Most people go through life unaware of the effect they have on others. While it might come as a shock to you, there are very likely a bunch of people that would risk it all for just a bit of your love. So, we created this quiz to let you know just how many they are.
Take to find out:
Everyday by 12pm for the next 21 days, I’ll be telling you what life is like at NYSC Camp. I was posted to Borno State, but the camp holds in Katsina state due to Boko Haram insurgency in Borno. You can read all the stories in the series here.
Back to being a regular platoon person. Back to going to the parade ground which, to be honest, I am now starting to enjoy. I am supposed to be at OBS by 4 AM for broadcast, but a local man cannot can. I wake up by 4:19 AM and I realise that with this OBS thing, some battles have to be left for the Lord to fight, so I return to my bed until people begin to move about, waking me from my sleep.
Today’s meditation is handled by Platoon three. They speak on loyalty. Nigeria wakes up. Our platoon leader takes roll call. As soon as he calls my name, I sneak out of the parade ground.
It’s my 9th day on this camp. It is the first time I will be on air as a newscaster.
News casting goes well. I was slated for headline review. K. and I reviewed headlines from Punch, The Guardian, The Sun, The Nation. When it’s over, the head of the news department hugs us. She is excited. I go on to grab breakfast.
Breakfast is yam and stew. The yam is like a pestle, something you can hurl at someone if you intend to kill them with one blow. Just throw it and boom, they’re dead and gone. Mine is soft, sha. But K.’s is hard, and even though we fry eggs to go along with it, she ends up throwing hers in the bin, half eaten.
SAED lectures begin, my sleeping pill that never fails. But this lecture is interesting, and it is because we talk about money. Corps members’ allowance, incentives, etc. Now this is an interesting thing that people posted to Borno state should note:
There is the option for automatic redeployment when you are posted to Borno state. But if you choose not to redeploy, you get N10,000 as state allowance; you get posted to the capital, Maiduguri; and you get free accommodation. There’s more, I heard, but it looks like they are unveiling it slowly. Me, I think it’s a ploy to get us to stay back. The incentives are attractive, but I am thinking of the distance, the fact that I’ll probably see my family just once throughout the service year. And maybe all the opportunities I’ll be missing?
Anyway, there is the opportunity of thinking things through. And if I don’t like/want where I relocate to, all I have to do is not make any move within 21 days, and I’ll be relocated to Borno state. There’s still so much I need to learn about this, and I am certainly waiting. Who knows if I will meet the love of my life in Maiduguri, Borno? Who knows?
We are deep into our SAED skill. I belong to food processing (catering, abeg leave big grammar and packaging) and we are learning how to bake cupcakes. And they’re a beauty, aren’t they? Love of my life, if you’re reading this, look at the skill I’m adding to my husband material CV.
An emergency bugle takes us out of our hostels. We are peeved, to say the least, because this bell is not for lunch, and didn’t they tell us that our practicals end by 2 PM? We leave for the pavilion anyway, and find out that a new guest has just arrived and wants to have a word with us.
I am too tired, and half her words fly over my head. I know she is advising us, telling us to believe we can do it, to remember that nowhere in Nigeria is safe, anyway. I realise that it is a ploy to keep us in Borno. It might not be, but right now, everything about Borno seems to me like a narrative to keep us from leaving, and this is what makes everything suspicious.
I mean, I would like to stay if I want to, but choking me with the “positive images” and and other reasons why I should stay looks like there’s something you’re trying to hide. You don’t see Lagos Camp telling corpers why they should stay in Lagos. Yes, I know, Lagos isn’t portrayed the same way Borno is, whenever it comes to security. I doze off, and when they say lunch is ready, I run to queue for the rice and stew.
Every other thing is the same: siesta which makes me a little disoriented when I wake up; the bugle blowing for the parade at four; the parade, at first stressful and then enjoyable; Nigeria going to bed by 6PM; dinner of egusi and eba; OBS meeting.
In between this, I attend fellowship where they play a video of Borno state and let us that Borno is a lovely place to serve. The video is too video-y: people in a mall, playing ludo in a room, eating from a large pot and looking happy, the governor giving out money. I have questions: What about those who don’t want to live in family house? Certainly, they won’t serve in a church for a whole year; where they get posted to as their primary place of assignments, how much do they earn?
The social night is fun, until Platoon three presents a dance that is so confusing, so mismatched, so prolonged and annoying that people stand up and leave while they are still on stage. Guess what? They keep dancing! The light is switched off, but they keep dancing. As per show must go on, but this show already ended before it even started.
Tonight, Platoon 3 will be roasted for dinner. And I’m here for it.
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.
This week, it’s the first couple ever – they’ve been dating for about a year, and they’ll be letting us peek into their lives. They’re both 28 and currently earn ₦400k – cute coincidences.
Them: Litttt!
Her: Let’s go!
Him: Oya oya.
Her: I think I was about 10. My father was the richest in the family. He was put on a kind of pedestal because of this. He wasn’t the firstborn or anything, but because he had money –
Her: Exactly.
Him: Mine didn’t start at home. I think mine was in noticing the differences between our family’s lifestyle and my friends in school. On holidays spent with my cousins, it seemed like they had everything! Why would a parent just take their kids to Mr Bigg’s randomly? Mr Bigg’s was an event in my own family. Is it your birthday?
