehn. We were in a bad place because who doesn’t want light? And no matter what, you cannot shoulder all that debt on yourself with your salary. How much will you have left at the end of the month? 

    We had several engagements with the landlord and asked him to at least try to clear his own end of the outstanding bill. Among the tenants we agreed to pay ₦60,000 each to at least offset some of the bills because IKEDC’s harassment was unbearable. Almost every day you’d see them coming to disconnect us. Imagine the pain of coming back from work, every other person has light and it’s just you living in darkness.

    Even after we convinced the landlord to clear his own debt, we had a new problem. The uninstalled prepaid meters had accumulated a bill of ₦3 million — this was separate from the ₦3 million the landlord was owing. It was a real terror for me. The estimated billing was pure extortion by IKEDC. No matter how much electricity was used, there’s just no way we were consuming that much.

    Eventually, the landlord met with his lawyer who advised him to put the house up for sale. By early December 2021, we received an eviction notice. Despite the eviction notice, we were still paying bills through our nose.

    Towards the end of December, the landlord came with a surprise announcement. He had had a rethink and would no longer sell the house.

    Phew.

    But there was a catch. The landlord informed us that at the end of the year, we would be treated as fresh tenants. This meant we were to pay agreement, commission and all those fees again. And he doubled it. What we were paying as ₦50,000 had become ₦100,000. He also increased rent, some apartments increased by ₦100,000 while some increased by ₦200,000.

    The audacity. Did you explore any other options on your own? 

    Yeah. We tried to engage an insider who worked with IKEDC to confirm if there was a scam going on with the billing. But then, they all work for the same people and even if there was, there was no incentive for him to get to the bottom of it. 

    We also tried to engage a lawyer. But I noticed that not all the tenants were into that and some were nonchalant about it. Me taking it all upon myself would have been an exercise in futility.

    I had no choice and as much as I hated to cough up those fees, the place had some features that I liked. It was just unfair to be given an eviction notice for no reason and then to have my rent increased unjustly. 

    What happened to the laws on giving quit notice and not increasing rent until after three years? There are many unanswered questions and I know that even though my story might be different from others, there are some similarities that you will find that Lagos tenants face at the hands of their landlords.

    Even though it was difficult for me, I just had to pay. I considered the stress of looking for a new apartment, moving, repainting and so on. There was also the fact that most places wouldn’t be as spacious as where I am. Also, if I was getting a new place I’d still have to pay those commissions and other charges. My plan was that if I had to move, it would be to a bigger accommodation and at the time I didn’t have the funds for that.

    What is the situation for you like now?

    Not every tenant renewed their rent. Some were aggrieved and felt cheated. For those of us that stayed, we finally received our prepaid meters. Ideally, IKEDC will need you to pay a certain amount before giving you a prepaid meter. What they  did was to sum up the debt and split it equally across those meters.

    Whether you’re a new or old tenant, you have an outstanding bill waiting for you if you agree to stay in that building. So every month I pay two light bills, one to offset an outstanding charge and another to pay for the power I plan to use for that month. And I cannot skip these payments or else I won’t be able to load up my prepaid meter. The last time I checked, the outstanding bill on my meter was ₦400,000.

    Sigh. What advice would you give to people looking for accommodation in Lagos?

    First, you should do due diligence on any apartment you plan to move to. When agents are showing you a house, just note the address. Take it to an electricity distribution office to confirm if there are any outstanding bills for that address. 

    This is important because these are things the landlord won’t tell you. Even if they tell you the house has prepaid meters, don’t fall for it because even those have hidden bills. In your excitement about getting a prepaid meter, you may not be aware that there are bills you’d end up servicing.

     *Name changed to protect their identity.

  • Today’s subject of Navigating Nigeria is Damilare, an events specialist who came face-to-face with death at the hands of an angry mob. He shares his story about surviving mob violence and how his experience has made him an advocate in the fight against jungle justice.

    Tell us about your experience with jungle justice

    I used to work in Lekki as a talent manager for a record label. One day in July 2016, I planned to go home along with my colleagues after work but I was hungry, so I went out to buy food first. My colleagues already left when I returned to the office so I had to find my way home alone.

    I lived around Kingdom Hall in Sangotedo, so I walked down to Marwa bus stop and took a bus headed to Ajah Bus Stop. On getting there, I waited for another bus to take me to Sangotedo when I saw a parked red car. I approached it but immediately noticed its occupants were nodding at each other, like it was time for them to do something.

