₦airaland Forum

The subject of today’s What She Said is a Nigerian woman in her 50s. She talks about her difficult experience living with extended family, her relationship with her father and managing her mother’s mental health until she died.

What’s the earliest memory of your childhood?
It’s of my father. He had me on his lap in a gathering. I don’t know if it’s a real memory or it’s based on a photo I used to have. I’ve lost it now. I was maybe three or four, and I had the look of shock on my face. Someone joked that I was supposed to be a boy, the way I was glued to my dad. That’s all I remember.

What was it like growing up?
There were good days and bad days. I grew up in Lagos. Both my parents were tailors, so they made me lots of nice clothes. That was one thing I was very proud of as a child. I had a lot of fashionable clothes, and it went on to inform my fashion sense.

I was an only child for the longest time. My mother tried to have more children and that didn’t happen. Before she gave birth to me, she had a son, but he died after a few months when they made a trip to our village. The narrative I heard was that evil people on my father’s side of the family killed him.

My father, after being pressured, slept with two other people at different times and they had a boy and a girl, respectively.


He didn’t marry them?
No. He was very much in love with my mother. At least, that’s the reason I think he didn’t marry them. For him, it was just to have more children. My mother was very accommodating with them. In fact, my sister and I are close till today and it’s mostly because my mother made us see each other not as step sisters, but as sisters.


What about your brother?
We didn’t grow up together, and I haven’t heard anything about him till date. I just know I have a brother. Whether he’s alive or not, I don’t know. My sister and I have tried to find him on Facebook, but that didn’t work out.

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Do you know why you didn’t grow up together?
It was my extended family’s fault — my father’s siblings. My father was a bit well-off. He had lands and buildings around Lagos. His siblings were not that well-off. They lived with us — with their families o. For some reason, we lived in the boy’s quarters, while they lived in the main building. They were wicked to my mother and made all kinds of demands from my father. My father was a kind man — too kind, maybe. So he often bent under their whims, although he did try his best to stand up for us. It was because of his siblings, my uncle and aunt, that he had two children out of wedlock.

They believed it wasn’t right to have just one child. They said that my mother’s womb had spoiled because she could only have one child for him. When when my step brother was born, they had issues with his mother and so didn’t accept him. That’s why I think we never grew up together.


Wow. I guess what they say about your father’s side is true.
Hmm. Well, in my case, it was. I do have family members on my father’s side who I’m very close with. Like my father’s cousin’s children. But his siblings and their children were terrible. They tried to sow discord between my sister and I, saying we weren’t really sisters because we didn’t share the same mother.


How did your mother cope with all of these?
It was a lot for her and she eventually became mentally ill. Back then, we all believed that my father’s siblings had done something to twist her mind. This was the 80s. A lot of people recommended churches to go to for deliverance — pentecostal churches were becoming popular then. Now, I believe that it was psychological. The stigma associated with mental health issues didn’t allow us to seek the help she needed, although a few doctors suggested this. It wasn’t like she was parading the street naked. That was what a lot of us believed was mental illness.

I can’t really describe the kind of behavior she exhibited, but one thing I’m sure of is that she started believing everybody was against her, even me. She would talk endlessly to herself, often in a loud voice, about how bad everyone was. This affected my relationship with her.


Wow. What was your relationship with her before this?
We were not very close. She was always very reserved and quiet. I was closer to my father. He was the one who taught me to drive, taught me to fix my car, made all my clothes. In primary school, he was the one who picked me and dropped me off. When it was time to decide what next to do with my life after secondary school, he was there to help me out. When I started work, he drove me to work and advised me. We were that close. Then a few months after I started work, he fell sick. No one knows what illness it was. After a few weeks, he died. I was devastated.

Continue: https://www.zikoko.com/her/what-she-said-caring-for-my-mentally-ill-mother-drained-me/

The ride-hailing company, Bolt has launched Bolt Food, its food delivery service in Nairobi, Kenya. Kenya is now the third country in Africa where Bolt food is currently available, after South Africa and Ghana. There are also plans in the works to launch Bolt Food in Nigeria, although no specific timeline has been disclosed.

The launch of Bolt Food in Kenya is not a big surprise given that the company spoke about its plan to focus on food delivery in emerging markets.

At present, Bolt offers food delivery services in 16 countries and 33 cities across the world but will grow that number this year after raising money in 2020 and 2021 for expansion purposes.

In Kenya, Bolt will compete with global rivals, Uber Eats and Jumia’s Jumia Food, two companies that are also expanding through the region. There’s also the Spanish delivery company, Glovo which also launched in Nigeria recently.

The competition is fierce and the timing of Bolt Food’s launch coincides with the third wave of the Covid-19 pandemic in Kenya. The third wave has seen the number of fatalities jump up to 2,092.


read the rest of the story here: https://techcabal.com/2021/03/30/bolt-food-kenya/

How we met
It took me three years to get admission into the university. During that time, I was attending a tutorial in Ibadan, and that is how I met Paul, a friend of my friend. My friend introduced us and we got really close. After talking for a while, I discovered I like him. The feelings were mutual, so we started dating on my birthday, November 7th. I had just clocked 18, he was 17, and I wasn’t looking for a relationship then, but I just knew I couldn’t let Paul go away.

The thing is; I have suffered emotional abuse and have been depressed for a while now. I have been molested twice, and I couldn’t even tell my own mother because she was always so harsh towards me. It got so bad that I even had to leave home to stay with my aunt. I had attempted suicide twice, and I have a lot of insecurities. Paul was there for me anytime I needed someone to talk to. He loved me and I always wondered why. He knows all my flaws, but I still could not understand why he loves me so much.

The first mistake
It was the best relationship I ever had. He was understanding, helped with my depression and academics. We never had serious fights, just a few misunderstandings over little things. Everything was going good for a year until I met some guy on Facebook, John. John and I started talking, and the chats progressed to the point where he asked me to send him nudes. I sent some with my face hidden because I was so sure I would never see him in real life. He lived in Lagos, I lived in Ibadan, and I didn’t plan on sleeping with him. Unfortunately for me, he attended the same secondary school as Paul. One day, John posted my picture on his WhatsApp status, and Paul saw it. Paul asked how he knew me, and John told him everything. Paul forgave me, but I knew he was hurt.

The second mistake
In 2019, I finally got admission into University, but I somehow got scammed of my acceptance fee. I couldn’t tell my parents or Paul because I felt so stupid. Instead, lied to him that my parents couldn’t pay the acceptance fee, I couldn’t tell him the truth. Covid-19 came, so schools couldn’t resume and the deadline for payment was up. I was planning on running away cause of shame, so I wanted to break up with Paul. I was stressed. One day I went to see a friend, and I ended up drinking with him. We almost had sex, but I was on my period so it didn’t happen. I initially didn’t tell Paul about it, but I eventually told him about how I went drinking and how I almost cheated. He was disappointed but forgave me.

The third mistake
The money for the initial acceptance fee was something I eventually raised, but because I was paying late, the price had increased. I was so desperate, and because my parents were having financial issues, I was ready to sleep with anyone for money for my school fees. Then, I met this guy who promised to take care of me, and I slept with him thinking he’ll help. I keep texting and sexting him so he would feel interested, but hasn’t said anything. This led to me breaking up with Paul. I told him it was because I needed time to be alone, but it was really because I couldn’t tell him I cheated on him.

The end
Paul and I eventually got back together, but it was because he did not know I cheated. He found out after reading my chats, so he left. I tried explaining to him how I only did it because I was desperate, but he thought I chose the man over him.

I feel bad and selfish about what I did. He deserved better than me, and I wish he listened when I told him before we started dating. This is just the kind of person I am. When I think of the fact that the person I slept with didn’t even give me any money, I feel I lost both ways.

I will probably sink deeper into depression because I finally lost the only person that ever cared. Paul is a good person that didn’t deserve any of the things I put him through. If I say I love him, it’ll surely look like a lie because you don’t hurt those you love, but I love him. I should just have done better.

https://www.zikoko.com/her/i-lost-my-boyfriend-and-it-was-all-my-fault/

In 2020, Burnaboy was one of the most-streamed musicians in Sub-saharan Africa. His songs were streamed 435,570,000 times according to Billboard’s ranking of the Top 15 Sub-Saharan African Artists in 2020. He was followed by Tanzanian artiste, Diamond Platinumz, whose music had 291.98m streams.

But how much is really coming into the industry as a result of these streams? According to this royalties calculator, Burna Boy’s streams would have earned him $3.2m on Apple Music and $1.9m on Spotify. It’s tough to confirm how much Burna Boy actually earned from these streams, but these estimated earnings are about 10% of the estimated revenue from Nigeria’s music industry in 2020.

As impressive as that may seem, Burna Boy’s streams are only 5% of the number of streams for Puerto Rican artist, Bad Bunny, who was Spotify’s most-streamed artist globally in 2020.

Bad Bunny’s songs were streamed a record 8.3 billion times, and according to the royalties calculator, that would have earned him $97m on Spotify, more than double of the projected revenue for Nigeria’s music industry in 2023.

Streaming is an important source of revenue for artists. In 2019, 56.1% of total global recorded music revenue came from streaming, while 42% and 14.1% came from subscription audio streams and ad-supported streams respectively. However, in Africa, we’re barely scratching the surface when it comes to harnessing the opportunity of streaming services.


Click on this link to read the full article https://techcabal.com/2021/03/26/data-why-african-artistes-are-not-enjoying-the-full-benefits-of-streaming-services/

1.How Quickly Do You Move On From Relationships?
https://www.zikoko.com/quizzes/quiz-how-quickly-do-you-move-on-from-relationships/

2.Are You Selfish?
https://www.zikoko.com/quizzes/quiz-are-you-selfish/

3.Which Country Will You Retire In?
https://www.zikoko.com/quizzes/quiz-which-country-will-you-retire-in/

4.How Much Are Your Tweets Worth?
https://www.zikoko.com/quizzes/quiz-how-much-are-your-tweets-worth/

5.Do You Have Ojukokoro?
https://www.zikoko.com/quizzes/quiz-do-you-have-ojukokoro/

6.Only True Lagosians Can Score 10/13 On This Lagos Trivia
https://www.zikoko.com/quizzes/quiz-only-true-lagosians-can-score-10-13-on-this-lagos-trivia/

7.How Often Do You Catch Feelings?
https://www.zikoko.com/quizzes/quiz-how-often-do-you-catch-feelings/

8.Can You Identify 7/10 Of These Nigerian Female Footballers?
https://www.zikoko.com/quizzes/quiz-can-you-identify-7-10-of-these-nigerian-female-footballers/

9.Which Nollywood Stepmother Do You Deserve?
https://www.zikoko.com/quizzes/quiz-which-nollywood-stepmother-do-you-deserve/

10.How Many Marriages Have You Wrecked?
https://www.zikoko.com/quizzes/how-many-marriages-have-you-wrecked/

In the beginning, it all seemed pretty normal. Not celebrating birthdays, not associating with people who weren’t Jehovah’s Witnesses (JW). I mean, I was born into it. Everyone we knew was a Witness, and we were discouraged from making friends with non-JWs. We were divine people and anyone who wasn’t one of us was regarded as the spawn of Satan. As a child, it all felt pretty normal. I felt quite special because everything we did was different. We were Jehovah’s people after all.

I loved being a Witness, but I disagreed with some of the doctrines, like the order not to celebrate birthdays. I wished I could celebrate my birthday with my friends, have food and drinks and be the centre of attention, but I never had that. I pegged it up to being persecuted for righteousness’ sake. JWs have a kink where they enjoy being punished for their faith. I was punished every single day in school for not singing the national anthem because we’re not allowed to. I wasn’t mad or upset about it. On Sunday, during field service, all my JW friends would brag to each other about how we stood up to our teachers, how we stayed faithful to Jehovah and never caved.

You don’t realise you’re in a cult until something in your head clicks, and it didn’t click in mine until I was a teenager. The congregation was anti-secular education. There were plenty of publications, articles and letters, talks at the Kingdom Hall discouraging people from going to school. Universities were painted as some kind of corrupt cesspool where members go to lose their faith. We were told about how when God’s Kingdom comes, you were not going to need your degree in medicine or psychology or whatever you wanted to study because God’s Kingdom would be a perfect world, so there was no reason to go to school. Many Nigerian schools, for some bizarre reason, request a reference letter from your place of worship or a civil servant as a condition for admission. My brother, who was the most devout member, needed that letter, but the organisation treated him like a criminal. They had several meetings and tried to discourage my father not to let him go.