Him: My cousins were staying in duplexes, while we were living in a block of flats. They had their own bicycles and actual balls, instead of the usual roll-on balls that I played with.
Him: That’s when I started looking at it like hmmm, something is not balancing here.
Them: Nope.
Her: I’m just finding this out.
Him: I mean, I knew your father was rich, but I dunno how you turned out this way.
Them: Hahaha.
Her: We thought the money was going to be there forever.
Her: My dad retired. When you retire from the civil service as a senior, you get a huge sum of money. I can’t say how much he got, but you start to get a sense when you think of the things he spent it on.
Her: 60. He decided to start a business, so he opened a cold room, bought himself a car, bought another one for my mum. An extended family member got ₦5 million, another got like ₦3 million – he was just distributing the money. He thought that money would come in from the cold room business.
Her: Meanwhile, I still had like 2 younger siblings in school. He didn’t think about that – this was 2015.
Her: It was when my sister needed to go back to school, and there was no money to pay her fees. Things were already bad because he used to borrow money to restock. But this was when I knew “there’s no money in this house o. Everybody figure your shit out.” Then one day, he closed the cold room.
Them: Hahaha. Wow.
Him: Next time your dad vexes you, say, “That’s how you went from cold cash, to cold room, to cold turkey!”
Her: Hahaha. You’re so rude.
Him: What happened in my case was a little different. I was still able to go to school. In fact, there was a time I used to go on the school bus. At this point, I didn’t know my mum was the one giving my dad rent. Unfortunately, my dad chopped the rent this particular year, hahaha.
Her: Hahaha. Chisos.
Him: The landlord evicted us. My mum didn’t have the money to get another place, obviously. We had to split up. She and my younger sibling had to go live with a pastor. Then I was living with her relatives, hopping from family to family.
Him: I went from “mummy I want to buy sweet” to an aunty saying, “oya stay in that shop and sell.” You learn very quickly after all this, that money is the key.
Him: He was all over the place o. My dad used to be much more stable. He reached a senior role in a financial institution – a good paying job for a man his age at the time. A true high flyer. But he was also really ambitious. So he resigned. He believed that there were even bigger opportunities for him in other places.
Him: The mistake he made was that he didn’t secure a job before leaving his current job. All of that was made worse by the instability of the early 90s, so getting a job was so difficult. By the time the job openings started popping up again, he started to get the “you’re too old for this role” feedback.
Him: He was 34 in 1992, and it was at that point my mum took over family responsibilities. She paid the rent, put food on the table, etc. He sold his car. My mum says that his jaiye-jaiye lifestyle made everything worse. There was no stability in all those years, and he was mostly absent. So by the time we were evicted in 1998, he was nowhere to be found.
Him: Yeah. That baton first touched my hand in university, when she couldn’t pay fees. My mum actually paid the first semester fees. But the second semester was a struggle. So we split it.
Him: She’s a civil servant. The money wasn’t a lot, but civil servants always tend to have cooperatives or colleagues they can borrow from. It got to a point that she started getting bank loans, loans she’s still paying back till this day. These loans were supposed to help pay our school fees and deal with other responsibilities.
She opened a shop, even opened a second. But she’s not exactly great at business, so those didn’t work out.
But what changed the game for her was getting a degree – she entered the civil service with a secondary school certificate. But that degree changed a lot for her and for us because she got promoted.
Him: Back to the second semester, before the promotion. I started selling stuff in school and helping people sell stuff, anything to make some money. It got to a point where we had to start splitting my school fees.
Him: Nowhere. It’s like all the men in that their generation were just missing.
Her: Oh, my dad was different!
Him: Was he there?
Her: Yes, he was. The nature of his job saw him get transferred from place to place, but he was always committed to family.
Her: No. That’d be like talking to a wall. He made so many bad calls. In fact, he literally just showed up without telling anyone previously, “I’ve bought land and built this cold room”.
Anyway, I’m not the oldest sibling, but I started working first. My first salary was ₦45k in 2015, so when my salary entered, my mum would ask that I chip in. After about three months, I just chipped in without her asking. It just felt like the right thing to do.
Her: Oh, I was Gucci, hahaha. This was about a year ago. I was earning 150k
Him: Omo, I wasn’t Gucci o, but I was earning 200k.
Him: I’d taken a loan to rent an apartment- the apartment cost ₦450k. Then I took another loan to buy a computer. That set me back ₦90k every month. Both loans almost totalled ₦800k.
Him: Then there was the black tax part – ₦25k was the non-negotiable black tax, but a lot of the time, it was more. The only reason it wasn’t more than 25k was that I simply couldn’t afford it because of the loan.
Her: My own black tax was ₦45k a year ago. I’m giving the entire family money – dad, mum and two younger siblings. Currently, that tax has climbed to ₦60k. It climbed as my income as climbed.
Her: ₦100k.
Him: ₦140k. I was earning ₦80k, and my mum had fallen sick. So I poured all my savings into that.
Her: Abeg na hahaha.
Him: For me, I got to a point in my life where I just wanted to take things seriously. It started in the DMs then went to Whatsapp, then next thing you know, we’re going on a first date. On that first date, my account wept.