    That should have been a red flag

    I didn’t think much of it and approached the car to ask where it was headed. Someone dropped from the passenger side of the car and asked me, “O boy, why you hold my leg that time?” 

    I was confused. I didn’t know him and was still trying to wrap my mind around what he was asking when the first set of blows came. The first one landed on my head and then one person hitting me became two, two became five and five became seven. I was wearing a white T-shirt and it was soaked in blood in no time.

    Wow

    They tore my shirt from my body and were trying to strip me completely naked. I kept asking what they were doing but all I kept hearing as they were beating me was “Na dem. We go kill dem today. Na so dem dey do.” 

    That was when I started shouting and ran to the middle of the road but cars just drove past me. These people chased me and dragged me back to the side of the road and kept beating me with sticks, stones and blows to my face.

    At one point they were trying to break my knees. They said once they did so, I wouldn’t be able to run and they’d do whatever they wanted to me. Other people at the bus stop would stop by to either curse me or hit me.

    Damn. What did they say you did?

    According to my accuser, someone touched his leg when he was passing through Ajah Bus Stop but he didn’t find anything strange about it. It was when he got to the next bus stop at Abraham Adesanya he found out his phone was missing.

    He raised alarm and mobilised people to follow him back to Ajah Bus Stop to find the thief. The person he claimed touched him was wearing a white T-shirt and jeans. So when they got to Ajah, they were looking for someone that fit that description, and there I was: wearing a white T-shirt and a pair of jeans. That was all they needed, no questions asked.

    What really stood out for you during this horrible experience?

    One thing I noticed was they were so bent on stripping me naked and humiliating me. It wasn’t enough that they were hitting me, they had to humiliate me and make me beg for my life. I cannot wish this experience on my worst enemy. I begged and begged and explained in English, Yoruba and Pidgin.

    There was an area boy I kept pleading with. I told him I didn’t know my accusers and that I’d never met them before. But the mob kept saying “Na lie e dey lie, na so dem dey do. Make we kill this one today.”

    Someone suggested they call the police and I even begged them to do that. The police station wasn’t far from where we were but someone in the crowd said the police shouldn’t be involved because they’d release me the next morning. They said they’d teach me a lesson by burning me alive that night.

    Ah!

    The area boy asked me why I would go about stealing but I maintained my innocence. Fortunately for me, when a police patrol team drove by, he ran over to the other side of the road and called them to the scene. That’s how I was saved from death. 

    At the station, my accuser wrote his statement and kept telling the police he wanted to leave. He said he had an emergency meeting in Port-Harcourt the next day. The police let him go but I think he paid them some money.

    I spent the night in a cell with my swollen face and injuries. The next day, my colleagues came to release me after the police took my statement.

    How did you recover from your experience?

    My face was swollen to almost double its size and I had cuts on my head. I was first taken to Doren Hospital for treatment, and later got to tend to myself. Apart from the physical injuries, I had to deal with PTSD, depression and panic attacks. 

    I spoke to a therapist for a long time but I’ve not gotten over the psychological effects of that experience. I’m grateful to my family and friends for their understanding and for helping me.

    How did the experience shape you? 

    One thing I’m happy about is I used that experience to create a positive impact. Six years ago, my friends and I set up an initiative that goes to different communities in Lagos to educate young Nigerians on the dangers of jungle justice. We often use football to interact with them — by setting up matches, donating football kits, balls and all that.

    My friends who are lawyers and human rights activists also talk to them and make them understand that jungle justice has no place in human society. We can’t be judge, jury and executioner.

    I’ve also been on radio and TV to discuss these issues, emphasising the need for Nigerians to have some measure of trust in the police and allow them perform their duties. 

    In some cases, we noticed that police officers allow jungle justice to happen. The inaction can be due to pressure or the size of the mob — like in the ALUU incident and even recently in Ikorodu. So our discussions also extend to law enforcement.

    Nice

    I’m grateful we’ve been able to initiate these conversations on jungle justice and spread the message. Our group is called Project Candlelight and we go about with our mission to stand against jungle justice. I’m happy I was able to use this experience to initiate change.

  • Today’s subject of Navigating Nigeria is Titilope who manages a filling station in Bariga, Lagos . She talks about what fuel scarcity means for a filling station manager and how much of it is really good or bad for business.

    What does a filling station manager feel about a fuel scarcity crisis?

    Whenever a fuel scarcity crisis happens, it’s mixed feelings for me. On one hand, we’re excited about the price surge because it’s an opportunity for us to make more in sales. Selling a full truck or two in a day gives you access to higher profit margins. But on the other hand, it can be very stressful because we enter a race with the big guns in Nigeria’s oil industry to get fuel products at very exorbitant prices.