Watching him get treated that way lit the fire of doubt inside me. There was no indication that he would go to school and lose his faith, so why should he be treated like that? On the outside, I was still quite the fanatic, but on the inside, my mind was awash with doubt. I thought: if this doctrine is suspect, what else are we being brainwashed with? Why were they scared of enlightenment? If people went to school and lost their faith, then wasn’t the problem the faith and not the school?

This crack of doubt spread when I recalled cases of sexual abuse against JW children. In all of those cases, the matters were covered up and the perpetrator unpunished, thanks to yet another questionable JW doctrine — matters between Jehovah’s Witnesses must always be settled in-house.

Members were not allowed to report crimes or issues between members to the police. When I was young, a devout member sexually abused a child. I remember how it was covered up. Nobody reported to the police. Another time, a man embezzled another Witness’ money in his company. It was a lot of money, but because they were both witnesses, it was never reported, and he never got his money back. I didn’t think much of all this then, but it began to make sense.

My experience with sexism in the organisation also fuelled my doubt. An elder told us that it was impossible for a woman to give a public talk. One time, a woman mentioned that she had attended a remote women-only congregation where the speaker was a woman, the elder was adamant: if there were no men, that congregation should not exist. Women could only speak while sitting and with their hair covered. I thought, “Women dedicate their entire lives to the organisation and get nothing in return, not even the right to speak?” It didn’t make sense to me, but we accepted it because it was a “directive from Jehovah”.

My doubt finally made me search for ex-JWs content on Google to read the experiences of people who had left the organisation. There was this video of a woman who organised a flash mob in a Kingdom Hall in the United States to protest the cover-up of her rape as a child. It hit me. I couldn’t believe the organisation that nurtured me was capable of such evil. I did more digging and found more people who had been treated so poorly by the organisation. I never dug too deep because I always felt guilty reading on the experiences of ex-JW members, I had to do it secretly and even clear my browser history because I didn’t want my parents finding that on my phone.

I got into university in 2016. When I resumed, I discovered that there was a JW congregation in the university. I began to wonder why we were discouraged from going to school when there was a university JW community. Suddenly, it clicked. We were taught from a young age not to question anything. Whatever happens, Jehovah is the answer. If it’s bad, Jehovah let it happen to teach us a lesson. I recollected all the times the organisation covered up scary crimes. For the first time, I was not under the protection of my family, and when I started interacting with other JWs by myself, I started to see how toxic it all really was — the politics, gossip, shaming, misogyny — it just didn’t feel right.

But I still stayed. I had no choice. I was young and dependent on my parents.

All those little things built up incrementally. My classes clashed with meeting times, and I started going from attending meetings regularly to going once or twice a week to once a month. I was treated like scum for missing those meetings. It felt like I was trying to leave a controlling person who was trying so hard to hold on to me. I got calls and messages disguised as feigned concern for me. It was wrapped in, “We’re calling because we love you and care about you,” but I could always feel the passive aggression. I felt even less connected to them and stopped attending meetings completely.

It is rare for someone to actually leave the congregation. In my 18 years in the organisation, I only saw one person denounce the faith and all its doctrine.

Continue: https://www.zikoko.com/life/why-i-stopped-being-a-jehovahs-witness-after-19-years/

Today’s subject on Abroad Life went from being sceptical about studying abroad to trying to go to Canada three times, then finally going to an Ivy League school in the US. He talks about the things he did to travel, how they didn’t work out, and how he’s decided to never try to go to Canada again.

When did you first try to leave Nigeria?
2009. Right after NYSC. I went through the trauma of attending a Nigerian public university, so the plan was always to leave immediately after NYSC and probably never come back. I’d already been trying to leave even while I was in school.

What did you try?
I first tried those European schools — Ukraine, Russia — and there was always some scepticism about the application processes. I knew people who got in and were willing to help me get into whatever country they were in, but I didn’t even fully trust them. Most of them were into illegal businesses, and I wasn’t about to get myself into that.

What did you try after that?
The UK, the US and Canada. I didn’t get into any schools in the UK. In the US, I got admissions to schools in states where I would rather not have gone. The very white states. Even the schools I got admissions for were very low demand and high acceptance, so it’s not like it was anything special.

I decided to go to Canada. I’d gotten a nice school there and the application process was running smoothly.

So what happened?
My visa got denied the first time due to proof of funds. I’d tried to play a fast one on the system by using my dad’s friend’s business account as my financier, but there were too many holes in the operation. We didn’t have the same surname, there was no history of transactions, he already had about five dependents, and it was a business account. I learnt from that process and decided to try again.

What did you do differently?
While I was trying to go to Canada the first time, I already had a job. It didn’t pay great, but I was working a lot, and my bosses were noticing. I’d also gotten close to some of them because I was pretty useful around the office, and I’m a problem solver so they knew I was valuable.

The second time I tried to apply, I told the CEO of the company, and he was more than happy to use the company’s name to say they were sending me abroad for school. I remember him saying, “You’re definitely abroad material. You’re brilliant.” We made up a bunch of stuff to strengthen my chances. We changed my salary to make it look like I was a high earner, we sprinkled in a few promotions along the way and all that. HR didn’t know about any of this.

I can’t quite remember what happened that the visa didn’t come through, but I knew that the next time I applied, it would come. I’d gotten everything under control. I understood what I needed to do.

So, what happened next?
I tried again. I’d gotten the admission again and they were already asking me to pay some acceptance fees. I remember it was ₦1 million. I didn’t have that type of money, so I asked my dad. He basically said, “You know I’m not involved in your travel plans. I don’t have that type of money and there’s nowhere I can find it now.” My mum also didn’t have any money, but she asked me how much I needed and we prayed for that exact amount of money.

Shortly after that, my friend went on a game show and won some money, and one coincidence led to another, I got on the game show too and won exactly ₦1 million. I remember wishing I’d told my mum that I needed ₦10 million instead. Maybe I would have won that.

My excitement was cut short when I found out that I wouldn’t get the money immediately and the money I got would be taxed.

I had to find a solution, so I went to my boss again and asked him for the money. I promised I’d refund it when I got my game show money. He was eager to tell the finance guys to give me the money. He didn’t even want a refund.

God, when?
I paid for my admission, and the only thing left was getting a visa. I remember the day I went to the embassy. Some guy was shouting that they had to renew his visa or he would burn the whole place down. I was just there thinking, “I don’t want to burn anything down. I just want a visa.”

For people that were trying to get a student visa at that time, the embassy told us that that year had a particularly high number of applicants and they were having a tough time processing all the visas, so we should consider reaching out to our schools to get a one-semester deferral so that we would get our visas in the next window. If our schools weren’t willing to do that, we should get back to them.

What did you do?
I sent them an email saying my school wasn’t willing to give me an extension and that was the only chance I had to go to Canada. Fastest email reply I’d ever received. They asked me to come and pick up my passport the next week. I was so happy.

I bought my plane tickets almost immediately and packed my bags. I was leaving on the night of the day they asked me to pick the passport. The guys who were in the same situation as me and had gotten extensions on their admissions felt so bad because they could easily have done the same thing and been asked to pick up their passports too. I remember that my passport almost didn’t come out on time, and I had to hustle some people to get it out so I could make my flight.

My friend was dropping me at the airport, my parents were on the way to the airport too with my boxes.

Immediately I got the passport, I rushed into the car and I’m like, “Let’s go!”, but my friend wanted to see what the visa looked like. I hadn’t even looked at it. I didn’t want to miss my flight, so I dismissed him, but he pestered. We opened the passport, and on it was a rejection stamp for the same reason — they were not convinced I’d come back. My entire world came crashing down.

That sounds terrible.
I called my parents and told them my flight had been cancelled, and that I was leaving the next day. I went back home.

That night, my mum used the opportunity that I was still around to re-open my box and show me where she put my garri and all the other perishables. I couldn’t even say anything.

The next morning, after family devotion, I broke the news to my family. I was so broken. It was so sad. I went back to work on that same day. I cried on the bike as BoB’s “Don’t Let Me Fall” played on my headphones. After a couple of months, I resigned. I was so defeated. I had to take a couple of steps back to breathe.

Continue: https://www.zikoko.com/citizen/canada-denied-me-three-times-ill-never-apply-again-abroad-life/

I have always had big breasts, and I have always hated them. I remember my breasts being bigger than the rest of my body as early as ten. I was the only one in my family with huge breasts and a small butt — the other women have bigger butts. I was often teased for looking like Johnny Bravo. This made me hate it more.

The worst part was that the breasts kept growing. I developed a backache that started from my teens through early adulthood. Sometimes I am unable to breathe well because my breasts were so big they choked me. I wished I got breast cancer so they could cut off my breasts or that I would wake up without breasts.

Shopping was always sore for me. I had to buy clothes a size bigger than my body so my breasts would fit. Most of my clothes were tight around my chest and free on the rest of my body.

I hated going out with my friends because this meant dressing up, and I hated how my clothes looked on me. I hated taking pictures because I hated seeing how big my breasts looked in them. I am a content creator, so I would spend hours filming videos talking about my work and when I watched them, all I saw was breasts.

Getting pregnant and breastfeeding a baby didn’t make it easier to deal with but it didn’t make it worse either. The backaches and choking were nothing I wasn’t already used to.

In 2018, I stopped buying bras because my size 38DDD bra stopped fitting. I opted for sports bras — they were cheaper and seemed to provide some comfort while holding my breasts firmly.

I don’t remember when I first heard of breast reduction surgeries but it became a real prospect when a friend of mine, Yemisi*, did hers. She got a reduction and a lift at a hospital in Connecticut*. She gave me the hospital address and phone number to make an appointment.

I didn’t call until about a month later in the middle of summer 2018. Summer felt like hell — it was so hot and my breasts were choking me. One morning, I got fed up and called the hospital.

The hospital was kind enough to offer a discount so the surgery was about $4000. A few months before the surgery, my sister suggested setting up a GoFundMe account for donations. I had taken a break from work, so I needed as much money as I could get. I shared the link with only friends and family. They donated about $700 which I used for my plane tickets and an AirBnB reservation close to the hospital.

Continue: https://www.zikoko.com/her/i-did-a-breast-reduction-surgery-and-my-life-got-better/

Jide* and I didn’t hit off when we started talking in 2012. We met on a social media group for prospective university students, and we were trying to get into the same university. On the group, we argued about something, and I thought his response was rude— I didn’t think we could ever be friends or that he would become the man I wanted to marry.

A few weeks after our spat, he got my BBM pin from a friend and texted me to apologise, which I didn’t see coming. We made up, and so our friendship began. We eventually got admitted into the same university we applied to, and we remained in touch in the following months until we resumed school. While nothing romantic was down the line, I thought he was really interesting.

We were in our first year the first time he told me he liked me, but I was in a relationship at the time. Things changed less than a year later. ASUU went on strike, and we got closer during that time, having more interesting conversations and texting more than usual. I had begun having issues with my partner. I was beginning to realise we wanted different things. I broke up with my partner in January 2014.

Jide still wanted more, and he didn’t hide it. He continued to ask me if I would be interested in a relationship with him. In February 2014, we started dating.

I liked Jide, but there were so many things I was oblivious to in the following years.

What I did know, however, was that he wasn’t as religious as I was. Also, he had a fraught relationship with his family. I’m big on family and religion, but I didn’t think they were dealbreakers. Besides, he knew how much I loved acts of service, and he pulled his weight in the relationship. When he graduated from university in 2017 — a year before I did — we had become so ingrained in each other’s lives and getting married was already on the table.

He served in the north and was hoping to be retained by the company he worked for. I had no plans to relocate, but I was open to the idea. We were going to get married after all. But he wasn’t hired as a full staff, so he returned home.

***

I graduated from university in 2018 and got a job immediately. I studied a medical-related course, so there was an internship waiting for me. After that, I went for my National Youth Service. I was working and had a steady flow of income, but Jide had nothing. The jobs he got offered so little, so he didn’t take them.

Everything was set for us to get married. The only thing that remained was a job.

He finally got a job at a bank in the middle of 2019. He was accepted into a trainee program. As part of the requirements, he was supposed to get 10 new customers for the bank and had a target of ₦2m. He got 10 people to open accounts with the bank easily, but the problem was the money to put in these accounts. Family members helped, but he was still short of his target.