At the time, I’d just paid for my house, and here I was, paying for a date. It was mad. A leap of faith.
Him: ₦11k – I still have the receipt. Thank God it worked out because that’s the riskiest ₦11k I’ve ever spent. I’m going to laminate that bloody receipt. Interestingly, most of our dates after tended to be cheaper. Did we even go to a restaurant after that period? Not for a while, at least till we started the new budget thing. So concerts, drinks and all that.
Him: Yes o. No relationship without money. I was asking her yesterday about what she’d change about our relationship, and she said more money.
Her: Hahaha.
Him: Now we keep ₦20k aside every month for date night – ₦10k from each of us.
Her: That’s just date night because there’s other stuff like Friday wine or food.
Him: Date night is its own thing – a restaurant, phones turned off, just the two of us.
The thing with money is, a lot of the time, you can do anything with the money you have. You just have to want it enough. We realised that we weren’t keeping that money aside, we weren’t doing it. But keeping it aside meant we had to do it.
Her: A lot now, household stuff. I mean, I still have my house, I’m just at his a lot more.
Him: It could have been her house, but she stays with people.
Them: We’re both currently at ₦400k.
Him: Both.
Her: Separately when there are personal obligations, like family. And together with most of the rest of our money.
Her: Outside of this country for starters hahaha. We’re probably working remotely, earning more, living in a two-bedroom apartment, raising one kid –
Him: Definitely one kid.
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Him: If you mean active as in, putting the money aside for that, nope.
Her: There’s a framework though.
Him: What just needs to align is the finances to make that happen. We’ve only just reached a place of stability, income-wise, that we can begin to think beyond our family obligations.
Her: Oh yes!
Him: She’s my glucose guardian. Most of the time, we can already tell at the beginning of the month, we can almost always tell who’ll be broke first. So subconsciously know who’s going to be supporting who before the end of the month.
Him: A phone, I swear. It’s not like I can’t afford it, but –
Her: He wants a Pixel 3a and the iPhone X.
Him: I’ll probably just buy the Pixel 3a, because it’s cheaper.
Her: I just want a holiday, a vacation. Like to Dubai.
Her: I think I could get better at not living my life like the weight of the entire family has to rest on my shoulders. I wish I could be a little more selfish.
Him: Erm, for me –
Her: Better say saving! Because you can’t save for shit.
Him: I think it’s saving, and then investing the savings. I’m just glad that the loan is now about to be over.
To be honest, she’s the financial manager of this relationship.
Her: I bought a bottle of water for ₦1k.
Him: Hahaha, you actually bought two. I still can’t believe you did that shit. Something I think I really regret is that all my salary negotiations earlier used to be nonsense. For two years, I earned 80k, despite the fact that people employed after me were earning more.
Him: I constantly worry about this, but I also think that my dad’s outcome is motivation for me – it’s a lot of what I shouldn’t be. I’m constantly thinking of how to make sure, at every point, that we’re financially secure.
My mum’s experience with loans is why I spent so much time researching options when I took my loan. My mum’s own experience was different because those banks will just come to the offices, make promises, and they end up brutal.
Her: I just generally think that their generation was different. So if my partner retires and gets a lump sum, we’re going to sit down and plan that money. But my dad was ‘the man’, so he could do whatever he wanted.
Him: My mum has this belief: “if you have money, spend it” and I used to hold that view before. But that’s changed. I now try to curb my spending urges.
Him: I always wonder how people think about their happiness levels. I feel like people have different exposures to the Nigerian element. So in the broader context of Nigeria today, I feel like a solid 7. I’m doing okay.
Her: Not bad at all. I feel the same way too.
Them: Yes oh.
Him: when I saw how much money was in my mum’s pension account, I started taking mine seriously. Last year, it was about 14-point-something million naira, and she’s done 20-something years in service.
Her: Senior civil servants actually get serious money when they retire.
Her: Perhaps, what I want to do with my life? I worry about the next point in my career. I just know I want to retire when I’m 45, and by retire I mean become a lecturer.
Him: I think you should have asked about how I view my economic status in the Nigerian context.
Him: I realised that only a tiny fraction of people actually earn more than 80k. I don’t think you can be financially satisfied if you can’t see the through-line between what you’re responsible for, and what you’re not responsible for.
You can’t control the economy, for example, but you can control your investments and your salary negotiations perhaps. In that context, I’m doing great. Maybe if I change my salary to dollars, I can start weeping.
Him: I think a question everyone should ask themselves – and I’m throwing this to everyone reading this – how do you think of your economic standing in the broader Nigerian context?
This conversation has been condensed and edited for clarity.
This week I talk to a woman whose unfaithfulness ended her three-year relationship. She talks about why she did, her regrets and lessons learned.
A little over three years. Three good years. Even at the very end, there was no bitterness, just sadness.
We were really close friends. I’ve known him since secondary school. He had just gotten out of a nasty relationship, I was in a ‘fuck all men’ phase. And we just started leaning on each other more. Eventually, we decided to explore the romantic angle of our ‘friendship’. So no sparks flew or anything, it was just a natural progression.
