Nigerians | Page 2 of 253

Sometimes, life puts you in messy situations where you’re not sure if you’re doing the right thing or not. That’s what Na Me F— Up? is about — real Nigerians sharing the choices they’ve made, while you decide if they fucked up or not.

Deji*, 32, came back to Lagos from Canada for Detty December expecting nothing more than good music, old friends and a good time. However, when a road trip with a close friend ended in an unexpected expense and an awkward fallout, he found himself questioning the line between generosity and entitlement.

When you’re done reading, you get to decide: did he fuck up, or not?

This is Deji’s Dilemma, as shared with Adeyinka

I came back to Lagos for Detty December expecting a good time. I wanted to rest, enjoy myself and reconnect with people I hadn’t seen in a long time. I didn’t plan for anything stressful; I just wanted the trip to feel easy.

Tade* is one of my closest friends. We’ve known each other for years, and I’ve always seen him as someone I can move with without overthinking. Since I landed, we’ve been hanging out almost every day. We’ve gone for raves, two concerts and have a few more shows lined up. From the beginning, we agreed to split bills. Everyone paid their way, and it never felt like an issue. That was why I didn’t expect a road trip to Ibadan to change the dynamic between us.

I had a wedding to attend in Ibadan and didn’t want to go alone. More than that, I needed someone to drive. I don’t have a car in Lagos, and I wasn’t keen on navigating a December road trip with a random driver. Tade was the obvious choice.

When I asked him, he wasn’t enthusiastic. He talked about the long drive, traffic and stress. I understood his hesitation, so I didn’t push. Eventually, he agreed, but only on the condition that I would fuel his car to Ibadan and back. I was surprised by the request, but I didn’t argue. I agreed and told myself it wasn’t worth turning into a back-and-forth.

The trip to Ibadan went smoothly. The wedding was nice, we ate well and joked through most of it. I was genuinely glad I didn’t travel alone. On our way back to Lagos, the car started acting up somewhere along the road. We pulled over, called a mechanic, and after checking it, he said we needed to fix it immediately if we wanted to continue our trip. The cost was a bit over ₦100,000.

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Before I fully processed what he’d said, Tade turned to me and asked me to pay for it. I was taken aback.

In my head, a lot of things were happening at once. I’d already paid for fuel both ways. I’d covered feeding during the trip. Beyond this particular outing, I’d also brought him clothes from Canada, two pairs of sneakers and a designer perfume. I didn’t bring those things as leverage, and I hadn’t thought of them as something to count, but they were very present in my mind in that moment.

I told him I couldn’t pay for the repairs. It was his car. We had agreed on fuel, not maintenance or repairs. If something had happened to my phone or my luggage during the trip, I wouldn’t have expected him to pay for it. I felt like I had already held up my end of what we discussed.

Tade didn’t argue with me or raise his voice. He paid for the repairs himself and got back into the car. From that point on, his mood changed completely.

The rest of the journey to Lagos felt uncomfortable. He barely spoke. When I tried to make conversation, his responses were short and flat. By the time we got back, it was obvious something had shifted between us. Since then, he’s been distant.

He still replies to messages, but there’s a noticeable change. He takes longer to respond and doesn’t initiate plans the way he did before. We had already talked about more Detty December outings, but now I’m not sure if he’ll show up or not.

From my perspective, I didn’t abandon him or leave him stranded. I paid for fuel as agreed. I covered food. I showed up as a friend in ways that weren’t transactional. I didn’t start listing those things to him because I didn’t want to sound petty, but I can’t pretend they don’t exist.

At the same time, I keep wondering if I missed something obvious. Perhaps from his perspective, it felt like I had used his car and time, and then refused to step up when things went wrong. Or maybe he assumed that, since I was visiting from abroad, unexpected expenses would naturally fall on me.

If he had said from the start that I would be responsible for any damage to the car, I would have thought more carefully about taking the trip. I might have still agreed, or I might have made a different plan. What unsettled me was the assumption that I should automatically take on that cost.

Now I find myself replaying everything. Should I have just paid and moved on, especially since money wasn’t much of an issue? Or was I right to draw a line and refuse responsibility for something we never discussed?

What makes this harder is that I value our friendship. Detty December is meant to be chill, but I’ve spent part of it navigating guilt. I don’t want this to be the incident that ruins our relationship. At the same time, I don’t want to apologise for something I don’t fully believe was wrong.

I’ve been present and generous. And yet, here I am, questioning myself.

*Names have been changed to protect the identity of the subjects.

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?

I began to have a strong desire to make money when I was 11 or 12 years old. It was largely due to my family’s financial situation. I didn’t know what having money meant, but I knew what poverty looked like, and I wanted better.

Tell me more about your family’s financial situation

I was raised by a single mother who didn’t make a lot of money as a civil servant, so things were difficult. While my friends attended private school and received toys, I attended public school and managed food.

I noticed this difference in our quality of life pretty early, so I often thought about making money. The first time I was able to do so was at 15 years old.

What did you do?

I taught primary school students. I was still in secondary school at the time — either SS1 or SS2 — but I’d work as a holiday lesson teacher for makeshift schools in the area for ₦4k/ month.

I also made money running errands for people, mostly in the ₦20 or ₦50 change they told me to keep. There was also an estate beside my street where I’d go to help rich people bathe and walk their dogs for little money here and there. When the dogs had puppies, I helped the owners market and sell them on an online marketplace and earn between ₦2k – ₦4k in commissions.

I finished secondary school in 2016 and returned to teaching at schools. The first job I got paid ₦8k/month, but I worked there for only two months. I was more of an errand boy and cleaner than a teacher. I moved on to another school that was supposed to pay me ₦12k/month. I didn’t last one month there because the middle-aged proprietor began to move funny.

How so?

The man was making some “funny” sexual advances. I ignored him until he started asking me to wait behind after others had left. Ah, I resigned immediately.

Next, I worked as a cleaner at a school for ₦15k/month. I worked there for three months before I got an admission offer to the university. This was still 2016.

Did you also try to make money in uni?

I had to. I didn’t have a specific allowance from home. Sometimes I’d get ₦2k per week, other times ₦5k or even ₦1k if I collected food stuff. Money wasn’t consistent, so I needed to find ways to support myself. I did that by rearing rabbits.

Rabbits?

Yes. I love animals. I bought one rabbit, which I reared at home before I got into uni. She gave birth to six kits. Three died, and I took the remaining three with me to school when I resumed. That drew attention to me, and I became the guy who bred rabbits.

Gradually, people started to find me whenever they wanted to buy rabbits. I’d help arrange the purchase from a farm and earn commission. Over time, I expanded my operations and used any extra money that came my way to buy a few more rabbits and build a cage. That way, I could breed my own rabbits, sell them, and make a higher profit. I was selling them as pets, not for meat, but I was still making good money.

“Good” might be a stretch because I’m talking like ₦3k/week, but for someone who often trekked an hour to school because of transport fare, it was good enough for me to survive.

You mentioned you were selling the rabbits as pets, not meat. Is there a difference?

Yes. To sell rabbits for human consumption, you need to sell in large quantities to be able to meet clients’ demands. That’s big man business, which I didn’t have the capacity for. I only had like 7 or 8 rabbit kits a month. So, selling them as pets was the way to go for me.

People hardly bought rabbits as pets, but I had a strategy that allowed me to sell them at a premium price. I’d create content about how rabbits were quieter, cheaper to feed and maintain than dogs. I also spread the word that my rabbits were trained. Rabbits aren’t easy to train, but since mine were often in my room, they got used to being around humans.

I’d make videos to show how I could call them to come to me. The rabbits came because they knew I probably had food, but to people, it showed that the rabbits were trained and could listen to commands. So, while others could sell a rabbit for ₦1500 or ₦2k, I could sell mine for as much as ₦5k or ₦8k. Guys even bought them to gift their girlfriends. Business was good.

However, as I was getting money, everything went back into the business. I had to expand and feed the rabbits, and it became difficult to maintain. Then, a bag of rabbit food was ₦3k. Imagine a struggling student buying bags of food every week for rabbits.

So, even though the business grew very fast in just a year, it fell off just as fast. The final blow came when I was in 200 level.

What happened?

There was an outbreak of the RHD virus that unfortunately affected my rabbits. I had 8 breeding does at the time and I lost them one by one. I tried different remedies, even asked the person I got them from, but nothing worked.