This was where I came in. My parents had opened an account in trust for me when I was young and had been putting money in it. I was older and had access to it now, so I took ₦700k out of the account and gave it to him. I wasn’t going to tell him about the money, but I thought the job was slipping away. Also, I got a friend of the family to loan him ₦200k. The plan was simple — he would spread the money across these accounts to meet his target and return everyone’s money when his appointment into the trainee program was confirmed.

When it was time to return the money, he didn’t. There was always some excuse about how there was a problem with the accounts and how he would have to go to a bank branch to sort it out, but he couldn’t because he risked losing his job if he missed a day at work. It didn’t make sense, but what could I do?

The family friend that loaned him ₦200k was on my neck to return the money, and when I couldn’t bear it anymore, I paid that debt myself. Now, Jide owed me ₦900k.

The trainee program paid him ₦50k every month, but he said he couldn’t pay me out of it because of his financial responsibilities. His dad had died earlier that year, and he claimed his family now depended on him. According to him, he was paying his mum’s medical bills and also paying his younger sister’s school fees. This didn’t make sense because his older brother and sister had good jobs. But when he told me that they weren’t pulling their weight, I believed him.

On some level, I resented them for putting so much pressure on him.

Every month, he always called me for money even though he owed me close to a million naira. If his mum wasn’t sick, something else always came up. I wasn’t earning a lot — I got ₦19800 from the federal government and ₦25k from the hospital I worked at — but his obligations were costing me a lot of money. At this point, I was getting irritated, and I felt guilty for it.

Jide finished his trainee program in December 2019 and was promoted to full staff. His salary also increased from ₦50k to about ₦130k per month. This was supposed to be the moment everything got better, but it got worse. I continued to bring up the accounts he opened a couple of months earlier and the money he owed me. But he said that he couldn’t access those accounts yet. Again, I believed him.

Things started to go downhill in January 2020. I was at work when he called me and started crying over the phone. He said he had a confession to make and would like to tell me to my face. We agreed to meet the following day at my house.

When we met, he first made a big speech about how he wanted to do right by me. Then said something about how he was in trouble and needed my help to get out of it. Finally, he went, “I’ve been gambling, and I owe some people money.”

He told me that he started gambling after he finished his NYSC in 2018 and was out of a job. He had been borrowing money from his friends, and now, he was in more than ₦250k debt.

Continue: https://www.zikoko.com/money/his-gambling-addiction-broke-off-our-engagement/

I met Osaze* in 2015 at the construction firm in Abuja where I worked as an accountant. We dated off and on until 2018 when we became serious. I introduced him to my parents, and he introduced me to his. Soon after, he proposed, and we started planning a wedding for late 2019. I wanted to take things slow, so when we found out I was pregnant in June 2019, I called off the wedding. I didn’t want to be pressured into it. In the end, I was grateful I did.

The first slap came when I was four months pregnant. We had gone to visit a relative of mine, and when we got home, he started shouting at me, saying my relatives were rude to him. I said, “No” and was trying to have a conversation about why he would think that when he slapped me. I left the room and refused to talk to him for the rest of the day. In the night, I told him I couldn’t be in a relationship with him anymore, and I wanted to get an abortion. He started begging me. I agreed to stay on the condition that he would never hit me again. We continued our relationship as usual after that incident.

When our daughter, Hope*, was born, the doctor diagnosed her with hydrocephalus — her head was slightly bigger than that of a newborn baby. I moved in with him so we could manage our baby’s health together. At two weeks old, she had a shunt operation that allowed the water to flow from her head to her intestines. It worked — the size of her head reduced. We had to do a CT scan every two months to make sure the stunt was still draining the fluid from her head. The whole process cost us about a million naira.

From day one, my baby girl rejected breast milk. I tried to force her, but she would just refuse to swallow. I tried expressing the breast milk into a bottle for her to suck, but she didn’t like that as well. The only thing she liked was formula. She knew the difference between breast milk and formula in a bottle — she would spit out breast milk immediately. I kept trying until she was six months old and eventually gave up.

The worst part was that she wasn’t gaining weight even with all the food she was eating. She couldn’t sit or hold her head by herself, so the doctors suggested physical therapy. I don’t remember how much we spent trying to make sure she was okay.

Osaze blamed me for everything. He believed I was the cause of our daughter’s health issues. On some nights, I wouldn’t be able to sleep because I would stay up watching our baby. All he did was complain and blame me. When she was about six months old, he hacked into my Facebook account. He saw my chat with a guy I was talking to before we started dating. He also read my messages to my friend where I told her what I was going through with our daughter and my mental health. The next day was a Sunday. After church, I was setting up to bath our baby when he came into the bathroom and confronted me about my messages then asked me to leave his house. I didn’t argue with him because I knew what could happen. I went to the room and packed my stuff along with the baby’s stuff. He started dragging her with me. He told me I couldn’t go with her. I told him he couldn’t take care of her well. Before I finished my sentence, he slapped me. Blows followed — one after the other. I had to leave the baby with him. I ran to the police station close to our house.

The police wanted money before they made any moves, and when I told them it was a case of domestic violence, they said they couldn’t interfere in family issues. I ran to my pastor. He set up a meeting where he told us to apologise to each other and move on from the matter.

I didn’t want to wait for the third time Osaze would hit me, so I moved out of his house one day when he went to work. I stayed with my mum for a few days before getting my own apartment. He wasn’t surprised I left. He just asked to see the baby, and I never denied him of that. He was always welcome to see her at my house. Sometimes, I dropped her off at his place.

We started physiotherapy as the doctors recommended, but it was a slow process. She could only manage a strong grip, and she couldn’t even hold on to her bottle. Her head hurt sometimes, and she wouldn’t let anyone touch it.

Continue: https://www.zikoko.com/her/since-i-lost-my-daughter-hope-my-life-hasnt-been-the-same/

Andrew, 39, International Businessman.
I like very pretty girls who put in the effort with their appearance, the type who spend hours at the saloon, shopping etc. I like funding that lifestyle. My wife is the same way, so are all my girlfriends. The first time I had a sugar baby was about a year into my marriage. I met her at a wedding I attended with my wife and her beauty was blinding. I immediately found a way to slip her my number. We started talking after a while then it took off from there. I have about two girlfriends at any given time. The longest I have been with someone who isn’t my wife is two years, after that, I just find something else to excite me. I can fund it because I earn a pretty amount and in pounds. There’s almost nothing they want to ask for that I can’t afford. The most I have ever spent on a woman who isn’t my wife at once is ₦3 million.

Dele, 40, Managing Director.
I like women that make my head turn. I don’t get involved with people I work with at all, I keep it professional, I also don’t get involved with anyone my wife knows or might know. Events, house parties, and stuff like that are where I meet people. Because I tend to carry women I date to events, I need them to look classy and expensive before I even meet them. The longest I have been with someone who isn’t my wife is five years. She is like my main side chick and I have toyed with the idea of marrying her. I don’t have a reason why I do it to be honest, I just do. The most I have ever spent on a woman who isn’t my wife is the most I spent to lease my main side chick’s apartment in Abuja. Something in between ₦10 million and ₦15 million.

Continue: https://www.zikoko.com/man/nigerian-men-tell-us-what-it-is-like-being-a-sugar-daddy/

The subject of today’s “A Week In The Life” is a physiotherapist and Bitcoin trader. He talks to us about struggling with mental health as a trader, his dreams to become a renowned poet, and how trading changed his life for good.

MONDAY:
At 12 a.m., I’m mostly awake trading BTC. I look for people who want to sell BTC as I simultaneously text people who want to buy BTC. While talking to clients, I also place adverts on social media to attract both buyers and sellers.

As the hours move, I religiously monitor something called pips and candles — graphical movements that indicate market gains and losses — and I buy BTC to hold when the price dips. I do this in hopes that I can resell at a higher price when the market goes up. The funny thing is that the market might keep dipping as the day continues so I end up losing a lot of money. Alternatively, the market might also go up and I make a little profit. Because of this volatility, I barely sleep. Someone is either calling me for a transaction or I’m having nightmares that BTC crashed when I was asleep. Either way, I stay up as long as I can to monitor the charts.

My midnight to early morning is the same cycle of buying, selling, placing advert and texting. However, my day takes a different turn because I have a 9-5.

In addition to trading BTC, I’m a licensed physiotherapist who manages private patients. I like to say that crypto is my side hustle while physiotherapy is the main work, but that’s not true — crypto trading is what makes me comfortable.

It’s 5 a.m. when I finally close my laptop for the day and stop trading. I stop because I have a long day ahead. I’ve been booked for private physiotherapy sessions and my patients live in vastly different parts of Lagos. My current dilemma is how to avoid Lagos traffic without splitting myself into two.

My more important dilemma is that I need to sleep before I can do any form of thinking. When I wake up, I’ll figure out the next step.

TUESDAY:
Trading crypto can change your life for both good and bad. You can get comfortable from this business, but your relationship with people will also suffer.

I don’t sleep because I’m always on my phone or laptop trading. I don’t reply to messages because I can’t carry on a conversation for long. I remember this one time I was on a date with someone who promised to never see me again.

Why? I was looking at my phone all through the date. I couldn’t explain to her that I was losing huge amounts of money. Sometimes when I’m spiralling, I turn off my phone and take a break away from everybody. I encourage crypto traders to take breaks because no amount of money can make you happy as a full-time trader. You’re always thinking of how to double or triple the money. You’re always reading charts. And you’re also too familiar with watching all the profit you made at 7 a.m. go down the drain at night.

Today is a bad mental health day for me. Just for existing alone, I’ve lost almost ₦500,000 in a trade. Even though I know it’ll keep getting worse, I can’t stop staring at the screen.

When I can’t take it anymore, I pick up my car keys, turn off my phone and decide to go lodge in a hotel where I can be alone.

Trading crypto has changed my life. I’ve lost money today and I’m probably in debt, but I have friends who can loan me money until I bounce back. I’ve lost money today, and I’m crying in my car, but soon, I’ll cry in a well-furnished hotel room.

WEDNESDAY:
Nothing seems to be working for the foul mood I’m in today.
I went somewhere to take tequila shots, it didn’t work.
I went to dye my hair, it didn’t work.
I went to binge eat, it also didn’t work.

In the evening, I’ll go to a bar to try to lift myself out of this deep sadness that I feel.

When I turn on my phone, I’m sure I’ll see that my friends have been looking for me. It’s ironic how someone will see a photo of me in the hotel and automatically assume I’m happy and balling.

The constant up and downs in this business are really affecting my mental health. As a medic, I understand a bit about mental health, and this helps me fight thoughts like, “Why am I failing?” “Why am I losing money?” “Who did I offend?”

I’m not leaving here without a fight. Life is so useless that it’s not worth dying for. I’d rather life kills me itself before I kill myself.

Continue: https://www.zikoko.com/money/hustle/trading-seriously-affects-my-mental-health-a-week-in-the-life-of-a-bitcoin-trader/

If you’ve ever experienced heartbreak, you’d know it feels like a better day may never come. In this article, I asked Nigerian women to tell me about their worst heartbreak, here’s what six of them had to say:

AJ, 22
I was in love with my friend, Ebi* in secondary school. We were in JS2 together but she was into someone else. In SS2, we got closer. We did almost everything together — bathing together, brushing together, and doing our assignments together. We would stay up all night talking. On the night of her birthday, she asked me out and we started dating.

Ebi is a stud so there were rumours about her queerness but when we started dating, things became worse. Something else happened to her around this time and this made school unbearable for her. She told me at the end of the school year that her parents were considering transferring her to a different school. I was upset but she told me they hadn’t made a decision yet, so she wanted to try convincing her parents to let her stay.

We stayed in touch through the holidays and at the end of every conversation, she assured me that her parents had not decided on leaving. At the end of the holiday, she told her parents had decided to let her stay. I was so excited to see her again. I resumed early. I waited all day for her to arrive but she didn’t. It was odd for boarding students to resume on Mondays so I asked her cousin when she was coming but she told me that Ebi’s parents had transferred Ebi to another school out of the state. I felt my heart stop but I had to act like I wasn’t bothered because of the rumours. After school, I went to my bed and cried like a bastard.