Oh man. It was great you know. Like really good. I don’t know if we ever had a honeymoon phase because of the way our relationship started but it was nice. The first year, we were inseparable. We were that annoying couple that turned up everywhere together even though it was only one person who was invited. Then towards the end of the second year, he had to travel for his master’s. But we wanted to be together so we tried the long distance thing.
It was incredibly hard. A whole lot harder than I thought it’d be. How do you go from seeing someone every day to not at all? Our lives had become so surprisingly intertwined. I’d find myself doing activities we’d usually do together alone and it made me really sad. Even though we talked every day it felt like I had lost him.
He seemed good. Or maybe he was just focused on cheering me up because no day would pass without me whining about how much I wanted him to come back. They were more than a couple of teary FaceTime calls, with all the tears from me. But he seemed genuinely good, happy sef.
Does it count as multiple times if it’s with the same person? It was with a mutual friend, who was more my friend than his. It didn’t happen all at once. There was an accidental kiss when he dropped me at home once. Another one when he had just moved apartments and I went to check out his place. That one somehow ended with both of us in bed.
No. No it wasn’t. I first formed, ‘this is a huge mistake’ ‘we should never do this again’ ‘I can’t believe I did this’, the usual. Well I guess it wasn’t forming because those were truly the feelings I was experiencing. But we moved in the same small circle and I saw him all the time. It just felt like what’s the point you know. It’s the same person, one time or multiple times doesn’t change the fact that it happened.
How else do these things happen, by being short-sighted and foolish? It’s funny how this was like two or three months before Daye* was supposed to come back. Apart from one December visit we had done the long distance thing for eleven months.
The first couple of weeks I felt nothing but excitement. It was new it was illicit, I really felt like a bad bitch juggling two ‘relationships’.
It would bubble up now and then. But it was so easy to push it back down. I didn’t even try to justify it, anytime I started to think about the fact that what I was doing was wrong, I just shut those feelings out. When I was talking with Daye I was a completely different person. I was the doting, loving girlfriend and I just didn’t think of Femi*. And when I was with Femi I was this free-spirited person having fun, I wasn’t in a relationship or cheating, I was just you know, chilling. Of course one of us being a whole continent away helped.
Yeah, he did. He was my ‘confidant’ at first. I was talking to him about all my fears about my relationship not surviving the long distance thing. Ironically, we also talked about me being afraid Daye will end up cheating on me. Lol. One or two phone calls a week became every day phone calls. We worked in the same area so we’d jam after work. And well na from clap dance they start.
About two months. Up until Daye came back.
I told him. It’s a whole lot easier to lie to someone over the phone than to their face. I had actually stopped seeing Femi about two weeks before he came back. Completely cut off contact with him even blocked his number. But when Daye came back he kept on going on and on about how something with me was off. In my head, I was just like ‘shit shit shit he knows’. I confessed in a week.
Jesus. He was devastated. The person he had dated before me also cheated and in the messiest way too. When we started dating, we’d talk about how we knew each other too well to be blindsided by that sort of thing. He didn’t break things off immediately. I begged for a second chance and he agreed. Lol, this was crying and rolling on the floor kind of begging. I think he just took pity on me. And it just really says a lot about the kind of person he is. Through his own hurt and anger, he was still thinking about me. Man, I fucked up. Anyway, we limped through another month and a half of the relationship. But it just wasn’t working. He didn’t trust me, I think a little part of him had even started to resent me. So he broke it off again so we could at least save our friendship. Which is funny because we don’t talk anymore.
I can’t say I didn’t mean to. I knew exactly was I was doing. I was lonely. I was just really lonely and craving physical attention. I was young and stupid too.
Lol, asides fucking doing it? Not ending the relationship when he travelled. I mean we were friends before we started dating. I just think if we had put a pause on it or something then we might have ended up back together. Now it’ll never happen. I don’t think he could ever trust me again and I don’t blame him.
*names have been changed.
‘What She Said’ is a weekly column, featuring women talking candidly about everything from money to sex. This week we talk to a woman who had a penchant for dating older men, about what that experience was like.
See I don’t even know. I don’t know why people feel the need to give these labels. I had a pretty interesting dating life. And most men I dated were in positions where they felt a need to take care of me. Apparently, that makes me a sugar baby. But I don’t care about these labels.
I dated this man for about two months. He was in his late forties. I was 21. He was one of the very first older guys I ever dated. He wasn’t married at least as far as I knew. We were like proper girlfriend and boyfriend. I met all his friends followed him for social events, everything. I broke things off with him when he started talking about wanting to meet my parents
There was this guy who would see me only once a month, in the same room in the same hotel. Every single month. This went on for a year. He was just always so mysterious. We only talked when he wanted to see and we won’t spend more than a night together until the next month. All we did was cuddle. There was no sex involved, which doesn’t sound exciting. But for me at that point in my life, it was a relief. So I always looked forward to it.
I honest to God tried to avoid them. Any married man I might have dated probably lied to me that he wasn’t married. There were divorced men, widowed men, polygamous men too. Because I mean if you have three wives I don’t see anything wrong in being your girlfriend. There were a couple of men I suspected were married. But if you tell me you are not married, I’ll take your word for it. I’m not going to start forming FBI to find out if you are not.