So, whenever I noticed one got sick, I’d ask my roommate to put it down, so at least we could eat. I eventually sold off the remaining three for about ₦26k and the cage for ₦1k. I was able to make that much from the rabbit sale because one of them was an imported Angora rabbit I’d bought for ₦30k. I eventually sold it off for ₦20k. That’s how I stopped the business.

Phew. Sorry about that. What did you do next?

I briefly worked as a hostel agent and reposted pictures and videos of available hostels from another agent.

The first day I went for a physical inspection myself, I realised there are some jobs that need you to be mentally and physically fit. I went down with malaria after one inspection waka and decided the business wasn’t for me. ₦4k in commission was the only money I made from that stint.

During this period, forex had started to gain ground in my city. Someone I knew from another hostel did a giveaway, which I participated in but didn’t win. Then I entered his DM and was like, “Omo, this giveaway you did. I’m broke o. I really needed the money.”

He asked me to come to his office to see him. I did, and he told me how I could start a forex business.

He explained that I could raise money from people, invest it on their behalf, and collect a percentage of the profit. He gave me ₦4k to start. With that ₦4k, I designed a flyer and started posting about the forex opportunity.

To be clear, were you trading forex?

No, I was just the middleman. I worked with a trader who traded the money for about two weeks before paying out the profit. The profit margin on investments was around 20% – 30% bi-weekly, and my cut was typically 5% or 10% of the total investment + profit, depending on my agreement with the investor (the person whose money I was taking).

For instance, if someone invested ₦1m and we earned ₦1.4m after two weeks, I’d only return ₦1.2m or ₦1.3m and keep the balance. Fortunately for me, people trusted me, and it was easy to convince them to give me their money.

In the first month, I rallied five people who invested between ₦400k and ₦3m. By the end of that month, I had earned ₦1m in commissions. To give you a full picture of how crazy that was, I’d never had up to ₦80k cash at once at that time in my life.

When I saw that ₦1m, I went to the bank and withdrew ₦200k. Then, I took it home, poured the money on my bed and slept on it. I had never seen that amount in cash before. The next day, I packed the money again and deposited it back into my account.

That’s wild. How did this sudden windfall impact your lifestyle?

Omo, I didn’t handle money well, and I think that was natural. I mean, I went from struggling to survive to making my first million. It was a big change.

Some people say that money can’t change them, but I believe it’s because they haven’t seen the amount that’ll change them. Money changed me, and I didn’t quickly realise that I was losing my head.

I started making money from forex, and suddenly I couldn’t cook again. Me, who used to cook palm oil rice and slice onions inside tomato paste to make stew, suddenly realised I wasn’t eating healthy. So, I started ordering food.

I went from eating chicken once in a blue moon to three times a day. Now, I can’t bring myself to eat chicken anymore because that’s all I ate when I started making money, and I’m tired of it.

My lifestyle completely changed. I bought my first iPhone, an 11 Pro Max. Also, I started going to the club, buying expensive stuff and hanging out with friends.

You were balling

I was. People kept investing in the forex business, and I continued to make money. This was around 2019. I even registered my brand as a proper business, employed a graphic designer and social media manager to create content for me. I think I paid the designer ₦15k/month.

It was a structured setup, and I made money. At some point, I had up to ₦9m and was even considering buying a car. Then, you could get a small Toyota car for like ₦1.5m. I didn’t go through with the purchase because I couldn’t drive and didn’t really need a car.

Interestingly, the period when I finally attempted to get a car was when the business came crashing down. This was in January 2021.

It turned out that the people trading the money weren’t legitimate forex traders. It was a Ponzi scheme, and they ran away with ₦6 billion of people’s money, including mine and my investors.

Damn. I imagine your investors tried to recover their money from you

Of course. I nearly died during that period. Interestingly, I had just returned from a vacation and only had ₦32k in my account when everything went to shit. Investors wanted to kill me with calls. Some turned to the police.

One time, I had just returned home from settling police officers after one arrest when a police van from a different station came to pick me up. I became a celebrity; the police were just looking for me. I couldn’t stay at my hostel either because of the guys who wanted to beat the hell out of me and burgle my apartment. I had to stay at a friend’s place.

How did you get out of that situation?

My saving grace was that I’d made my investors sign an MOU. In the document, I’d set up the contract so that they were essentially agreeing to recover only 5% of their initial investment in the event of a crash. I’d done that after a smaller crash had happened to limit my exposure and how much I had to pay back. Many people didn’t read the fine print of the MOU and simply signed it.

So, when that wahala started, I created a group with all 19 investors affected and showed them evidence of what had happened. I’d been clear from day one that I wasn’t the trader; just a middleman. Fortunately for me, most of the people who invested heavy amounts of money chose to let it go. It was the ones who invested little money that wanted to take my life. One of the guys who arrested me invested ₦10k. I eventually returned his 5% as ₦500 data.

I sha found a way to return most people’s 5%. Some of them argued that the agreement wasn’t legal because there was no lawyer present when they signed it. It was a lot of back and forth, but that’s how that era ended.

I lost everything and went right back to being completely broke.

Phew. Out of curiosity, did you invest in any safety net when you were making money?

Hmm. I invested in myself alone. I consider that period the biggest mistake I’ve made, but also not exactly a mistake. There is some money you make in life that only comes with lessons. People say, “opportunity comes but once,” but that’s only helpful when the opportunity comes to someone prepared and mature.

Imagine that kind of opportunity coming when I was barely 19 and with the limited exposure I had. I was bound to make mistakes, and I don’t regret it. I’d make the same mistakes again if the situation repeated itself with the same level of knowledge I had then.

Omo, I lived the life then. Land of ₦1k, I didn’t buy. Instead, I invested in myself aggressively. I went on multiple vacations, started looking good, and bought whatever I wanted. I even bought diamond earrings for the girl I was dating at the time. On her birthday, I used a car to deliver gifts to her. Me too, I know I made mad idan moves. Giveaway dey cry.

I’m screaming. How did you cope with the lifestyle changes that came with losing everything?

It was tough. A few weeks after the forex incident, I travelled out of my school area to stay with a family friend for about a week. I just needed a place to survive. That visit unexpectedly provided me with a lifeline.

When I had money, I’d developed an interest in drones and had bought one for ₦40k just to practice with. When I visited the family friend, I decided to do what I knew how to do: be a middleman. But this time, for drones. So, I got prices from a vendor and began posting drones for sale.

My first sale came with a ₦35k profit. When I closed that deal, I said to myself, “Okay. Maybe there’s something here.” That’s how I started selling drones. I also took on a few drone event coverage gigs and got someone to operate the drone while we shared the ₦15k – ₦30k coverage cost.

Over time, I made enough money to upgrade my drone, which cost approximately ₦500k, then later to a more expensive one. In 2022, I upgraded my business registration to include my drone sales and event coverage business. It’s still my primary source of income today.

I also earn random money from real estate commissions on the side, as I served my NYSC year with a real estate company between June 2024 and 2025. However, it’s not consistent. I don’t market it a lot because I don’t want to take attention away from my major hustle, which is selling drones.

What’s your income like these days?

My income is wildly unpredictable. I run a business, and can’t determine when people will buy. I can make ₦300k this month, ₦1m the next and absolutely nothing for the next couple of months.

In March 2023, I made ₦2m in one month. The next time I made money from drones that year was in December, and I made only ₦40k. That’s how it is. I’m not selling fish. Drones are expensive, and I tend to only make a good profit when people buy expensive ones. I might only make ₦20k on a ₦200k drone, but I can make over ₦200k from a ₦3m drone. Unfortunately, those deals only come occasionally.

Besides the drones, I take on various random jobs to earn money. I can take on a video editing gig today and help someone buy a pet tomorrow for little money here and there. Even if it’s ₦10k or ₦15k, just bring.

I get it

I’m also on the lookout for remote cybersecurity internships. I studied a professional diploma course in cybersecurity during my NYSC year after a Twitter contact told me about a scholarship opportunity. The scholarship allowed me to pay $15/month instead of $30 for the one-year program. I was interested in tech and mostly curious about the field, so I joined.

The only problem now is that landing my internship might mean rearranging my life. I’m not based in Lagos, and most of the opportunities I’ve found require moving there. It’s crazy because these internships don’t want to pay more than ₦50k/month.

Even crazier, I’m seeing jobs requiring three years of experience offering ₦250k – ₦300k. That’s not nearly enough to justify a move to Lagos. So, my goal is foreign remote jobs that pay in dollars.

How would you describe your relationship with money now?

