₦airaland Forum

Dating a Yoruba man is something most people do to build character. Some consider this extreme sport as a cry for help and a means of inflicting self-harm. From the Tundes to the Femis, Yoruba men will leave you wishing you chose a life of celibacy. Today, I spoke to a 25-year-old lady who has been in 6 awful relationships, dated only Yoruba men and considers them her Kryptonite.

Man No. 1
I was 16 years old when I started dating guy number 1. He was twice as old as me if not older and kept pressuring me to have sex with him. This man was already talking about getting married and settling down with me but the whole thing was just off. I had just graduated from secondary school and now that I think of it, he was definitely a predator. I turned him down every time he asked for sex and broke things off when I found out he was 2 years older than my stepmother. We only dated for 6 months.

Man No. 2
When I realised that man number 1 was weird, I ghosted. I started talking a certain neighbour of mine who lived in the next street. He was 7 years older than I was, a med student as at the time and the first man I ever slept with. We dated for a while but it was on and off before we drifted apart. In the second year, we were only seeing each other once a year and things only got worse after I left my city to another state for schooling.

Man No. 3
Shortly after I moved to a new state, guy number 2 stopped talking to me. We were still in a relationship but not really. I met guy number 3, he was such a lovely man. We started talking and one thing led to another and we had sex. Problem is, I got pregnant. I had just turned 18 and I wasn’t ready to be a mother. Deep down, I knew my life was going to be over if I kept the baby so I had an abortion. I didn’t tell anyone until after.

Man No. 4
This was my serious relationship. I met guy number 4 in my school. He was a lecturer for one of the general courses. This was one of the youngest I’ve dated as he was just 2 years older than me. He was fresh out of NYSC and this was his first job. I found him intriguing. We didn’t do anything until he left school, after which, we started dating.

Our sex was phenomenal, he is the best sex I’ve ever had till date. However, the downside to him was that he was very manipulative, hot-tempered and he physically abused me. In the course of the relationship, he hit me about 4 times.

The first time he hit me, we had a fight and he beat me up. Omo, I left his house. This guy came to my house begging and crying. Also, he was fond of randomly breaking up with me every time we had a disagreement. I would want to talk thing out but he would act like his mind was made up.

One time, I travelled to see my dad and he broke up with me. I took the next bus to Lagos to see him. I got to Lagos in the night and this guy left me outside his house until 3:00 am. That night we fought and he beat me up, I decided to just break things off. This was actually the second instance he hit me.

The fourth and last time he hit me, I smashed everything in his house.

My sisters were the only ones who knew he was abusive and they made sure I cut him off entirely. I was a little reluctant cause this was my first serious relationship and my family knew him and I loved him so much. In the end, I knew it wasn’t worth risking my life for. By the time he came begging again, I had already moved on from him. I was 21- 23 years old when I dated him.

Man No. 5
I met guy number 5 during my NYSC days. It was just 2 months after breaking things off with guy number 4. Funny enough, I don’t think he was a rebound. He came into my life when I needed someone. I didn’t think I was going to find love after guy number 4.

The relationship was very blissful but I grew suspicious of him. My instincts felt a bit off about him. I asked if he was in a relationship and he told me he just broke up with his girlfriend. My suspicion grew whenever I was at his place because he would enter one of the rooms and be making calls. It felt like he was always hiding.

He didn’t let me follow him on social media so I decided to create an Instagram burner account to stalk him. That was how I found out he had a serious girlfriend. I met him in June. In July, he had his wedding introduction. It was on a Saturday, that Monday, he was with me. I didn’t even do all this research until December.

When I confronted him, he told me he didn’t lie to me, he just withheld information.

In January he told me he was getting married. By April, he got married. When I wanted to leave but he started weeping and begging and I really loved him. I don’t think I’ve loved anyone as much as I’ve loved this man. I agreed to stay with him. Four-month after he got married, we were still dating, it became exhausting so I ended things.

I still follow him and his wife on my burner to date.