I never have. Frankly, because Nigerian men don’t give you the time or space to. Walk into a lounge in a fairly tight skirt, face beat, hair laid in 15 minutes max someone will approach you. I guess it’s easy for me to say this because I’m conventionally attractive. I’m pretty tall and that alone has you already turning. I’ve had someone I’ve dated say I look like someone who they should just be spending money on. And I don’t disagree.
Maybe my first car. It was a 2013 Mercedes c300. And I was still in Uni, so obviously people started talking about me having a sugar daddy. They were like her father has money but not like that. And to be fair they were right. There is no way in hell my father would ever buy me a Benz. But they’ve been some holidays that come close. There’s also a Louis Vuitton luggage set I still use till today.
Think about it ke. He didn’t even know about it. I didn’t really try to hide it because I didn’t have to. All of my family is based in Port Harcourt. I came to Lagos for school.
Always always. I dated a man who only ever gave me dollars once. I found it very odd because he was a Nigerian doing business in Nigeria. The most cash gift I ever got at once was from a man I only ever saw three times. The last time I saw him I talked about wanting to start a business as I was in school. He gave me ten thousand dollars in cash. I stopped seeing him after that though, I didn’t like the way he made me feel. Before you ask, yes I had sex with him.
This is anon so I have no problems giving a number, but I honestly don’t know. I could go on one or two dates and never see a man again. I could see another one once every three months. I never dated anyone exclusively. Oh, but I was exclusive with the one who bought my car for the first couple of months. Then I found he was seeing other girls, so I started seeing other people too.
I went on a couple of dates with this man one time. He was so polite and proper. Like British kind of polite with a slight accent sef, but he was Nigerian. Then one weekend we were having light issues in my hostel, so he put my roommate and I in a hotel for the weekend. One night he popped in to say hi and offered to pay my friend and I a ridiculous amount of money to have sex while he watched. I was tempted, my friend was ready but I just don’t move like that.
I was at a party in someone’s penthouse one time. I had a little too much to drink and didn’t know when most people left. Next thing I knew we were about three girls wih six or so men. One of the girls knew one of the men so she went into a room with him. Then it was just two of us. They started getting very handsy and I got up to leave. That’s how it turned into ‘where are you going to’? I got up and one pulled me back down. I realised I was half drunk in a room with like five men. I think the other girl had passed out. I started screaming and shouting no time. I was scared because I knew no one could hear me, but I continued. I started threatening to call the police if they didn’t let me go. So they did. I don’t know what happened to the other girl.
Lol, I’m finally dating men my own age. The highest I’d go now is a ten-year gap. I want to get married and have a kid or two.
Never having to worry about money. Like ever. Bills were always paid for. Up to buying credit on my phone. I never I had to. I was usually on two or three allowances at once. Anything I wanted was a matter of who will get it for me. I could travel where I wanted when I wanted. Now I have a couple of friends who can be generous but I can’t just up and go to the Maldives I have to plan for it.
For what now? I was young and having fun. Most people at that age date around casually. And everyone has their preferences some people like tall, dark skin guys. Some like short, light skin guys. Me, I liked older, richer guys. I didn’t get AIDS or any STIs, nobody poured acid on me. Even now that I want to marry that’s still my spec.
Any man who just says he’s going to move mountains for you won’t. If he’s going to, he’ll just do it, not say it. Anyone who spends more time talking about doing things for you than actually doing them is only wasting your time. I’ve had a man hand me 100k with his business card. That’s the kind of energy I like. We dated for about 6 months.
The gifts. They just didn’t stop coming. It felt nice to just be chilling and randomly get a delivery of flowers or new shoes.
Then there’s my current job. I got it through an old fling. Nothing actually happened when we first met. Just a lot of flirting, I think he was married. Then we jammed again when I was doing NYSC. This time there was no ring on his finger. When I was done with NYSC he asked for my CV, and introduced me to one of his friends who’s a director at my current company. It’s very well paid so I’ll always be grateful
Sold it once I was done with Uni. The maintenance costs didn’t make any sense and I was no longer dating the person who bought it. When I was, he used to handle servicing and any other issues with the car.
For as long as she could remember, getting married and starting a family was this woman’s ultimate goal. And that’s exactly what she did. Getting married at 20 and having a baby at 21. Now, one kid in, her perspective on life and motherhood has changed.
5 glorious years now. And I’ve enjoyed every bit of it.
Honestly, it’s like playing Russian roulette. Which sounds a lot more dire than I mean it to. But you just don’t know what you get out of each day. My husband and I are both spontaneous, so it might be that.
Honestly, we didn’t but we also didn’t plan to stop it which seems ridiculous now. I didn’t even know I was pregnant until I was 2 months gone. I had missed my first month’s period but I’m used to my period being sporadic so I didn’t think twice about it.
I was ecstatic o. Like I said we hadn’t exactly planned for it, but we hadn’t planned to stop it. But for as long as I could remember getting married and starting my own family was the ultimate goal. I had excelled in school, graduated with a first class in Economics so a lot of people didn’t expect me to get married so soon after school. I was supposed to start my career and become this big shot career woman you know.
By the end of final year I had been dating my husband for four years. We met in my first year, he was in his final year in Engineering. He got lucky and got a job straight out of Uni, so by the time I was done he was stable. There was just no reason to wait.
