Today’s subject on Abroad Life took a road trip to Senegal in 2019, stayed there for two months and decided she wanted to move there. She talks about struggling when she arrived because Senegal is so different from Nigeria, and how Senegal is a peaceful, amazing country for tourists but not so much for the Senegalese.

Tell me about your first trip to Senegal.
I visited Senegal for the first time in 2019 after I decided to go on a road trip from Nigeria. I went through Benin Republic, Burkina Faso, Mali before I got here and then I stayed for two months. My initial reason for coming here was to take a break but I somehow ended up working with West Africa Think Tank.

Before I made that trip, I was thinking of moving to a francophone country. The best options were Cote d’Ivoire, Benin Republic and Senegal. Someone told me that if I was going to a West African francophone country, it had to be Senegal because that’s the best place to go to, and I decided finally to make it happen in September 2020.

What were your first impressions of Senegal?
It was different. I remember the first time I walked into a supermarket and everything was so unfamiliar. I remember feeling some kind of sadness overwhelm me in that moment. It’s not like I was missing Nigeria — I studied in Ghana, so I was already used to not being in Nigeria — but I quickly realised that Nigeria and Ghana are similar but Senegal is pretty different because of the influence of the French. So, in that supermarket, I didn’t find baked beans. You won’t find a lot of the types of regular stuff you see in Nigerian supermarkets here.

But soon after I settled, I realised Senegal makes you feel relaxed, like you’re living your life on vacation. One thing I love here is the beaches. I can walk from my office to a beach. There’s beach football and all that too. Tourists love Senegalese beaches.

What about food?
I struggled to find food I was used to until I met someone who took me to a Nigerian restaurant. It was just a tiny bukka, but that day, I ate eba and egusi, and it was the best day of my life.

As I got used to being in Senegal, I also got used to the food, the people and the language. They speak French and Wolof.

What’s one interesting thing you noticed during your first visit?
The roads, especially in the residential areas, are very sandy and it’s a bit strange to see because in Nigeria, sandy roads indicate rural settlement. Here it’s just because Senegal is close to the Sahara desert. So under the sand, the roads are actually good. I’m not talking small sand o. I mean sand that looks like you’re walking on the beach and if you’re not careful, you’ll fall. I found that so amusing. They try to clear the sand sometimes, but it just gathers again.

Whoa…
Another thing is architecture. A lot of the buildings here are built together without fences. I can count the number of fences I’ve seen in Dakar. Akar. A lot of the buildings also have flat roofs so people can hang out on them. It’s really nice.

Are there any similarities between Senegal and Nigeria?
When I went to the market for the first time, it made me feel like one thing that ties Africa together is that the markets all look the same. If you close your ears in the market in Senegal so you can’t hear people speaking Wolof, it becomes a Nigerian market.

Tell me about the people.
When I was in university, someone told me I looked Senegalese, and at that time, I didn’t know anything about Senegal. I didn’t even know where it was on the map. But now that I’m here, I see that they’re really dark-skinned. Maybe that’s what they meant.

It’s supposed to be a predominantly Muslim country, but it’s not as conservative as you would expect. Even in Abuja or Kaduna, I’d know I was in a Muslim space. Here, I can count the number of hijabs I’ve seen. But they’re really passionate about their religion.

Generally, the people are very welcoming and nice. They’re used to foreigners because Senegal is a tourist destination. It was when I got here that I realised that Nigerians are not tourist friendly at all. Many people come here and decide that they don’t want to leave, so they just settle here. I have a Spanish friend from the UK that visited and decided to settle here.

The people are also very proud of the reputation Senegal has in West Africa. There’s this idea that Senegal is a special, beautiful and peaceful country. They also have a huge diaspora population in Europe because the coast of Senegal is close to Spain. The cost of my flight to Nigeria was more than the cost of a flight from Senegal to Spain.

There’s a but, though.

Continue reading: https://www.zikoko.com/citizen/i-visited-senegal-once-and-decided-to-move-here-abroad-life/

Today’s subject on Abroad Life started her process to leave Nigeria for the USA for school in 2017 and didn’t leave until two months ago. She talks about how money, COVID and visa problems delayed her travel plans. She also talks about arriving in the USA in the middle of a polar vortex and having to survive extreme levels of cold.

When did you first start trying to leave Nigeria?
2017. I was fresh out of secondary school, and I knew I didn’t want to do university in Nigeria so I was already actively searching for opportunities to study abroad. My plan was to come to the USA, but somehow, between not having enough money, visa wahala and COVID, I just got here about two months ago.

Damn, which one came first?
Money wahala. I rushed and wrote my SATs, ready to japa. Sometime in 2018, I got my admission to study nursing in some private university. It was so perfect. And then we saw the fees. My sister was finishing university in the USA at that time, so the financial situation at home wasn’t so great. I just deferred my admission from 2018 to a semester in 2020 and went to join my brother in UNILAG.

Greatest Akokite!
Haha… Great!

How was UNILAG?
It was fun. In my first year, I was the most unserious person because I knew I was still going to America, so what was the point of going for classes or even doing assignments? It didn’t help matters that I applied to study nursing, and I was admitted to study radiology instead. I hated it so much.

After my first year, I approached the sub-dean of my faculty and begged him to transfer me to the Psychology Department, and surprisingly, he did. So I did psychology till I left.

I’m curious. Did your UNILAG friends know you were going to leave them?
Only the extremely close ones knew the situation I was in. Honestly, at some point, even I started doubting that I could still come to the US. Most of my friends were not close enough for me to tell them, so it was when I left they knew.

Which wahala came next?
COVID. It started looking less likely that I was going to travel because of COVID, and my life seemed stuck. Something that made it worse was the ASUU strike. The reason that so many public university students in Nigeria were out of school for almost one year was ASUU strike, not COVID. People didn’t talk about that enough. These people practically wasted one year of our lives.

I eventually started attending classes online last year. I’d paid my fees, but I wasn’t able to leave Nigeria, so we created a system where I attended classes online. That terribly affected my sleeping patterns because I had to adapt to American time zones.

Damn. How did that end?
Travel restrictions were lifted, so I started processing my visa. Somehow, the process was looking bleaker and bleaker. The embassy kept cancelling and rescheduling appointments until early this year when I, out of faith, applied for an emergency visa interview and got it. I left one week later. That was my first time abroad.

Continue reading: https://www.zikoko.com/citizen/the-cold-made-my-nose-bleed-every-day-abroad-life/

The subject of today’s Abroad Life went to the United States of America for school in 1979. He talks about leaving to get an education so that he could return for a better life, and meeting a completely different Nigeria when he returned in 1983.

When did you decide that you wanted to leave Nigeria?
As a child, the message about leaving Nigeria was constantly ringing in my head. My dad used to tell us stories of people that went abroad for university, came back and automatically got good jobs, cars and houses. His message was simple: “Going abroad is the thing to do when you’re done with secondary school.”

When did you eventually leave?
1979. I finished secondary school in 1976. Shortly after, I got a job in the ministry of education as a teacher and then I crossed over to the ministry of information to work as a cleric officer. By 1978, I was already a level 4 officer earning ₦96 after tax. That money could take me to London and back comfortably. I was only 19.

Then in 1979, I met a man that changed my life forever.

Tell me about him.
I was working at a government catering restaurant in Ondo state at that time. I was young, energetic and hardworking, so I would always get to work super early — even before my resumption time. My job was to book people into the government guest house.

One morning, a man in his 50’s, let’s call him Mr G, walked up to me and presented me with a piece of paper. There was a name written on it. Whatever the amount that the person had spent at the guest house, he would pay it. I just had to send him the cost.

At that time, many people had outstanding debts, and I assumed that this would be a case like that, so I brought out my book, found the name and discovered he owed ₦1.50k. I told him that it would be better if he paid upfront, and he agreed. Our conversation about money brought up the subject of tipping and he told me about how he used to tip waiters in the US.

Immediately he mentioned the US, I said, “Sir, I want to go to university in the USA, but I don’t even have a passport”.

He looked at me, smiled and told me to meet him in Lagos in four days.

Wow.
When I got to Lagos, he gave me a letter to deliver to a military officer in Bonny Camp. I got to Bonny Camp, but I didn’t find the office, so I took it back to him. He was furious. I needed to be smarter if I wanted to go to the US.

The next day, he followed me to Bonny Camp, and the office was right there. When we met the officer, he said, “This is my brother. He’s following me to the US in one week. Make sure his passport is ready.” In less than one week, my passport was ready.

Whoa. How did you get a US visa though?
A few days after I got my passport, I was back at my job in Ondo state when Mr G came and asked me to give it to him. He said he was going to Lagos to get my American visa for me, and I didn’t have to follow him.

That sounds sketchy.
That’s what I thought, but I didn’t have a choice. I gave him the passport. Some days later, he was back, but he didn’t have the visa. He said the embassy asked him to bring me along.

The deal was that he’d say I was an employee that he was sending to America for business. That’s why he thought he could get the visa in my absence.

Did you follow him?
Yes I did. It was my first time at an embassy. As we approached the end of the queue, he showed me the officer that requested my presence. He’d hinged all his hopes on the probability that it would be that same person that attended to him so they could just pick up where they left off.

We got a different person.

Damn.
Mr G was so visibly frustrated. He was opening his briefcase to bring out the documents he’d need for the process when two American passports fell out.

Oh God…
The interviewer was puzzled. Why did a Nigerian have two American passports in his briefcase? When he asked to look at the passports, I was terribly scared. But then I saw a smile on the interviewer’s face when he opened them up, and that got me a bit more relaxed. They were Mr G’s children’s passports. They were little kids. The interviewer was deep in his feelings, so the only question he asked was, “Do you want to travel with this boy?”

The answer was yes, and my visa was approved.

That’s mind blowing.
My flight from Nigeria to the USA took 27 hours and three flights. It was ₦280. I took ₦700 as cash to the US and changed it to $1000. My older brother was already in school in San Francisco, so I joined him there. We went to the same university.

Damn. What was the US like?
It was really good. School was good, but I also made some good money there. I got my first job as a busboy. From busboy, I became a dishwasher, then a prep cook and then a chef, all in that same restaurant. By the time I was leaving the US, I was earning $10/hour and working at least 40 hours a week.

I was the restaurant’s top chef across its 18 branches in San Francisco, so, many times, I had to work extra hours because someone always needed me.

I had my own car, apartment, and everything. It was really good.

Continue reading: https://www.zikoko.com/citizen/nigeria-destroyed-my-expectations-but-i-chose-to-stay-abroad-life/

The subject of this week’s Abroad Life left Nigeria to live with her grandma at age 3. Two years later, she moved in with her aunt, and that was the beginning of the worst period of her life. She talks about the abuse she went through and how she was finally able to return to Nigeria.

When did you first move to Cameroon?
1999. My grandma visited us and I got attached to her, so I did that thing that children do when someone they like is leaving. I cried till I was allowed to follow her back to Cameroon. I was three years old.

Was it meant to be a temporary visit?
The trip was not defined. It was just me following my grandma to her place. I also had about three aunts in Cameroon, so I was going to be around family anyways.

What was living with your grandma like?
It was nice. People always said that she spoilt me because she treated me very specially. I think it’s because I was named after her. She really liked me.

I didn’t stay with her for long though. I left in 2001.

Where did you go?
I moved in with one of my aunts in Cameroon who had just gotten married. She didn’t live so close to my grandma, so it was like I’d totally switched places.

Do you remember why you moved?
One thing I’ve constantly liked since I was a child is television. I love seeing people move on a screen. Even till now, I watch every movie that comes my way. My grandma did not have a television, but my aunt did. Her husband also liked TV and had movies, so once again, I cried and said I wanted to live with them and that’s how that move happened.

How did the move go?
It was normal at first. I wasn’t the only person living with them. There was another girl that was a bit older than me that I met there. She’d lost both her parents, so she had become their responsibility. I think she was related to one of them.

My aunt’s husband’s brother and sister also lived in the same house. They left not too long after I got there though. I noticed a few disagreements and arguments before they left, but I didn’t really understand what was going on.

What happened next?
My aunt had a baby and things changed. First of all, every form of pampering or care stopped. I was attending public school, so I was technically getting free education, but one day my uniform tore, and I was told to wear it like that. Shortly after, my sandals cut irreparably, and I was made to walk with my bare feet to school everyday for over a month. And then I was made to start hawking food. I was 5.

What?
It all happened so fast, but there was nothing I could do about it. At this point, I was constantly severely beaten for the littlest things like not being able to completely sell everything I was meant to, and not having all the complete money of sales.

I started going to school on an empty stomach because I was not given any food, and then when I got to school I would be chased home for not paying the 500 CFA that every student was meant to pay in a term. 500 CFA was less than ₦100 in 2001. Whenever I got home from such a situation, I would be given garri to soak and then sent out immediately to continue my hawking.

That’s terrible…
I learnt to survive by staying away. Whenever I went out to hawk, I would stay out till about 11 p.m., so I knew that all I had to do was get in, wash my dress and sleep. I had only one dress that I washed every night. In the mornings, I would remit the sales money from the previous day and leave for school again. Sometimes, school let me stay.

The girl you met there, was she treated the same way?
Absolutely. Everything I suffered, she suffered. We went through everything together.

Did anyone else know about this?
There was no way I could tell any other person. I was young. I couldn’t reach any other person. The next time I saw my family was in 2003 when my aunt took us all to NIgeria for Christmas. I was 7 years old. By this time, my aunt already had two children. It gets really cold in eastern Nigeria in December, so when my mum noticed that my aunt packed a sweater for both her children and not for me, she suspected that something was wrong.

At this point, I told her and my grandma everything. My mum was angry. She wanted to keep me back in Nigeria, but I told her I wanted to go back to Cameroon on the condition that I lived with my grandma and not my aunt. She agreed.

She also told my aunt that she’d made a promise to herself that she’d never let any of her children hawk in the streets, and that she should never make me hawk again. So, I went back to Cameroon.

To stay with your grandma again…
Yes, but very shortly after, my grandma said she was too old to take care of me, so I needed to start staying with my aunt. She told me to tell her if my aunt ever abused me again.

So, what happened next?
It got worse. Well, maybe the treatment didn’t get worse, but because I was older, I could see things more clearly. She spent so much money on her children. I wasn’t even looking for any special treatment. I just wanted to be treated like a human. They wore all the best clothes, attended really expensive schools and ate good food while I hawked everyday and still got chased out of classes because of 500 CFA.

Did you report to your grandma?
My grandma was getting old and using that time to visit all her other children, so she was hardly ever around. In 2006, she moved to Nigeria, so there was no way I could tell her. I started looking for ways to contact my mum by myself. I needed a number or something that I could reach my mum on. I also needed money to go to a call center. I didn’t get anything.

My aunt knew I was smart, and she knew I was trying to reach my mum so she made things a bit tighter around the house.

In 2008, when I was 12, I told her that I didn’t like the way she treated me. She gaslit me and said I was only saying that because I was not her child. I threatened to kill myself. She didn’t take me seriously. Even I didn’t take myself seriously.

That same year, she left me alone in their four bedroom home in Cameroon and went to Nigeria on holiday with her three children and the girl that stayed with them.