Felicia, 24
My ex-boyfriend was three years younger than me. I was a struggling youth corper and he was winging it as an artist when we met. I had sworn to never date a guy younger than me again but something about him made me take a chance. We met through a friend. On our first date, he took me to a rooftop, and we had a picnic. He sang to me as we stared at the moon all night. We were almost inseparable after that.

We continued dating for a year, but at the end of the year, he told me that he had fallen out of love with me. He said it was because, at the beginning of our relationship, he knew I wasn’t serious with him — I was worried about the age difference. I was so hurt because I had gotten over the age thing but I was also moving to a different city — I knew the distance would have been a problem too — so I broke up with him. It’s been a year since our break up and even though I called the relationship off, I’m still heartbroken.

Damilola, 19
In 2017, I reconnected with a guy I had a friends-with-benefits relationship with. He made it clear that he had feelings for me and would like us to be in a serious relationship. I was sceptical at first but I had always liked him, so I said yes. I had never been in an exclusive relationship before him but I wanted to make it work.

We kept having issues — they would start as minor arguments and then escalate. He said I was being difficult about not wanting to send him nudes, even after I explained to him that I was dealing with body dysmorphia. He was friends with my best friend so she knew everything that was going on with us. She would help us resolve our issues by playing peacemaker.

He kept cancelling the plans we made to hang out. One day, we were supposed to meet at a hotel but he stood me up as usual so I went to my friend’s place to get my mind off him. That night, he called me and said some abusive words about how I didn’t care about him. He said SARS had harassed and extorted him. I was mad at the hurtful things he said to me so I blocked him.

A week later, he apologized on Instagram. I forgave him but a part of me had checked out emotionally. Less than a month later, I made up my mind to leave him after my friend showed me her chat where he was hitting on her. That night, he tried to talk to me but I refused. A few months later, he called me, accusing me of setting him up when SARS arrested him. After the call, he sent a text saying, “I hope you and your family die, bitch, and I’m glad I treated you and your bestie like the trash you both are”. When I confronted her about it, she told me she was pregnant. She couldn’t turn to him for help and she couldn’t keep the baby either. As much as I was hurt, I couldn’t leave her to suffer, so I paid for her to get an abortion and stayed with her through it. After everything, I stopped talking to her.

Continue: https://www.zikoko.com/her/6-nigerian-women-talk-about-their-worst-heartbreaks/

The lady in this story is quite young, but frankly, that’s not the most interesting thing about her. It’s how she started photography as a hobby and followed through till today. Five hard years, long YouTube hours, a couple of projects later, here’s what her #NairaLife looks like.

https://p3y6v9e6.stackpathcdn.com/wp-content/uploads/zikoko/2021/03/2-12-1024x1024.jpg

Let’s start from the beginning. What’s your oldest memory of money?
When I was in Primary 2, my dad started giving my siblings and me pocket money for school. He thought we were too young to handle money, but we begged. We didn’t need the money; we just thought it would be cool if we could join the queue to buy stuff from the vendors at school during the break period. He started with ₦5 and increased it over the years.

Haha. Do you remember the first thing you did for money?
In JSS 1, I started making this flavoured drink solution — Eve — and sold it to kids in my compound. I bought a sachet for ₦15 and sold a cup of the drink for ₦10. I made up to ₦200 from that.

It was going well until my mum woke up one day and went “If you continue with this, you won’t be serious with your books.” She collected what I’d made to keep for me. Well, we know how that goes.

Lmao. Speaking about your parents, what did they do?
My dad had a printing business, but he left Nigeria for the UK when I was five years old. This was 2004, and we didn’t see him for about five years after that. One day, my younger sister told him on the phone that she wouldn’t recognise him if she saw him. This triggered him, and he took the next flight home. He’s into a bunch of things in the UK but he comes home at least once every six months now.

My mum sells clothes and other materials. At first, none of them wanted us to be involved in the business because they didn’t want us to mix with the crowd of people where her shop was. We moved into our home when I was in SS 1and my mum found a new shop close to the house, so we started helping out. It was fun at first, but before I finished secondary school, I wasn’t so keen on helping her at the shop anymore. My younger sister was more interested in the whole thing and I didn’t hear the end of it.

What was the next thing you did for money?
I don’t know if this counts, but I got a job as a teacher right after I finished secondary school. I didn’t last up to two days there.

Haha. Why?
Those children were stressful. They wanted to pay me ₦5k and they wanted me to be teaching all subjects. I wasn’t down for that. After my second day, I told them I was done.

What happened after that?
I went to university. My allowance was ₦10k at first, then it increased to ₦15k. In my first and second year, the only thing I cared about was my studies so I could graduate with a 2.1. It’s funny now because I was hardly in school in my third and final year.

What changed?
I found something more interesting. Photography.

Let’s back it up, how did you get into this?
In 2016, I met someone on Twitter and during one of our conversations, he asked if I had anything I was interested in. I told him I’d like to capture moments but I didn’t have a camera. He advised me to start with my phone.

I started taking photos with my phone and putting it out on social media. Slowly, my follower base grew. Later that year, the same friend asked me if I would be interested in working for a smartphone company. I would take pictures with their phones and share on social media. It was a micro-influencing kind of gig. Of course, I was interested. A month later, the company set up a meeting with me at their office. I was hired and offered ₦50k every month.

Lit.
I decided to give professional photography a chance and see if it would work out. I saved for six months and bought my first professional camera — a used Canon 650d for ₦150k. I had a community of photographer friends, and I put the word out that I was looking for gigs. I got my first job in less than 24 hours after I bought the camera.

What was it about?
I assisted a photographer at an event and he paid me ₦25k. Immediately I got the money, I spent ₦16k on an external flash.

Two weeks later, I got another job, which paid me ₦50k. Then other jobs started coming. The first photographer I worked with was a major plug. He always called me back for jobs until we shot at a wedding and lost all the pictures.

Omo.
I still have no idea how that happened. It was a stressful experience. The client threatened to lock us up and all that. I would wake up in the middle of the night and start crying. I think the guy even travelled out of the city for a few months until it blew over.

We move.
After that, I focused on portrait photography. Though event photography paid more, I was still in school, and it was a struggle going out every weekend to do a job.

With portrait photography, people were booking me to handle their birthday shoots and stuff like that. I charged an average of ₦6k-₦7k per look, but it was a lot of work for little money. If they didn’t complain about the price, they would have something to say about the pictures. I realised that I couldn’t make a lot from that. Shooting videos looked more promising, so I thought it would be cool to learn and combine both.

How did you learn how to shoot videos?
I watched a lot of YouTube videos. Also, I was in my third year at this time and there was this long strike. I got a job as a behind-the-scenes photographer on a cooking show. Then their video guy travelled out of the country, and they asked if I would like to try shooting their videos. I took up the offer. That started my transition into videos.

How much were you being paid for that?
Nothing. But they gave me a chance to learn on the job and paid for the logistics. It didn’t matter if I was being paid because I was also doing photography on the side and making an average of ₦80k every month.

Ah, I see.
It didn’t take long before people noticed my work on the cooking show. I started getting small video gigs. I think the first one I worked on came from someone in the cooking show crew. They hired me to work on another project they were on and paid me ₦70k.

The other video projects I worked on doing the time paid between ₦50k and ₦100k. But I wasn’t good at editing and was outsourcing it. The ginger to take video editing seriously came in 2018. I had shot an Independence Day video for the cooking show, but they couldn’t send the cuts to the regular editor. They asked me if I could just do it, and I downloaded Windows Movie Maker on my laptop. YouTube got me through it. Omo, I spent four hours editing a one minute video. In the end, they liked what I did.

Mad.
The rest of 2018 was pretty much about sharpening my editing skills.I bought a new camera and upgraded my laptop in 2019. I also invested in a couple of other gear. In that year alone, I spent about ₦1m on gadgets. Once I got paid for a job, I made sure to buy something I needed for work. I’m not sure a lot happened in 2019 except that I graduated from university and went all-in on personal projects.

I’m listening.
I did a short film at first and spent about ₦500k on it, but it didn’t bang the way I thought it would. The next project I worked on was a documentary, which I co-produced with someone. That one did considerably better. It was selected for short film festivals, and we had private screenings. Suddenly, people were reaching out to me for interviews.

Did you make any money from these projects?
No. But they were worthy additions to my portfolio. Also, I made sure to share everything I worked on and tried to be visible online.

How did this affect your earnings in 2019?
I was making an average of ₦150k on a project, though I was investing a lot of it back into my craft. At the end of the year, I had saved about ₦300k.

Impressive.
2020 was weird in the beginning. I went for a vacation in March and the country went into lockdown the week I returned.

That meant you couldn’t work.
I couldn’t oh. A lot of brands weren’t even interested in video projects anymore. They pivoted into motion graphics. I was stuck at my parents house, broke and tired. I did something for an American brand during the lockdown in April $500. That was the only thing I worked on for about three months. I didn’t even get paid until July.

How much did you have in savings before the lockdown?
About ₦1.2m. However, I wanted to get an apartment and had sent ₦1m to a friend.

So I had ₦200k in my account. When the lockdown was lifted, I had only ₦70k left. Most of the money went into paying for food and the internet.

Luckily, I was hired to shoot and edit a TV commercial for a brand immediately after the lockdown and they paid me ₦400k. That kicked things off. I got a mini-flat for ₦750k in July 2020 and moved out of my parent’s house. I’ve spent an extra ₦600k on purchases and renovations since that time. Tears!

Lmao. What happened in the second half of 2020?
It was the best. The jobs kept coming in. A big brand here, a small business there. The interesting thing was that I didn’t have to spend money on logistics on some of the jobs I was getting — the companies that hired me took care of those, which was great for me because these logistics expenses always took a chunk from my earnings. I got one that paid me ₦750k and another one that paid ₦1.9m.

You were charging more to work on projects. How did this happen?
The quality of my work had gotten better, and I had gotten better at self-promotion. I was sharing every project I worked on social media. That made the difference.

I didn’t have to look for new projects to work on. Most of these new clients were referrals or people who had been following me for some time. I was getting emails like, “I think you might be interested in this project. Are you free to work on it?” I guess that gave me the leverage to negotiate what I wanted.

Of course, I was still investing in gadgets. I bought a drone for ₦600k in September. It was my biggest work purchase last year.

Nice! What did your finances look like at the end of the year?
I had about ₦3.5m in savings. I took ₦2.6m out and bought a car.

How did that feel?
I felt proud of myself. I’d been planning to get one since the beginning of the year because I was spending about ₦100k on Uber every month. I even had an Uber guy who drove me around whenever I had to go out, and I paid him ₦15k every day I needed him.

My parents were just beginning to accept that I wasn’t living in their house anymore when I bought the car. When I moved out, they were like, “Go and see the world and come back home.” They definitely didn’t expect that a car was the next thing for me. They were proud, but they were surprised too.

I get that. I think you’ve come a long way between 2016 and now. What’s 2021 looking like for you?
I was working on a photography project for an American company at the beginning of the year. It was supposed to pay me $10k, but they suspended the project halfway. I only got $4500. I started working on other projects at the end of January. There was this four-day project I worked on that paid me ₦850k. I’m currently working for a production company, and I’ll be paid ₦1.1m for it.

I still get the ₦200k and ₦300k jobs, but they are far and in between. And when they come, I probably just pass them off to my assistants.

I’m coming to accept that I deserve the money I charge. I know the work and I’m an all-rounder — I’m good with cameras and drones. I’m good at editing. Clients like to work with people who can do everything effectively. I’m that person.

Energy! Can we break down your monthly running costs?
I started paying myself ₦120k as a salary at the beginning of the year to control my spendings.

I don’t pay black tax, but my parents could call me and ask me to buy something in the house or loan them money they won’t return. I spent about ₦400k in money gifts for my family in December last year. At the beginning of the year, I decided to see someone through school. I give her about ₦25k every month.

Continue: https://www.zikoko.com/money/naira-life/nairalife-the-photographer-who-went-from-%e2%82%a650k-to-at-least-%e2%82%a6800k-month/

When someone is said to suffer from hypertension, more often than not, you’d assume that the said person was at least middle-aged. On the contrary, hypertension and high blood pressure do not discriminate. It plagues the young and old alike. Of people in the 19-39 age group, 20% of men and 15% of women suffer from hypertension, and this number is only expected to climb.

Someone reached out to me to tell me their story about hypertension. I put out a call on Twitter, looking to talk to more people dealing with the condition. I didn’t expect more than a few replies. I was wrong. My DMs were flooded by a deluge of young adults who are dealing with the condition. Here are some of their stories.