The only person who had worse baby fever than me was my husband. He’s still that way. I was still breastfeeding this one when he started talking about baby number 2. I just said Oga calm down. But he was the practical one. First couple of weeks, first several weeks, in fact, my head was still in clouds. I was picking out baby names and shopping for cute baby stuff. He was the one that sorted out prenatal class, bought the baby books arranged the doctor’s appointments etc.
Haha no, not like then. And I bet you knew that already. All of that was the really easy stuff. It didn’t feel like that at the time, but preparing for the baby is really nothing. It’s even fun sef.
I don’t work. Well, at least not a 9-5. I’m a full-time housewife and I run a very small scale food order service on the side. His job, on the other hand, is, of course, a full-time 9-5 and sometimes he’s required to be offshore for weeks at a time. So I’d say no he’s definitely not as hands-on. He loves his child very deeply and provides for her, but her primary care is left up to just me.
I was one of the really lucky ones. No morning sickness or significant weight gain. I had a lot of food cravings and my feet ballooned but apart from that it was as easy as a pregnancy could get. I hear your first child is your most difficult but I just popped mine right out. My labour time was I think 7 hours in total which is pretty great.
Hmm. Lol actually now that I think about it, the first month was good o. Because that’s when my mother did her omugwo. And she spoiled me rotten. In fact, if I could redo that month I won’t have let her. All I was doing was feeding my baby. She was changing diapers and taking baths for her and picking her up when she cried. I did all of that stuff sometimes during that month, but I didn’t feel pressured to because I knew my mum was there to do it if I didn’t. I was really chilling then and I didn’t even know it. I’ll wake up every morning saying I was stressed. I didn’t know what I was in for once my mother left.
That is when shit got real. I don’t know how we planned it but as my mother left my husband also went offshore like the week after. My mum was supposed to pop in once a week to help but then she got sick. So it was just me and the baby for 7-8 weeks. I never actually went to a doctor to get diagnosed but in those weeks I think I tethered on the edge of postpartum depression. First of all my baby was a crier. Every new mum says this but mine was on another level, I was sleeping maybe three or four hours a day. Then I got a blocked milk duct but I couldn’t stop breastfeeding. The blocked duct meant my baby wasn’t getting enough milk which made her cranky and breastfeeding for me was painful which made me cranky.
She’s 4. So she’s at that age where she can’t help but leave a mess everywhere she goes. I got help when she turned one and I’ve always had help since then. Which is funny because I swore I’d never be that person. I struggled with the guilt of getting help at first. I was a full-time housewife my only job was to raise my kid. I shouldn’t have needed help. Now I’ve come to the realisation that trying to form super mum is foolish. If you can afford it get all the help you need. If it’s 4 nannies you want, get the 4 nannies.
Forming a bond with my child. I also realised a lot of new mums are liars. That thing about forming an instant connection or falling in love with your child the minute you take them in your arms is a lie. And if I had known that before having my baby I’d have saved myself from years of guilt. For a very long time it was just this thing that needed my constant attention and cried all the time and didn’t let me sleep and stopped me from having a life. Then they were the body image issues. Everyone told me how lucky I was not to have gained too much weight and I didn’t but my body just doesn’t look the same. From when I was 15 till when I had my baby my waist line was 25”. It’s 29 now. Which doesn’t seem like a big deal. But I just don’t like what I see in the mirror.
This is hard. Half of the time it might seem like I’m complaining but I really do love being a mother. I don’t of it’s possible to have just one best thing about it. The smallest things about her thrill me. Recently she started saying ‘I love you’ a lot and even if it’s to everybody from me to the gateman, hearing her say it, is the best part of my day.
I’d have waited and planned a roadmap for myself. At 21 I couldn’t see beyond having a husband and a child. That was it for me I didn’t think of anything else. I thought of maybe working after I had three kids but I didn’t make any concrete plans. And after the baby, you are no longer a priority. Whatever plans you want to make have to be made around your baby.
No, I’m ok with just this one. Which is an abomination apparently because ‘what if something happens’. But I think that’s an odd way to look at life. My husband thinks I’ll still change my mind but then he has thought so for four years. I know he’s still hopeful but for now, he seems accepting of my decision and I’m grateful for that.
A year into a serious relationship I decided the most responsible thing to do would be to get on some form of birth control. Because better safe than getting pregnant and having a baby in law school.
“I got back acne and I haven’t seen my period in two years”. That was the first thing my doctor said when talking to me about ‘Implanon’ – one of the contraception options, she was recommending for me. As she ran through my list of options and the potential side effects I became increasingly stressed out.
There was the IUD, which was not hormonal so wouldn’t mess with my hormones but might cause painful periods. There was also a one in a million chance of it coming undone and getting lodged in my uterus. One in a million but still a possibility.
Then there was Implanon which seemed like a dream. Goes in your arm, and you don’t need to give it a second thought for at least 2 years. Only problem, it was a little cost. And a little too permanent for me. I was in a relationship, not married.
The final option was the pill which came least recommended by my doctor. Some women experienced incredible weight gain and adult acne on it. You also had to take it every day at the exact same time. You couldn’t slip up or you could pregnant. But it cost me about 500 – 1000 naira for a three month supply. I could stop whenever I wanted, and nothing was at risk of getting lodged in my uterus. It seemed like the perfect option for me. So I got on the pill.