Alone? At age 12?
Completely alone. She told me that if I ran out of food, I should go to a church member’s house, and they would feed me.

Did anyone in your family know she left you alone?
My parents knew and they didn’t like it. I heard they complained bitterly. My aunt and her family were in Nigeria for about four weeks. When they got back, I began to rebel. I got in a lot of trouble and got beaten a lot, but I didn’t care. I just wanted to go back home. I had reached my breaking point.

After some time, we came to an agreement. She said that if I passed my exams in school and got a scholarship, she would allow me to go back home. So every day when I was done hawking, I would stay out and cram all my notes for the exams. Sometimes, I even got home after midnight. Nobody cared.

In 2010, I passed the exams, got the scholarship, and she kept her promise. Before we went back home, she bought a new dress and new shoes for me. The clothes weren’t my size. I had to give my mum.

Continue reading: https://www.zikoko.com/citizen/i-became-a-child-slave-in-my-aunts-house-abroad-life/

The subject of today’s #AbroadLife is a 22-year-old man who left Nigeria immediately after secondary school. He talks about being lonely in Canada and why he wants to come back home but can’t just yet.

When did you decide that you wanted to leave Nigeria?
I didn’t make the decision. My parents made the decision for me right after I left secondary school. I didn’t want to leave, but when your parents make that type of decision for you at 17, there’s really nothing else you can do.

Why didn’t you want to leave?
I liked it in Nigeria. All my life, I’d heard people complain about Nigeria. They’d say, seriously and jokingly, they wanted to leave. Most of those jokes had Canada as the dream destination for Nigerians, I liked it at home.

In retrospect, I realise that I just hadn’t seen enough of life. I was shielded. My parents are super comfortable, so there was no need for me to complain. Everything I needed, I got.

You felt safe.
Yes. I’ve always been the person that takes family as the most important thing there is, so because I was with my family, I was okay.

How did it feel moving away?
I knew that I was going somewhere better, but I wish I stayed. The quality of the education I came here to get is definitely better than what I would have gotten in Nigeria. One thing I knew I would always miss being a part of was watching my two little sisters grow. I’m the first born and the only guy. I mean, yes, it was 2016, there was video calling technology, but it’ll never be as good as being there with them.

I consoled myself with the thought that I’d probably be home from time to time, and they’d also visit me often.

How has that worked out?
It’s been five years and I’ve not seen them since I left. I’ve seen my parents, but my sisters have not been able to travel.

Damn.
All of that has added to the extreme loneliness I suffer over here. I miss home so much. It gets really bad sometimes. Soon, all those long video calls won’t cut it anymore.

How do you deal with loneliness?
COVID has changed the way people interact. For example, when I was lonely before, I’d go out with my friends or we’d play sports together. But since last year, I’ve just sat indoors, in front of my computer, doing whatever. It doesn’t help that when I have a new close friend, they have to leave Canada shortly, sometimes for work, and sometimes to move back home.

I have a job now though. It started as a school internship, but they decided to keep me. Now they’re paying me more, and I have a sense of security. I also went into photography full time last year, and I recently got my first bookings to shoot at two different events. Things are looking up financially.

That’s nice. How far gone are you with your education?
I’ll be done next year. I can’t wait.

Is that when you’re planning to come back home?
I think I’ll eventually have to wait until then. I try to go home every year, but every time, something happens. This was the year I already promised myself and my friends that I would come. I already had a prospective date in mind and we’d made plans to Bleep shit up when I got back, but I don’t think I’ll be able to travel. I can’t even break the news to them yet. They’ll be heartbroken.

Why can’t you travel?
It’s a lot of reasons: first of all, I’ve not taken the COVID vaccine, and I don’t want a case where I’m not allowed back into the country for something as simple as that. Flights are expensive, I have some visa and passport issues, and all that. I thought I’d be able to sort all of that out before next month, but it looks like I’ll be spending my hot boy summer in Canada.

Continue reading: https://www.zikoko.com/citizen/im-terribly-lonely-in-canada-abroad-life/

Today’s subject on Abroad Life is a 56-year-old woman who left Nigeria in 2008 because of marital problems. She talks about her marriage, leaving suddenly, settling in Ireland and why she can’t wait to return home.

When did you first decide that you wanted to leave Nigeria?
I decided that I wanted to leave when it became the only option to escape my bad marriage. I’d lived in Lagos all my life and I was a nurse approaching the pinnacle of my career. But I had to run away.

What happened?
I became a second wife. I had a child for the first person I was in love with and he ran away, so I started losing hope that I could ever get married especially since I was a single mother. When a suitor approached me asking me to be his second wife, I thought it was a good idea. My friends tried to persuade me not to marry him. They even tried to persuade him not to marry me, but we eventually got married.

In ten years, I had two children with him, but he never really loved me. I found out that he just wanted to tick the box that he’d married a second wife because there was pressure on him to do so. His family also didn’t treat me well.

When his health started deteriorating, I became the person who took care of the family’s needs. He was retired and didn’t have any savings, his first wife had depended on him financially too and she had four children. I started taking care of a diabetic man, his wife and their four children in a home where I wasn’t loved or appreciated. It was too much.

Damn. When did you finally leave?
Before I left Nigeria, I already got a job in Ireland as a nurse. It was in 2008 and I was 42. A former colleague of mine had left Nigeria for Ireland, gotten a job as a nurse and saw the opportunity for others to join him, so he sent forms to whoever was interested. I filled the forms, sent them back and he helped with the rest of the process.

The only people that knew were my sister and very few friends. When I was leaving, I told my husband that I was going on vacation in Ireland. It was from here I had my divorce papers sent to him.

How did that go?
It went very smoothly. No hassles.

Wait. Did you leave with your children?
No, I didn’t. They stayed with a relative until 2010 when they joined me. There was still some uncertainty in my mind when I was leaving, and I didn’t want to take them with me until I was sure that it was the place where I was going to settle. I spoke with them on the phone a lot and visited Nigeria in 2008 and in 2009, so it wasn’t like I was totally cut off from them.

That makes sense. What was settling in Ireland like?
Before I left, even though I already had a job, I had to pass my IELTS. When I got here, I had to do seven weeks of something they call adaptation. It’s a period where you’re monitored to see if you have the skills to be a nurse here. If you pass, you stay. If you fail, you have to go back.

I always like to tell people, if you are not a lazy nurse in Nigeria, working here will be easy for you. The first time I was told that breaks were compulsory, I was shocked. You could burn out easily in Lagos, but here, there are processes for everything. Sometimes, the processes can be overt, because right now I can’t remember the last time I gave injections. You have to get special training for that. You have to get special training for everything.

What’s Ireland like now, 13 years later?
It’s very boring and lonely. There are a lot of people here that want to return to Nigeria very badly but don’t want to be in a place where there’s no security, the economy is bad and there’s no proper infrastructure in place. I’m looking forward to returning to Nigeria at some point and settling there. I miss home so much.

Another person might have a different view of this though. There are a lot of people here that take advantage of Ireland’s social welfare system. People, even Nigerians, come here and make up stories about threats to their lives so they can seek asylum. Those people don’t want to leave. The government houses them and sorts them out, gives them everything they need.

It’s crazy that the more you work, the more you’re taxed, but people can just claim unemployment and have the government take care of them. It happens way more than you’d imagine.

Wow.
My Irish friends complain about it a lot. They say the government encourages laziness and I agree. People weigh the options: have a job and pay tax or be unemployed and have the government take care of you, and they choose the latter. I work three jobs, and I’m taxed heavily.

How do you cope with the loneliness?
I watch Netflix, play a lot of competitive Scrabble against random people online and go on walks. Occasionally, I visit my friends in other cities.

Continue reading: https://www.zikoko.com/citizen/im-in-ireland-because-i-ran-away-from-my-marriage-abroad-life/

The way I see it, my father hated me since the day I was born. I’m the last child of the first of his two wives, and I’ve never had a conversation with him. Sometimes, I blame it on his excessive drinking. Other times, I can’t find anything to blame it on. He seemed to prefer his new wife. We all lived in one big compound, but there was a huge difference in the quality of lives that we and his other wife had. The other children got food, Christmas presents, and everything they needed, but I was always on the streets begging for food. We lived in the village where the major occupation was farming, so people didn’t have money, but they had food. My mother and I had neither, and my three older siblings had left to seek better lives.

I started farming heavily before the age of 10 to provide for my mother and myself. Nobody ever believes my age when I tell them because I look much older. I’ve lived a very hard life.

When I turned 10, my mother put me on a bus with one of her friends and sent me to Abuja. I needed to find work so I could send money home. Her friend took me to a mechanic workshop and said goodbye. I was on my own from then. I later found out that he went back to the Plateau to start his own mechanic shop.

I was destined to fix vehicles. Not long after I joined the other kids at the mechanic shop, it was obvious that I was by far the best. I became better than everyone I met there, and I got better as time went on. There was nothing I couldn’t do to a vehicle. It got to a point, when I was about 12, that my boss couldn’t go anywhere to fix a car without taking me along. Big mechanic workshops in Abuja began to hear about the wunderkind and started asking my boss for my services. I started fixing really big and expensive cars. It was like everything I touched turned to gold. This continued until I was 16. For those six years, I slept in cars that were at whatever workshop I worked at. Never in a house. Well, maybe apart from the two times I went back home to visit my family.

At 17, I decided to go solo. I’d become too big to be working for anyone anymore. Even my ogas knew it. At that point, I’d made a lot of personal connections from working for big people so I’d be their direct contact whenever they needed any vehicle repairs. And they referred really well too. I was living a good life. I got an apartment and furnished it well, flatscreen TV and all. I bought two plots of land, two cows and a goat back home, and told my mother to watch over them for me. On another piece of land, I started building my own house. Last I checked, it was at the roofing stage.

But at 17, I’d also mixed with the wrong crowd and I was doing a lot of drugs and drinking a lot. Money was new to me. I’d spent my childhood begging for food and sleeping in cars and now I was making good money. I had no control. The lifestyle was a result of the friends I was keeping. They were cultists. They’d race and drift and destroy cars every week, and I would be with them. There were a lot of activities I can’t even talk about right now. We were always drunk or high. I was just the mechanic friend that followed them around, but when we got to the club, I’d spend ₦100,000 on drinks and we’d party like crazy. I couldn’t even sleep without doing drugs. I was so lost. I stopped sending money home.

I kept up this lifestyle until 2020 when I went to prison. A senator from Jigawa state reached out to me to fix his car’s engine. It was a really expensive Mercedes Benz. One morning, I got back to the shop where I worked from and the engine was gone. Just like that, I was ₦2 million in debt. After selling my plots of land, livestock and gathering all the money I could find, I presented ₦500,000 to him. The plan was to work for the rest of the money and pay in instalments, but he wasn’t having it, so he took me to court and they sentenced me to 10 months in prison.

I spent only six months in prison. In some cases, when the court gives a sentence, the prison can release you earlier. Prison was tough. People died. You had to obey every order. We weren’t fed enough. I was one of the youngest people there.

When I got out, I went straight to my apartment and found someone else living there. My landlord told me that one of my friends had rented it out to use the money to bail me out. He ran away with the money. He also sold all my possessions.

Continue reading: https://www.zikoko.com/man/i-spent-6-months-in-prison-for-a-crime-i-didnt-commit/

My name is Remi, and I’m a student at the Lagos State University Teaching Hospital. In 2019, I was diagnosed with depression and suicide ideation. I went to see a doctor after seeing symptoms of what I assumed was Attention Deficit Hyperactive Disorder (ADHD).

What were the symptoms?
I was unable to focus on things. In class, I always zoned out or fell asleep. I had to cram to pass exams and I’d forget everything I read right after.

I also had problems socially. I always preferred to keep to myself, and didn’t have any friends. My roommates tried to make friends with me but I always rejected them. My temperament also estranged people from me. I got severely angry at the slightest trigger so people generally stayed away. On the inside, I was always angry, sad or just numb.

So what did the doctor do?
She wasn’t convinced that I had ADHD. She chalked all my symptoms to just being stressed. I was certain I had ADHD and I was determined to make her see. I mentioned in passing that I sometimes think about killing myself and she immediately referred me to LUTH’s Psychiatric ward to see a specialist.

At the psychiatric ward, I was diagnosed with severe depression with suicidal ideation and they refused to let me leave unless I called a relative. I refused. They called their intervention personnel — big, heavily-built men who they said would restrain me if I tried to make a scene. They threatened me to call my relatives or risk spending the weekend chained to a bed till Monday — it was a Friday.

Woah. Why didn’t you want to call a family member?
The only relatives I could call were my parents and I didn’t want them to think I had mental health issues. An uncle of mine lives with schizophrenia and I’ve always heard of them speak with him with a certain stigma. I didn’t want my parents to think I also had a mental health condition.

So, who did you call?
I called a doctor who worked at the NGO I volunteered for but unfortunately, she wasn’t in Lagos so I had to call my mom who called my dad. When they arrived, the nurses said I’ll need to be admitted. I lied to my parents that depression had to do with a gastrointestinal issue I had and told them I didn’t want to be admitted.

My parents told the nurses that I would not be getting admitted. They were made to sign a document in which they undertook to ensure I came for my clinic appointments.

I was prescribed some drugs for my depression and assigned to a psychologist. I used the drugs religiously and faithfully attended my appointments but my mental health worsened.

What happened next?
I was told I had to be admitted. They said I would be admitted for a period of two weeks. I knew that my condition was worsening but I was worried about missing school. My depressive episode had been triggered because I performed poorly in school and missing weeks of classes could make me carry some courses over into the next semester.

I eventually agreed to be admitted, thinking two weeks wasn’t so bad. I was promised that I would get help from a team of psychiatrists and psychologists who would see me every day. I knew I needed help so I agreed.

After I was admitted, a nurse told me that it was impossible for me to be admitted for just two weeks. She stated that the minimum time spent admitted was six weeks, and even that was a minimum. With severe depression, it was unlikely I’d even get out after six weeks. I hated the fact that I was lied to. Why did they have to? I would have agreed to be admitted, without needing to be lied to.

Wow. Did you at least get the help you were promised?
I was assigned a bed in an open ward filled with patients in varying severity of mental health conditions. I found it hard to sleep because there were no fans in the wards. There were also mosquitoes and the patient adjacent to my bed snored terribly loud.

Day after day, I waited to see a psychiatrist or psychologist but none came around. I was just given drugs and food every day. I was losing my mind in boredom because my phone and laptops were taken away. I had nothing else to do but eat and sleep. The medication they gave me made me very drowsy all the time, so I was taking a lot of naps. I was also not allowed to read because they said I have something called Brain Fog Syndrome. I was bored and fed up. On top of that, I wasn’t getting the treatment I was promised.

My mom came to visit daily with my favourite foods because I’m a picky eater. She’d also bring along my phone so I could text and watch movies while she was around. One time, she had a run-in with a nurse who was angry I didn’t eat hospital food. The nurse continued to be rude to my mother without provocation every day of my stay.

By the fifth day, a Friday, I could no longer take it. I demanded to be discharged from the hospital because I felt I was just wasting away, doing nothing but eating and sleeping while my mates were studying. I didn’t want to risk carrying a course over at school so I asked my mom to ask for my discharge. I explained everything to her and she agreed.