Man No. 6
I met guy number 6 when he was a corper with me in NYSC. We hit things off and started dating. Thing is, guy number 5 came into the picture again and I couldn’t resist him so we started hanging out and having sex again. I have ended things with him for good. However, guy number 6 is non-commital to our relationship and it’s just off-putting. We live 20 minutes away from each other but since the lockdown, we’ve only seen each other 4 times. I plan on breaking up with him this week.

Source: https://www.zikoko.com/her/yoruba-men-are-my-kryptonite/

In 2013, Kola* wrote UTME for the first time. The plan was to study Computer Science at the University of Benin, one of Nigeria’s foremost universities. Unfortunately, he didn’t meet the cut-off mark for the course.

Every year, millions of Nigerian students sit for the exam organised by the Joint Admission and Matriculation Board (JAMB) as a prerequisite for applying to any Nigerian tertiary institution. Kola had two choices: try his luck with another university or wait until the following year to rewrite the exam.

“I couldn’t stay at home for an entire year,” he says.

He and his parents eventually found a seemingly perfect alternative. They decided that he would attend Igbinedion University in Okada, a town in Edo State, 51 kilometres from Benin.

“I didn’t even know the school existed before I wrote UTME, but it was a good alternative.”

Changing his university of choice from a federal university to a private university wasn’t a decision he took lightly. For starters, there was the tuition to consider. The average fees at University of Benin was ₦42,000 ($108) per session. At Igbinedion, he would have to pay ₦800,000 ($2,000). One thing was sure though. He wouldn’t have to worry about the crippling strikes Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) and other staff unions embarked on every session.

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What he didn’t know at the time was that there was something else he would have to worry about.

He was going back to his hostel after writing an exam in the second semester of his first year when he overheard a group of students talking about sourcing for money to give a lecturer.

“I was not bothered when I heard this. It wasn’t my problem. But I got to the hostel and more students were talking about it.”

His curiosity got the better of him, prompting him to ask someone what the fuss was about. He got his answer: lecturers in his university were demanding money from students before they passed them.

They called it “sorting.”

In several universities across the country, students and lecturers are in a symbiotic relationship of exchanging money for marks. More often than not, it happens at the prodding of the lecturer. While it is common and, maybe, not surprising to see this phenomenon play out at public universities, it is strange to see it happen at private universities like Igbinedion University where lecturers are relatively well-paid, aren’t owed salaries and have higher standards to follow. But if Kola’s story is anything to go by, this happens there too.

You either pay up or risk failing a course
Bianca*, a graduate of Ambrose Alli University, a public university at Ekpoma, also in Edo State, was certain that she wouldn’t pay money to any lecturer before she made good grades. She had known about this practice before she started at the school. Her sister had gone to the university and used to talk about it with their dad. At Ambrose Alli University, they called it “blocking.”

Bianca was so comfortable in her certainty that when a classmate advised her to block a course in her first year, she brushed it off.

“I always felt that it was for students who didn’t study and wanted to pass courses by any means necessary.”

She got an F in two courses in her first semester at the university. And instinctively, she realised that she had read the situation wrong. She got the message loud and clear.

“From that moment, anytime I heard that there was an opportunity to block a course, I went for it.”

Like Bianca, Kola was also indifferent about it until he failed a course he thought he should have passed in his second year. The truth stared at them — they had to play ball if they wanted to graduate with their mates.

How does it work?
Richard*, a postgraduate student at Kogi State university — the same school where he got his undergraduate degree — told me that the lecturers didn’t outrightly demand money from students. Instead, they relied on other students, whom they had relationships with, to do their dirty jobs for them.

This is the same mode of operation in Igbinedion University and Ambrose Alli University according to Kola and Bianca respectively: to maintain plausible deniability, the lecturers don’t handle the transactions directly.

“The deals are usually brokered by the class reps. They ask you to meet them if you’re not sure how you would perform in an exam, so you can ‘work’ it,” Bianca says.

She added that students, especially female students try to steer clear of the lecturers for fear of being propositioned.

Students who can’t pay in cash are expected to pay in kind. For female students, the lecturer may expect sexual favours in return for grades. Male students, on the other hand, are tasked with buying gifts or rendering some form of service to the lecturer.