I’ve seen money, so it doesn’t freak me out anymore. It’s safe to say I can’t make the mistake I made when I was touching forex money. However, money determines my mood. I’m happy when I have money and sad when I don’t.

That said, I think I’m in a better place. I’m not where I want to be, but I can manage my life with what I earn. I may not like chicken anymore, but I can afford it. I don’t spend carelessly, but I still make sure to buy things that make me happy.

I also try to save in a way that my savings can “save” me when I’m not making sales. I don’t have a specific figure I save each month, nor do I lock away money. What’s the point of locking it just to enter debt when I urgently need it? So, I just do what I can.

What do your savings look like now?

I don’t think it’s up to ₦1m. My dog has been ill for a few weeks, and I’ve been spending a lot of money on his health. I also recently got some perfumes and am preparing for December oblee and expenses. So, that’ll most likely eat into my savings.

Let’s break down your typical monthly expenses

This depends largely on how much money I make each month. I can spend carelessly when I have money, and be extremely prudent when I’m broke. But here’s a decent average:

What do future plans look like for you?

I hope to have a strong and steady business. I would hate to be working a nine-to-five job. If I have to, it has to be remote work. I just want a stable life with a supportive partner and to be able to afford the basic good things of life. Yearly vacations wouldn’t be bad, either.

Is there anything you want right now but can’t afford?

A power bike. I ride my friend’s own and would really love to own mine soon. I might need around ₦3.5m to ₦4m for that. I can’t even save towards it because expenses keep coming to take away whatever money I manage to keep aside.

I can relate. How about the last thing you bought that made you happy?

I bought my perfume collection a few weeks ago, and my total spend was slightly above ₦200k. I liked that I was able to afford what I wanted.

How would you rate your financial happiness on a scale of 1-10?

5. I’m grateful that I can live a good life to a certain extent. However, I don’t have a stable income, and I’m unable to make long-term plans as a result.

If you’re interested in talking about your Naira Life story, this is a good place to start.

Yes, I want to do a Naira Life!

Find all the past Naira Life stories here.

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Sunken Ships is a Zikoko weekly series that explores the how and why of the end of all relationships — familial, romantic or just good old friendships.

For most of her teenage years, Tofunmi* (28) was responsible for making her brothers’ meals— a chore she grew to resent.

Leaving home for university felt like freedom until years later, a visit to her older brother, Tade* (31), reopened old wounds and pushed their already fragile relationship to the edge.

What’s your relationship with cooking like?

I hate cooking. Especially when I have to do it for a large group of people.

Why is that?

I’m the second child of three and the only girl. Growing up, my mum insisted that learning to cook was essential for a future wife, so when I was eight, she started teaching me how to cook. By the time I was ten, I was solely responsible for cooking for my brothers while she cooked for our dad.

What effect did this have on your relationship with your parents and brothers?

I grew to resent my parents for it. I was expected to cook for my brothers every single day, even if I was tired from school. As for my brothers, they started to see me as their dedicated chef. They showed no appreciation for my efforts and felt entitled to them. It caused a lot of friction with my older brother, especially.

How so?

Because he’s the firstborn, he chose what I cooked for our meals. The power must have gotten to his head because as we got older, his demands became more unreasonable.

Can you give me an example of this?

My dad eats from a fresh pot of soup or stew every day. When I was thirteen, my older brother decided he would only eat freshly made food too. So I had to cook meals from scratch every day when I came home from school. It was frustrating trying to balance school and what felt like an unpaid career as a personal chef at home.

Did you try to report him to your parents?

Yes, but my mum said it was good practice for when I got married, and my husband demanded fresh daily meals. So I had to get creative with prepping ingredients to keep up. I hated it that I always smelled like food and spices, no matter how many showers I took.

Walk me through a typical day. What meals did you make?

I would wake up at 5:00 am to make scrambled eggs and tea for when my brothers woke up. Then I would cook jollof rice or yam and stew so the boys had something to eat when we got back from school. For the evenings, it was usually a swallow, and my brother chose the soups. He hated eating dinner late, so I would usually start cooking around 6:30 pm so food would be served by 8:00 pm.

That sounds like a lot. When did you have time to study for school?

I carried my books to the kitchen all the time to read while things were simmering on the fire. So even my books smelled like food.

Wow, did you ever catch a break?

My first big break came when I got into university in 2015. For the first time, I was away from home, and I didn’t have to cook for anyone. Not even myself. My free time was mine, and I felt like I could finally breathe.

How did your family deal with it?

My parents didn’t really care, but my brothers hated it. Especially my older brother. We attended the same university in the city where we lived, so he tried to discourage my parents from letting me stay in the hostel so I could continue cooking for them. I had to put my foot down, and after a lot of back and forth, my mum got a maid to help with the cooking instead.

Did your relationship with your parents improve after that?

Yes, the maid took over cooking for my younger brother and even made food for my older brother and me when we visited. As for my older brother, we weren’t close, but we were cordial. However, recently, even that polite cordiality we shared is gone.

Tell me about that.

My older brother moved to Lagos after he finished school in 2017 and has lived there ever since. I stayed back in Ibadan after getting a job and lived at home.

In May 2025, I got invited to a job interview in Lagos and needed a place to stay. I wanted to book a hotel for the night, but my brother suggested I stay with him instead. I was happy to take him up on his offer, but the visit didn’t go as I imagined.

What happened?

I arrived in Lagos the night before my interview in the evening. As soon as I got to his place, my brother announced that he’d bought some ingredients earlier in the afternoon so I could make him some soup for dinner.

How did you react?

I hadn’t even showered after the trip. I told him I was too tired to cook, but I was happy to buy him some food if he wanted.

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How did he take that?

He did not take it well at all. He started yelling about disrespect and said that I had gotten too proud. He said I could either make him a meal or get out of his house that night.

Ah, because of food? What did you do?

Right? It was so silly. I left his place for him around 9:00 pm and got a hotel room instead. I wasn’t about to cook for anybody after a long day of travelling. I was so upset at his entitlement, and I vowed that was the end of our relationship.

Did you tell your parents about his behaviour?

My brother reported me to them. My mum’s reaction was just as annoying. She said I should have kept the peace by cooking the food for him. My dad thinks I’m overreacting by cutting him off. But he agreed that asking me to cook the night before my job interview was not the way to be a good host.

Did your older brother apologise to you?

No. I haven’t heard a single apology from him. I’ve stopped speaking to him, and I have no intentions of breaking the silence. I think he’s a bully, and until he apologises or changes, I won’t be indulging him. I got the job and moved to Lagos in June, and I still haven’t visited or spoken to him.

Do you think you’d be open to settling this issue with your brother if he apologised?

Sure. I’m willing to set aside any past resentment I have about cooking if he shows he doesn’t feel entitled to my labour. I’m not his personal chef, and I won’t let him treat me like one.

Hey, if you’d like to share your own #SunkenShips story with Zikoko, fill out this form!

Tunde*, 29, had lived in the UK for barely three months when the requests started pouring in.

It was 2023, and his move on a Global Talent Visa had wiped out 90% of his savings. But the proof his friends and family members needed to believe he now had disposable income was the social media pictures announcing his relocation.

“I didn’t even have a job in the UK yet,” he recalls. “I was still working remotely with the company I left in Nigeria, earning naira and trying to survive as I job-hunted. But how many people could I explain that to? Everyone thought I’d made it.”

Every week, Tunde received WhatsApp messages and Twitter DMs from people asking for financial help and immigration assistance. “A cousin I hadn’t spoken to in years asked me to connect her with an agent who could help her secure a visa,” he says. “When I told her I didn’t use one, and she could find the information online, she said, ‘Just say you don’t want to help me.’”

Tunde’s breaking point came in August 2023 when he woke up to 15 missed calls on WhatsApp from his uncle at 2 a.m. Fearing something had happened, he rang his uncle back, only to find out he was calling to ask for money. His son was getting married, and he wanted Tunde to help with ₦200k.

“He said it was just about £200, so I should be able to afford it,” Tunde laughs dryly. “This man didn’t even know how I got to the UK and how I was surviving. He just heard I was abroad and called to bill me.”

When Tunde refused to send him money, his uncle tried to guilt-trip him, saying he didn’t understand the importance of family. He also reminded Tunde that he’d bought his diapers when he was a baby.

After that incident, Tunde turned off his read receipts on WhatsApp, blocked most of his extended family and locked his Twitter DMs. It’s been two years since, and while he’s in a better financial situation now, he still desperately avoids what he calls the “Nigerian entitlement” to other people’s money.