My mom asked for advice from a family friend who was a psychologist and she was told that I could go home as long as I attended my clinic days religiously. The nurses tried to discourage my mom from checking me out but she was determined. They threatened that if my mother took me home and I harmed myself, the blame would be on my mother. My mother and I insisted that I was lucid and was fit to attend the clinic from home.

She signed the required Discharge Against Medical Advice (DAMA) form and spoke to a resident doctor who impressed on her the implications of me going home before the conclusion of my treatment. The doctor reluctantly signed my release form and said I was good to go.

We handed the DAMA form to the nurses. They then refused to let me go because my dad was listed as my next-of-kin but it was my mother who came to request my discharge. The resident doctor said it was a tiny matter that could be overlooked but the nurses refused, saying my dad had to come in person. We begged and pleaded with them, stating that my dad was at work and wouldn’t be able to arrive till way past 6 pm, the closing time. That would have meant I’d have to spend the weekend at the facility since it was a Friday. They refused and insisted my dad come all the way to sign the form.

Against all odds, my dad made it there before six pm that evening. The nurses tried to discourage him as well, to the point of aggression but my dad had spoken to our psychologist friend who had told him there was no harm in me going home. I had a feeling the nurses were trying to delay till closing time in order to keep me there for the weekend.

Whew. So you went home, right?
Unfortunately, the officer to sign my final release papers had already gone home that evening. I was told I’d have to wait till the next morning before I could go home.

Wow.
My mother and younger brother begged and fought and pleaded for me to be released that night to be allowed home but the nurses disagreed. I told my parents to go home and come the next morning. My father did but my mother said it was already too late to go home and make the long trip back to the hospital again in the morning. She and my brother would sleep somewhere on the LUTH campus till it was time to fetch me. I tried to discourage her but she refused. She snuck me my phone to call her in case anything was wrong because she didn’t trust the nurses.

Wow. What happened next?
Miserably, I went back to my bed. Shortly after, one of the nurses came to me and said she suspected my mom had given me a phone. I denied it several times. She threatened to search my things, which she did. I had anticipated this so I had hidden the phone in my shirt. She continued to insist that she was sure I had a phone on me and would search my body. I pointedly refused, telling her she had no right to touch me. I anticipated that she would be back so I hid the phone in my panties.

She left and returned a moment later with one of the heavily-built crisis intervention personnel whom she ordered to handcuff me to the bed and restrain my legs while she searched me. I was screaming at her not to touch me but she did anyway. When she didn’t find it, she said she would have to search my privates and I screamed at her not to do it. She ordered the guard to hold my hands and legs while she stripped my pants off, in the full view of the male guard and the rest of the patients in the ward. She took my phone and left me on the ground, naked and screaming. I felt so violated that I didn’t know what to do but to keep screaming.

Oh my God. I’m so sorry.
Apparently, my screams were so loud that my mother and brother heard where they were and came running back to see what was wrong. They peered through the window and saw me handcuffed to the bed, screaming, naked and jerking at the cuffs violently. Their pleas to tell them what was wrong was left unanswered, as I could not just stop screaming for minutes on end. The nurses threatened to inject me with a sedative if I didn’t keep quiet.

My mother and brother tried to get into the ward but the nurses refused to let them in. They told them nothing and the nurses threatened to have my mother thrown out. She was heartbroken seeing me in that state.

Continue reading: https://www.zikoko.com/life/how-i-was-abused-at-a-mental-healthcare-facility/

Maviance, a Cameroon-based company providing digital financial services like agency banking and bulk bill payments, has raised $3 million (€2.5 million) in equity financing.

The investment is solely from MFS Africa, the cross-border fintech company connecting mobile money providers like MTN to banks like Ecobank across over 34 countries in Africa.

MFS Africa’s investment gives it an undisclosed minority stake in Maviance.

Maviance’s flagship product is Smobilpay, a platform that integrates payments solutions from banks, mobile money operators and telecoms operators. Smobilpay is connected to GIMAC, the interoperability switch of the Bank of Central African States (BEAC) – the central bank of the Central African region.

Because it is a business-to-business company, Smobilpay may not be familiar with consumers. But the platform serves over 500,000 unique customers a month, according to the company.

Jerry Cheambe, Maviance founder, believes the pandemic has helped increase business owners’ appetite for digitising payments. Cameroon is a country of 26.88 million people. Mobile connections increased by 11% to 26.6 million between January 2020 and January 2021 while internet penetration is at 34%.

With this seed funding, Maviance will expand Smobilpay’s national footprint in Cameroon to serve more consumers and to move into Gabon and the Republic of Congo. Maviance will be building new products but they won’t go to market within the next 12 months.

“Our journey now is to become a regional company, providing cross-border services within the CEMAC region. We want to be a catalyst for interoperability,” Cheambe says.

He adds that Maviance chose to go with MFS Africa because they bring money, industry knowledge, a product suite and a pan-African network of fintechs and businesses of various sizes to the table. The deal took over a year, from contact to close.

The appeal for both companies is to collaborate on building digital financial services in the Central African economic region’s 6 countries: Gabon, Equatorial Guinea, Republic of Congo, Central African Republic, Chad and Cameroon.

Maviance was founded in Germany in 2008 by Jerry Cheambe and Michael Flach. They launched Maviance Cameroon in 2012, at a time when mobile money looked unlikely in the country.

“I remember saying at one point that mobile money will not work in Cameroon because it was just not happening,” Cheambe says to TechCabal.

Ten years later, the landscape has improved enough for Maviance to be raising a large seed round.

95% of Maviance Cameroon’s 20-person staff are based in Cameroon. Cheambe is based in Germany where he oversees Maviance Germany, which operates independently of the Cameroonian venture.

[b]Another strategic move by MFS Africa
[/b]MFS Africa has been on a roll of deals over the last 12 months.

In June 2020, the South Africa-based company acquired Beyonic, a Tanzania-based payments company, in a cash and shares deal that paid out at least 4x returns for Beyonic’s investors. Last month, MFS Africa led a $2.3 million seed round in Numida, a credit provider for small businesses in Uganda.

With Maviance in the mix, MFS Africa continues a conscious push to be Africa’s largest hub for digital financial services.

See the rest of the story here: https://techcabal.com/2021/05/11/maviance-3-million-dollars-seed-mfs-africa/

According to a World Health Organisation (WHO) study, if a person inhales smoke while cooking breakfast, lunch and dinner, it is equivalent to smoking between three and 20 packets of cigarettes a day.

Over half of the world’s population still cooks over open fires. In Nigeria, it’s worse as only 10 million have access to liquefied petroleum gas (LPG) cylinders out of its 200 million population.

Every year, there are 4.3 million deaths attributed to cooking over open fires. The hazardous firewood smoke emitted from traditional cooking methods have more fatal consequences for women. Cooking with firewood not only affects women, it also endangers the planet causing nearly irreparable change to our global climate.

Nupe Energy is a renewable energy startup setting out to tackle this problem. Nupe Energy is born from the Nupe Project, a company that designs and develops innovative hardware products in Africa. The Nupe Energy team is made up of Damilola Onanuga (Design director), Funfere Koroye (Head, product) and Omafume Niemogha (Engineering). They recently received an undisclosed investment (seven-figure) from Geekonnect Africa led by Sam Uduma, who joins the team as strategic Lead.


Nupe Energy’s proposed solution to Nigeria’s over open fire problem is an LPG cylinder smart meter that intelligently controls gas flow, monitors cylinder fuel level remotely and facilitates gas purchase. The device, aptly named NUGAS, uses different cellular networks (2G/GSM/GPRS) to display LPG volume and prompt delivery through the cloud.

The smart meter works with the NUPAY app, an app that enables customers to prepay and postpay for gas using a mobile wallet or USSD.

In a conversation with TechCabal, the Nupe Energy team talked about the product and its progress since inception.

“We’re currently developing an IoT solution that ensures a constant supply of clean cooking for people. Our device uses hardware and software to make LPG available for households through a smart metering system. This allows customers to know they are about to run out of gas, and also alerts a nearby gas retailer for a refill to be made using the fastest route possible.” Onanuga said.


Cost of the Smart meter

The smart meter currently costs $50 – a cost that is expected to reduce over time. Naturally, the first question I pose is: considering that more than 82 million Nigerians live on less than $1 a day, according to the National Bureau of Statistics, isn’t a smart meter an expensive extra cost?

I’m quickly reminded of the fact that to reduce deaths by open fire cooking, the Nigerian government banned consumer ownership of cooking gas cylinders and put some policies in place to encourage local production of LPG cylinders. The federal government of Nigeria removed the value added tax (VAT) on LPG cylinders and imposed a 25 – 30 % Import duty waiver on LPG equipment and appliances.

“Companies like Techno Gas have built massive manufacturing plants with thousands of cylinders already circulating into Lagos to start with,” said Koroye.

“The cost of the smart meter is not paid at once by the customer. It is spread over a long period of time through their subscription. The cost of the meter is initially borne by the company which purchases it. Over time, the company recoups the cost of the meter from the customer.”

Dealing with competition and regulation

It’s normal to see bigger companies copy product ideas from startups. There are already a number of partnership conversations with LPG companies on the way, could one of these companies create their own smart metering system?

Onanuga replies, “We’ve spent two years researching and developing this product. Many of the companies we’ve approached and the ones we’ll be partnering with prefer to stick to their business model. They’ll rather leave this sort of hardware/software to the professionals. Obviously, it’s a risk but we’ve invested enough to produce a superior product and see no threats at the moment.”

The Nigerian government has a reputation of changing regulations on a whim. What happens if the regulation that supports this business model changes?

Nupe Energy sees Nigeria as the starting point and not its final destination.

“While developing this business and talking to different businesses, we’ve received a lot of interest from other African countries and even outside Africa. So even though Nigeria is our initial market, we’re not building for just Nigeria.”

In Nigeria, the adoption of gas is still growing; other cooking fuels like kerosene, firewood, and charcoal, can be bought in smaller units starting from ₦100 ($0.20) as opposed to gas that is sold in much larger quantities with ₦500 ($1.10) for between 1.5kg and 1.6kg being the lowest available price.

Nupe Energy still has hurdles to overcome. The startup relies on the wider adoption of cooking gas usage as well as the enforcement of government regulation. With only a handful of Nigerian companies designing and manufacturing in a country known for its import culture, Nupe Energy might just be one step ahead of its competitors. For more information, visit: https://techcabal.com/

Jumia saw its share prices nosedive to $21.15 ahead of the release of its financial results for the first quarter of 2021. It is the company’s lowest share price this year after a market rally saw it hit an all-time high of $65.51.

The market reacted negatively to the results and it points to the possibility of a share price nosedive after Jumia’s Q1 2021 results showed revenue of $33 million, down 6.4% from $35 million in Q1 2020. Despite this, by the company’s estimation, “Our first-quarter results reflect solid progress towards profitability.”

The company’s Q1 Gross Merchandise Volume (GMV), which measures all the goods sold on the platform, was $200 million, which is down 13% from the same period last year. Despite this reduction, it is not a big worry because Jumia has repositioned its business and now primarily sells household products that cost a lot less money than high-ticket items.

It means that no matter how many items the company sells, as long as they are household items that are cheaper than laptops and phones, its GMV will be small compared to earlier years.

[b]The bright spots
[/b]There are a few bright spots in the company’s report, such as an increase in its gross profit after fulfilment. The gross profit after fulfilment shows that the company is making money each time it makes a delivery, which is a vast improvement.

Fulfilment expense decreased by 11% in the first quarter of 2021 on a year-over-year basis. This was down to a change in the delivery pricing model from cost per package to cost per stop, which was implemented from the second quarter of 2020.

For years, Jumia made a loss on each delivery it made because of inefficiencies and a first-party marketplace where it bought and sold goods directly to customers.

Thanks to a third-party marketplace model that is now the more significant part of its business, vendors list their products, sell them, and Jumia collects a commission. Those commissions are now up to $9.2 million, increasing 8.8% from the same period last year.

Other bright spots include an increase in the number of annual active customers to 6.9 million, increasing from 6.4 million customers from the same period last year.

But the most crucial positive in the Q1 report is the reduction in the company’s operating losses. For Q1, losses stood at $41 million, down from $53.1 million for the same period last year.

There are other aspects of Jumia’s business where it sees some improvement, such as Jumia Food and Jumia Pay.

See the rest of the report here: https://techcabal.com/2021/05/11/jumia-q1-2021-results/

Almost a month after Uber and Bolt drivers under the Professional E-hailing Drivers and Partners Association (PEDPA) umbrella held a strike in Lagos, Uber has raised its prices. At the time of the strike in April, the President of PEPDA, Idris Shonuga, said one of the reasons the drivers were striking was the pricing of the rides.

He argued that the fare prices had become so low it was difficult for drivers to make ends meet and likened driving for cab-hailing services to a type of systemic poverty.

It’s a complaint that we’re hearing from ride-hailing drivers worldwide. In March 2021, drivers made landmark progress after winning a lawsuit forcing Uber to classify them as workers instead of independent contractors.

That distinction is essential because classifying drivers as independent workers allows Uber and Bolt to avoid paying insurance, paid leave, and other benefits.

The victory of Uber drivers in London has led to a global push for a similar reclassification with drivers in South Africa and Nigeria planning class-action lawsuits against Uber and Bolt. For now, Uber drivers will take the small victory of raised prices.

In a statement to driver-partners, Uber said, “We remain committed to providing a reliable earning opportunity for driver-partners, as well as a reliable and affordable service for riders. With this in mind, starting 11th May 2021, we are increasing prices on UberX by about 13%.”

Between 8:00 am till 12:00 pm on Mondays, and 8:00 am till 12:00 pm on Tuesdays through Friday, Uber riders will now pay a base fare of N237, minimum fare of N538; N70 per kilometre and N12 per minute. These fares are up from the previous minimum fare of N500, N200 base fare, N50 per kilometre and N11 per minute.

At other periods, riders will be charged a minimum fare of N575; a base fare of N255, N75 per kilometre and N12.5 per minute.

There are reports that the drivers are unimpressed with the changes seeing as one of their demands was that Uber reduce its commission from 25% and give them a say in deciding the fees.


The President of PEPDA wasn’t available to speak on the phone at the time of this report. For more stories, check out https://techcabal.com/

I grew up watching the people around me practice different religions. My grandparents would curse people who wronged them in a shrine but I would also follow them to church on sabbath days during holidays. My mum told me that when she was a child, water children came to her in her dreams and woke up with cane marks on her body. She told me her parents took her to a spiritualist who cut marks into her thighs and the dreams stopped. I found out my father was a Freemason when I was 8 but I never judged him for it. He taught me a lot about African spirituality and folklore because he was a King. When he died, they combined traditional rites with a church service.

When I went to boarding school at 14, I learned that Jesus had to be the only way to salvation. The matrons often singled me out to say that I was not Christian enough. In my third week at school, one of my classmates lied that he had sex with me and the boarding house mistress believed him. That night, she flogged me for about an hour, asking me to confess my sins. When I didn’t confess to it, she asked me to give my life to Christ because I was the seductress sent to ruin the life of the good Christian boy who was from a family of evangelists. I did what she asked so she could stop flogging me.