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After the payment stage, the lecturers gather the students into their offices and give them fresh answer sheets to rewrite the exam. Only that this time, they’re allowed to use their study materials to answer the questions.

Lecturers at Ambrose Alli University don’t always go through this trouble, especially when they’re dealing with 100 and 200 level students. They simply upgrade their marks. So, a potential D will change to an A, a B or a C, depending on how much the student paid.

“Starting from 300 level, the lecturers can’t stamp grades on scripts indiscriminately anymore because there are external examiners who go through scripts to ensure transparency,” Bianca explains.

The deal is usually upheld, but I wondered what would happen if a lecturer collects money from a student but doesn’t hold up to his or her end of the deal. Bianca and Kola don’t think this ever happens. However, Richard said that any lecturer who attempts this is making himself a target of violent attacks from disgruntled students.

“If a student pays a lecturer and he reneges on his promise, all bets are off. Chances are that the lecturer will be attacked.”

Sorting is not cheap
At Ambrose Alli University, students pay between ₦5,000 and ₦20,000 to sort courses.

“For a 2-unit course, you pay ₦10,000 for an A, ₦8,000 for a B and ₦5,000 for a C.” For 4 and unit courses, you could pay as high as ₦20,000,” Bianca breaks it down.

The minimum wage in Nigeria is currently ₦30,000 (about $77), which doesn’t cut it for a lot of people. Numbers from the National Bureau of Statistics suggest that about 40% (representing 82.9 million Nigerians) live in poverty. Yet, Nigerian lecturers don’t care that most students aren’t working and many of them struggle to get by.

Things are even more interesting at Igbinedion University. The lecturers rely on their own discretion to set a price tag, although the student’s relationship with them plays a role here.

“The average price to sort a course is between ₦15,000 and ₦40,000. But nothing less than ₦15,000. Students pay up to ₦90,000 (300% the minimum wage) to sort courses in a semester,” Kola reveals.

The grade a student also gets depends on their relationship with the lecturer. Usually, they settle on a B or a C. A student who sorts his or her course shouldn’t expect an A.

Students at Kogi State University pay the least amount of money to sort their courses. Richard said that the highest sum of money he ever heard anyone pay a lecturer was ₦4,000. The standard charge rests between ₦1,000 and ₦1,500.

“Most of the students at KSU simply cannot afford to pay huge sums of money. Even when I wrote final year projects for some of my classmates, it was a struggle before I got someone who agreed to pay me ₦17,000. I could have gotten up to ₦40,000 at another university.”

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You may wonder how the students afford to pay the lecturers, considering that students register several courses every semester. Bianca’s dad knew about the arrangement and sent money to her every semester.

“My dad usually sent me about ₦60,000 every semester to take care of this thing.”

Kola had to handle it himself for the most part.

“I dipped into my savings to pay lecturers. It wasn’t until I got to 300 level that I told my parents about it. It was hard to convince them that it was just the way things were.”

Richard didn’t partake in sorting, at least not in the conventional sense. He built relationships with the lecturers and leveraged them to get out of paying money.

“I try to get the lecturer’s attention by asking them questions in class. Sometimes, I visit them at their offices and try to see how I can help them. I made sure to never ask them for favours. Basically, I developed mentor-mentee relationships with them.”

“Everyone knows it happens but no one cares”
Actions have consequences. The authorities responsible for sanctioning the lecturers for their offences are the university management boards. Kola, Bianca and Richard said that if the management knew about the practice, they did nothing about it. One could argue that the management of these schools are not on top of the situation because the students, who are directly affected, keep quiet about it. But it’s more complicated than it seems. Students are scared of reporting to the authorities for fear of retribution. They cannot know which members of the academic staff to trust.

“From the vice-chancellor to the porter, everyone seems to be corrupt. I don’t think that there’s a lecturer that hasn’t tampered with marks. All of them are guilty. Everyone in management used to be lecturers too,” Richard quips.

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He noted, with sadness, that students have also contributed to the precarious situation.

“From my experience, the proportion of students who are willing to pay money to sort their courses are far greater than those who aren’t.”