“Once you start helping out, you can never stop. If you do, you become the devil in their eyes. I’m the black sheep of the family now, but I prefer to be hated than to let anyone suck me dry.”

Tunde’s situation is one that many Nigerians, both at home and abroad, find relatable. Whether you’re landing your first job, announcing a promotion or quietly buying a new car, expectation comes knocking the moment you look like you can give.

In Nigeria, generosity is often expected. Once an individual “blows” (slang meaning an improved financial status), they’ll most likely become a walking emergency fund. Cousin’s rent, friend’s wedding, mother’s church donation, neighbour’s medical bill — everyone looks to the person for help when needs arise.

However, behind the “urgent ₦2k” jokes lies something deeper. In a country where social systems barely function, people have become each other’s safety nets. When healthcare, education, and employment fail, help from others becomes the only form of welfare Nigerians fall back on.

It’s no coincidence that Nigeria remains one of the top remittance-receiving countries in the world. In 2024, Nigerians abroad sent home nearly $21 billion, according to remittance data from the World Bank. This figure marked the highest level in five years, with a notable year-on-year increase of 8.9%. In July 2024 alone, remittance inflows hit $553 million, a 130% increase from July 2023.

While Olayemi Cardoso, Governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), attributes these figures to economic reforms and new CBN policies that encourage more Nigerians in the diaspora to choose formal channels for remitting funds, it’s also an indication that many Nigerian residents depend on the financial lifeline from migrant remittances for survival money.

Following a data overhaul, Nigeria’s headline inflation appears to be decreasing on paper (down to 16.05% in October 2025), but unemployment rates continue to rise and remain largely underrepresented.

The inference is simple: With many Nigerians out of jobs or underemployed, and battling with the steep cost of living, success signals ripple out. When someone starts earning well or receives a windfall, they become an entire community’s safety net. More often than not, this knits support and expectation so tightly that boundaries become blurred.

Temi, a 28-year-old product designer in Lagos, calls her family group chat “a monthly GoFundMe.”

“My parents are retired, and my two younger siblings are in university. Every other month, there’s a new emergency: rent, medical bills their HMO plans don’t cover, pocket money and school needs. If I say I can’t help this time, they’ll remind me of my recent purchases or travels. Suddenly, my personal choices are public considerations.”

This communal culture is in action in many Nigerian low-income households. When one child rises, they rise for many. Over time, it becomes less of a choice and more of an obligation.

Yet the pressure isn’t purely financial. It’s also emotional: the guilt of success and the worry that refusal becomes a betrayal.

“I can’t be earning over ₦1 million monthly and leave my family to suffer. It’s unnatural,” Temi says. “My parents took multiple loans to send me to a private university and set me up for the success I enjoy today. My elder brother even had to drop out so I could stay in school. Yes, I often feel overwhelmed with responsibilities and feel like they’re too demanding, but there’s no one else who’ll come to their rescue if I don’t.”

Even though Temi’s income places her in the top percentile of Nigerians, she has almost no savings or a wealth management portfolio due to the expectation of “black tax” and the entitlement that comes with the Nigerian culture of communal success, where money flows upward and sideways before it flows inward.

But when the flow becomes a flood, resentment begins to build quietly under the surface. This phenomenon isn’t limited to family expectations; it also leaks into friendships and relationships.

Chika*, 31, has been close friends with her two friends for 12 years, but over the last two years, she’s noticed a difference in their dynamic. The switch began after she changed jobs and got a 300% pay increase, a move that made her the highest earner in the friend group.

“I began to notice that my friends expected more from me,” Chika says. “We used to pool funds together for group outings and staycations, but now they tell me, ‘You be rich madam na. Pay for us.’”

Chika insists she doesn’t mind spoiling her friends; the problem is that it has now become a constant expectation for her to handle the bills. Once, she joked about spending all her money on her friends, and one of them accused her of being stingy.

The switch from choice to responsibility is subtle. What started as mutual support turns into expectation. And sometimes, introducing boundaries or resistance can sour relationships.

For Chika, resisting this obligation has meant reducing contact [with her friends]. “When I complained, my friend said, ‘How much are you spending? Is it not just our once-in-a-while outings?’ That hurt because it’s not like they’re broke. I’m unmarried; they have husbands who also support them financially. It doesn’t make sense for me to do everything because I earn more. I still love my friends and I know they don’t necessarily mean me harm, but the cost is making me avoid group outings these days.”

While people with friends like Chika can introduce distance to limit financial expectations, it’s a different play in romantic relationships, where money and love seem to be inextricably entangled.

In the realm of Nigerian relationships, the message is loud: if you love me, you’ll support me financially.

Kemi, 27, once dated a man who got upset when she refused to invest in his business. “He said if I believed in him, I’d show it with money. I was like, sir, I’m your girlfriend, not your bank.”

Here again, the expectation is collective success: your partner’s dream becomes your reality. These aren’t isolated incidents; they’re reflections of a society where economic hardship has blurred the lines between emotional and financial roles. When survival is a love language, money becomes a form of affection and a means of validation.

When entitlement doesn’t come in the form of familial or romantic expectations, it shines in the heavy influence of religion.

In Nigeria, blessings are often tied to giving, and giving is connected to being “a good person.” The scriptures come out quickly when someone needs help: “God loves a cheerful giver.” “Your reward is in heaven.”

Adewale, 33, says a random church member once sent him a WhatsApp message that read like a sermon outline, complete with Bible verses about generosity, all because he said he couldn’t loan him ₦500k to start a business.

“It was like he was trying to guilt-trip me with Jesus,” he laughs. “As if refusing to give meant I didn’t fear God.”

Religious communities often operate like extended families. If you’re “doing well,” you’re expected to support church projects, mosque renovations, welfare programs, and allow yourself to be in a position to be someone’s “helper”, sometimes at the expense of your own financial stability.

Your prosperity isn’t just yours; it’s seen as evidence of God’s goodness to the collective. So, when you say “I can’t,” what people hear is “I won’t let God use me.”

Angel Yinkore, Consultant Psychotherapist at Welcome to Truth, says entitlement is a universal human trait, amplified by Nigeria’s communal society and high poverty rates. While it exists differently in the different socio-economic classes, it’s more prevalent and normalised in the approximately 139 million Nigerians who live in poverty.

“When a low-income family rallies to send one child to school, and that child makes it out of the hood, they’re expected to lift everyone else out of poverty or at least provide for their parents and siblings. It’s like a long-term investment.”

This expectation can also transcend family lines. “Because Nigerian societies are more communal than individualistic, everyone in a community feels like a stakeholder in a child’s life,” Angel explains. “So, they expect to share in whatever success the child attains. The more successful a person is, the wider the net of people who feel entitled to their success.

A multinational company could announce you as its CEO today, and people from your parents’ village who have never met you will go, ‘That’s our child,’ as though they had anything to do with it.”

Angel clarifies that entitlement in itself isn’t always a problem. It’s what comes after it. “Nigerians can share in the success of an athlete who represents the country internationally and wins awards. We feel a sense of pride and some connection to that success. However, sometimes, as in the case of the black tax, it doesn’t end with feeling connected to the person. Entitlement then comes with manipulation and threats; an obligation to share your resources.”

Angel emphasises that addressing poverty in the country is crucial to solving the wave of this phenomenon, as people feel entitled due to financial instability and the pressure of staying afloat.

“We have to look at it as a systemic thing. People are poor. You can’t expect someone living on ₦500, then their brother wins the lottery, and you tell them not to feel entitled to help.”

As it is in all things, balance is key to navigating the Nigerian sense of entitlement.

Tunde is adamant about creating boundaries, but he helps when he can. “I call it structured generosity,” he jokes. “I budget what I can give close family members every other month, and I’m done once I hit that limit. I know people still call me stingy, but I’m not doing this to be liked. I know some people actually need help, and I do what I can. Nothing more.”

Finance manager Seyi A. agrees. “Help, but don’t self-destruct. You can’t pour from an empty account. You’re not the government. The best help is sustainable help. Give what doesn’t deplete your finances.”

Sustainable help doesn’t always have to be cash. It could be connecting someone to a job, sharing information, offering mentorship, or even emotional support.

The nuance is that you’re still generous, but you also take care to watch out for your survival. In a country where inflation is a significant concern, and many live without financial buffers, the expectation that one person will carry the burden of many is unfair. Because if everybody owes everybody, no one truly rests.

And in a country where help is both a virtue and a burden, learning when to stop giving might just be the kindest thing we do for ourselves and for each other.