Joseph, 24
I was first diagnosed during a medical clearance for admission into a university when I was 15. The doctor remarked that my BP was high. I wasn’t admitted into that school, and I didn’t pay attention to the diagnosis. Less than a year later, I suffered a bout of malaria and my BP was mentioned again. I started to worry. It was a few months later, at another university clearance where it was brought up again that I started taking it seriously. When the palpitations got worse, my mom had to take me to the hospital. I was given some drugs that always made me feel faint, so I stopped using them.

After a series of crises, I started taking it very seriously. I got better drugs and made some lifestyle changes – I work out, eat fruits and reduced my soda intake. I’ve used the drugs every day since then, although I’ve taken short breaks from them a couple of times.

It’s been eight years since I found out. There were lonely trips to the hospital for drugs, insane headaches, intense palpitations and scary nights I thought were my last. It was quite hard to make the mental shift at first, but I’m used to it now. I also pray and talk to God about it. I’m just waiting for the manifestation of complete healing.

Afolabi, 28
There was this strike period. I was just playing around in school, but I noticed I was always tired. I decided to go to the medical center and they found out my BP was 151. I insisted I was fine but the nurse kept saying this isn’t normal for this your age (I was 19). I told my folks and we went to see our personal doctor. He said it was high but didn’t want to place me on hypertensive drugs because I was young. He told me to make diet and lifestyle changes. I did that for a few years. Fast forward to my fourth year in uni. I had been drinking a lot of coffee that period, thinking I had moved past the whole HBP thing. All of a sudden, late one night, I started gasping for breath, despite windows being open. My mum lay me on my back and tried to calm me, before taking me to the hospital. That was when I was finally placed on the medication Amlodipine. I was supposed to go back for checkups, but I never did. I had a couple of crisis moments in-between that forced me to go back on my meds.

At various times, I stopped using the medication because I hated the idea that I was going to be using it everyday for the rest of my life. Someone advised me to use hibiscus flower (zobo), which is actually backed by a study. I used to be able to take some wine, but I stopped when I started seeing scary signs. There’s a lot of stigma around it as well, because people tend to jump to say “Ah, does it run in your family?” Some other people are sympathetic, like my boss who gives me the day off when I have panic attacks.

Desmond, 21
Last year, I was at the airport waiting for my flight – I was almost two hours early because Nigerian. One of those diagnostics people gave me a flyer while I was waiting, asking me to check my blood pressure for free so I said, sure, why not. The guy checked it and asked my age several times. I kept insisting that I was 21. It was really bad. I can’t say I don’t know why it was high — I overwork myself, barely sleep and I work all night because my father is not Dangote. I’m also quite inactive because my work requires me just sitting down.

I ended up going for a proper checkup at a hospital and it came out the same. The doctor advised me to sleep more and be more physically active. Now, I try to get eight hours of sleep and go to the gym six days a week.

A.B, 26
Until I started dialysis for my kidney problems, I had never had a BP issue. To undergo dialysis, the doctors have to set up an access site for my arteries and veins. The process is quite excruciating and that period was tough for me. I suspect that triggered the blood pressure. I started taking medication which helped manage it.

Nearly one-third of non-Hispanic Black young adults in the U.S. have hypertension - News | UAB
I’m an anxious person, and that didn’t help my blood pressure. Eating edibles helped me relax. So far, it’s been good except for one time where my BP spiked to 212/140 and I was admitted to the hospital. On the whole, I monitor my BP and use my drugs consistently, because that makes a huge difference.

Continue: https://www.zikoko.com/life/8-young-nigerians-talk-about-living-with-hypertension/

The subject of today’s Abroad Life left Nigeria for the first time in 1978. After staying six years in Italy, he moved back to Nigeria briefly before moving to England with his newlywed wife. He talks about living his best life, almost dying in London, and the worst decision he ever made in his life — coming back to Nigeria.

When did you first leave Nigeria?
1978. I left for Italy. I’d gotten an admission to study computer science. I was in Italy for about six years before I came back to Nigeria.

What was Italy like?
It was difficult to learn the language, but after some time, I spoke so much Italian, it began to affect my English. I had a great time in Italy. I went on a scholarship, and after I was done with my bachelor’s degree, I did so well that my school offered me another scholarship. I was top of my class. I didn’t accept the scholarship, though. I was ready to leave Italy. I needed a change. I asked for the monetary equivalent, and they gave me. I used the money to do some business. I returned to Nigeria in 1984 with imported shoes, belts and other stuff in bulk, and sold them. I made some profit.

What was Nigeria like for you?
When I got to Nigeria in 1984, my life changed. I met my wife. I was in Lagos, going to my village in Ondo with a friend when we stopped by a vehicle park to get something. I saw her trying to get a car, we stopped the car, and I went to meet her. Luckily, she was going to the village just beside mine, so we offered her a ride and she accepted. Along the way, we stopped for me to go from the passenger’s seat up front to join her at the back. I had jokes and it was obvious that she liked me.

We dropped her at her village first and then went to ours. The next day, we were back at her village. I knew I was in love with her. I met her mum and her sister and indicated my interest in marrying her. We started talking properly after that.

What happened after that?
I started making plans to leave Nigeria again. I wanted to go back to Europe, but I didn’t want to go to Italy. I wanted to go to an English speaking country, so I decided on England. In every plan I made mentally, I factored her in. We weren’t married yet, but I added her to my plans to relocate.

When I finally decided to move, we did a small traditional wedding, planned our relocation together and settled in London. A few years later, we had our church wedding in London. Our children were there.

What was it like moving to London?
It was the best thing that ever happened to me. We got a nice house in London. In the next few years, we would have five children and my wife would get a nice job near the house so she wouldn’t have to leave the children for too long. I also got an extremely well-paying job. It was a nocturnal job. The company bus would pick me every evening and drop me off at home every morning. We also built a very nice network with friends that really cared about us. I was a happy man with his wife and his children, making a lot of money and living above comfort levels.

Everything changed when I fell sick.

What happened?
One day in 1993, I was driving and I suddenly couldn’t move my feet anymore so I drove into a wall. I didn’t have any major injuries from that incident, but when I got scanned, it was found that the reason I couldn’t move my feet was that I had a spinal problem from my neck downwards.

It was so bad that I had to have emergency surgery. I was technically almost dead. The hospital called my recovery from the surgery the miracle of the year because all the doctors were sure that the best-case scenario for me was that I would lose my ability to walk. Worst case scenario, I would die. I walked out of the hospital. I believe it’s because my family, in Nigeria and abroad, was praying for me.

After the surgery, I had an epiphany; I didn’t want to die in a foreign land. I didn’t waste any time processing the thoughts that were rushing through my mind or weigh any pros and cons. I knew I didn’t want to die there so I was sure my family and I were returning to Nigeria.

How did your wife take the decision?
She begged me with all her life, but I wasn’t hearing anything. She tried to tell me that I could get better healthcare and a better future for my children there in England, but I knew I wasn’t even going to consider her words.

When her friends found out, they came to beg me, but I wasn’t listening. Then my friends found out and came to beg me and told me to go to Nigeria but leave my wife and kids in London. That was never going to happen. It was me versus everyone, and I wasn’t backing down. I couldn’t imagine dying without seeing Nigeria. While all of this begging was going on, I got all our stuff, found a shipping service, and put them in a container to Nigeria.

Even with that, the opportunity to stay was still very available. My wife’s close friend had just gotten a divorce and was moving away from London. She had a fantastic house; much better than ours, a swimming pool and all. She said, “It’s fine if you already sent all your stuff to Nigeria. You can have my house.”

Continue: https://www.zikoko.com/citizen/returning-to-nigeria-is-the-worst-decision-ive-ever-made-abroad-life/

1. Fatai
I was in my early 30’s when I met my wife. For some reason, I couldn’t approach her, so I told my friend to tell her older sister about me. One day, her older sister called me and asked me what I wanted with her sister, and I said we were just friends. I couldn’t admit that I liked her, I hadn’t even spoken with her.

After some time, I started writing letters. From time to time, I’d pass by her house, just to see her. We’d say hi, and I’d leave. Whenever my friends passed around her house and saw her, they’d find a way to send me the information and I’d in turn find my way there.

After some time, I told my own older sister about her, and she somehow found a way to tell my wife’s older sister, who went, “Aha, I knew you liked my sister!”

Her sister told her father, but he said she couldn’t get married to me because she had to finish her education. Shortly after, she dropped out and said she wanted to do business. Her father was so angry. He blamed me for making her drop out. and then strengthened his stance that I wouldn’t marry her.

After some time, my sister found another person to beg her mother. Her mother was more receptive and begged her father to let her marry me. They did all the ìwádìí (Finding out about my family, and my lineage) and met my family and then agreed that she could marry me.

It was at this point that we started talking.

2. Adesanya
I met my wife in fellowship. We were in the drama unit and in the choir together. We weren’t particularly friends or anything. I had the same relationship with her that I had with everyone in the fellowship. When I was ready to get married, I prayed to God to show me who my wife is, and he told me it was her. I heard him clearly, I was sure it was going to be her. So I walked up to her and told her, “Hi, I love you and I want to marry you.” It took her three months to get back to me, but when she did, her answer was yes.

We didn’t get married until after a while though. Her father didn’t want her to marry me because I wasn’t from their village. It took him five years to finally say I could marry her.

3. Solomon
My father died when I was a baby, so my mother was all I had. When I got older, she told me that she wanted to find a wife for me from her village and because I loved her, I agreed.

The first woman she brought for me to marry secretly begged me to call off the marriage because she was already in love with another man, so I gave some flimsy excuse and called it off. My younger brother insisted that I couldn’t marry the second one because he was already dating her sister. My uncle said I couldn’t date the third one. He didn’t have any reason, he just said no. I didn’t like the fourth one.

At that point, I decided to find a wife for myself. I was praying a lot about the type of woman I wanted to marry but I realised that even I wasn’t perfect, so I decided to spend one year making myself better, instead of looking for a wife.

I’d always seen myself marrying a hard working woman. I love hardworking women. I was at work one day when a beautiful young woman came looking for a job. She was 19. My God, she was so beautiful. The only opening we had was for a cleaner, and we offered her the job. She took it and did it so, so well. Funny thing, she was a graduate.

Shortly after she started working there, I realised I’d fallen in love with her, so I found out if she was a Christian or not. She was, but she didn’t go to church often so I started taking her to church. When she became very active in church, I knew she was ready, so I walked up to her one day and said, “I don’t want to date you, I want to marry you.”

We’ve built a good life together. She’s the best decision I’ve ever made in my life.

Continue: https://www.zikoko.com/man/5-older-nigerian-men-share-their-proposal-stories/

Kuda processed $2.2bn in February 2021. It has now raised a total of $36.6m in two years to build Africa’s digital bank.

Nigerian fintech startup Kuda has raised $25 million in a Series A round led by Valar Ventures, the firm co-founded and backed by PayPal co-founder Peter Thiel. Target Global, the European venture capital firm that led Kuda’s last funding, participated in the round.

The Series A follows Kuda’s $10million raise in November 2020, a feat cheered for being the largest seed round by an African startup.

At the time, the company said it had 300,000 customers (which was a mix of individuals and sole-proprietor businesses) and was processing an average of $500 million worth of transactions per month.

Five months later, Kuda says it now has 650,000 customers. Ryan Laubscher, who recently joined Kuda as Chief Commercial Officer, told TechCabal that Kuda processed $2.2 billion in transactions in February 2021 alone – a staggering increase from $50,000 processed in February 2020.

All of this has been achieved just in Nigeria where the company launched as a no-fees, digital-only bank in the second half of 2019 with $1.6million pre-seed funding.


Read the rest of the story here: https://techcabal.com/2021/03/18/kuda-bank-series-a-25-million-dollars/

What does it mean to date someone of a different faith, especially in a country like Nigeria where religion is a major topic? For this article, I spoke to 9 Nigerians who shared their stories with me. And for the first time, I found myself wondering if love truly conquers all.

Ndidi.
I dated a Muslim guy for roughly 2 years, and it was actually a really nice relationship. He is Hausa and I am Igbo, so it was weird at first because we seemed like two very different people. But it was lovely for the most part.