Read more stories like this by subscribing to our women’s newsletter
The next morning, my hands were swollen so I asked her for pain killers. She said I had to bear the consequence of my sin. I kept trying and failing to be Christian enough until I left that school. One time, the school’s proprietress insisted that I attended the school’s Easter holiday retreat at Obudu Ranch. She even paid for it when my mum didn’t. At Obudu, they held a deliverance service to cast the demons out of me. After prayers, they counselled me to stop masturbating. I didn’t know how to tell them I had never done it before.

They believed every rumour about me because I came from a secular school. The funny thing was that I wasn’t even attracted to boys then — I only liked girls. I spent the rest of my time in that school going from one deliverance service to another. I learnt the perfect fall that signified that the demon had left my body.

Somehow, I remained a Christian. After secondary school, I joined a popular teenage ministry where I became a leader. I moved into the ministry’s family house to be closer to God. As a leader, I contributed to outreach events and the church’s growth with my time and money. After a while, I started to feel underappreciated. On my 18th birthday, as is the tradition, the family house members gathered to pray for me. They kept alluding to my stubbornness in the prayers, saying that they prayed God helped me with it. I was annoyed because it seemed like something they had all discussed, so I moved out of the house within a few days.

The more I studied the bible, the more my doubts grew. No one was willing to answer my questions about Christianity. Instead, they labelled me a troublemaker. So I stopped going to church and abandoned all things Christianity. I focused more on learning about my ancestors. Rumours that I was a lesbian started flying around the Christian circles I used to be a part of. One day, a Christian brother was sent to convince me to come back to the church. Instead, he kept asking me to have sex with him. It was a hilarious experience for me and proved my point that everyone was faking it.

Continue reading: https://www.zikoko.com/her/how-i-became-a-hedge-witch/

During a random conversation with a friend, Sierra*, a few weeks ago, she mentioned that her mum passed several years ago and that she has never met her dad. I couldn’t stop thinking about the story the whole evening. On the following day, I hit her up to ask if she would be open to talking about it in more detail and if it was okay for me to write about it. She agreed to it and we set up a call.

************

My mum died on an afternoon in December 1998 inside a maternity ward. She had just birthed my baby brother, and I imagine her handing him to my grandmother and asking her to take care of her babies as she drew her last breath. When she had me three years earlier, it had been a difficult experience. She was in labour for three days, and for the most part, the doctor didn’t think both of us would make it. But we did. After it was over, they had some news for her: she had no business trying to have another child. Well, she tried to have my brother.

After she was gone, a decision was made about what the family would do with us and who would take us in. My older brother, who my mum had in her previous marriage and was about 15 years older than me, went back to his dad’s family. My grandmother took my baby brother. My mum’s older sister took responsibility for me and brought me to her home. I called her and her husband mum and dad for my entire childhood.

However, the disadvantage of tossing all the kids around and separating us was that we never really bonded. We’ve made significant progress in recent years, but the cracks are still there.

Anyway, my foster parents changed my last name to theirs, and I answered that for years. We talked about a lot of things but only so much came up about my mum. Nothing about my father.

In 2009, the man who raised me passed away after a long illness. I remember coming home from school for the holidays sometime in the previous year, and he was sicker than I’d ever seen him. He had lost most of his mobility. By the time he eventually died, mum had spent most of their money on hospital bills.

My older brother came to his funeral, and we had time to talk. He pulled out a passport photograph from his wallet and asked if I knew the woman in it. When I said no, he revealed what I could have guessed. The woman was my mum. I wanted to know more, especially about who my father might be but he promised to tell me more the next time we saw.

Things became more difficult at home after my foster dad’s death. Mum couldn’t afford my school fees anymore but she managed to keep me in school and the boarding house I was in. But there was a day things were so tough and I called my brother to send me ₦500 airtime. Unbeknownst to me, he took it as a cry for help. Not long after, he showed up at my school, lied that mum asked him to pick me up and instructed me to pack my stuff. I was confused but I followed him, no questions asked. I lived with him for a year or thereabout. And he was the only one who’s talked to me openly about my dad.

One day, he gave me a slip — it was my birth certificate and it had both my parents’ name on it. That was my first interaction with my father. I knew his name now, and I decided to take his first name as my last name.

Apparently, my mum met him after her first marriage. She had just moved to Ibadan with my older brother to start a new life. She put herself in school and met my dad during that period. But there was a problem: he was Igbo and my mum was Yoruba. It was a taboo relationship, but they didn’t let it stop them. They married in secret and kept it that way for years. Only my maternal grandmother knew about the marriage, I doubt that any of my dad’s family came around for the wedding. The rest of the family didn’t know who my dad was until my mum passed away.

However, taking his name didn’t feel as nice as I thought it would be. I couldn’t shake away the fact that he abandoned his kids after his wife died, and I wondered what kind of man it made him. I thought he didn’t want us. I was mad, and it was torture. I had a father who couldn’t be bothered about finding me. For many years, I struggled with this. I wanted to be accepted by any man — for someone to look at me and say “You’re enough.”

***

I reconnected with my mum’s sister the following year, but I didn’t ask her about my father. I didn’t want her to think I was ungrateful. The best way was to piece everything together myself. I got the missing parts of the story from various people as a teenager, and then as an adult. These parts never and still don’t make much sense to me.

I once struck up a conversation with an older relation who is now late, and he told me that my dad didn’t exactly abandon us. He tried to reach out to us after my mum’s death but because he had no job and was broke, he wasn’t allowed to see or take us with him. He stayed away because they told him to. I understand that my mum’s family did what they thought was best for us, but sometimes, I can’t help but think that they had no right to send him away.

Continue reading: https://www.zikoko.com/life/26-and-i-dont-know-my-dad/

The relationship I have with my mum is the kind of relationship people have with their sisters. Maybe it is because I am all she has and she is all I have. But I think even if I had siblings, we would still be close because she is not like the typical Nigerian parent. First of all, she is only 43 and has a small stature like me. When we walk together, people often assume we are siblings. There are some things she does though that may mimic the typical Nigerian parent, especially when it concerns religion. She is the kind of Christian that replies “You’re not dead in Jesus name” to jokes. She takes church seriously but has never pressured me to do the same. These days, we talk about the holes in the Bible’s plot and misogynist pastors.

Some people accuse her of indulging me too much. This makes no sense to me because I was also spanked as a child. She pays them no mind though because she prefers civil conversation. She grew up in the typical Nigerian home where there were unspoken rules you could not break and she did not want that for us. When I was about 7, she stopped trying to correct me with her hands but we still have our fair share of fights. One time, we used to fight a lot about me going out. We would argue for hours but we eventually found a way around it. She explained her concerns about my safety and how she misses me when I’m gone so I try to be home early. I also gist her about what happened where I went so she doesn’t feel left out.

In the typical arrangement in a Nigerian home, children are not allowed to talk back to their parents but my mum and I fight like agemates. We would sit down and talk deeply about our issues — who went wrong, why and how we can be better for each other. If I say something hurtful to her, she can tell me about it and vice versa. She does not believe in avoiding apologies so when she is wrong, she won’t do things like cooking my favourite food or giving me money as other parents do. She would apologize and make sure I am okay. After resolving a fight, we hug and call each other best friends.

My friends always tell me how much they like her. I understand it because when I go to their houses, their parents are always so stiff. They just greet and that’s all the interaction they have apart from scolding. In my house, they are free to talk to my mum as they like. Sometimes, when they are unable to reach me, they call her. One time, she picked up the phone pretending to be me and my friend didn’t even notice. When my friends tell me that they can’t talk about guys around their mother, I can’t relate because my male friends can even call my mum’s phone to talk to me. Sometimes, she already knows who I like before I say it. This is because of how often we gist. When I like someone, I talk about them a lot. She would pick up on that and ask me without being weird.

However, there are some things I can’t tell her. I have always known that I am queer and I prefer being with women. I am still trying to make sense of a lot of things about myself so I try not to pressure myself with labels. It’s a secret I am hyper-aware of because my mum wants me to be more womanly and act my age. She says this because I hate hair extensions and only wear T-shirts and jeans. She thinks it makes me look like a teenager. But I am not ready for the heavy conversation we will have when I tell her. She will have a lot of questions I do not have the answers to yet. I will eventually tell her but only under different financial circumstances.

Continue reading: https://www.zikoko.com/her/my-mum-and-i-are-best-friends-but-i-have-a-secret-i-cant-tell-her/

This week’s What She Said is about a 35-year-old Igbo woman. She talks about compartmentalising herself so people would treat her humanely as a traditionalist, and things she does to combat the stigma attached to traditional worshippers.

Tell me about growing up.
I grew up in Asaba and it was so much fun. We would climb trees at my grandmother’s house, play catcher and race with tyres.

I asked a lot of questions and was always indulged by my parents. You can say I grew up spoiled. I didn’t have a lot of restrictions. I could do anything I wanted as long as I had a good reason to. My dad was a lawyer with an extensive library that I was in charge of. I decided who to loan out books to and my judgment was never really questioned. So while I was spoilt, I was also responsible.

How did having a childhood like this affect you as an adult?
I became my own person on time. I knew it was okay to have an opinion and believe in the things I believed in solely. I grew up with a lot of powerful women, and I learnt by shadowing them. They taught me early that my voice mattered.

But as I got older, I started to compartmentalise myself.

Why?
We are traditionalists in my family, and I’ve realised this affects how people relate with me.

I’ve been making waist beads commercially for about six years. I’ve worn waist beads all my life. I started making them to help women pause and look at their bodies. I believed if they continued to do this, they would realise how beautiful their bodies were.

I also have a beads line for spirituality. I have bracelets that are tailored to the day you are born — like a Zodiac bracelet but using the Igbo days of the week. I only tell people this on a need-to-know basis.

As a traditionalist, I keep my business separate from my religion because I don’t want Nigerians to say I’m selling juju and collecting people’s destinies with beads.

When did you realise you had to make this distinction?
As early as I could talk. I went to a Catholic primary school, and when I was in Primary 1, I was used as an example of what an idol worshipper was and why people shouldn’t eat from me. My mum had a proper blowout and asked them why they thought it was okay to teach that to children.

Outside my house, I learnt people like me were demonic, bad people who hypnotised others to make them do what they want. With the rise of Pentecostalism in the 90s, the hate became worse. Catholicism tried to convert us with love, Pentecostalism taught people to demonise us — we wanted them dead because they worshipped differently.

So when I was outside, I learnt to censor myself.

That’s painful. Has anything changed in recent times?
A bit. People now want to know their roots, how their ancestors worshipped. When I’m not making beads, I’m writing programmes that teach people how to infuse spirituality in their lives, just the same way they do yoga and such.

People have this perception that if you’re a traditional worshipper, you have to look a certain way. So I am deliberate about the way I dress and everything. My life mission is to show people that they can “worship idols” and be baby girls and boys while doing it. I think this helps with how people see me — they may still want to bind and cast me, but it helps.

Read more from www.zikoko.com

Is the average Nollywood movie complete without someone mentioning or going to a shrine? To find out if it is as prevalent and popular in real life, I asked my Twitter followers and some people I know in real life about their experiences with juju/jazz. The answers? Absolutely fascinating.

Ben, 32.
In 2018, I was going through a very rough patch – financially, physically, every way you could imagine – and then a friend suggested I go see this person he knew that does prayers. I was desperate, when I got there I realized it wasn’t a place for ‘prayers’ like my friend told me. However, I won’t lie I went on with it because I was desperate. After consulting with the ‘spirits’ and everything, he gave me a cup that had some very salty water and a stone. I paid ₦15,000. He said it would ward off the evil spirits that was bringing bad luck. Six months, later my life was still the same so I threw the stone away.

Shola, 20.
I haven’t used juju on anyone, but it’s been used on me. It was a Sunday and I was going to church from school in Akure and when I got to the bus stop, a guy came to meet me and spun a lie about how his mom was dying and he needed to see a herbalist for the cure. He begged me to lead him there, but I said I didn’t know the place. Another man came to meet me and said I should help the guy with the “sick mother”. We walked together for a long while till we got to a house made of mud. A man came out and performed some rituals. When I left, I realised the money with me had disappeared and so had the Samsung Galaxy tablet with me also disappeared. He spoke some incantations and these things happened before my eyes.

Adam, 26.
I don’t know if this counts but in university, there was a girl I wanted to get with that wasn’t looking my way. And when I told my friends, they told me they know a person that’ll fix me right up. I went to see this guy with them, it cost ₦10,000 and he gave me a powder that I should put on my face when next I went to see the girl. I did it and the next morning, I was really sick. I had to get hospitalized for a few days. I don’t know if it’s linked but never again.

Continue: https://www.zikoko.com/life/nigerians-talk-about-their-experiences-with-juju/

Weddings are definitely a big deal in Nigeria. It’s not unusual to see couples and their families go all out on throwing the best wedding party they could afford. So I thought it would be great to speak to a couple of Nigerians and have a conversation about how much they spent on their weddings. This article is an attempt to break down their wedding budget with a focus on the major expenses.

1. Alfred, 30
Budget: ₦7.7m



Venue: ₦700k. The going rate was ₦1, but my dad knows the owner of the venue so we got a discount.

Catering: ₦1.3M. We had 300 guests during the reception and 150 guests for the after-party. I don’t think this number is accurate because my sisters hired their own caterer and my dad did the same too.

Entertainment: My wife’s uncle hired a band for us. I have family ties to the DJ, so he gave us a big discount and we paid ₦100k. For the Afterparty, the Hypeman charged ₦100k — another big discount because I know him. His normal rate was ₦250k.

Outfits: About ₦700k. There were lots of attires.

Photography/Video: ₦540k. Again, we called in favours here and got discounts.

2. Mark, 34
Budget: About ₦2m



Venue: My mother-in-law used to work at the venue, so we got it for free. We would have paid about ₦300k for it.

Outfits: We didn’t spend up to ₦200k here. My wife’s wedding dress was rented, and it cost about ₦80k. Her wedding shoes was ₦12k. My wedding suit was ₦35k and I bought a shirt for ₦30k. My shoes and pair of socks cost ₦15k and ₦7k respectively.

Catering: ₦550k.We hired a catering company to take care of 300 guests. The plan covered three main dishes.

Entertainment: ₦170k. We got a DJ and an MC for the reception. The DJ was paid ₦120k and the MC charged ₦50k — we gave a lot of quality for that price though.

Photography/Video: Photography took ₦250k and the video cost ₦290k. We got discounts for both though.

Continue: https://www.zikoko.com/money/4-nigerians-reveal-how-much-a-wedding-party-cost/

The subject of today’s “A Week In The Life” is a dominatrix. She talks about juggling two identities, feeling guilty after satisfying her kinks and meeting interesting people.

MONDAY:
I’m lucky to have a very flexible schedule because I get to determine my day. The first thing I do when I wake up today is to run errands. After which, I do some chores and general housekeeping. It’s almost noon when I’m done, so I try to sort breakfast while also catching up on my unread notifications.

When I’m not running errands and being the perfect vanilla daughter, I’m a lifestyle dominatrix. This means someone who’s interested in the BDSM lifestyle not majorly for financial gains. What this means is that I get to meet interesting people and have interesting conversations.