Perhaps the new lens is this: generosity remains a virtue, but entitlement should not be the default.

*Names have been changed to protect the identity of the subjects.

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Nurein* (54) never grew up imagining marriage as something romantic. For him, marriage was simply the next stage of responsibility. He married young, built a home with the woman who understood him best, and unexpectedly became a single father after tragedy struck. Almost twenty years later, he found love again in the most unlikely place.

In this week’s Marriage Diaries, he reflects on rebuilding after loss, blending two families into one, learning to express himself again, and why love cannot stand alone in a marriage.

This is his marriage diary.

Got a marriage story to share? Please fill the form and we’ll reach out.

Marriage wasn’t romance for me; it was about responsibility

Before I ever thought about getting married, I’d already decided I wasn’t a romantic person. It’s not that I didn’t care about women; I just didn’t express affection the way people expect. I believed in providing, protecting and showing up. Everything after that felt unnecessary or foreign.

My father shaped most of that. He used to say, “A man becomes a man the day he pays his own rent.” According to him, the next step was marriage. Not for love, but because a responsible man builds a family. That was the mindset I grew up with. I was surrounded by men who believed the same thing. My father had seven younger brothers, and they all treated marriage like a duty, not a grand love story.

So when marriage became a conversation in my life, it wasn’t because I was searching for deep connections or the love of my life; the decision felt straightforward. She was ready for marriage, and I was too; we understood each other well enough to build something solid. At the time, that made perfect sense to me.

Losing my first wife broke parts of me I didn’t know existed

Nothing prepared me for 2001. My first wife died in a car accident on her way back from work and left me with three children. That period broke parts of me I didn’t even know existed.

She understood me in a way nobody else ever had. She knew silence didn’t mean anger. She never pressured me to talk when I wasn’t in the mood. Life was simple with her, and losing her felt like losing my balance.

My family wanted me to remarry quickly so someone could raise the children, but I refused. I didn’t want anyone replacing their mother, and I was scared of my children being treated like outsiders in their own home. So I took on everything. I became the parent they cried to, the parent who packed their bags for school and the parent who cooked. My late mother helped until she passed, but the weight was mostly on me.

If anyone had told me then that I would marry again, I would have dismissed it immediately.

I didn’t plan to fall in love again. Life just pushed me there

Nearly two decades passed before anything like love appeared again, and it happened in the most ordinary place. I met my current wife at my last born’s school during visiting day. She was a single mother with two children and we kept running into each other.

At first, it was just casual greetings. Slowly, it became short conversations. Over time, we started looking forward to those meetings even more than the visiting day itself.

Five years went by, and we were still constant in each other’s lives. Eventually, we agreed it was time to bring our families together. We moved into one house with her children, my children and hopes for one child together. That part hasn’t happened, but we’re still trusting God.

The day we told the kids we were all going to live together remains one of my happiest moments. They were excited in a way that assured me we were making the right decision.

Blending two families will test every part of you

Nobody prepares you for the complexity of combining households. I didn’t doubt my ability to be a good partner because I’d been married before, but this was different. Each of us came with children who had their histories and peculiarities. And it was difficult to effectively play daddy and mummy.

But one of the hardest parts has been navigating the presence of my wife’s ex-husband. He’s not active in their lives, but every now and then, he asks to see the children. And as much as I want to be the only father figure they rely on, I can’t deny them access to their biological father.

So I have to sit with that discomfort and still encourage a relationship I’m not emotionally comfortable with. With my own kids, it’s simpler because their mother is gone. But with hers, every request from their father forces me to be the bigger person and think about what’s right.

Then there’s the financial side of things. When people ask me how many children I have, I say five. All five eat my food, sleep under my roof and call me daddy when they feel like it. My wife supports us, but she allows me to play the role of father fully, and I take that seriously.

Still, we get those small misunderstandings where a child reports an issue to me instead of her, or vice versa. We always pull everyone together and remind them that there’s no division here. We are one family.

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My wife wants conversations, but I prefer silence

Communication is the area I struggle with the most. My wife is expressive. She likes to talk through things, share her thoughts and hear mine. She expects conversations on days I’m comfortable being quiet.

When she talks and I stay silent, she feels ignored, even when I’m simply thinking. What starts as a small moment easily becomes a misunderstanding. I’ve had to learn that silence doesn’t always work in marriage.

I’ve had to stretch myself. Sometimes, I force myself to talk about the day. Other times, I pretend I don’t know something and let her explain it because I know it makes her feel heard. I ask her questions I already know the answers to so she knows I’m paying attention.

It doesn’t come naturally, but marriage requires sacrifices you don’t always expect. I’m not the same man I was with my first wife. I’m gentler now, more expressive than I’ve ever been, even though it’s still not perfect.

Marriage has made me more patient and playful than I imagined

If you had met me twenty years ago, you would never believe I’d become the man I am now. I like to joke that I’m the judge of the house. Every day, somebody is reporting somebody, and I have to settle it fairly. That alone has stretched my patience.

But I’ve also become softer. My wife says I still don’t talk enough, but she doesn’t know the version of me my first wife knew; I was the man who barely spoke at all. Now, I sit with the kids to watch TV even when I’m not interested. I gist with them so they don’t call me strict. I play more than I ever imagined I would.

Marriage will teach you things about yourself that you didn’t even know were hiding somewhere inside.

Love is good, but love alone cannot carry a marriage

I believe love plays a strong role, but I don’t think it can stand alone. Marriage needs communication, patience, sacrifice, commitment and the willingness to show up for your family every day.

Love won’t raise children, settle conflicts among five siblings or help you swallow your pride when your partner needs reassurance. Love won’t guide you when you’re learning how to blend two families.

There is a place for love, but there must also be a place for responsibility and maturity. That balance is what keeps a home standing.

I’ve lived through two different marriages and learned from both. The first taught me devotion and the second taught me growth. Together, they taught me that it’s possible to love and stretch your heart in ways you never thought possible.

*Names have been changed to protect the identity of the subjects.

Got a marriage story to share? Please fill the form and we’ll reach out.

Love Life is a Zikoko weekly series about love, relationships, situationships, entanglements and everything in between.

Subomi* (28) and Derinsola* (27) are university mates who went from enemies to lovers. For years, they couldn’t stand each other until the NYSC camp forced them into the same space and changed everything.

On this week’s Love Life, they talk about campus politics, realising they had more in common than they thought, and why they’ve had to ban all talk of politics to keep their relationship intact.

If you want to share your own Love Life story, fill out this form.

What’s your earliest memory of each other?

Subomi: 200 level, around 2016 or 2017. I’d just joined the department as a direct entry student, so I was completely new to everyone. I’m naturally extroverted. I talk to people easily, make friends quickly, so within a few weeks, I’d already integrated into the department. I knew most people’s names, joined group chats, and attended all the hangouts. I was just being myself, really. But Derin didn’t seem to like me. Whenever I said “hi,” she either turned away or barely responded. But I didn’t think too much about it. I continued befriending whoever wanted to be my friend.

Derinsola: And I hated it. I remember when he joined the department. He was always in people’s faces, acting like he’d been there since 100 level. I found it incredibly annoying. I thought, “Who is this person? Why is he so loud?” I kept my distance because I just couldn’t deal with his energy. We were in the same classes sometimes, but I made sure we never had to interact beyond what was necessary.

Subomi: I didn’t even know she felt that way at first. I thought we were just two people who didn’t know each other well. It wasn’t until much later that I realised she actively disliked me.

Right. So when did you start interacting directly?

Subomi: Toward the end of 200 level. I’d been thinking about running for departmental president and started putting feelers out to see if I had a chance. That’s when I found out Derinsola was also planning to run. I thought, “Okay, this is going to be interesting.” We weren’t friends, but I didn’t think we were enemies either. The election changed that.

Derinsola: The moment I heard he was running, I knew it was going to be messy. We were already not fans of each other, and now we were competing for the same position. The entire campaign became chaotic. There were camps forming, people taking sides, rumours flying around. It brought out the worst in both of us.

What do you mean?

Derinsola: The campaign was intense. I’d been in the department since 100 level, so I had the advantage of time. I knew the older students, the lecturers, and the course reps from other levels. I had built-in support. Subomi, on the other hand, was a DE student who’d only been around for a year. But he’d built a following so quickly that it actually scared me. People liked him because he was charismatic, funny, the kind of person who could walk into a room and instantly command attention. So even though I had seniority, I knew I had a real fight on my hands.