We were very supportive when it came to each other’s religion, and during Ramadan, I stayed up with him for Sahur when he had to wake up and eat. I would and gist with him till he needed to pray and go to bed. He was also very supportive with my fasts and holidays too.When we had questions about the other’s religion, we would ask and educate each other without judgment or without any aggression. I personally loved hearing him talk about the Quran.

When I was with him though, I had to forgo alcohol for a while because he doesn’t drink and he couldn’t pay for it if he took us out. He also couldn’t buy me human hair. He said something about it being haram. But he was very respectful of my decisions and never tried to force anything on me. Eventually, the relationship ended. He wasn’t ready for commitment and I had to move on from that. Till today though, we are really good friends with each other.

Kafayat.
I am from a family of mixed religious backgrounds. My mum is a Christian and even though my father is an Alhaji, his own mother is a Christian. I grew up aware of these religions, so I never really had a problem with either of them. When I eventually converted to Christianity, I retained my Muslim name since it’s my first name. It was all cool until it was time for me to get married.

My mother-in-law said she was upset during the introduction when the Alaga said “Welcome to the house of Alhaji.”

She told me, later, that it felt like a bell was being rung in her head when she heard that. According to her, she was okay as long as the wedding was done in her church RCCG, and that she doesn’t want a nikkai.

That’s when I spoke up. My dad is liberal because he has a Christian mum. But how will I tell him, an Alhaji who has gone to Mecca 5 times, that his first daughter would be married in RCCG and not my mother’s church which is Anglican, or even a mosque?

That’s how the battle started. She told her son that if he marries me, his ‘enemy’ will die, and that ‘they want to Islamise him.

After we won that battle of the church to be married in, my mother-in-law said “Is there a way that the name Kafayat won’t be on the wedding IV?” She also said I should try and make sure that the chairman of the wedding would be a Christian, and that I should influence my dad not to bring his Muslim friends.

Even though I married into the family, I did not change my surname. My husband thinks I am doing feminism, but it is because his mother refused to let me keep mine on my wedding invitation. If she is ashamed of my name being in the wedding IV, then they might as well keep their surname.

The wedding chairman was a Muslim who has a Christian wife he’s been happily married to for 50yrs without needing to convert the wife. After the wedding, my mother-in-law kept throwing jabs like “You know my son was raised in a Christian way.”

But guess what? The said son is now an agnostic who is gradually becoming an atheist. Three years later, I’m the one going to church. My mother-in-law wants me to drag him but each time she says it, me too, I remind her that “I was raised a Muslim, so I don’t know how to win souls.”

For me and my husband, the constant thing is that he makes me cook pork. I hate pork because it is fatty, but he would say it’s because I used to be a Muslim. We intend to raise my kids Liberal.

Damilare.
I started dating my girlfriend towards the end of 2017. I was still a very committed Christian at the time. But by the second half of 2018, I left the faith. I wasn’t hurt by anyone, neither did I fall into bad times. I just gave a honest look at the things I believed in and was convinced of since childhood and realised I had no rational justification for them.

Anyway, the problem was how to tell my girlfriend. At this time, we were very serious about our plans, dreams, and future together. Some of these things were centred around our faith, which I had now left. I knew I couldn’t hide something that important from her even though I was scared of losing her. She wouldn’t want to be ‘unequally yoked’ with an unbeliever like me. I concluded that moving on with the relationship like nothing significant had changed would be unethical. It would be changing the terms of the relationship without her knowledge or consent.

So, I mentally prepared for a break-up. And told her. I started by gently explaining why I no longer believe. It was the first time I’d share it with anyone. I didn’t call myself an Atheist — I didn’t want to trigger her. I just wanted to be heard without any unnecessary bias creeping in. She was devasted. I remember the hurt in her voice when she said, “So you won’t pray with me again?” It broke my heart since this was something we shared together. She didn’t make the decision to break up then, but she told me it was a deal-breaker.

The next few weeks were tense. But after reading about Atheist-Christian couples on the internet, I decided I wasn’t going to allow religion end us. I spent more time just being myself with her — caring, honest, understanding. I focused on the things we shared in common, reminded her that I was still the person she fell in love with. I also made a few compromises. I agreed to go to church with her once a month (though that changed with the pandemic). When she forgets a verse, I help out. I remind her to attend her online meetings. We are not trying to convert/deconvert each other. When pastors goof online, I don’t rub it in her face — though we might have conversations about it. She lets me know even though she’d prefer a different outcome, she’s still in love with me and committed to us.

The relationship is over 3 years now. We’re getting ready to marry, hopefully, this year. We have talked about kids, how we raise a family. We hope to let them make their choices while focusing on raising healthy, stable kids. We still talk about religion. I don’t think that conversation will ever end. But it’s a conversation with love, respect for each other.

Franca.
I am a polytheist dating an atheist. I believe all Gods exist, my boyfriend believes none exist. I think our common ground is that we both trash talk Christianity, Islam, and major traditional worship. I draw the line at astrology though. Astrology has not caused anyone actual hurt. My ex at the time used to laugh at me and my “astrology.” She told me I was being silly. My boyfriend however realises how important this is for me. He joins me to meditate if I ask, and when I tell him I pray for him, he tells me thank you. He knows it’s something that gives me peace and purpose and he respects that. Would that stop him from dissing religions in my presence? No. Do I join in? Yes. Because as much as I acknowledge these religions give me peace, I also acknowledge that they’re shit. And failed a lot of people.

Favour.
I was a tongue-speaking Christian in my university days and I dated this Muslim babe. Or maybe a situationship is the right word for it. We ended up going our separate ways because she tried converting me and I wasn’t standing it for it. In hindsight, it’s funny because I eventually explored Islam, and now I am irreligious.

Hassan.
I’m an agnostic atheist: I have a clear disbelief in the existence of God and I don’t participate in organised religion. However, I was born a Muslim. My girlfriend is a Muslim, with big hijab and all. A mutual friend introduced her to me and we clicked. Back when I met her, I was still a Muslim although I was skeptical about it.

I had no reservations or hesitation about her religion at first; many of my family members are also Muslims. But as time went on, I became more vocal in my apathy to religion and God. I have a Twitter account where I post Atheist stuff and all, and this causes issues between the both of us.
We try to make things work out but it was a big issue at the end of the day. She might be praying while I’m eating. I try to compromise though, I pray when she’s around, participate in Ramadan fasting, etc.

Her sister is the wahala, always trying to stop things. Our parents are not aware of anything. And since I still use my Arabic Muslim name. I still put on the facade of a Muslim for them.

I can’t say where the relationship is going, but marriage is probably not going to work.

Continue: https://www.zikoko.com/life/9-nigerians-talk-about-dating-people-outside-their-faith/

Imagine your parents finding out you are having sex. How would they react? I asked 7 Nigerian women about how their parents found out they were sexually active. Here’s what they had to say.

Lexi, 22
I was 19. I came home from university for holiday. One morning, I was preparing to head to the place I was interning at when my mom offered to drive me. In the car, she said, “When did you start having sex? I saw your messages.” My heart dropped to my stomach because I could not deny it, and I couldn’t confront the breach of privacy.

I owned up to it but she still forced me to tell my father and he reacted irrationally. They made me break up with my lover. Both of them refused to look me in the eye for the rest of my holiday. Eventually, they moved on and we’re on good terms now.

Grace, 24
I was 18. My mum was snooping in my stuff at 3 a.m. when she found a negative pregnancy test in my bag. She woke me up and held it in my face until my half-asleep brain realized what was happening. LMAO.

I just started apologizing. She was quiet, so I went back to bed. The next morning, she was still obviously upset but we talked about it and she offered to get me birth control because I was careless if I was taking pregnancy tests. We’ve never talked about it since then.

Carol, 23
My parents found out that I was sexually active when I was 17. I came home for a short Easter break from school. I was a bit weak but it wasn’t anything serious. My parents took me to the hospital for tests. I assumed it was a routine check-up.

A week later, I was ready to go back to school after the break. On the ride to the park, my mum brought out the test result. She presented it to me and asked if I have been having sex. Before I could even respond, she said, “Don’t even bother lying. The only way you can have this infection is through sex.” I had to say yes.

My father was disappointed. His problem was that my husband will not marry me as a virgin. My mum kept asking why I didn’t wait till I was 18. She even asked if I was raped. I told her it was consensual. My father called me loose. He asked me how many guys I had slept with. He thought it was after I left his house for university. Meanwhile, it was right after secondary school. It was the longest car ride of my life. They stopped letting me go out. It was a traumatizing experience. I never got their trust back, and I’ve stopped trying.

Continue: https://www.zikoko.com/her/7-nigerian-women-on-how-their-parents-found-out-they-are-sexually-active/

The subject of this week’s What She Said is a 54-year-old woman who has three children she doesn’t like. She talks about how they felt like distractions and how her relationship with them has only gotten worse with age.

Let’s start from the beginning. How old were you when you got married?
I was 26. I wanted to get married, but I wasn’t really sure who I wanted to marry. I had a number of options. I was sleeping with one of these options — he was a colleague in a different department.

I got pregnant. Abortion wasn’t an option. I was Anglican then. Even though I’m religious now, I won’t judge anyone who aborts a baby. Back then, I couldn’t even think of it. Also, I was scared of dying.

My parents too would have killed me if they found out I had an aboriton. So when i found out, I was worried about what to do. Then I came up with a plan to tell my parents I was engaged, so that once I started showing, the pregnancy would not shock them.

You didn’t tell the father?
That was the next step in the plan. After I told them I was engaged, I went and told him I was pregnant and that my parents said we had to get married.

Truthfully, that wasn’t a problem because he was ready to marry. I just wanted to rush the process. I had to do a lot of people-management to ensure that nobody spilled what I had told them.

How did your parents react?
They didn’t want me to court for long. You know how mothers are. My mother, God bless her, just wanted us to have a really big wedding as soon as we could. We got married three months after. I wasn’t showing, so my parents didn’t know. They began to suspect when I started showing within a few months of being pregnant.

Did anyone catch your lie?
Oh, not at all, but I eventually told my husband that my parents never forced us to get married. I’ve always been the kind of person to sneak around. As a young girl especially. Although I’ve changed now, I do think I enjoyed the thrill of doing that. My husband didn’t feel duped. He wanted to get married. He was much older, I should mention. He was in his 40s.

So what was that like? Getting married so fast? How much of him did you know?
Quite a lot from working together and going out together. But we were not necessarily in love. I was a romantic then. I wanted to marry someone I loved, but he wasn’t all about that. He was the opposite, a strong-head. People were not marrying for love as they are today, but I was optimistic that we would eventually fall in love. And we did, sooner than I expected.

How did that happen?
I had a stillbirth. That was the first real traumatic experience I had in my life. I had never experienced grief like I did. I was just crying and gnashing my teeth. I said God hated me.

That should have pushed us away from each other, but it drew us together. I say that it should have pushed us away from each other because first of all, he really loved that child. Second of all, it was the foundation of our marriage. When it happened, we became so close and started protecting each other. That was simply how we fell in love.

That’s sweet. I’m sorry you had to go through that.
Thanks. We went a few more years before trying again. I felt that our relationship had become monotonous and didn’t have any ideas on how to make it better. All we did was talk about work. Even though we no longer worked together, we still worked in the same industry. We were both very career-oriented people.

Unfortunately, getting pregnant this time was war. We simply couldn’t get pregnant, no matter what we did or how we tried. The doctor said we were both fine, that we just had to keep trying.

When I turned 32, I got pregnant. I decided I was going to resign and be extra careful because I was scared of miscarrying or having a stillbirth. The doctor said I was okay to work way into my third trimester. I said I didn’t want to. I had a very easy pregnancy, but I was in bed almost all through. I took up sewing and would make many things for my baby. I wasn’t excited because I was scared, yet, I was expectant.

When my baby girl came, I didn’t feel anything.

What do you mean?
I had assumed that I’d at least be excited that I got another chance to have a child. But I wasn’t happy. I wasn’t sad, and I’m not sure if I was depressed, but I wasn’t happy at all. I would spend hours staring at my child, expecting to become happy by just looking at her. Nothing happened. I faked happiness though. I faked the tears. Everyone around me was so excited; I just had to. And I couldn’t tell anyone.

That must have been hard for you.
Yes. Then child number two and three followed in quick succession. For number two, it was a difficult pregnancy. When I cried after giving birth, people thought it was tears of joy. It was, but it wasn’t because I was happy about my child. I was just happy I had gotten him out of my body. Once I had my third child, I told my husband we had done enough.