Someone filled my Google form which I put on the internet for people to book a domme session with me. He dropped his number and asked me to call him. I found this weird because that’s no way to talk to a domme, especially seeing as he booked a session to be a sub. Anyway, I told him off and ignored him. He then came begging a few hours later and offered to pay for my time so I reconsidered him.

I had him upload his picture, his name and government-issued I.D card so I could do a background check [aggressive Google search] on him. His background check came back clean and we moved on to the next stage which is paying a tribute —any amount between ₦5,000 and whatever amount you can afford — and having a conversation.

While talking to him, he casually let it slip that he was in his early fifties and that sort of freaked me out and excited me. I’ve never been with anyone that old before. Because of work, I had to stop texting him but I couldn’t stop thinking about his age — what makes a person in their fifties seek out this kind of thrill?

TUESDAY:
The first message I wake up to is from my newest fifty-something-year- old submissive.

Him: Do you do drugs?
Me: The occasional joint here and there.

Him: No, I mean something stronger like cocaine.

Me: ….

Find more stories like this in the money Newsletter. Click this box to subscribe.
In my head I was like wait a minute… but I shrugged it off.

He went on to ask me for the cost of a session with me. I gave him two options: name-calling and punishment for 2-3 hours at ₦50,000. Or pegging and other unique kinks [like body worship, foot worship] the client might have at between ₦100,000 – ₦150,000.

We settled on name-calling with a little twist and agreed to link up tomorrow. With that out of the way, I spent the rest of my day both lazing about and preparing for tomorrow.

WEDNESDAY:
I don’t want to talk about what happened today because it feels weird saying it out loud. I got to the agreed-upon venue and we spoke for over an hour. I asked him about his kinks, his fetishes, medication history, and whether he was on any medicine. After our conversation, I went on to get wine drunk and he brought out cocaine.

I was like…okay.

I went into Domme space and he went down on his knees into submissive space. He asked me to cuff him, whip him on his dick, and call him mean names like slut, LovePeddler, dirty slut, dog. He also had me alternate with endearing names like little puppy, Mommy’s pet.

The weird part was that he kept on doing cocaine all through this so he was very bright-eyed and manic throughout our session. I was a little bit nervous, but I had to keep things in control and use my Domme voice to issue commands to him.

When we were done, he ended up paying me more than the agreed amount because, in his words, “I did a great job.”

I was so tired from the intensity and novelty of the experience that I just went home to crash.

Continue: https://www.zikoko.com/money/hustle/i-feel-like-im-juggling-two-identities-a-week-in-the-life-of-a-dominatrix/

People (and by people I mean strangers on the internet) are often quick to say “Nigerian men and women were made for each other. I decided to confirm if this match was made in heaven or Nigerian men were better suited to others. I asked six Nigerian men about their romantic experiences with non-Nigerians. Here’s what they had to say.

Tega
My girlfriend is Sierra Leonean. Not saying all Nigerian women are terrible, but I’ve more tenderness, empathy and kindness. There’s more openness, less scepticism and definitely none of that deliberate wickedness that ends in “I was just playing with you.” She’s listening and accommodating and quite optimistic.

There are a lot of instances but just for contrast, I’ll describe an incident that happened with a Nigerian friend who claims to have a crush on me. At a gathering with friends, she said something about my presence being annoying. I told her that was hurtful and asked her to stop if she wasn’t serious. She goes on and on, deliberately trying to poke fun at me, asking if I need to talk to my therapist. Next thing, “Ah, are you angry? Did I do anything to you?” I was pissed and I left the gathering. She later texted me that it was all banter, despite the fact that I made it clear that it was hurtful.

My partner would never do anything like that. When I tell her I don’t like something, she stops it immediately and apologizes. No bullying or trivialising the issue. It just doesn’t happen again. There’s no such thing as “doing too much”. Just two people trying to be kind and happy. Sierra Leoneans are like Nigerians, and she’s been in Nigeria for a while so she’s acclimatised. It’s like dating a really warm Nigerian with a very accepting family.

Michael
I’ve dated three non-Nigerians – a Northern Irish, a Kenyan and a Zambian. I even got engaged to one of them but distance ended that relationship. I dated the Kenyan during my masters in the UK. She started the conversation with me on a bus about UK weather (a default icebreaker) and we hit it off. She was a remarkable person. An amazing cook and wonderful in bed. She was always willing to experiment, either in the kitchen or in the other room.

Her parents were pretty well off and I was a broke student on an allowance. I was in awe of how she splurged on gifts for me – clothes, shoes, watches. One time, she booked a weekend getaway to a theme park near London. I did the math and clocked it cost about N800k. She told me I didn’t have to spend a thing. In her words, “my money is our money and your money is our money.” She completely blew me away. I was never the sole spender in the relationship. One time, she hid my debit card because she didn’t like the fact that I was always paying for our meals. She was also super romantic and would always stop by my place on her way back from work. Her family was also quite welcoming; I spent the New Years holiday with them. The best relationship I ever had. Sadly, she had to go back to Kenya after her degree.

George
I dated an Indian in university and it was fantastic. She was beautiful, with great hips and long hair. We used to sit beside each other in class. She told me she liked me and why, without mincing words. Soon after, we were dating.

She was more expressive of her feeling than Nigerian babes. Unfortunately, she was a conservative Muslim. Her parents sent a driver to pick her immediately after school every day so we didn’t get to see a lot. We used to Bleep all over the school, whenever we could. She’d also buy me a gift for any gift I bought her and was never hesitant to spend on me. On her part, she became more liberal while dating me, going from a hijabi to wearing shoulder scarves, jeans and makeup.

After graduating, she was married off to some guy in the UK and that was the end of our relationship. I recommend that Nigerian men date at least one non-Nigerian in their lifetime. It’s nice to experience.

Tomiwa
I’ve dated a Motswana, Thai and South African. A common theme across the board for them is they’re more willing to spend and are less entitled. They were also quite better at articulating issues and were more willing to accept personal responsibility too. They never tried to shift blame and never excused their own bad behaviour.

The South African was the most serious of the relationships. She spent on me without provocation. It was refreshing to be taken care of for a change. I had to turn down some grander gestures so I wouldn’t feel guilty if a break up happened. There was no expectation for me to pay when we ate out, she either paid or made us split. While I protested her generosity most times, it’s nice to know they didn’t automatically expect me to pay. They were also largely respectful of boundaries, particularly my time. She understood if I was too busy to hang out, without sulking. If there was an issue, she would address it instead of becoming passive-aggressive.

This isn’t to say Nigerian women are bad. I’ve dated amazing Nigerian women but they’re generally socialised a certain way and there’s no getting around that, except for a few who are self-aware and are consistently self-auditing.

Akpos
I’ve dated a number of non-Nigerians. In summary, there was less drama, no billing, no broke-shaming or snide remarks about not using an iPhone. The quality of the conversation was better. It just felt a lot less transactional. However, I had to deal with racism when I was in Slovenia when some men accused me of stealing their babes. But they are cowards and can’t fight so it’s all good. Another girl’s family made her move out of the house because they said she had caught “some African disease.”

Sam
I dated a French black woman. It was refreshing. Different, but in a good way. She was expressive with her emotions in a way I find Nigerians usually aren’t. However, a peculiar source of friction in our relationship was the fact that she used to get very upset when I tell my friends I love them. She says it’s because I was colonised by the English and she by the French, but apparently, I was too liberal with saying “I love you” to friends. There might be some truth to it since the French say Je t’aime and Je t’adore which mean the same thing in English but carry different potencies in French. She didn’t adjust. I just stopped telling people I loved them [laughs].

Having dated Nigerians and non-Nigerian, I think people are just people, and I haven’t seen any significant difference that tilts my personal preference either way.

Continue: https://www.zikoko.com/man/8-nigerian-men-talk-about-dating-non-nigerians/

anthonyuncle:
if this is real, then wow!
if it is fiction, then kudos!

It's real.

[center][center]Music lovers can invest in their favourite musician’s project and make profits
[/center]

Nigeria’s first domestically launched music streaming service, uduX has developed a new product called PopRev in partnership with PiggyVest.

PopRev will allow music lovers to invest in their favourite musician’s project and make profits based on the project’s digital streaming performance. The solution will see fans become more instrumental to the financial success of the favourite artists.

Fans can track their investment through the uduX platform which is available as both web and mobile apps. The apps will give them real-time insights into the streaming performance of the music they invested in. Fans can also invite other people to listen to the artist’s music on uduX. Whatever revenue is made from the music is shared with the concerned investors.

As the financial partner for the product, PiggyVest, which has a platform of over 2 million active customers, already helps their users save and invest money. With PopRev, PiggyVest and uduX are concerned with offering artists a chance to get more money to create while giving fans a chance to play a part in a musician’s success story.

Afrobeats artist Davido has hailed the platform as timely and needful adding that “An initiative like PopRev will afford a lot of creators who, for example, struggled through the lockdown, the privilege to create without concerns of funding.”


Read more here: https://techcabal.com/2021/04/15/piggyvest-and-udux-present-poprev/

MTN Group has big ambitions for its mobile money business and is presently considering publicly listing that side of the business in an initial public offering (IPO). While there’s no timeline yet for an IPO, MTN Group is valuing its mobile money business at $5 billion.

It comes weeks after Airtel sold stakes in its standalone mobile money business to the TPG Group as well as Mastercard for a combined $300 million. That 11% stake will help Airtel deepen its offering across the 14 markets in which it operates.


MTN is basing its valuation on Airtel’s. The company’s CEO, Ralph Mupita said, “with similar valuations to that of Airtel, our valuation would sit at 75 billion rand, or about $5 billion. No decision has been made as yet, but listing will be an option considered if that will be the best approach to unlock value.”


MTN Mobile Money (MoMo) has seen rapid growth across the 16 markets in which it operates. By the end of September 2020, nearly 42 million people were regularly transacting on MoMo, an increase of 4 million people from the first half of 2020.

There is room for even more growth with the GSMA report for 2020 showing that of the 1.2 billion mobile money accounts globally, 548 million of those are in Sub-Saharan Africa. There’s especially room for growth in Nigeria where financial services, although powered by banks, are still somewhat dominated by the big banks.

With 60% of Nigeria’s 114 million adults unbanked, telcos have a natural advantage over banks in trying to reach the unbanked. The telcos use a simple model where users don’t need to install any apps or worry about any complex bank-like registrations.

This USSD-led mobile money approach has been popular for years but all the signs are there that mobile banking is growing more complex. This is mostly because, while USSD is pretty easy to use, it has really poor security.

It is presumably why mobile networks are planning towards a mobile banking future that will be more sophisticated than allowing users to simply send and receive money. Wiza Jalakasi, a technology and financial services analyst, gives some brilliant insight into this in an article from 2019.

In the end, it might feel like early days, but with telcos showing their hands and declaring their intentions, we may be poised for more growth of mobile money in the near future.


For more tech and business-focused content, visit Techcabal.com

How we met
We never actually grew up together. My extended family has always been very close, but because we lived in different states growing up he was never one of those Uncles you could see whenever you wanted to. When my family finally moved to Lagos, my uncle *David and I both lived in Ikeja, so we saw each other a lot more. He’s four years older than I am, so we had a lot of things to talk about. I am the first child, so it was nice to have someone take care of me for a change. Maybe that was one of the reasons why I fell for him.

Falling in love
During the pandemic, he worked from home and my school was out of session, so we spent a lot of time together and got even closer. We would text till late in the night and it felt nice to have someone I could talk to. He is kind, intelligent, funny, handsome, and treats me the way I wish more people did, like an adult. I was going through a very tough time and David was constantly there for me. He became the blueprint for the kind of guy I wanted to end up with.

When I started comparing him to guys that approached me was when I knew what I felt for him was more than what you feel for family members, so I told him. He said he felt the same way, but we knew we could never be together. We never initiated anything physical. I do not know if the reason was that we were related, or because I made a chastity vow. We even tried to reduce the amount of time we spent together, but because he is family, we still spent a lot of time together.

We were found out
One day, my mum came into my room and started asking questions about my Uncle. She told me that she was already aware of the situation and *David had told her everything. Apparently, *David never told her anything but she had her suspicions. She went through my phone looking for the conversations I had with him. She did not shout at me or punish me, but instead, she scheduled prayer meetings for me. Luckily, she also promised to not tell anyone else in the family about it. She promised to handle it all and I let her. There was nothing else I could do.

Since my mother found out initially, *David and I have seen in person only once. It was during a family dinner where we were surrounded by lots of other family members. We think it is best to reduce any and every form of interaction we have with one another. Currently, he has a girlfriend and I have gone back to school in a different state.

The subject of today’s “A Week In The Life” is a full-time housewife. She walks us through the struggles of taking care of three kids, the difficulty of her routine, and how she has accepted her role in the grand scheme of things.

MONDAY:
I’m up at 5 a.m. because I have to prepare my three children for school. My eldest child bathes herself while I focus on cooking and bathing her younger siblings. After I’m done, I start to dress them but I can’t seem to find their socks. God. I hate looking for socks. It’s a tough cycle because after searching for socks, the next thing I look for is their shoes.

It’s 7 a.m. by the time my children are all packed to leave the house. I sigh a little with relief because they won’t get flogged for late-coming today.

Once the children are gone, my day begins — I sweep the compound, I sweep and mop inside the house, I dust the TV stand, shelf and standing fan. Around 9 a.m., I pack all the dirty clothes from yesterday and sit down to wash.

It’s mid-afternoon by the time I’m done washing. I’m tired and haven’t had a single meal all day. I try to quickly eat something because I have to go to the market and cook lunch before the children come back from school.

It’s 4 p.m. by the time I’m done with market runs and the children are home. The first thing my children shout when they see me is, “Mummy, our teacher said you should help us do homework.”

I drop my market bag and go over to help, grudgingly. In my head I’m calculating my to-do list:

Help the young kids with homework.
Google the answers to the questions for the older kid.
Prepare dinner.
Give the young kids a night bath.
Give or take I know that whatever happens, I’ll be in bed by 11 p.m. or latest at midnight.

TUESDAY:
Being a full-time housewife is not easy because we do so much without receiving a salary. If you have a regular job, you can rest after work or during the weekend. As a housewife, you don’t have that luxury because you work from morning to night taking care of the house and children. When you try to sleep during the day, your mind will keep disturbing you that there’s work to be done that no one will do for you. Especially for people like me who don’t have paid or voluntary help.

There’s also the part where everyone blames the housewife for everything that happens while they are away. If the kids get injured, they’ll blame you. If the kids become sick, you’ll be blamed. If food is not ready by the time your husband comes home, you’ll also be blamed. And the blame always ends with: “Were you not at home, what were you doing?”

I spend today thinking about how unhappy I am as a full-time housewife. For someone like me who once had a business selling akara, staying at home is hard. It’s even harder because my husband is the one who ordered me not to work. With how expensive things are in present-day Nigeria, money from only one source in a marriage is extremely tight. The allowance for food for a month can no longer buy anything. All I can do is watch helplessly as things become expensive without being able to do anything about it.

I’m fed up with everything. I wish I could disappear for a while.

WEDNESDAY:
Today I’m trying to remember the last time I wasn’t taking care of someone or doing one chore or the other and I can’t.