Subomi: I also felt disadvantaged because I was new. But I’d worked hard to build relationships in that one year. I attended every departmental event, joined every group project, and made myself visible. By the time the election came around, I had enough people backing me that I genuinely believed I could win. The campaign itself got ugly at some point; there were accusations, people trying to discredit each other, alliances forming and breaking. The dean of student affairs had to intervene at some point when the situation started getting violent.

Wow.

Derinsola: When we resumed 300 level, and the election was getting closer, Shubomi came to me and tried to get me to step down. I was so angry. I looked him dead in the eye and told him there was no way in hell I was stepping down. If anything, it made me more determined to beat him.

So, who won the election?

Derinsola: I did. And not by a small margin either. When the results came out, it was clear I had more support. I remember the moment they announced it, I felt vindicated. All that hard work and years of dedication to the department paid off. He looked devastated, and honestly, I was glad. I wanted him to know he couldn’t just waltz into the department and take over.

Subomi: I was crushed, actually. I’d put everything into that campaign, and I lost. It hurt so bad, but I knew I had to handle it with grace. I congratulated her publicly, told people to support her administration, and even offered to help her with whatever she needed. I didn’t want to be the bitter loser who made everyone uncomfortable. I wanted to show that I could lose and still be mature about it.

Right. Derinsola, how did you respond to his offer to help?

Derinsola: I didn’t trust him. Not even a little bit. Every time he offered to help, I’d shut him down or treat him coldly. I was convinced he was trying to sabotage me from the inside; that he’d join my team, gather information, and use it against me somehow. Looking back now, I know I was paranoid. But at the time, I couldn’t see past my own suspicion. So I made it very clear that I didn’t need or want his help.

Subomi: I’d walk up to her, trying to be friendly, and she’d barely acknowledge me. At some point, I gave up. So we spent the rest of our time in school barely speaking to each other. We’d be in the same classes, the same departmental events, but we avoided each other as much as possible. When we had to interact, it was civil but distant. I honestly thought that was the end of our story.

I can imagine. How did you find your way back to each other?

Subomi: 2022. NYSC camp in Ikeja. I was at the registration centre, filling out forms, and I looked up and saw her standing a few meters away. My first thought was, “You’ve got to be kidding me.” Of all the local governments in Lagos, of all the NYSC batches, we ended up in the same place at the same time. It felt like some kind of cosmic joke.

Derinsola: I had the exact same reaction. When I saw him, I actually groaned out loud. My friend asked what was wrong, and I said, “That guy over there. We went to the same school, and we hate each other.” She laughed and said, “Well, you’re stuck with him for the next three weeks.”

What was your interaction like after you saw each other?

Subomi: Awkward as hell. We made eye contact, and for a few seconds, neither of us knew what to do. I could see her deciding whether to ignore me or acknowledge me. Eventually, I just walked over and said, “Hey, Derin. Long time.” She looked surprised that I’d even approached her, but she said hi back. We exchanged a few awkward pleasantries, asked each other where we’d been since graduation, what we’d been up to. It was surface-level, but it was civil. That was a start.

Derinsola: I was genuinely surprised he acknowledged me. I thought maybe he was still bitter about the election and would just ignore me. But he seemed different. Less uppity, more relaxed. I don’t know if it was the camp stress. We were all just trying to survive the drills, the heat, the terrible food, and the overcrowded hostels.

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Fair enough. When did things start to shift between you two?

Derinsola: It happened gradually. We started gravitating toward each other without really planning it. We’d see each other during the parade, or at the mammy market, or during the evening socials, and we’d end up talking. At first, it was just about camp stuff. We’d complain about the platoon leaders, laugh at the ridiculous rules, and share tips on how to survive. But then the conversations got deeper.

We started talking about what we’d been doing since graduation, our career plans, and our lives outside of camp. And the more we talked, the more I realised we actually had a lot in common. We liked the same music, we had similar views on certain things, and we even had mutual friends we’d never known about. I started thinking I was wrong about him.

Subomi: Same for me. I started seeing her in a completely different light. She wasn’t the cold, uptight person I remembered from school. She was funny and surprisingly easy to talk to. She had this dry sense of humour that caught me off guard and made me laugh. By the second week of camp, we were spending most of our free time together. We’d sit together during lectures, eat together at the mammy market, and walk around camp just talking for hours. It felt natural, like we’d been friends for years instead of enemies.

I see. So, at what point did things start to move from a platonic level?

Shubomi: For me, it was maybe a month or two after camp. We met during weekly CDS, and I started noticing little things about her. The way she laughed, the way she got animated when she was talking about something she cared about, and the way she’d check in on me to make sure I was okay. I started looking forward to seeing her every week. I wasn’t actively looking for a relationship at the time. I’d just come out of something messy with my ex, and I was trying to focus on myself and my career. But Derin made it hard not to feel something. She just fit easily into my life at that particular time.

Right. Were you single too, Derin?

Derinsola: I was actually seeing someone at the time. Long distance. He was based in Abuja, working, and we barely saw each other. Maybe once every two months if we were lucky. We’d talk on the phone, but it always felt like he was too busy, too tired, or too distracted. I’d complain to Shubomi about how I felt neglected and how I was tired of being the only one putting in effort, and Shubomi would just listen. He didn’t try to turn me against my boyfriend or anything like that. He’d just say things like, “You deserve better than this,” or “You shouldn’t have to beg for attention.” And I started realising he was right. I was settling for someone who wasn’t giving me what I needed, while Shubomi, whom I’d spent years hating, was right there, showing up for me every single day.

When did you tell her how you felt, Shubomi?

Subomi: One evening after CDS. We were chilling at a restaurant, just talking. She was telling me about another fight she’d had with her boyfriend, and I could see how exhausted she was. So I just said it. I told her about my feelings and how I wasn’t trying to mess up her relationship. I said she deserved better, and I wanted to be that person if she’ll let me.”

Derinsola: I was shocked, but not really. Part of me had been sensing it. When he finally said it out loud, I didn’t know what to say. I told him I needed time to think. But deep down, I already knew. I’d been developing feelings for him, too. I was more excited to see Shubomi than I was to talk to my boyfriend. That told me everything I needed to know. I ended things with my boyfriend a few weeks later. It wasn’t easy, but it was necessary. And in February 2023, Shubomi and I made it official.

Nice. What were the early days of the relationship like?

Derinsola: Really sweet. We spent a lot of time together. We’d visit each other on weekends, call every night before bed, and send each other random texts throughout the day. It felt easy and natural, like we’d been doing this for years.

Subomi: It was one of those relationships where everything just clicked. We already knew each other’s flaws, so there were no surprises. We knew exactly what we were getting into, and we still chose each other. That felt incredibly special. However, we still had our share of disagreements.

Tell me more.

Derinsola: A few months into the relationship. We realised that the same thing that brought us together—our shared interest in politics and social issues—was also tearing us apart. We’d get into these long, heated arguments about everything. Politics, economic policies, social justice, and gender issues. And they weren’t friendly debates. They were full-blown fights where we’d both get emotional and say things we didn’t mean.

Can you give me a specific example?

Derinsola: The 2023 elections almost ended us. Shubomi supported Tinubu. I supported Peter Obi. And we both felt so strongly about our choices that we couldn’t just agree to disagree. Every time something came up about the elections, we’d get into it. He’d defend Tinubu’s record as Lagos governor, and I’d bring up all the issues with his administration. He’d say I was being emotional and not looking at facts, and I’d say he was being willfully blind to corruption. It got so bad that we stopped talking for three days at one point.

Subomi: I still stand by my decision. I believed Tinubu was the best candidate at the time based on my analysis of the political landscape and the realistic options available. But I’ll admit I was probably too vocal about it. I was on X defending him and arguing with people. It drove Derin crazy.

Derinsola: The worst part was after he won. Shubomi had this smug energy for weeks, and I couldn’t stand it. I remember telling him, “If you send me one more text about this election, I’m blocking you.” And I meant it. To this day, when I think about how loud and supportive he was of APC, it still makes my blood boil.

How did you guys move past that?

Subomi: We had to have a serious conversation about it. After that three-day silent treatment, I realised we couldn’t keep going like this. So I called her and said we needed to have a conversation. We talked for hours that night, and both admitted that we’d let our egos get in the way and we’d been more interested in winning the argument than understanding each other’s perspectives. We eventually agreed that politics and social issues were off-limits unless absolutely necessary.