Continue: https://www.zikoko.com/her/what-she-said-i-love-my-children-but-ive-never-liked-them/

Foodqueen:
I won't click any shit.

Okurr!

Most people hope to have great co-workers and to have a decent enough relationship with them, however, what if it is a little more than just a decent relationship? Workplace romance isn’t nearly as rare as many think it is or hopes it is. Today, we spoke to five Nigerians about dating their co-workers.

Ivie, 26.
It was my boss at the first company I worked at when I came back. Our colleagues always joked that he was married with kids but I had spoken to him and gone to his house where he lived with his housemate so it was hard to believe. Anyway, we started going out, we’d go home together some days or work late in the office some days. It didn’t get in the way of the working dynamics as far as I remember. Anyway, I found out he was married (no kids) after two months and he brought his elder sister to the office to beg me saying they’ve been separated and just not gotten a divorce etc� so embarrassing. Anyway, I hadn’t started having sex then and he was gonna be the first. He was the “first” alright except it wasn’t consensual. Anyway, I left the company after that and never spoke to him again.

Collin, 32.
You know how people are always scared of HR finding out they are dating a co-worker? I was sleeping with HR. We didn’t plan it but the sexual tension and chemistry were just wow. The first time was when he and I stayed back in the office because I had a project I needed to turn in and he was filling something. We ended up kissing and we started sleeping with each other for a year. I stopped being into it a few months in but he was there and was easy dick so why not. It stopped because my next job took me out of the vicinity.

Continue: https://www.zikoko.com/life/nigerians-tell-us-what-it-is-like-dating-a-co-worker/

Foodqueen:
Op, I beg when u are less busy, don't forget to come and continue.

Hey. Read the full article here: https://www.zikoko.com/money/hustle/therapists-are-not-saviours-a-week-in-the-life-of-a-grief-counsellor/

The subject of today’s “A Week In The Life” is a grief counsellor. Grief counsellors help people experiencing loss to examine the root cause of their emotions. Our subject tells us about how counsellors don’t have quick fixes for emotions, the tedium involved in his job, and why he shows up every day.

MONDAY:
The first thing I do when I get out of bed today is morning devotion. After which I have a bath. Then I prepare to start my day. A typical day for me involves either seeing patients with appointments or running operations at my volunteer job. Mondays are mostly for the operations role, and this involves following up with people, making sure tasks are done on schedule and generally being on top of things.

Mondays are also useful in helping me plan my week — I schedule patient appointments, follow up on patients progress and rest so I don’t burn out.

I’m pretty excited about today because I have plans to see a movie after work and to also try out a new food recipe from YouTube. I check my watch and realise that I’m running late. I turn off all the sockets and lights, take one last look to see I’m not forgetting anything and dash out of the door. Another Monday morning, another hustle begins.

TUESDAY:
People ask, “what is grief counselling?” and I tell them that it simply means taking a deep dive into a person’s life. Because of the many layers to grief — loss of a job, opportunity, failed business — counselling focuses not on the loss but on the quality of life before and after an incident.

I remember losing my mum in 2005 and not feeling anything in real-time. Like most people, I avoided processing the loss and immediately threw myself into schoolwork. It was easier to function well during the day because I had so many activities to distract me. However, alone with my thoughts at night, I cried. This routine went on for a year, then I lost my paternal grandmother that I was close to. Because I had lost two people and refused to process it in such a short period of time, I switched off from being a jovial person and became reclusive and almost antisocial.

I continued to go through life as a recluse until I started living with a psychiatrist friend. He noticed that I didn’t mix with other flatmates or interact with anyone; I’d just come out to eat before dashing back into my room. One day he sat me down and asked me, “How are you?” I answered that I was fine. Then he said, “How are you really doing?”

Such a simple question helped me unravel a lot of emotions I had suppressed and avoided facing.

My friend eventually came to the realisation that even though I had suffered losses in 2005 and 2006, I was still grieving in 2013. Because I didn’t properly grieve, I was living the life of another person for seven to eight years of my life.

I eventually got therapy and dealt with my emotions.

That event showed me that grief causes people to spiral and can manifest as depression, panic attacks or anxiety. Grief counselling involves reviewing the before and after effect of an event and examining how it has affected a patient’s relationship with people, their life and their self-esteem. The knowledge is then used in developing a strategy for both patient and counsellor to walk through the loss together.

This is the pitch I give all my patients when they come to me.

I’m tired from running around yesterday, so I’m going to cancel my appointments and spend the day recharging.

WEDNESDAY:
I did sleep hypnosis for a patient today and I almost “died.” I was so tired after the session that I needed a colleague to pick me up. One of the challenges of this job is that it takes an emotional toll on you. Constantly listening to grief stories is a weight that we must bear, and that’s why grief therapists seek out ways to offload. We do this by either spacing therapy appointments, asking for help when we’re stumped, or in my case, surfing the web and making podcasts.

Another challenge grief counsellors face is that people want quick fixes for their emotions. I tell them that emotions take time to resolve and involves the active participation of the person feeling them. If the patient is not ready to put in the effort to examine their feelings, then the therapist will never get to the root of the issue.

Patient participation ensures that patients who recover are clear-eyed about the steps that got them out of a funk. Knowing the difference between the steps they took and how a therapist helped prevents patients from saying: “It’s God,” or “It was my therapist that helped me get through my grief.”

I’ve had clients cancel on me because they either didn’t feel better after one session or they didn’t want to do the soul searching assignments I gave them. I’ll still not stop preaching that there’s no magic formula; therapists are not saviours. Psychologists are not saviours. Psychiatrists are not gods. We don’t have the answers and we need patients’ participation in therapy. Without effort on the part of our patients, there’s not a lot we can do.

Continue: https://www.zikoko.com/money/hustle/therapists-are-not-saviours-a-week-in-the-life-of-a-grief-counsellor/

When I was 18, I got diagnosed with bone cancer. It was tough to deal with because I was in my first year of university. I struggled with pain and nausea at random points in the day. My friends were great. They would help me write my name on the attendance when I had to miss classes. A lot of money went into making sure I survived. Although my mum kept telling me that all I had to do was eat well and rest, I believed my doctors had told her how long I had to live. In the meantime, I wanted my own money. I started looking for jobs that paid students.

I was on the lookout for ushering jobs or gigs as a movie extra when I saw the opening for the role of a talk show host. I rehearsed my lines and anticipated the audition. On the day, however, nothing went the way I planned. I forgot my lines and stammered through the audition. I kept looking at the camera when I wasn’t supposed to. When the crew tried to correct me, I started crying. It was very embarrassing. At the end of it, a man walked up to me as I was arranging to leave. He asked if I knew who he was. I said, “No,” but I was curious about why he’d think I knew him. He didn’t explain himself, instead, he told me his name was Tobi Afolabi* and asked me to Google him. I was running late, so we exchanged numbers, but I kept thinking, “What the Bleep is this one feeling like?” At home, I found out that he was a popular media personality in the north, and he was also the producer of the show I was auditioning for.

That night, he called, and we talked. I didn’t like him at first. I thought he was too old — he was 27, I was 19. I imagined that he would be boring, so I aired his texts a lot. Also, I was sick — I didn’t see the need to pursue any romantic relationship knowing it could end in pain for both parties. I had no hair and lost weight every day, so when he texted me things like, “You’re the prettiest thing I’ve ever seen,” I was sure he was lying.

When he was done with the show, he came back to town and asked to meet up. One afternoon in June, I went over to his place. He made us lunch and officially asked me to be his girlfriend. I told him I was dying and it would be unfair to date him. At some point, I started crying. He didn’t say much while I spoke. He listened and didn’t interrupt. He looked bored. I started feeling weird — how could he not be moved by my plight?

I went home late that day. My mum started yelling the minute she saw me. She was always shouting at me. I expected she would be nicer to me since I was sick but it was like she became worse. She would tell me, “It’s like you like being sick. You must enjoy the attention that it brings because you’re not even trying to fight it.”

That night Tobi called to ask if I had gotten home safely, and I started crying. I told him about my mother being mean to me and how my sister picks on me. He said nothing about it after I finished talking. He just asked if we could see the next day.

I went to his place the next day and after chilling for a while, I asked why he didn’t say anything about everything I had told him the previous day. He asked what I wanted him to say. I started crying again. He asked why I was crying, and when I told him he had hurt my feelings, he responded with, “Has crying fixed your feelings now?” He then told me that I loved to play the victim and that I think I have monopoly on grief. He said, “So what if you’re dying? At least you know it’s coming. Everyone is going to die eventually. You should take advantage of it and make each day count, instead of crying and whining all the time.”

I was too shocked to say anything to him. I carried myself home to cry. I don’t know how, but the next day, I went to see him again. I told him he hurt my feelings. He apologised, but he insisted that he wouldn’t take his words back. He said I had a rare opportunity to try everything I wanted to do before my time was up. He made me write a list of all the things I would like to do. My diet was quite strict so on my list, I wrote things like “I want to eat 20 bars of chocolate” and “I want to get drunk until I pass out”.

I was scared to travel because I didn’t want to have a seizure or blackout on the way, but Tobi made me travel with him a lot. Whenever he had a movie or wedding to shoot, he took me with him. He got used to my episodes — he could tell when one was coming even before I knew. He would talk to his doctor friend to get me new medication. If I complained of one discomfort, he would throw the drugs out and look for another one. My mum wasn’t like that — she gave me whatever the doctor gave me and didn’t care if they made me puke my brains out or lose my appetite. Tobi wanted to know everything. “Does this make your migraines better? Does your throat itch? Your tongue is a weird colour, let me have a closer look at it.” Soon he found a combination that I was fine with, then I had more energy to do things with him. We went hiking, we had picnics, we went to the cinema to see movies. Whenever someone was rude to me, he would insist I have my say. He told me it wasn’t healthy to hide my dissatisfaction. At first, it was hard for me to do that, but soon enough, when people stared at my hair for too long, I would ask if there was a problem. He made me feel like a different person — a normal, beautiful and happy person.

He introduced me to his family and they were nice to me. It was different because, in my family, we didn’t send each other like that.

He bought me things to help my moods like scented candles, chocolates and ointments. At this point, I was always wearing wigs because I was self-conscious about how I looked, so he bought me a lot of wigs, along with scarfs and hats.

He laced my drinks with painkillers. He introduced me to weed and it helped me feel better. I was in love with him, so I would have tried anything. One time in school, we were asked to read The Lion and The Jewel, but I was too weak to complete the task. It was one of my bad days. I kept throwing up and my body hurt when I moved. I was worried I was going to fail the course.

He came to my house that night with a new hard drive. I was like, “What the Bleep kind of gift is this?” But when I plugged it into my system, I found that he made me an animation of The Lion and The Jewel. It’s still the most thoughtful gift I’ve ever received in my entire life. Of course, I passed the course.

The sex was the best thing ever. Before him, I was too shy to have sex completely naked. I would keep my shirt on and cover myself with a blanket, but he wasn’t having any of that. He kept emphasizing how beautiful I was. He said my dark skin was flawless, and he loved it.

Continue: https://www.zikoko.com/money/hustle/therapists-are-not-saviours-a-week-in-the-life-of-a-grief-counsellor/

The subject of this story first got published in 2004. A lot has happened since that time, and most of it is about employers and publishers not holding up to their end of the deal. Now he’s taking a crack at building his own publishing company. But how did he get here?

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What’s your oldest memory of money?
That would be the allowance I got from my parents growing up. But the awareness really came when I got into university and published two children’s books in my first year at university. I was 19 at the time.

How did you get into writing?
I had friends that loved reading and writing. We were bookworms. I also got lucky. When I was 17, an extended family friend started a publishing company, and someone in the family suggested that we worked together. The man asked me for a sample of my work, and I sent him some — which were terrible — but he liked them. After that, he gave me a story pitch and told me to write around it. He liked what I did and signed me to his publishing company.

Ah, great. Back to those books.
I published the two books in 2004 and got ₦8k in the first wave of royalties. My dad insisted that I bought shares at a bank and ₦5k went into that. I also paid ₦800 in tithes at my church. I’m not sure what happened to what I had left, but I remember that I bought gifts for my parents and my girlfriend at the time.

What came after?
One of the books was selected by an international organisation for a project they were working on at the time. They bought 1000 copies and distributed them across libraries in Nigeria.