The only place in this world where I can rest is my mum’s house outside Lagos. However, if I tell my husband that I want to travel, he’ll pick a fight. And I don’t like wahala or getting annoyed. If I get annoyed, it means I don’t want the best for my children because getting annoyed can lead to a couple’s separation. My husband may ask me to go with the children or leave the children and go. Guess who’ll suffer? The children. So anytime there’s friction, I turn to prayer and leave my troubles with God.

You can’t fight someone when you’ve not gotten what you want from them. It’s when you’re stable enough and independent that you can damn the consequences. For now, I’ll endure because he’s paying the school fees of my children and training them. After all, there are working-class people facing worse situations where the husband doesn’t drop money at all.

There’s no enjoyment in marriage. Before you get married these men will tell you, “I love you.” In the marriage, you’ll see changes that will confuse you. And since you’re from different backgrounds, one person must cool down for the other person. I’ve decided to be the one to cool down and endure. I’m kuku the one that wants something.

THURSDAY:
My husband is at home for the first time in over three weeks today. I asked him to kindly assist me with some tasks since I was overwhelmed with washing and cleaning after everybody. He told me that he went away for three weeks to do his own job, so I should face my own job. He then proceeded to sleep. I felt bad, but for peace to reign, I just unlooked.

FRIDAY:
As a housewife, you’re at the mercy of another person. You have to take whatever is given to you. No one asks if you have clothes or pant and bra, or how you even buy sanitary products. That’s why you have to be wise about these things. When my husband sends me to buy something, I use his remaining change to sort all these little things. Yorubas will say: “You must not eat with all your ten fingers.”

Every day I stay at home is an unending repetition of washing, cooking, cleaning. And before you know it, the day has finished and you’ve started another one again.

I prefer to go out to work so that if my husband says why didn’t I do x and y chore, I can just say it’s because I went to work. Unlike when I’m at home all day and he’ll say what’s my excuse for not doing the chores.

There are no days off — no sick days, no public holidays, no weekends. It’s work, work, work. I’ve just accepted that it’s my cross to bear and I have no grudges against the father of my children. If people don’t forgive him, I forgive him. I have no choice but to play my part. I’m just praying for a miracle in form of a job or a shop so I can have something of my own.

Until then, we go over and over again. Tomorrow is another day of washing, cooking and cleaning.

Read more articles in this series: https://www.zikoko.com/stack/a-week-in-the-life/

For five years now, I have tried denying the fact that someone posted pictures of my dad’s body in his casket on Facebook, and he captioned it: “Vanity upon vanity.” This person isn’t a family member, but he felt it was okay to take these photos and share them on Facebook for everyone to see.

***

My father was a very responsible man. He had a successful military career and a great stint as a two-time special adviser, but he battled with one thing: alcohol addiction. Often, our loved ones go through difficult things we have no idea about. Usually, these things hide in plain sight. Sometimes, we love them so much that we see it, and other times, that same love blinds us, keeping us blissfully unaware of their struggles.

With my father, I think it was a mix of both: love that helped us see him, and love that blurred our vision. We were uninformed about the addiction; we loved him so much that we could not address it. And to be fair, we never had to address it. Though he drank a lot, he never lost his cool, and the drinking was a part of his life that he kept separate. But you can only keep an addiction a secret for so long.

The first time I became aware that my father had a problem was the day I found, in his library, books about addiction and how to fight them. That day, I saw that he had acknowledged the problem and was willing to fight it.

***

One night, my dad and mom went out. When they returned, he was in physical pain. He was vomiting and could barely walk, he had to be carried to the hospital. After days of testing and treatment, it was confirmed that my dad had Type 2 Diabetes. Everyone thought it was hereditary because my grandfather had that same illness. But those who were close to my father knew it had to have been the alcohol.

And yet, despite how much my father struggled to quit, he always failed. He drank until his diabetes led to a heart problem and then liver failure. I and my mom didn’t think he would die because money for treatment was never the issue. But one day, inside the intensive care unit of LUTH, my dad had a heart attack. And just like that, he was gone.

***

Grieving him was the next stage for me and my siblings. I was the closest to my dad and even though I was hurt, I spent a lot of days in pure denial. I was happy, bubbly, and people that came to console us were confused about this level of ‘normalcy.’ That was the only sane period we had before my father’s family came around and scattered everything.

My father’s family members are proper assholes. Planning his funeral showed me that. As soon as my father’s death was announced, I launched into alert mode. I was 16, and I remember hiding my mom’s wedding certificates, the land documents and other receipts because family will always be family. And they stayed true to character. The moment they arrived, they let us know they were broke. They didn’t stop at that. They made inquiries about my father’s properties, and even though I had gained admission to study Law by then, one of them asked me if I could consider working as a house help.

The military handled the funeral cost and we had to bury him at home because we didn’t want to fight about the property with his siblings. My father was buried in front of the house. We tried to convince them to bury him in the backyard, but apparently, it’s against Yoruba customs to do that. My mom’s room faces the part where his grave is. She no longer opens the curtains in that area. It hurts a lot to see your father buried in a place you used to call home with him. But what hurts, even more, is seeing people treat that part of the house as a taboo. I have a complicated relationship with the gravesite. Sometimes, I don’t want to go home because it is the first thing I see. And sometimes when I am alone in the house, I go there to sit and just talk to him. Doing that brings me peace.

***

But let’s go back to his funeral and how his family members put on the greatest drama since Fuji’s House of Commotion. During that funeral, my dad’s youngest sibling had a fainting spell that was easily cured with a can of Malt. One of his younger sisters fought because of party packs and Jollof rice, and yet these people didn’t drop a dime.

I should let you know that my dad’s siblings are educated. And I mean Masters level education, so to see them act like this was beyond all of us. At some point, my dad’s sister asked us (again), about my dad’s properties and said my siblings and I should send our account numbers. That was the end of it. To date, I haven’t seen any of them, and that’s fine with me.

A few weeks after the burial, we found out that someone carted away all my dad’s wristwatches, about twenty-something designer pieces, and perfumes. His designer shoes and shirts, all of them gone. Even his car battery.

***

After the funeral, tensions cooled down. It was then that my siblings and I came to accept the truth that we were now fatherless. Our lives would definitely have to change. One day, I was bored and I remembered how much my dad loved Facebook. While he was alive, we blocked him, but now that he was late, I wanted to see what he used to post about.

I couldn’t find his account, so I ran a general name search. The first thing that showed up was my dad’s body in his casket with the caption, “This world is vanity upon vanity.”

At first, I was shocked. There was my father’s body, laid bare for the Internet, a world of strangers, to see. Why would someone do that to him? Why show him at his most vulnerable? I closed the page and I never returned to Facebook.

Later, I found out who posted it: one of the guys that used to perform with the live band my family used at our events. I never mentioned this to anyone. Not even my brothers.

***

Forget all they say about Igbos and their burial rites, Yoruba culture isn’t any better.

My mother couldn’t leave the house for 42 days. She wasn’t supposed to watch TV for that 42 days too. We, her kids, were told not to sleep on the same bed or on the same couch with her because it would affect our luck. She was only fed ogi (pap) and eko for a long time, and she had to use different plates and cups, not the general plates at home.

She was supposed to wear black for one year. No makeup or partying for the whole year, and she had to seek express permission from her in-laws to stop wearing black, or dark clothing after one year, and then the clothes she wore were burnt.

As her children, we were also not allowed to see our friends off because, according to the family, it would bring bad luck.

My father’s family held on to these ‘customs’ so much. Once, I asked them if a man whose wife died would be put through the same thing. They said no, a man was to mourn for just 3 months because he’s a provider or something like that.

***

The military never paid my father’s pension. In fact, some members of the pension board issued a death threat to my mother when she tried to push the issue.

***

I no longer communicate my emotions properly. I hate pity, and at that point in my life when I lost my father, pity was the only thing everyone wanted to give me.

I remember now, how a close family friend called us immediately after my dad’s funeral.

“You all should remain close to each other now,” he said.

“Yes, sir.”

“And, please, be vigilant oh. You know how your father’s siblings can be.”

“Yes, sir.”

And then he called me to one side and said, “Take it upon yourself to ensure that your siblings stay away from alcohol, you hear?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Always talk to them oh.”

“Yes, sir. Thank you, sir.”

This man had good intentions, but the entire conversation was poorly timed. And yes, I was so scared of alcohol but life works in mysterious ways.

Now, I outdrink everyone in my family.

Read more stories from real people on www.zikoko.com

I grew up in a polygamous home — my mum was my father’s fourth and last wife. It wasn’t the kind of family where we talked to each other. There was jealousy among the wives and children. As I grew older, I realised that there was no difference between them and the families in Africa Magic movies, so I started looking forward to leaving home.

In 2015, I got admission to study psychology at the University of Lagos*, and I moved from Abuja there. The first few years were fun. I met people like me. I got to write poetry and perform my poems in front of an audience, but then I also found drugs.

I went to a party and someone offered me weed. I liked how it felt, and he suggested that I try it with codeine. That felt nice as well, so when he offered me molly another time, I didn’t object. Soon enough, Rohypnol and Ecstasy became a part of my routine. I also tried Tramadol, but my body didn’t like it — every time I took it, I threw up.

By 2018, smoking and taking drugs became my only personality trait. I would smoke every day, take pills instead of food and codeine instead of water. I spent my school fees and my house rent on drugs. I got the money back, but I spent it again. I would wake up and the first thing I wanted to do was call my dealer. Sometimes, he would be the one to wake me up with a refill. I was also missing classes and tests because I was either too tired to meet up or simply didn’t give a Bleep.

One day, I woke up and realised I had not eaten for three days. At that point, I knew I had a problem so I reached out to a friend who linked me up with a psychiatrist. I met with him once, and he advised me to stop taking hard drugs. He prescribed drugs to stop the addiction and combat dependence. I also spoke to my pastor about it, and he prayed with me. I stopped smoking and focused on the medications the doctor prescribed but within two weeks, I was back to smoking and taking pills.

During this time, I was in my third year of University, and I had not paid my school fees. My school reopened the school fees portal for late payments but the deadline was in three weeks and they had increased the fees. I realised I would not be able to raise the money on my own so I went home.

I opened up to my sister-in-law about my addiction to drugs and how I needed money to pay my school fees because I had spent it all. She gave me the money and paid the fees. One day, after I returned home for the holidays, my brother came to the house with a pastor. They called me to join them in the parlour with my mum, which I did. As we all sat there, my brother broke the news to my mother that I was an addict.

The first question my mother asked was, “She takes drugs or she sells them?” They asked me how I started taking drugs, who introduced me, how does it make me feel, and many other questions. I answered their questions, but I didn’t understand why they needed to know these details. My brother started shouting at me. He said, “You don’t even have any remorse.” It was the longest family meeting ever. Everybody was shouting at me, including the pastor and my sister-in-law. I regretted telling them about it. I kept thinking I came out about my addiction — they didn’t catch me even though I had smoked in the house a number of times. There was no iota of care towards me or my well-being, just that I was hurting the idea of what a good daughter in their family should look like.

They wanted me to go to a rehab centre in Abuja because, but I declined. I thought it was a waste of money because I could go to rehab and continue smoking. I decided to try on my own. Somehow, I was able to stay away from drugs and smoking for about five months. One day, I rolled myself a joint because I needed an appetite to eat. I continued smoking but this time, instead of back to back joints, I would smoke once in three to five days. It was a system that worked. I went back to attending my classes and taking notes.

Early 2019, my pastor saw a vision about me. My mum called me one day and told me to call him as soon as possible. When I did, he said, “I just came down from the mountain. Up there, I had a disturbing vision about you. They want to kill you. You need to come home for prayers and fasting.” Coincidentally, I was already thinking of going home because school had been quite stressful. I took a bus to Abuja the next day and went to see him. He said, “You have to fast for one week. You will come to church every day for these seven days. There is a prophetess who will pray with you. She will take you to a river where she will bathe you.”

I started the prayer plan the following day. Whenever the prophetess prayed with me, she would ask me if I saw a snake in my dream the night before. She did this for the first three days. I had to tell her I don’t even dream so she could stop asking. She would rub my head with oil before I left the prayer house every day. After one week of non-stop praying and fasting, I reached out to my pastor and told him I had to go back to school. He said, ‘You can’t go back now. The way I am seeing it, if you go back to school, it’s your dead body they will bring home.” So, I spent another week in Abuja, fasting and praying.

He eventually let me go to school after I had missed a lot of classes and tests. Before I left, he made me get salt and olive oil that I would use to bathe every day. He said he was going to send some scriptures and prayer points that I would use to activate the salt and olive oil. When I got back to school, I was very anxious. I would go out and imagine that a car would hit me or something. When my friends cooked, I wouldn’t eat because I was scared they could poison me even though they had been my roommates since my first year in school. I kept calling my pastor to send the scriptures, but he wasn’t picking up. After a week, I gave up, and he didn’t call me for about two months.

Then one morning, he called me. He asked how I was doing. I responded that I was well and then he asked, “Do you have anything to tell me?” I said, “I should be asking you if you have something to tell me. You were supposed to send some scriptures. What if I died?” He laughed and said a lot of things happened that he had to take care of, then he asked, “When was the last time you smoked?” I said last night, and he started yelling at me. “Do you think we make these things up? Do you want to kill yourself?” After shouting for some minutes, he asked me to promise him I will stop smoking. I told him it would be a lie if I did. He started shouting again, and I asked him to stop. I said, “It’s not like you saw me smoking in the vision — I was the one that opened up to you. I can’t just stop — it doesn’t work like that. If you think it’s that easy, why don’t you just pray for me to quit from your end?” He got upset and hung up.

I didn’t hear from him till August. I travelled to Lagos with my friends for the Salah holiday. There I got sick — I was purging and vomiting. I had a severe abdominal pain. I got worried and called my mum. I told her my symptoms and her solution was to call the pastor. When he called me, he asked, “What exactly is wrong with you?” I was describing the stomach ache for him when he asked, “Did you just have an abortion?”

I was angry. I asked him why that was the first thing he thought about me. I said I wasn’t pregnant. He went on to ask if I was with a man or woman. I told him I was at my best friend’s family house for the holidays and then he started saying that I won’t kill myself in Jesus’ name. I was so confused. He said I should get a scan done to find out what is wrong with me. I told him I was waiting on some cash before heading to the lab. He said he was going to send me money — he never did.

I took some tests and it turned out I had food poisoning. I went to see a doctor who placed me on medications and I went home to rest. That evening, the pastor called me to ask if I did the scan. I said yes, but I didn’t get any money from him. He asked if I was sure. I told him every credit alert that entered my phone came with the name of the person who credited me. He changed the topic and asked me to come home for prayer and fasting. I was pissed because I had told him how weak I was and how I couldn’t keep food in my stomach yet he wanted me to make a 10-hour trip to Abuja. I said, “In the bible, Jesus said just speak the word and it will come to pass, so why do I have to come home for my miracle to happen?” He hung up on me and didn’t call back.

A month later, I saw a job vacancy at a radio station for an on-air personality. I have always been a vocal person so I applied and I got it. Even though they don’t give newbies shows until after the first three months, I was asked to anchor a program within my first month there. I continued even after school resumed and I have learned so much on the job.