This suggests that students also drive the demand and supply model of this practice. Here’s the thing — students want to pass their courses and want to get the highest grade possible. However, not everyone wants to put in the work. Conveniently, there’s another option they could explore: they part with some money and they pass. These kinds of students will not require a lot of convincing before they embrace grade sorting. In fact, they actively seek it out.

The Aftermath
Bianca, Kola and Richard are out of school, but they are still reeling from the experience.

“I hated giving those fuckers my money,” Bianca fumes. “Even though my dad sent about ₦500,000 in total throughout my stay at the school, I used about ₦130,000 to sort my courses.

Interestingly, Bianca isn’t even sure of the grade she graduated with.

“My statement of result states that I graduated with a 2.1. But I found my name under the 2.2 category in the convocation list. At the moment, I’m not sure of what I actually graduated with.”

While she might not know her final grade yet, she knows how much the whole experience affected her self-confidence and attitude towards learning.

“It really bleeped with me. At a point, I didn’t see the point of going to classes. But I studied for courses I knew that I didn’t have to block.”

Kola is also demoralised by the sheer insanity of paying to pass courses, especially in a university where he had to pay about ₦800,000 as tuition every year to remain a student.

“My attitude towards learning took a beating the more I paid to pass courses. The enthusiasm totally fizzled out. If you asked me to mention something useful I gained from the university, I would be at a loss for words.”

Richard is determined to not let the situation haunt him for the rest of his life. He wants to be a part of the system and fight the rot from inside.

“I want to be a lecturer. I want to bring my own principles and weird ideas to life. I’m not saying that I will be able to stop grade sorting in its entirety, but my students will know me as the lecturer that doesn’t partake in it.”

Source: https://www.zikoko.com/aluta-and-chill/sorting-in-nigerian-universities/

mmyfarmsltd:
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These guys aren't Nigerians.

Haha. They actually are.

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Having a child anywhere in the world is by no means easy. From the stress of carrying a baby for nine months to the stress of actually giving birth, it’s a lot for one person to handle. That’s why when the conversation around childbirth and spouse support for women (aka being there and actively helping) during pregnancy and childbirth came up on Twitter today, we decided to ask a few women about their own personal experiences. Here’s what they said:

AISHA, 37
This is not exactly a childbirth story, but we lost our baby at seven months. My husband was by my side all through. We were planning a move to a new state on account of his new job just about the time this happened. He abandoned the opportunity to stay with me. It was an excruciating thing to be in and even with him being there, I felt alone, but he was there for me.

TINU, 32
My husband and I were separated just before I was due. I’d found out he was cheating (again). So I told myself I had to leave — can’t bring up my child in that environment. Childbirth itself wasn’t hard, I guess. I’m lucky because the stories I heard prepared me for the worst. Interesting enough, the moment he heard I had gone into labour, he showed up, although I didn’t actually see him till after.

MARIAM, 27
The experience was bittersweet. Bitter because the pain was excruciating, if that’s putting it mildly. Sweet because the moment my baby’s head was out, it felt like I was on top of the moon. It was so surreal… I literally forgot all the pain. My husband was with me all through.

Mekwe that you mekwe and enjoyed together. Now time to born you’ll now leave her alone? Ah.

My husband didn’t eat throughout that day. First it was from seeing me in so much pain, food was the last thing on his mind, then over excitement after the baby came. It was the following morning I was asking him if he had eaten. I told him to leave the ward and not come back till he ate something because me wey born sef don dey chop already.

My mother came to stay with me after we were discharged.All I had to do was just eat, sleep and feed my baby. My mum didn’t let me lift a finger. And my husband was so obsessed. If I wasn’t feeding her (my baby) and she wasn’t sleeping, he was with her.

NNEKA, 38
I’m a single mother, not exactly by choice. I told my ex that I was pregnant and he ghosted. When it was this close to my labour date, my mum and sister moved in with me. I had been scared that I would be alone during the entire thing. I was a little proud and didn’t want to ask them to come, but when they showed up, I didn’t even argue. Which is lucky for me because I passed out just a few days before I was due and needed help getting to the hospital. They were with me all through. I don’t think I was ever alone in those first few days. I’m not sure if my ex knows or cares that I have his child. I tried to reach out a few years ago because my child was asking questions. He’s active on Twitter, and I assumed this was the best platform. I was ignored.