Derinsola: It wasn’t easy to accept that boundary at first. But we realised that being right wasn’t worth losing each other over. So now, when we feel an argument starting, one of us will say, “Let’s not do this,” and we drop it. We change the subject, we walk away, we do whatever we need to do to avoid going down that road.

Do you think avoiding these conversations is sustainable long-term?

Derinsola: I don’t know. Sometimes I worry that we’re just sweeping things under the rug, that eventually, it’s going to blow up in our faces. But for now, it’s working. We’ve found other things to bond over, like careers, families, and our future plans together. We don’t need to agree on everything to love each other.

Subomi: I think as we mature and grow together, we’ll get better at having these conversations without them turning into fights. We’re learning how to disagree respectfully, listen even when we don’t agree, and how to recognise when a conversation is about to cross a line. It’s a work in progress, but we’re committed to figuring it out.

Rooting for you both. What’s the best thing about being with each other?

Subomi: She challenges me in ways no one else does. She makes me think critically about things I might have accepted without a second thought. Even when we disagree, I respect her intelligence and her ability to articulate her thoughts clearly. She’s also incredibly supportive of my career and my goals. When I’m stressed about work or uncertain about a decision, she’s the first person I turn to, because I know she’ll give me honest and thoughtful advice.

Derinsola: He’s dependable. When I need him, he shows up without excuses or hesitation. And despite all our arguments and our differences, he’s never made me feel like he doesn’t care about me or value me. He’s also hilarious, which honestly saves us most of the time. When things get tense or we’re about to start arguing, he’ll say something ridiculous that makes me laugh, and suddenly the tension is gone. That’s a gift.

How would you rate your love on a scale of 1-10?

Subomi: I’d say an 8. We’re building something real together. However, we’re still learning how to navigate our differences, communicate more effectively, and resolve conflicts fairly. We’ll get to a 10 eventually, but we’re not there yet.

Derinsola: I’d also say 8. We have our challenges, but I genuinely believe we can work through them. We’ve already overcome so much—going from enemies to friends to lovers isn’t a small thing. If we can do that, we can handle whatever else comes our way.

*Names have been changed to protect the identity of the subjects.

If you want to share your own Love Life story, fill out this form.

Demilade* (27) and her older brother Olumide* (30) have always stood on opposing sides. After tempting her brother into a shady investment scheme, she’s now wondering if the revenge she sought was justified.

You get to decide at the end, did she fuck up?

This is Demilade’s dilemma, as shared with Betty

I don’t know why, but my older brother, Olumide*, and I have never seen eye to eye. For as long as I can remember, he acted like he was constantly trying to win a competition I didn’t know existed.

If I said I wanted something, he’d suddenly “remember” he needed it more and try to have it first, even when he didn’t care about it before. If it wasn’t something he could take, he would rubbish the idea. The most annoying part was how my parents always seemed to take his side because he’s the firstborn.

Once in 2018, I asked my parents for a loan to start a business while I was in university. As soon as Olumide heard about it, he shut it down and said it would affect my grades. He convinced them to use the money to buy him a car instead, and they did.

He doesn’t stop at big things, he also blocks me from having even seemingly small things. When his cousin got married in Abuja* in 2019, he said he couldn’t attend because of a work trip. I was still in school and wasn’t sure I’d be able to attend either. Since we were both unavailable, my mum bought aso ebi for just herself and my dad. When the material arrived, she realised she’d already used the exact fabric for a dress and didn’t need it.

My school went on a strike around the wedding, and I suddenly became available to travel. I asked my mum for the material since she wouldn’t be using it, and my brother immediately said he needed it because he had “changed his mind” about attending. I suggested we split the material, but he insisted his style needed the full fabric. Our parents told me to let him have it since he’s older. He never sewed that material or went to the wedding. He packed it along on his work trip just so I wouldn’t have it. I found it odd, but that’s just one of many examples.

At first, I thought we’d outgrow the rivalry, but it only got worse. The last straw came during my service year.

After school, I wanted to leave Ibadan and serve in another state. Olumide shut that down again because he didn’t get the same opportunity, and he didn’t think I deserved it either. It made me upset, and I was determined to get my revenge. I didn’t know what form my revenge would take, but I found the opportunity in 2023.

An acquaintance advertised a cryptocurrency investment scheme on WhatsApp that promised to double the investment in six months. The whole thing looked shady, but I also knew my brother well enough: if I showed interest, he’d try to edge me out.

So I forwarded the guy’s contact to him and told him I wanted to invest but needed his opinion first. As expected, he dismissed the idea, saying it was foolish and that I’d be better off saving in a bank. But he still went behind me to speak with the guy and invested around ₦500k. I only found out because he confided in our mum.

At first, I thought I had made a mistake because he suddenly had cash three months later. But I was happy to see that when the six months ended, everything crashed. Whether the investment collapsed or the guy ran away with his money, I’m not sure. All I know is that his investment went up in smoke, and I thought it was well deserved.

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When he realised he was never getting that money back, he came back to insult me for showing him the business in the first place. I innocently told him I took his advice, and I didn’t put any money in it. He was upset for months after, and I didn’t feel bad about it at all.

When I told a friend everything, she said what I did was wrong. According to her, even if my brother and I had our differences, we were still blood, and I shouldn’t have set him up like that. Now, I’m starting to wonder, did I take things too far? Am I the bad guy for using his ego against him?

This story is culled from “Zikoko Daily Shorts”, a weekly series exclusive to the Zikoko Daily Newsletter. Subscribe here to receive the newsletter in your inbox every day and get more stories like this, as well as a round-up of our best articles, inside gist and quizzes.

This is Favour’s story, as told to Boluwatife

I was sorting laundry in the bathroom when my phone buzzed with a WhatsApp notification.

It was an unknown number with a DP of a woman I didn’t recognise. I almost ignored it until the first line of her message appeared as a preview:

“Favour, you don’t know me, but I need to tell you the truth about your husband.”

My heart skipped, and I opened the message with fear lodged in my throat.

The woman introduced herself as Maria. She said she’d been with my husband, Joel, for five years, and attached a photo of a small boy who looked disturbingly like him. The boy even had his dimples.

Then came the part that made my legs go weak:

“Joel told me you knew about us. He told me he stopped sleeping with you because he’s no longer attracted to you and can’t get it up anymore. But that’s a lie. He has an STI.”

I froze. An STI? Cheating? A whole child?

My breath shook as I scrolled.

It was true that Joel and I hadn’t been intimate for almost the entirety of our marriage. We’ve been married for 10 years, and 7 years ago, he suddenly became impotent. We bought countless medications, but nothing worked. We even secretly adopted our two children when people started whispering about our childlessness. All the while, he had a child?

Maria’s final line felt like an earthquake in my stomach: “He’s lying to both of us. Call me before he warns you.”

Before I could even process my thoughts, Joel walked into the house.

***

This story is culled from a weekly series exclusive to the Zikoko Daily Newsletter. Subscribe here for more stories like this.

I waited until the kids were asleep before I confronted Joel.

I stood in front of him in our bedroom, my phone in my hand and betrayal burning my throat.

“Joel,” I said, “who is Maria?”

He froze like someone had splashed cold water on his face. “Babe… don’t listen to that woman.”

“She said you have a child with her,” I whispered. “She said you told her you stopped touching me because you no longer find me attractive. But you were sleeping with her? How could you do this to me? After all these years of covering your shame and lying to our families that the kids are biologically ours?”

He tried to step closer, but I stepped back.

“You made me lie for years,” I said, my voice trembling. “I faked pregnancies to protect you. You said you were impotent. We even stopped trying because you claimed it made you uncomfortable. Now I know you just didn’t want me anymore.”

“Favour, it wasn’t like that. Please, let me explain,” he said, eyes red.

“Explain what?” I shook my head. “That you hid a whole child? That you let people call me childless for years while you were living another life in secret?”

He dropped to his knees.

“Favour, I beg you. I didn’t tell you because I was scared. I didn’t want to lose you.”

He explained that he had contracted Herpes from a random woman and stopped sleeping with me because he was scared of giving it to me. Apparently, he didn’t know how to bring up the idea of using a condom without me finding out he’d cheated.

I asked about the situation with Maria, and what he said chilled me to my bones.

***

When Joel and I got married, I thought I’d hit the jackpot.

Growing up religious, my mum had drilled the importance of finding the “right man” into my head for as long as I can remember.

I didn’t have boyfriends in secondary school or university. I was determined that the first man I’d ever give my heart to would be my husband. Marrying Joel was like the fulfilment of that decision, and I felt so lucky.