When Christmas came and I didn’t go home, my mum became worried, but I knew that if I did I would be forced to go to the prayer house. She called to beg me to come and when that didn’t work, she asked my siblings to call me. Eventually, my pastor called. The first thing he said was, “I am led in my spirit to pray for you.” I said, “Sir, let your spirit lead you somewhere else.” His voice rose, “Do you understand you are talking to a man of God?” I said, “Yes and God understands that I’m trying to protect my peace. If you are led to pray for me, you can just say the prayer wherever you are without involving me.” He was shocked. He said maybe it’s the mood I am in, that he will call me back later. I said, “If you call me, you will realise that I have already blocked your number.” He said okay and hung up.

In early 2020, my mother told me she received calls from different relatives who said they had seen a vision where someone killed me. One time, she forwarded a message to me saying, “Pray against the spirit of death, using your last daughter as a point of contact.” That day, I sat down wondering why anyone would want to kill me. I have never used an iPhone in my life. My hair is always low so I never bothered about buying expensive wigs. If I can’t afford designer products, I am fine wearing plains forever. I have an extra year at school so I know I am not the brightest in my class. I wasn’t in a relationship so no one could say I snatched their partner so what exactly did I do to anyone that they would want to kill me. And people were jealous of that. I wasn’t in a relationship where someone would say I stole his or her partner or something. So what did I do to deserve death from somebody? Why did no one ever see good visions where I won a million dollars or travelled abroad. I did nothing about it.

In May, my father died. He had been sick for a really long time, but I wondered why nobody saw his death coming in a vision. The pastor officiated the service of songs. After the ceremony, he asked the children of the deceased to come for prayers. In his office, he laid his hands on my brother and said, “You will lead well. You will travel and nothing will happen to you.” To my sister, he said, “God will grant you your heart desires.” When it got to my turn, he said, “May the Lord redirect your steps.” I could hear my mother’s loud amen. In my head I was thinking, this path that I have chosen is the one for me. I have a good job and I am doing better at school. I have never felt better in my life.

After the prayers, he walked up to me and said, “Don’t you think we should end our fight?” I said I wasn’t fighting with him, but he shouldn’t consider me as his friend. He said I shouldn’t talk like that and asked me to come and see him after the burial. I told him I didn’t want to see him and walked away.

I haven’t gone home since then. At my job, they increased my pay and I was able to find another job as a social media manager of a bookstore on the side. I take online courses to help me get better at my job. I am currently working on my final year project and most of it has been approved. I now practice Christianity away from the church. I pray and read my bible on my own. I no longer take drugs and I have never felt the urge since I stopped. I have never felt better in my whole 22 years on earth, and I look forward to a calmer life.

Read more real stories like this on www.zikoko.com

The subject of this week’s What She Said is a 32-year-old woman who is torn between her job and her family. She talks about how marriage and her first pregnancy affected her mind and body, and why she may have to leave work to have the number of kids she wants.

Talk to me.
Growing up was fun for me. I wasn’t told, “You can’t do this because you’re a girl.” I was the girl who was taught to wash cars and fix things in the house — sockets, DVD players, generator spark plug, you get the gist. I had an older brother, but my dad had me close by when he did these things and didn’t let me think it was for boys only.

I was a fun-loving, confident girl, and my parents also trusted me. I was also allowed to do things I liked. I could go out, visit close friends. I just knew I had to be back home by 7 p.m.

By the time I got to university, I was still enjoying myself. I loved my own company, I was comfortable going out by myself and spending my money. My mum would say, “Once a month, take out a small sum and take yourself out.” And so I would. This time, my curfew was 10 p.m., but I could always call my parents to let them know if I’d be out longer.

And then after school?
I got a job, didn’t like it and left. Did a bit of banking, realised the banking life is not for me. Started my own thing, a bit of interior design and culinary services. Then I decided I’d like to have a 9 to 5, and I ended up in tech.

And also marriage.
Getting married was different. I got a rude awakening when I realised I had to be accountable to someone. I grew up the only girl in my family and my brother was five years older than I was. We didn’t click — we were almost never at the house at the same time. If I was at school, he was on holiday, If I was home, he was in school; we mostly saw each other during major holidays. And so I didn’t have an overbearing big brother breathing down my neck.

With marriage, I realised I couldn’t just up and leave without telling my husband where I was going. I can’t just go and see a movie. I was accountable to someone, and If I was later than usual from work, that someone would be worried. I’d have to call and explain, “Oh I’ve been in traffic for two hours, so I’ll be late.” For someone that was used to running things my way, it was extra work mehn. It took a lot of getting used to.

What helped?
I got to a stage where I told my husband, “I love you, but you can’t tell me what to do,” and it was causing rubbish quarrels. After some time, I thought, “It’s not that bad.” I’m big on communication, so my husband and I decided to talk. “What’s the problem? Why is this a big deal? How can I help?” And it got better.

And then pregnancy.
Haha. Having a child was one of the most remarkable things to happen to me. No one prepares you for what it’s like — and it’s not just about the birthing process — it’s about becoming a mum, that big transition from being one person and suddenly you’re responsible for another human being. You have to figure out what this person is saying when it’s crying or rubbing its ears.

It was another rude awakening. Nothing prepares you for the changes that happen to your body afterwards or the postpartum issues that come up. After my baby’s birth, I had issues keeping my concentration. I was always forgetting things — they call it mummy brain — and it stayed for a while. Till now, I still have flashes of that where I go, “Okay, what was I thinking a moment ago?” There was that feeling of losing my mind and also my self.

I was a size 8 before I got pregnant. After pregnancy, my breast shape changed. They were not as perky as they used to be. My stomach wasn’t as firm as it used to be. My insecurities grew, and I thought I would never get myself back. I hated my body and my mind. I also dreaded going back to work — how would I fit into the workspace when I couldn’t even keep up with a conversation?

That’s heavy. I’m sorry. What happened when you did go back to work?
The tech space is very fast-paced. You’re building new things, programmes — it’s a lot of brainwork. When I was on maternity leave, my biggest fear was I wasn’t going to fit into my work anymore, especially because I was losing my mind and couldn’t remember stuff.

My office has a lot of young people. I’ll be 33 this year, and I work with people in their early 20s who just want to live life and do amazing things, and I’d say getting married isn’t in their top ten things to do. Being pregnant was already a sandbag on my leg; something that was going to slow me down, then I was away from work for three months for maternity leave. I had a serious case of FOMO. I knew many new projects would have been completed by the time I got back.

Before my leave, I had heard side comments that I was getting replaced, so I was already in a bad place. I wasn’t too excited about going back because I knew I was going to struggle. I wasn’t going to be able to stay for long hours, and I’d be treated like I had a disability.

Coming back to work as a new mum was difficult. I felt like I had to show I was still worth being retained as a staff. I was always waiting to be told, “Thank you for your services, we want to let you go.”

I threw myself into work and tried to do things. It was like no days off for me. I was working from home and so I didn’t even have structures to help jig my mind back to form. My husband helped during this period. He kept telling me to remember it was a physiological thing as much as it was psychological, and I didn’t have to force it or put my brain under more pressure.

Continue: https://www.zikoko.com/her/what-she-said-i-want-to-have-a-family-and-keep-my-job-but-something-has-to-give/

The Federal Government of Nigeria has extended the deadline for Nigerians to link their National Identification Numbers (NINs) to their SIM cards by one month to May 6th.

The move by the Nigerian Federal Government for citizens to procure the NIN and link them with their SIM cards was first announced in mid-December 2020. A two-week period was prescribed for the exercise, but after it was clear that the time window was insufficient, the Federal Government extended it to February, and then further pushed it to April 6th.

The approval to extend the period of the NIN-SIM linkage was given at the meeting of the Ministerial Task Force on NIN-SIM data linkage held on Thursday in Abuja. The extension statement mentioned that over 51 million people now have their NINs with a significant increase in the monthly enrolments.

“Based on the updates of the NIN-registration process, over 51 million people have been assigned NINs. There are many people who have enrolled and are in the process of being assigned NINs. With each individual having an average of three to four SIMs, the total number of SIMs tied to NINs would be close to the total number of registered SIMs in the country. The current number of monthly enrollments has increased significantly to about 2.6 million registrations.

There has also been a remarkable increase in the number of enrolment centres across the country with about 3,800 centres available for enrollments. There are also many more new centres in the pipeline,” the statement said.

The Implications
This extension provides more time for citizens to perform this exercise, but it also implies that thousands of Nigerians whose source of living depends on SIM registration would have to wait a little longer for business to resume as normal.

In the past, there have been calls and even lawsuits against the Nigerian government to either rethink how it is going about the NIN procurement process or suspend the exercise entirely. As at January, there were 47.8 million new subscribers with NINs, while 21 million subscribers were yet to obtain their NIN.

Two months later, over 51 million subscribers have their NINs linked to their SIM cards. Can the remaining 17 million subscribers get theirs done within one month at this rate?

Time will tell, as in Nigeria, getting any accepted means of identification can be difficult. It’s an issue the government has been trying to solve since 1986.



Read more stories at www.techcabal.com

I met Bisola entirely by chance. There was this girl I used to flirt with now and then, and she accidentally sent me a photo of Bisola. When I asked about it, she said it was a mistake, and she’d meant to send the picture of the dress she was wearing to another friend. I told her that I was interested in the girl in the picture and asked for her Instagram handle. When I got it, I sent Bisola a DM and we started talking.

Bisola and I got along swimmingly. She studied philosophy, and I like to consider myself a thinker, so we used to have endless conversations about life’s deepest questions. We became quite interdependent. One day, I didn’t reach out because my battery was dead the entire day. When I came back online, she was furious and had already deleted my number. Being with her was so natural. We never had to force anything and expectedly, we fell in love. It felt like we were in a relationship from the start, but officially, we started dating three months after I sent that DM.

I truly believe that Bisola was the love of my life. Cupid’s arrow had hit me, and it hit me hard. The relationship was great. We kept no secrets from each other. If there was anything on our minds, we told each other immediately.

Prior to our relationship, I found out that I tended to connect romantically with multiple people at the same time and be genuine about it. It wasn’t a “bad guy” act where I considered women as game; I just knew I could love multiple women sincerely. And if I’m in love with someone, I tell them as soon as I realise it. They don’t have to do anything about it or love me back, I just have to let them know.

Shortly before the lockdown, a year after I started dating Bisola, I met Annie*. We had great conversations and we connected. I realised I loved her. It wasn’t because I wanted to have sex with her. All I felt was a need to have her around me.

ways to handle conflict in a relationship amicably between couplesGuardian Life — The Guardian Nigeria News – Nigeria and World News
You know how people say if you love two people, it’s the second one you love the most? That’s nonsense. I still loved Bisola, deeply. But I also found myself developing a connection with Annie, and I didn’t feel like stopping it.

That was the beginning of the problem. I knew that at some point I would have to tell Bisola about Annie and our budding friendship because we kept no secrets, and it was impossible to derail from that track. But how do you tell the love of your life that you’re in love with someone else?

In April, during the lockdown, Bisola spent the entire month with me, and it was terrible. Normally, we were a sexually intense couple. We couldn’t keep our hands off each other. Sometimes, she’d be in a virtual meeting and we’d Bleep through even the most important parts of her presentation. Or she’d be giving me head while I’m on a work call. But in that month, I couldn’t have sex with Bisola because of the dark secret I was keeping from her. The guilt from not telling her another woman was sharing her space in my heart without her permission was weighing me down I knew I had to tell her.

One day, I asked what she thought about polyamory. She explained that it was okay for people to express themselves like that if they so wished, but she was happy being monogamous. With that answer, I realised that I had two choices: continue being monogamous with her and continue with a lifetime of fighting my true self or accepting that I was polyamorous and letting the love of my life go. Cheating was not an option because I absolutely despise dishonesty.

Bisola was like an addiction to me. I couldn’t see myself living without her. At the same time, I was exhausted from fighting my desire for other people. So I told her about Annie. I could tell that she was hurt, but she tried to empathise with my plight. She understood how I could be polyamorous, but she just wasn’t fine with being in a polyamorous relationship. I hated the fact that I was making her hurt, but I also knew that I had to be honest with her.

Five Reasons You Shouldn't Try Polyamory | by Anne Shark | P.S. I Love You
We held on in the relationship, but it was never the same again. It seemed like we were both waiting on the other person to make a compromise: she thought I would let go of the whole polyamory idea and I thought maybe she’d come around and see it my way. While we waited, she started to doubt my fidelity — I would never do anything I couldn’t tell her and I thought she knew that. The existence of Annie became a source of anxiety for her and it took a toll on the relationship. If I wasn’t available to talk, she’d assume it was because I was with Annie. Our fights were getting bigger and toxic. One day, after a fight over the phone, I asked that we take a break.

With the break, all I wanted was for us to draw a line between our relationship and our friendship, but she thought I meant we should break up. We were apart for one month. Bisola’s sister told me she was not taking the break well so I called it off.

Before then, I’d always tell Bisola about Annie so she didn’t have to deal with anxiety or imagine things, but the honesty wasn’t helping, so I stopped telling her.

Things went fine for a while until she decided to read my chats and found out I was still talking to Annie. I knew that was the end of our relationship. I begged and pleaded on my knees, but I also knew it was unavoidable.

I hated myself for causing her pain, but I also couldn’t fight who I am. I was crushed that my best friend was leaving me. We cried and held each other before she got up to leave. That was the last time I saw her. She chose her peace of mind and I chose mine. She blocked me everywhere.

My relationship with Annie deteriorated, and we hardly talk.

People often wonder how I could be polyamorous, They ask me if I’m fine with my partner sleeping with other people. All I care about is honesty. If my partner is honest with me, I don’t care who they are sleeping with. I’ve fallen in love a couple of times after Bisola, but I don’t think I ever want to be in a relationship again. I don’t know if my polyamory is just a phase, but there’s too much uncertainty for me to commit myself to anybody. I don’t want to hurt anyone ever again. I’m very upfront about telling women I meet that I’m not cut out for relationships. It’s their decision whether or not to get involved with me.

I miss Bisola a lot. We are cordial now, but we know that being close friends might not be a great idea. I know that if I drop the idea of polyamory, we might get back together, but that’s not possible. I’ve decided not to enter into any more monogamous relationships. This means no relationships, marriage or kids for me unless I can find partners who are fine with me being polyamorous. I don’t think one single person can be everything for you. In fact, it is unfair to expect them to be.

Read more real human stories like these: www.zikoko.com

What does it mean to have your parents say they no longer want anything to do with you, their child? For this article, I spoke to 8 Nigerians who shared their story of being disowned by one or both parents.

Emeka.
TW: Rape.

I grew up with my mother. When I was approaching 14, I became a full-blown truant and she could not handle it, so I was sent to live with my uncle in the same city. My uncle’s wife is late, but he remarried, and so the new wife was like a step-mom of sorts.

In 2012, their youngest child raped me. He’s six years older than me. I was drunk when he did it, and I couldn’t speak up. I eventually told a cousin, but that one didn’t loud it, and I lived with the trauma for about 7 years.