    What caused this latest fuel scarcity?

    The current fuel scarcity actually started on Thursday, October 20, 2022 — Nigerians just didn’t notice it. On that day, nobody could place an order because naval officers didn’t allow vessels to land at the ports. Unofficially, we were told there was a fight but it’s privileged information so I won’t mention the people involved. The landing cost of fuel increased as a result and the few operators who had stock increased their prices. 

    Mad

    Last week for example, we were getting stock as high as ₦‎168 per litre because there was limited stock. Don’t also forget that there are floods affecting various parts of the country. In fact, at the depot two weeks ago, the government didn’t allow filling stations based in southern Nigeria to load up fuel. Priority was given to filling stations in states affected by the floods. So, if there are 10 trucks loaded up, states in the northern region like Kogi got top priority, meaning that the southern states have to fight for the few available trucks left.

    Wow

    As at Thursday, no new vessels had come in for landing. From Thursday till Monday, the effect of no landing is what Nigerians are now experiencing in the form of fuel scarcity. This also affects us as dealers. For instance, I wanted to place an order on Friday but I couldn’t because the available product had already been hijacked by the big wigs. So, small companies like us can’t compete.

    Another thing is that in situations like this when there’s scarcity, companies like Forte Oil, Conoil, NNPC that operate downstream  have the advantage. Naturally, they’ll give priorities to their own filling stations.

    There was product in the free market but it was as high as ₦178 per litre even though the retail price is ₦170. Many people didn’t buy and that’s why you see a lot of filling stations locked up because the owners are thinking about it. 

    Don’t also forget that there was a blackout in many parts of Nigeria during the weekend. The blackout caused a surge in demand for fuel and we exhausted our stock by Sunday with nothing to fall back on. 

    Mad. So how are fuel marketers getting along?

    Since it’s looking like a full-blown scarcity in the next few days, we may be willing to take the risk to buy as high as ₦178 per litre, even though government agencies like the Department of Petroleum Resources (DPR) will still come to bully us. Despite knowing we buy at these high prices, they expect us to sell to Nigerians at ₦170 per litre.

    These are the things that many people aren’t willing to get involved in. The DPR doesn’t even deal in petty bribes of ₦50,000, they deal in bribes of hundreds of thousands. When you buy at ₦178 and sell at ₦170, how can you gain? 

    Don’t also forget that we pay taxes. To load a truck within Lagos you pay as high as ₦250,000, and ₦400,000 outside Lagos. When you consider these things, it’s not favorable for us in the long run. 

    How badly does this affect your pocket?

    The impact for us is that we all have to sit at home. We can’t afford to get into trouble with government officials and Nigerians won’t know that the scarcity isn’t our fault. We can’t afford to buy what we can’t sell, and those that can sell simply increase the prices — probably because they have the money to bribe the DPR.

    Since Sunday night I’ve been observing the trend through inside sources and driving around to see if our competitors are selling or not. Generally, I’m just testing if the water is shallow enough to put my leg in.

    That process must be stressful

    It’s not easy. It’s a family business and when my father started it, it wasn’t this hard. Right now, we’re just doing it for the sake of doing it because profit margins are as low as ₦2 or ₦1. You buy stock at ₦164 but it’s ₦165 tomorrow and ₦166 the day after. That’s what happens when there’s no proper regulation.

    If you don’t want Nigerians blaming station managers like you, who should we be talking to?

    NNPC and the Nigerian government. The Independent Petroleum Marketers Association of Nigeria (IPMAN) are trying their best, but what do you expect us to do? Think about it, if we’re buying today at ₦183, we have no choice but to sell to Nigerians at ₦200 per litre, at least.

    What’s the way out of this current scarcity?

    There’s hope it’ll end soon because we’re in the election season and the government in power wouldn’t want it to last for too long. The fuel scarcity may end towards the end of this week, or next week.

    What needs to happen to avoid the next fuel scarcity?

    Proper management. The NNPC in all honesty has shown that they don’t have the capacity to manage this thing — there’s too much corruption. So what they do is allocate to the big guys who have the capacity to hoard products — the whole thing revolves around a circle of people. Despite laws in place against this, the government isn’t implementing anything. The NNPC isn’t supposed to have exclusive authority over everything.

    ALSO READ: Navigating Nigeria: My Encounter With the Police Left Me With PTSD