The relationship ended almost two years after it began, but I’ve stayed on the pill since then. Here are ten things I’ve noticed about the pill, my body and being a sexually active woman in Nigeria in these years.
When picking up my monthly supply from a pharmacy, I noticed that I didn’t get as many judgmental glares or five-minute lectures from pharmacists, as I would when trying to buy emergency birth control. It could just be that I’m older now and my double chin and love-handles place me at an age where the pharmacists expect me to be married or engaged. Or it could be that emergency birth control is culturally seen as an option for promiscuous young women, as opposed to the pill. But it’d be really great if Nigerian pharmacists would allow young women buy whatever kind of birth control they wanted in peace.
I’ve packed on a couple of pounds between last year and this year but I really can’t attribute it to the pill. It’s what you get when you wolf down half a box of pizza at 2 am when you are not 16. I also didn’t put on a single pound in the first year and a half of my relationship with the pill. Even though I now have to pop open the button on my jeans after just drinking a bottle of water. I’ve stayed the same dress size since I got on the pill.
If anything, it cleared up my skin. I used to get a pesky clutter of pimples on my forehead which miraculously went away, the first couple of months after I got on the pill. I got off the pill when I was away from my partner for 2 months in Abuja and they made a vicious come back. Returned to Lagos and got back on the pill, and they cleared right back up.
If you use it perfectly, there’s a 0.03% chance that you’d get pregnant on the pill. That number climbs higher when you are reckless about timing for the pill. Even though I have an alarm set to go off on my phone at 11 am every day and I am surgically attached to my phone, I manage to always take my pill late. Sometimes skipping days altogether.
It’s so bad, some months I get breakthrough bleeding because my ovaries are confused. Are you trying to have a baby or not? Make up your mind already. The good news is, there has been no baby yet. Only one or two scares that had me stay consistent for a week straight before falling off track. Old habits die hard. This is however not an endorsement for recklessness. Most of my nonchalance stems from the fact that I have a condition that’d make getting pregnant a tad more difficult than usual.
The summary of my ramblings is that the pill has been great for me. I could probably be a poster girl for it. I have virtually no side effects and managed to not get pregnant. Will it work great for you? I don’t know. You might get back acne, which is a small price to pay. Or you might put on a shit ton of weight and get really sad which makes it really not worth it.
While I’ve had a great run with the pill, I’m eager to try out a non-hormonal option. What kind of birth control are you on if any? And what has your experience been like? If you’d like to talk about this and the many more fun things that make up being a Nigerian woman, or you just have a story to share with me, I’d love to hear it – toketemu@bigcabal.com.
It’s very hard to make a case against dating apps. Yes, I know there is the occasional unsolicited penis picture you inevitably get. And men who take on sexual harassment as a full-time job. But all of that comes with conventional dating methods too.
The only difference is that with dating apps you get to decide who and who isn’t what your time as you take your morning pee.
While Tinder might be the most popular dating app now There are a slew of options to pick from these days. There’s Bumble that forces the girl to make the first move after you match. And Surulere Love made for Nigerians by Nigerians, that lets you dictate the specifications of your Mr. Right, down to his income bracket.
But like with all types of social media, dating apps have their guidelines. Like how poking a stranger on Facebook is just plain rude. Or how stealing a tweet is almost criminal. For Nigerian women, this is the ultimate guide to using dating apps.
Then he is probably a catfish using some D-list celeb you’ve never heard about’s picture. Just so you don’t let one of the very few good ones you’ll come across pass you by because of scepticism. Use this nifty tool called – Google reverse image search to search for his picture. If it doesn’t match a micro influencer with 8k followers living in Abuja then, by all means, swipe right sis.
In this case it’s always one of two things. It’s either not his picture, and he’s not John Doe who works in Chevron, but Femi living with his parents in Alagbado. Or it’s the one good picture he took 5 years ago, and he looks nothing like that now.
Don’t swipe right if all his pictures are him in a group photo. Odds are that he’ll end up not being who you think he is. You’ll think you are swiping right on his cousin who looks a little like Idris Elba and you guys meet up and you realise he was actually the Segun to the right of Idris Elba who you didn’t look twice at.
Never swipe right on ‘no hookups’. He’s there for hookups, just not paid hookups. He’s going to take you for one dinner date and act very confused then enraged when you decline to follow him back to his place.
Maybe you are still hurting from a bad breakup. Or you just haven’t gotten laid in a really long time. Don’t just swipe right on anybody. 10s will become 7s and 7s will become 4s.
Look out for red flag words in your conversations with him. ‘I don’t even get feminism’ is equal to misogynist. ‘I like nurturing women’ is equal to ‘I’m looking for a woman who’s going to cook and clean for me’. ‘It was both our faults’ when describing how his last relationship ended is equal to he cheated on his girlfriend.
If he has a CV type list of preferences don’t even bother with him. ‘Looking for a God-fearing woman, not taller than 5’ 7″, working class, lover of children and proficient in Microsoft word and excel. You are looking to go on a date, not a job interview. You could agree to a date and he’ll ask you to come along with your references.