He was my first love, my first kiss, my first everything. I loved him deeply and was prepared to weather whatever storm life threw at us together. It was why I didn’t flinch even when he became “impotent” or when he suggested adoption without involving our families. I thought we were in it together.

But that night, as I stared at the man I’d loved for ten years, I felt everything crack.

I watched him silently as he explained how he started seeing Maria. Apparently, abstaining became too difficult for him, and she had mistakenly gotten pregnant.

What blew my mind was the fact that he had knowingly infected her with Herpes for his own selfish desires. It was the height of wickedness.

I realised he was a stranger. A man who consciously lied, cheated and denied his wife for years couldn’t be the man I fell in love with.

That was when I made my decision. I was leaving.

By morning, I’d packed a small bag for the kids and told them we were going to Grandma’s house. I avoided Joel’s eyes as he stood in the hallway, looking like a man watching his world fall apart. He’d begged me on his knees all night, but I couldn’t breathe in that house anymore.

I drove out of the compound, tears blurring my vision. But halfway to my mother’s house, my phone vibrated.

Joel’s elder sister was calling. She never called me this early.

Something was wrong.

This story is culled from a weekly series exclusive to the Zikoko Daily Newsletter. Subsc r ibe here for more stories like this.

***

Joel called both families immediately after I left the house and told them I’d taken the children away because of a “disagreement.”

By afternoon, both families were gathered in my mother’s parlour: his father, his sister, my siblings and even an elder from our church. They didn’t know the extent of our disagreement. My mum was already saying something along the lines of, “Why will you just leave home because of a fight? When did you start that one?”

I smiled sadly. “Mummy, this isn’t just any fight. Did Joel tell you he has a child outside our marriage?”

Gasps filled the room, and everyone turned to Joel while he bent his head in shame. Or maybe it was embarrassment. Whatever it was, I no longer cared.

With a shaky voice, I explained everything to our families. How he had made me believe he was impotent, how we lied about my going abroad to deliver when we’d actually adopted babies and the revelation about Maria and her child.

By the time I finished speaking, you could hear a pin drop in the room.

After about three minutes of silence, his sister shot up. “Joel, is this true?!”

He covered his face and whispered, “I didn’t know how to say it. Please beg her to forgive me.”

The church elder looked at me and asked, “Favour, what do you want to do?”

I told him all I wanted to do was find a place I could go with my children. I didn’t intend to forgive him and play “happy family” after everything. I’d already wasted 10 years of my life; I couldn’t waste even more.

While the church elder and my mum tried to beg me to take things easy, Joel’s dad asked a question that made us all stop in our tracks.

“Where is Maria and the child now?”

***

While the families busied themselves with calling Maria and trying to arrange a peace meeting, I felt absolutely nothing.

Wait. That’s not entirely true. I felt intense anger and pain, but I was more concerned about how I was going to start a new life with my children.

When Joel’s father told me they were inviting Maria for a proper family discussion, I simply said, “I won’t be there, sir.” And I wasn’t.

I heard later that they agreed to support Maria and the child. Good for them.

As for me, the first thing I did after moving in with my mum was a comprehensive STI test. When I confirmed I was healthy, I found a decent apartment in town and told Joel to pay for it.

He didn’t argue. He simply asked for the amount and which of my accounts he could send the money to. When I told him, he made a final attempt to convince me to return home:

“Favour. I have sinned against you. I’m sorry. Please forgive me and come back. Let’s think of the children.”

“You still have access to the children,” I said. “But forget anything about me and you. You have the mother of your child to worry about.”

He sighed and ended the call. Minutes later, I received the alert for the amount I asked for. It felt like the final nail in the coffin. He had accepted we were over.

Ten years gone in just a few weeks. What would the next few years look like for us?

This story is culled from a weekly series exclusive to the Zikoko Daily Newsletter. Subscribe here for more stories like this.

***

It’s been three years since the Maria incident, and sometimes I’m shocked at how normal my life feels now. Peaceful, even.

Joel and I never officially divorced; mostly because I haven’t seen the need to go through the court stress. If he ever plans to remarry, he can start the process with his own money.

I don’t know if I can say I’ve forgiven him, but I don’t carry anger anymore. That doesn’t mean I’m interested in giving him another chance. That will never happen. He might even still be with his Maria.

We’re cordial, though. The kids visit him regularly, and I make sure he pays every bill he’s supposed to. We adopted them together, and they bear his name. They’re his responsibility, and fortunately, he handles that without argument.

My friends sometimes ask if I’ll ever consider love again, but I just laugh.

Love? As in romantic love? That’s the last thing on my mind.

These days, I’m learning how to show up for myself and my children. I enjoy finding new hobbies and watching my kids grow. That’s all I need.

Sometimes, I remember everything that happened and wonder at how far I’ve come. It’s a miracle I didn’t lose my mind back then. Maybe it’s something I should be grateful for. I went through the fire and came out stronger.

At the end of the day, I didn’t lose anything.

*Names have been changed to protect the subject’s identity.

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AI is constantly reshaping how students learn, research, and interact with the academic environment. Many Nigerians have already begun experimenting with AI for exam preparation, and studies indicate that students utilising AI tools can reduce their study time by up to 30% while enhancing comprehension and retention.

For many Nigerian students, juggling lectures, assignments, exams, and side hustles can feel like a chaotic experience. Imagine having an AI tool that can summarise lecture notes, generate practice quizzes, help brainstorm assignments, and even organise your study materials.

Among the growing number of AI tools, Google Gemini stands out for its advanced research capabilities and academic support, offering a more innovative and faster way to tackle university life. Here, we explore 10 practical ways Nigerian students can use Gemini to study smarter and level up their academic game.

1. Turn Confusing Lectures Into Clear Notes

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2. Conduct In-Depth, Cited Research

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This is Deji’s Dilemma, as shared with Adeyinka

What’s your earliest memory of money?

Tell me more about your family’s financial situation

What did you do?

How so?

Did you also try to make money in uni?

Rabbits?

You mentioned you were selling the rabbits as pets, not meat. Is there a difference?

What happened?

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Phew. Sorry about that. What did you do next?

To be clear, were you trading forex?

That’s wild. How did this sudden windfall impact your lifestyle?

You were balling

Damn. I imagine your investors tried to recover their money from you

How did you get out of that situation?

Phew. Out of curiosity, did you invest in any safety net when you were making money?

I’m screaming. How did you cope with the lifestyle changes that came with losing everything?

What’s your income like these days?

I get it

How would you describe your relationship with money now?

What do your savings look like now?

Let’s break down your typical monthly expenses

What do future plans look like for you?

Is there anything you want right now but can’t afford?

I can relate. How about the last thing you bought that made you happy?

How would you rate your financial happiness on a scale of 1-10?

What’s your relationship with cooking like?

Why is that?

What effect did this have on your relationship with your parents and brothers?

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How so?

Can you give me an example of this?

Did you try to report him to your parents?

Walk me through a typical day. What meals did you make?

That sounds like a lot. When did you have time to study for school?

Wow, did you ever catch a break?

How did your family deal with it?

Did your relationship with your parents improve after that?

Tell me about that.

What happened?

How did you react?

How did he take that?

Ah, because of food? What did you do?

Did you tell your parents about his behaviour?

Did your older brother apologise to you?

Do you think you’d be open to settling this issue with your brother if he apologised?

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Marriage wasn’t romance for me; it was about responsibility

Losing my first wife broke parts of me I didn’t know existed

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I didn’t plan to fall in love again. Life just pushed me there

Blending two families will test every part of you

My wife wants conversations, but I prefer silence

Marriage has made me more patient and playful than I imagined

Love is good, but love alone cannot carry a marriage

Questions

This is a question

Which is an ingredient of Detty December’s signature meal in Nigeria?

Which animal is the star of every Nigerian Christmas table?

In Nigeria, what you wear on Christmas Day is called:

We have an intruder here:

Onwa December is synonymous to ______?

What’s it called when people wear same Christmas pyjamas for photos?

The following are popular Nigerian festive period songs, except:

What’s the most Nigerian thing about Father Christmas?

Which artist coined the term “Detty December”?

What’s the main activity in Detty December?

_______ is a fading festive tradition.

People coming back to Nigeria for Detty December are often called?

You got #{score}/#{total}

You got #{score}/#{total}

You got #{score}/#{total}

What’s your earliest memory of each other?

Right. So when did you start interacting directly?

What do you mean?

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Wow.

So, who won the election?

Right. Derinsola, how did you respond to his offer to help?