Interesting. How much did you make off the book in subsequent years?
2005: ₦45,000

2006: ₦25,000

2007: ₦20,000

2008: ₦10,000

After the fifth payment, the publisher stopped paying me. The demand for the books had decreased, and he complained that people owed him money. In the middle of this, we had a fallout. He had some of my manuscripts he was supposed to publish that he didn’t, so I collected everything back.

That’s rough.
Yeah, I know. I finished university in 2008, went to serve in the north, and got a job at an insurance company. I got ₦30k from the company plus ₦9,775 from the federal government. I worked in three departments — admin, IT, and marketing. But I enjoyed the perks of working in marketing. I made between ₦2,000 and ₦3,000 every week on commissions alone.

The company also gave me a furnished apartment. I lived on my commissions and put the remaining money in my savings. By the time I finished service in 2009, I had saved about ₦1m.

That’s impressive.
After NYSC, I got a job at an IT firm in a state in the south-west. They were supposed to pay me ₦45k every month. I spent three months there and wasn’t paid once. Their excuse was that there were no sales, so they weren’t making money.

Continue: https://www.zikoko.com/money/naira-life/nairalife-of-a-persevering-author/

If there’s one thing the TV show Insecure did for me, it is burn the word ghosting as well it’s impact on people into my skull. Today, we spoke to five young Nigerians who have been ghosted on what their worst experience being ghosted has been.

Chinelo, 23.
Right so, in my first year in uni, I started seeing this guy. It was a talking stage but I really liked him and I think he liked me (I’m not sure anymore cause who ghosts someone they like in such a wicked way). Anyways, it was really good for two months, everything started to go left after he stood me up on Valentine’s day and then he denied me when my best friend saw him at Amigo and told him “when are you resuming, your babe misses you”. This man said, “what babe? I don’t have a babe o”.

Fast forward to two weeks after this event, he came back to school and told me we wouldn’t be able to talk much on the phone because his phone was bad, I didn’t think anything of it because we’re in the same uni so I can always see him right? This man’s phone was “bad” for the whole of the Easter holiday and after that. We didn’t talk once. One day I went on WhatsApp and saw him online, he still hadn’t tried to contact me so I thought when we get back to school we’d just settle it. He didn’t resume for the first two weeks and the day I finally saw him, this man walked past me like he didn’t know who I was, it happened more than once. I was so confused because he’d go on IG and like my photos but he wouldn’t talk to me when he saw me. Once, I and my BFF ran into him in our cafeteria and he said Hi to her and ignored me like I wasn’t there. I wanted to faint. It took me 8 months to get over it and this idiot dared to text me to “check on me” after I’d fully moved on.

Jamie, 23.
So I met her and we started off as friends, as these things go. We went to Unilag together. Different departments. We’d just hang out after school, walk together to the gate, eat together, etc. Then I started liking her. She found out, and the relationship sort of changed. She kinda led me on. She didn’t say she didn’t like me back, but we started doing more stuff like going to the movies together, chilling in each other’s apartments, getting drunk and whatnot. I spent my birthday with her. It was beginning to get interesting sha. I was pretty sure we were going to end up dating. We were together almost everyday, talking on the phone, FaceTiming etc.

And then one Friday, I didn’t have classes, so I called her in the morning and asked if we would hang out later that day. She sounded dejected and when I asked why, she said we’d talk about it when we saw. She said I should call her by 5 pm. We’d been out a few days earlier and everything was okay. Now, NEPA had cut our light and my phone was on 4%. This was like 9 a.m. So I waited at home, doing nothing, waiting for 5pm (I know that sounds stupid, but if I didn’t have any plans with her, I would have left home earlier and just gone somewhere to charge my phone and chill. I just decided to wait till I saw her before I left home.)

I called her at 5pm. She didn’t pick. I put my phone back on airplane mode. 5:30pm, she didn’t pick. Airplane mode. 5:45pm and 6pm. Didn’t pick. So I texted her and said “Hey, you didn’t sound okay the last time we spoke, and now, you’re not picking. Are you good?” She read it and didn’t reply. I was so worried. Then my phone died.

I didn’t try to call her after that. On the next day, I was looking at WhatsApp stories when I saw her’s. She was posting pictures of herself smiling. I still didn’t try to contact her, I was waiting for her to contact me. She kept posting stories so I was sure she was okay. That text I sent her was the last time we spoke.

I bumped into her about 3 months later in school. Her reason for ghosting me like that: I’m sorry, I just got really busy that day and I forgot to reach out to you after.

Uju, 20.
Not sure I’d say “horrible” but I met this guy at a wedding in Kaduna, he lives in Abuja and I was in Lagos at the time. We hit it off instantly, like made out and everything. I went back to Lagos he went back to Abuja and we were talking for like a good two weeks. I even sent him a full platter of food twice as per lover babe. Anyway one morning, I texted him and no response. I called, messaged, nothing for like a week. I called his best friend (who is my best friend’s brother) and he said he had spoken to him so he wasn’t dead he was just ghosting me. Anyway, he came to apologize and said it “happens”.

Continue: https://www.zikoko.com/life/5-nigerians-on-their-worst-ghosting-experiences/

The wait to be vaccinated against the coronavirus is finally over for Nigerians. Nigeria finally received a total of 3.92 million doses of the AstraZeneca vaccine on March 2nd.

Following this development, the National Primary Health Care Development Agency (NPHCDA) launched an online portal and announced the guidelines for registrations.

How to register:

Registration requires a device with a working internet connection. Nigerians who want to register can visit the NPHCDA’s registration portal.

What do you need to fill the form?

To fill the vaccination form, you need your basic information: full name, phone number, email address, date of birth, sex, a form of ID, a residential address including states, LGA of residence, and ward of residence.

You are also meant to select your preferred vaccination date and time slot and upload a photograph. The form asks if you work in the health sector and if you have any medical conditions or allergies.


Click on this link to read the rest of the story: https://techcabal.com/2021/03/02/how-to-register-for-covid-vaccination-in-nigeria/

The subject of this week’s Sex Life is a heterosexual Nigerian woman in her early 40s. She talks about barely caring about sex when she got married in her 20s and how this is changing now that her children are grown up and away from home.

When did you have sex for the first time?
When I was a teenager, I was raped in school by senior boys. They told me that if I told anyone, they would kill me.


I’m so sorry. Were you able to talk to anyone about it?
Not immediately it happened. I knew my parents would blame me because I had heard them blame other women who got raped in our vicinity back then.


That’s messed up. When was your first consensual experience?
A few years later, when I was about 17, I liked a boy, he liked me back and we often made out. We didn’t date, but we once tried to have sex. I felt very weird when we started — even though I was quite Hot and eager to do it at first. I was sweating profusely, gasping and it was painful. I was having a panic attack. I told him to stop and we never tried it again. I didn’t try to have sex again until I got married.


Do you think being raped had anything to do with the panic attack?
At the time, I didn’t think about it as much. But eventually, I realised that the two incidents were probably related. I must have been afraid and was projecting the pain and fear I experienced when I was raped.

Back then, I thought that sex wasn’t for everybody. Being raped really framed my thoughts and feelings towards sex. Nobody had talked to me about sex, so I didn’t know much about it until it was time to get married.


Who told you about sex?
I was lucky to have a marriage counsellor that was very liberal. Back then, I thought she was crude. The kinds of things she said about sex were not things you’d expect to hear from a 60-year-old Christian mother.

She talked about sex positions, looking at sex as pleasurable and not just for having kids, pleasing your husband and more. It was hilarious the moment I became comfortable with her.

I was in my 20s at the time. She was the first person I told about being raped. She helped me get through it emotionally and for the first time, I broke down and unleashed all the pent up emotions I had.


I’m so sorry.
Thank you. My perspective about sex didn’t change a lot, though. But I felt I was ready to have sex, and I began having it once I got married.


You didn’t have sex before marriage?
No, we didn’t. We were both saving ourselves for marriage, due to our religious beliefs. I’m a Christian and he was a Muslim.


Did you enjoy the sex?
Not really, but I did it. In my mind, it was still only the means to an end — children. In the beginning, we were having sex two times a week. I told myself I was going to cope with it, but eventually, I couldn’t even stand sex once a week.

I didn’t know what to do. I loved my husband. I wasn’t sure how to tell him without causing a fight. Yet, I didn’t want any resentment to build up.


Why couldn’t you stand sex anymore?
So my first year in marriage was great. The sex was okay enough. I didn’t feel the ecstasy and pleasure that I was told I would feel, but it was manageable. It made my husband happy. Then I got pregnant and my body changed.

Within a year, I got pregnant again and was so frustrated by it. When I had my first two children, I wasn’t ready for them. I didn’t even want them. That affected the way I treated and related to them. But with my last two children, it was different. I really wanted them.

Having my first two kids, working, and taking care of them and the home was hard. Add sex to that kind of frustration, and all I wanted to do was disappear. Some people see sex as an outlet. I didn’t. It was an itch to me.


How did you solve that?
I didn’t. Our sex life disappeared shortly after my second child was born. I would typically tell him I was too tired to have sex or give all sorts of excuse. I think he got the idea. He tried to talk to me about it twice, but I would always divert the topic. We would have sex once or twice a month and that would be it. I guess I was also punishing him somehow, because he wasn’t really helping me at home.

When I turned 30, I became an entirely different person. I felt like I had missed out on my 20s. I wasn’t the best mother or wife or person or even colleague. But I felt I had been given a new slate. And the first thing I wanted to do with that new slate, was to have a child again.

I wanted a do-over on everything. My friends thought I was crazy. How could I want to live my best life at 30 by starting with kids? They wanted to know if the two I had weren’t enough. No one really understands. Even I don’t understand it completely. I can’t really explain how I felt. Then I had twins, lol. I wasn’t expecting that. There are no twins in my family and none that we know of in my husband’s family.

After the twins came, maybe because I was interested in fixing my marriage, or maybe it was just hormones, but I couldn’t keep my hands off my husband.

LMAO. Wow.
We started having sex a bit more often. I wasn’t as frustrated as I was when I had my first two kids. Maybe because I wasn’t working full-time. That went well for a while. I was enjoying the act of sex, but wasn’t having any orgasms.


Wow. Then what happened?
I guess time happened. Sex slowed down again for a few years. We were not deliberate about it and just had sex based on how we felt. I realised that you can’t leave sex to emotions, at least for us. He might be in the mood today and I might not. It took me a while to learn, but we’re there sha.


How did you get there?
A lot of things. So I started speaking up for myself and fighting him when he wasn’t helping out. Which was a lot of fights. LMAO. I also had to be patient because we were both unlearning. We both grew up in a time when we believed the husband shouldn’t be doing domestic chores.

Then two more things happened: my husband became a Chrisitan, even more serious than I was. He wanted us to fix things between us. He confessed he had been tempted to cheat many times but hadn’t. I was mad at this because it seemed like he was blaming me for almost cheating. I calmed down from that anger and explained that, it wasn’t my fault I didn’t want sex. I told him for the first time about being raped and all of that.

The second thing was that our two older kids went to university and then we went to drop the twins in boarding school. The summary is that we became free.

Continue: https://www.zikoko.com/life/sexlife/sex-life-discovering-sex-after-four-children/

mPharma, the Ghanaian startup that manages prescription drug inventory for pharmacies and their suppliers announced that it has entered Ethiopia through a franchise agreement. This move will see mPharma enter its eighth market in Sub-Saharan Africa and third in East Africa

mPharma signed a franchise agreement with Belayab Pharmaceuticals PLC to increase patient access to affordable and quality medications in Ethiopia, through its subsidiary, Haltons Limited. With the franchise, mPharma and Belayab Pharmaceuticals aim to open two operational pharmacies in Addis Ababa this year.

Headquartered in Ghana, mPharma was founded by Daniel Shoukimas, Gregory Rockson, and James Finucane in 2013. The technology-driven healthcare company acquired Kenya’s second-largest pharmacy chain, Haltons, in 2019, taking control of 27 stores across Kenya.

Currently operational in Ghana, Nigeria, Zambia, Rwanda, and Kenya, mPharma serves about a million patients every year through over 300 partner pharmacies and provides patients with affordable and high-quality medicines in its quest to build an Africa that is in good health.


Read the rest of the story: https://techcabal.com/2021/03/11/ghanian-health-startup-mpharma-launches-in-ethiopia/