If things go well and you end up agreeing to go on a date with him. No matter how much of a nice guy he might seem like always meet somewhere safe and public. Happy hunting!
You fall head over heels, blindly in love. Like the way, Suara loved Toyin Tomato. The girl must be out of your league and you must move heaven and earth to please her. You must also be broke and penniless, because what good love story starts with a man who has money?
Even if you don’t have a kobo to your name. You chase this girl relentlessly. It has been written in the stars that you must end up with this girl. Your pastor has ordained it. The both of you must marry even if you are broke.
After a lot of convincing. Including promises of expensive clothes and luxury cars, you get the girl. And even though you are barely making enough to put a roof over both your heads, she must not work. Either because you as the head of the home has mandated it, or because she’s a ‘slay queen’ who
Nothing prepares you to the levels of poverty you descend into after meeting the girl. You become even broker than before you met her. You are unable to take care of
She starts to whine and complain about the fact that there’s no food and your landlord has been harassing you both for months. You can’t understand what she’s complaining about. The most important thing is that you love her. And even though she can’t afford to eat
After all the love you had to give in words only, she leaves you, for someone wealthier but who is also innately a bad person, just because he’s wealthier than you. They seem to have gotten their happily ever after. You see her living her best life. Driving the flashy cars and wearing the expensive clothes you promised her. But her joy will be short lived and suffering is inevitable because she left you for someone better.
You meet an ‘Uncle’ who suddenly remembers he owes you a favour. He
Former bae’s new lover turns out to be a domestic abuser, cheater and spiritualist. She suffers in unimaginable ways. Even morethan you ever did. And it’s all deserved because she dared to leave you for someone better.
She comes back to beg for your mercy. But it’s too late you’ve met a humble, God-fearing woman, who does whatever you say and is raising your five children while you travel for months on end on ‘business’.
Turning to Google to seek out answers for everything from the meaning of life, to how to frustrate your neighbour into turning off their gen early is pretty standard. Most of the time we get handy practical answers like – ‘life is only what you make of it’ or ‘steal your neighbour’s spark plug.
When it comes to matters of the heart, things get a little more complicated and Google doesn’t always get it right. But when Google fails, you can trust your average Nigerian to come through. We searched through the internet for the most googled questions on love and relationships ever and got Nigerians to give us answers in ways only they could.
Honestly, you don’t. I’ve tried it and the inevitable breakup was much worse than if we had just ended things as he was travelling. I mean if it’s a short term long distance thing I guess it could work. Like maybe one of you travels for masters but intends to come back. Masters is just a year. But if it’s for like work or a first degree, then there’s really no point. Lol, you don’t who has time for that kind of stress?
Jumoke, 26
Is Facebook still a thing? Like, are people still changing relationship status on Facebook? The one I know how to do is Instagram. When you are in a relationship, every second picture you post is you and bae, or of bae or referencing bae. When you notice that someone has suddenly deleted any evidence of the bae from their page, then they are out of a relationship.
Fadekemi, 21
Oh, that’s a deep one. Honesty. Transparency. Not the one that I’ll be asking you who you are out with, and you’ll say friends and you’ll forget to mention that the ‘friends’ is one of your exes. But don’t be too honest. If I tell you I used 15k to do hair, and the hair is not fine you better tell me that I look like a cross between Beyonce and Rihanna with it.
Elizabeth, 25
I don’t think there’s any Nigerian who doesn’t know what a poly relationship is. Well at least polygamous. If you mention polyandry now the average Nigerian will gasp and clutch their pearls. It’s not our culture and other stories. But it’s our culture for men to take on ten wives, two concubines and 8 girlfriends. But let a girl say she’s dating two men not marrying them o, just dating, then its omg the scandal,
Onyinyechi, 28asewo girl. Double standards.
This is vague. What are you saving it from? If your partner has been cheating on you like there’s no tomorrow
Halimah, 22plis dear, forward ever backwards never. Don’t bothersaving anything. See if you get to a point where you think your relationship needs ‘saving’ it’s actually time to cut your losses and move on.
An open relationship is where two people deceive themselves that they can be committed and in love but keep seeing other people. It’s a recipe for disaster. It’s only oyibo people I’ve seen open relationships work for. We actually have our own now that I think about it. But it’s one sided. In which the woman is expected to stay faithful and loyal but the man can do whatever he wants ontop head of the home.
Tolulope, 24
Cry a lot. Pray a lot. Wait it out. There’s honestly no manual to this thing. Because getting over a two-month relationship is different from getting over being left at the altar. It’s honestly just God who can heal. It might take some time, but God heals everything.
Okiemute, 29
Just leave. If someone is treating you badly and making you feel bad about yourself,
Jemima, 32leave them. I feel like its very important to love yourself first. If you truly do love yourself first instead of carryingrelationship on your head, then its easy to leave once someone starts treating you badly. I’m not saying you shouldn’t love fully with all your heart, just love yourself more.
He blocking you across all platforms is a very telling sign. Catching him or her with someone else is another sign.
Funke, 23
Boy meets girls. Boy marries
Tilewa, 26girl . They spend the rest of their lives living happily together and he never cheats. But seriously I actually won’t even know. I have never had one. I’ve only ever dated weres.