In 2019, I told my story on Twitter. Instablog and Linda Ikeji posted it on their pages, and it traveled so far that my family members saw it and called an emergency family meeting. Turned out I was not the only one. Some had spoken before, and others were speaking out. But the guy denied it all. It became a full-blown family affair. I was accused of trying to disintegrate the family, and after the meeting ended, I was excommunicated from everyone.

Abigail.
My father has disowned me and my sister twice. The first time was in 2018. We had a family meeting, and he wanted to report our mother to us, but we took her side because we knew he was wrong. We told him we were unhappy because of his stinginess and how it made everyone’s life hard. He called us ungrateful and said we should go and look for our father. A month after the meeting, he came back to say he has changed and is ready to do better, but my sister didn’t speak to him for a year, because even though he claimed to be a changed person, the situation at home did not change.

A few weeks ago, he said we must be following him to church. My sister stopped in 2019, and I stopped in 2020. We did not actually stop attending church, we just stopped following him to his own church because he’s a pastor. Our refusal to follow him was the last straw. That Sunday morning, he said he ceased to be our father and we must leave his house, go and live anywhere we like. He beat us badly and even injured my sister, and we had no choice but to leave. We have now gotten a place. Once we buy a bed and cooker, we’ll move out.

Tinuke.
So, I used to stay with my grandpa. When he fell ill, baba knew he was going to die and decided to give me my own share of his money, as per wonderful granddaughter that I was. I was in 200level.

As soon as the money landed, I told myself, ‘Money is meant to be spent.’ Besides, who would ask me why I spent the money given to me by my grandpa? I started balling in school. When my grandpa died, my souvenir was the talk of the burial party. See, there was money on ground, I had no worries. I had a make-up artist do my make-up and even paid for my mum’s make-up too.

After 2months of spending on unnecessary things, the money finished. Even then, I wasn’t bothered. Until my mother asked me about the money. According to her, my grandpa told her what I was supposed to use the money for.

Ha.

Oya account for the money, I couldn’t. It was then I knew my village people were following me side by side. Next thing, my mother started asking me how I spend money and that she wanted a statement of account from my bank. I used to collect enough money weekly from home then, and according to her estimation, I was supposed to have a lot in my account.

Right there and then, she calculated my pocket money, how much I was supposed to spend from it, and how much I was supposed to have in my savings account. She said bad as e bad, I was supposed to have nothing less than ₦300k in my account but I had just ₦20k in the account. How?

First of all, I chop beating, and then she disowned me, told me never to come to her house again or call her number. The only person who would have begged on my behalf was dead so I was truly done for.

I was on my own for 3months. It was a crazy period. No pocket money, no mother to pity me. I even went to her friends but she didn’t answer them. I had to go to church to meet our pastor. I narrated what happened, and he brought other elders from the church and they started begging on my behalf.

She sha forgave me, but I wasn’t given pocket money for about 6 months. She’d buy my provisions and foodstuff, then calculate transport fare for me. Now, I have learned to save first before spending. Being disowned really helped curb my lavish spending.

Korede.
I’m the only child of my parents. When I was about 6 months, they separated. My father went ahead to set up a new family with another woman and my mother did the same with another man, so I grew up with my grandmother.

Once or twice a year, I visited my father and his new family for the holidays. I was about 5 or 6 years then, and as a child, I was always excited to visit for the holidays and have fun once or twice a year. Eventually, they moved and my grandmother thought it would nice be if I moved in with them. I regretted it.

I am the first male child of my father, and perhaps my stepmother assumed I would be a threat because she made it obvious in how she behaved towards me. Funny thing was, the bad treatment wasn’t so obvious to me. Instead, I was grateful to live with someone else other than my grandmother. Looking back now, I see just how bad it was, and how heartbreaking it was that my father never paid much attention to me. He wasn’t always at home, and even when he was, he did whatever my stepmother told him. I lived with them for 4 years before my grandmother felt something was not right. When she came to pick me, I was covered in bruises.

In 2004, I was taken to Lagos to live with my aunt. There, I completed secondary school and university. My father wanted me to come back, but it didn’t work. After I left Akure in 2004, I never spoke to him, his wife, or their children. He tried to reach me but my aunts kept information away from him, and I kept my distance as much as possible too. I’m not very spiritual, but I know my step-mother fears that I’ll shorten her children’s ration when it’s time to share the inheritance.

Finally, after all attempts to connect with me failed, my father called to say he has disowned me, and that I should never bear his surname again. It was an easy thing for me, because even me I don’t want to see him again. And no, I don’t hate him. Honestly. If I’m going to hate anyone, it would be my mother who dropped me and never looked back, and even at that, I still don’t hate her because I know she has her own side of the story too. My belief is that nobody owes me anything. I grew up learning to fight my battle myself and now I have grown up to be someone who doesn’t depend on anybody. Call it toxic behaviour if you want, but some of us didn’t have the luxury of growing up in a family with both parents present.

Evelyn.
The first time I was disowned, I was 13 in a boarding school, and I got raped. When my Dad heard about it, he called me a prostitute for being raped. He said I was no longer his daughter, and called me a disgrace.

Even at that, I still went back home to him. I was 13, with nowhere else to go. My mom was holding forte for me, pleading with him on my behalf. Isn’t it funny how one parent disowns you and the other still claims you as their child?

The second time, I got a second piercing for my ears. It was as if the Lord came down that day. My mother shouted, and my father beat the hell out of me. He said, ‘I curse you, you are not my daughter anymore, find your own parent elsewhere.’ I was 18 then. I am 20 now, and I no longer live with my parents.

Azeezat.
I am from a Muslim home. My dad and mum are separated and my dad would always tell us that we can’t be Christians. Unfortunately, I didn’t live with him while growing up; I lived with one of his siblings who married a Christian. She goes to church with her kids, and I had no choice but to go with her. With time, I fell in love with the choir department and joined them. I became so committed that within years, I was made the choir coordinator.

Back in secondary school, I practiced Islam in the littlest way: I’d observe the Ramadan fast but pray like twice a day because I wasn’t just comfortable with having to perform ablution five times a day. I covered my hair as well. By the time I finished secondary school, it was glaring to everyone that I wasn’t a devoted Muslim. My lack of interest was obvious. Once, I visited my dad and was told to pray, and I was unconsciously praying in Jesus’ name. I felt so embarrassed but I couldn’t help it. I was used to the Christian way of life and I was interested in almost everything I’d seen them do.

My dad had a series of conversations with me about this interest in Christianity. Sometimes, the conversations came out as threats, but I was far gone. And then I was disowned.

It happened during a family meeting, and even though I had been warned by other family members to listen to my dad and just do his will so I could make him happy, I was stubborn within me. I knew what I wanted and although it hurt me more to disobey my dad, I was committed to following that path. After everyone said their bit during the meeting, I told them I couldn’t change my mind.

My dad announced openly there that he disowned me. He is a responsible father, I’ll give him that credit. He caters for my all my needs even though he had to struggle to make ends meet. He even made sure I attended one of the best schools. But because I held on to Christianity, he told me to forget I have a family and he warned my siblings not to call or have anything to do with me. I was sent out of the house that night.

For three years, I was on my own. I struggled with depression, low self-esteem, hatred, and many other things. I was broke too and very lonely because my closest friends broke up with me within that period. Many people blamed my dad for wanting to change a girl who spent almost her life living with a Christian family. Some of them told him that he shouldn’t have allowed me to stay with the family if he didn’t want me to be like them.

I was the one who made the move to reconcile because it is believed in Yoruba land that the younger should apologise to the elderly. I traveled down to his house and he welcomed me openheartedly without mentioning anything about religion and all.

Ugochukwu.
I was disowned by my father on Saturday. I’d been angry with him for a couple of years and everything just burst out that Saturday.

He said I was being disrespectful to him, and he doesn’t want it to get to the point where he would insult his child. I flared up and shouted at him. I wanted him to tell me how I was being disrespectful to him. At first, he threatened to hit me. And then he actually tried to. I held him off and warned him that I would hit mine back.

If I were to describe my life with him, APC’s government is child’s play. He chose the course I should study. When I got admitted, he expected me to ‘thank’ him. I was like, ‘Did you write the post-UTME for me? Or did you do the interview on my behalf?’ I have no life because of this man. He had this elite level expectation for me, and basically, he controlled my life to fit into that expectation. I have no real-life friends because of him. In trying to live up to his expectations of me, I lost myself and this made me resent him.

I know I have lost him. I won’t apologise to him, neither will I accept his apology. I’m thinking of moving out.

Olumide.
I am gay. At first, nobody in my family knew about my sexuality and life was fine. But then I met up with someone online, and I was set-up. They tied my hands with the shirt I was wearing and beat me up until I was bloodied. My father was informed, and he was told to ‘bail’ me out with ₦700K. Originally, they set it for ₦2m, but they kept going back and forth until they settled for ₦700k.

My mother nursed me back to health. She thought I would kill myself and sometimes, I’d catch her watching me closely. When I was considered well enough, we had the conversation. She asked me, ‘Are you gay? Did they lie against you? Was it a one-chance incident?’ I couldn’t lie my way out of that situation so I told her the truth.

After that conversation with her, she took me to my father. Apparently, they had been talking, and the conversation was an attempt to get the truth. Now that it had been confirmed, my father said so many nasty and negative things to me. He called me a disgrace, placed several curses on me. And then he told me to go back to school.

When he told me to go back to school, I took it at face level. I didn’t know it meant something else. I was in school when I found out that my father called the entire extended family from my mother’s side, and outed me to them by saying that my mother had brought a disgrace to his house. He then told them that he was disowning me, even though he never told me to my face. He told my siblings too, everyone else except me.

It became so chaotic that my mother was caught in the crossfire. She was torn between her husband and her son, and at some point, she had to leave the house. But then she returned to him because she had other children too.

My father stopped sending me money at school. When it was time to pay my school fees, he didn’t. Even when I had an extra semester and needed to pay, my mother and siblings pooled resources to pay for me. When I graduated from university and wanted to come home, my father refused. He said that if I showed up, he would blow my brains out. And no, it’s not an empty threat. My father owns a gun. I had to move to another city where I started squatting with someone. Later, my mother’s family took me in until I was able to do my NYSC and get a job.

I am grateful I have my mother on my side. Despite my father’s refusal to associate with me, my mother tries everything to maintain her relationship with me. We don’t get to see each other often, but we try. Because of her, I have gone home twice. The first time, she was really sick and I had to be there. The second time, it was her birthday and I couldn’t miss that either. In both instances, my father wasn’t at home, but when he called during my mother’s sickness, he found out I was home and he began to yell over the phone. “WHO LET HIM IN? ANSWER ME! WHO LET HIM IN EVEN THOUGH I GAVE A STANDING ORDER THAT HE MUST NOT ENTER MY HOUSE?!” He has people on our street to monitor me and report to him if they sight me on the street. I could sneak in and the family members would not mind, but the people on the street will definitely do their work.

Yes, my father is not the best father, but when he was present in my life, he was fully present. I have been disowned for 4 years now, and I feel his absence a lot. I see him do things for my siblings, things that would have made my life easier if he did that for me too, but he withholds that support from me.

I needed to pay rent at one time, and I didn’t have the means to. Once, my mother and siblings sent me money and when I asked the source, they said it was my father who sent them a large sum of money and they decided to give me a part of it. I was sad, and even in that sadness, I was angry. I told them not to ever do that again. I don’t want the money they have to sneak to me. He is also my father, why not send me money too? Why not call me? He knows where I am, how I am struggling and he doesn’t make any attempt to reach out. Everyone keeps saying I shouldn’t stop reaching out to him, but he is not meeting me halfway. My hands are stretched out, but he is not taking them and pulling me close. Last year, something broke in me and I said, “You know what, Bleep it. I don’t care anymore.”

But it’s hard to suddenly shut down that part of me that yearns for him. I am a carbon copy of this man. I look like him, sound like him, does it not mean anything at all to him? Do I not mean anything to him? I admit I made a mistake by getting set-up, but why is he holding it over me all these years? Why refuse to forgive me?

Read more stories like this from real people: www.zikoko.com

I was born with dreadlocks. When I was two years old, my parents cut them off. The option of not cutting the hair simply didn’t exist for me. Anytime my mother talked about it, she gave me the impression that keeping a child’s dreadlocks could result in something negative happening in the child’s life. My sister was born with locs too and they were cut as well. After my haircut, there were bald patches where my edges should be. I didn’t think too much of it at first, but as I grew older, it became the only thing I could see when I looked in the mirror. It was as though my hairline kept receding.

I was about 9 years old when it became a problem for me. People were always offering advice, and I was always eager to try. I used spirit on my scalp. I put weed in my hair cream. I bought a special hair growth cream. One time, one woman told me to use my first urine of the day to wash my hair. I was desperate, so I did it. When all the creams and concoctions didn’t work, I was accused of being a witch who was cutting her hair to torment her parents. I also used to wet the bed at the time so it was easy for them to assume something was wrong with me.

My mother would ask me if I was secretly shaving my hair to frustrate her. One day she came back from work and said that I had a spirit husband, and I needed to pray if I wanted him to leave me alone. She told me we would be going for a deliverance session when she came back from work the next day. In my head, I was thinking “Omo, what if they actually cast a demon out of me tonight?”

I don’t remember how the deliverance session went. I know there were a lot of prayers and that became a regular occurrence. My mother would always ask her pastors to pray a special prayer for me. We went for two more deliverance sessions, where they tried to cast the demon living inside me. Nothing worked — I was still wetting my bed and my front hair refused to grow.

I started dodging the deliverance sessions. I would tell my mother I was too tired or that my stomach was paining me. Sometimes she would still force me to follow her to church but I used to get very tired so I would always have an excuse to leave.

If you haven’t subscribed to the best newsletter for Nigerian women, click here!
When I was 13, I went to boarding school and I stopped attending deliverance sessions completely. But things there were also bad. People would call me ugly to my face. I felt ugly. They would ask if rats ate my hair. Even though I was popular because I won many inter-school competitions for my school, my identity was still largely tied to my hair. People described me as the tall dark girl without front hair. My school only allowed us to make all-back, and it was the one hairstyle that fully displayed my alopecia so I cut my hair. Even when my hair was low, the bald patches were still obvious.

In SS2, when I became head girl, the school included a beret as part of our uniform and I heard one of the house mistresses say it was because the head girl has no front hair. As I grew older, I got used to comments and they stopped bothering me. When I finished secondary school, I noticed that random people started to compliment me on the road. They would stare when I walked past or say they liked my height, my stature or my smile. I started to wear those compliments. I started to see beauty when I looked in the mirror. I realized that I always liked what I saw in the mirror but I needed someone else to like it too. My self-esteem improved. Even though in my first year of University, people still told me I wasn’t pretty, it didn’t hurt as much.

I studied physiotherapy and I got to interact with a lot of medics. That’s how I learned the term for my hair’s condition was alopecia. I haven’t been able to see a dermatologist but it felt good to know.

I rarely go to salons because my mood sours whenever people mention my baldness and hairdressers always want to recommend something. I also don’t like when people touch my hair so I make my hair myself most times. On most days, I feel beautiful but I can’t wait until I can afford surgery because I’d like to know what I look like with a head full of hair.

Read more stories like this from real people: www.zikoko.com