SOPE, 26
I gave birth during the heat of Covid. I was in labour for hours. They told my husband to go back home because he couldn’t be in the ward with me and neither could he be in the hospital because of the Covid rules. He didn’t go home. He stayed in the car and kept parading the building, asking about me. Even after I gave birth and they said he should go home, the same thing.

Continue reading: https://www.zikoko.com/her/7-nigerian-women-share-their-childbirth-stories/

A vasectomy is a permanent contraceptive method where a male’s vas deferens is cut and tied or sealed to prevent sperm from getting to the urethra, to stop the man from ejaculating and fertilizing the female’s egg. Whew, that’s a lot of grammar. In simpler English, the tube that carries sperm from the testicles is tied up or sealed in order to prevent the sperm from reaching the penis. This procedure is mostly permanent although it may be reversed in some cases.

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Men are increasingly considering vasectomies as a contraceptive method. For the most part, they do it to take the burden off their female partners who have historically been expected to use birth control methods that give them nasty side effects and some times, permanent damage. Vasectomies are generally safe and not as painful as most people think it is. I talked to 5 Nigerian men about vasectomies. They had some pretty interesting answers.

Paul, 38
I decided to get a vasectomy because we were done havings kids and no longer wanted to worry about falling pregnant. It’s less invasive for a guy to get a vasectomy than for a woman to undergo tubal ligation (tying up the fallopian tubes). It’s also way cheaper and requires much shorter recovery time. It’s not even comparable.

I had it done three years ago at my doctor’s office. It was a keyhole surgery (a minimally invasive surgery that’s carried out through a small incision in the skin) with local anaesthesia. I was chatting with the doctor the whole time while he had my balls in his hands. The procedure took all of 30 minutes. I had it done on a Friday and only took Monday off work (because its a desk job). I was cleared to return to the gym after a week.

I don’t regret it at all because it was an informed decision. Also, my wife put her body through the trials of pregnancy and childbirth. Getting a vasectomy done is such a small hit to take for the team. It’s even a bonus because you can have sexy time without condoms or fear of getting pregnant.

When people hear that I underwent the procedure, they’re generally chill about it. Except Nigerian men. They act like they’ve seen a ghost or I called their mother a witch. I can see them fighting the urge to grab their balls to ensure it’s still there. There’s no regret for me. I have two kids. I don lock shop. My team has retired my jersey. Full MVP status.

Hamza, 31
I’ve setup a vasectomy appointment for November. I don’t have any children and I’m perfectly fine with the prospect of never having one. My girlfriend is completely fine with it although I dare not tell my mother.

Ejiro, 47
I got a vasectomy six years ago. The birth of my third child was a shock to my wife and me, so we immediately decided that I would undergo a vasectomy. It wasn’t a big deal; I’m a doctor and I knew exactly what to expect. I was told it would be potentially painful but it really wasn’t. I was prescribed painkillers and I stopped taking them about ten days after the procedure.

I had it done here in the UK so it was pretty straightforward and, more importantly, free. Asides my wife, not even my close friends and family know that I underwent the procedure. Even if they did, they wouldn’t be surprised I had it done.

Now that I’ve had it done, I’ve got complete sexual freedom. I’m not bothered about whether my wife remembers to take her pills. I’m happy knowing that I’ve completed my family size. It is something I should have taken responsibility for and done a long time ago.

Sam, 32
I’m yet to get a vasectomy but my wife and I are in agreement on this, and I’ve spoken with a urologist. I’ve decided to get this done in November (that’s when our baby will be born) because my wife and I got married knowing that we’re both AS. You might think it’s a big risk but we both knew what we were getting into. Before we got married, we both wanted a child.

When she got pregnant, we took a test to confirm the genotype of the baby, and if she turned out to be SS, we would have aborted immediately. Luckily, she’s AS.

I’m a health worker, so I have experienced firsthand what women go through with birth control and family planning. I’ve seen how it messes them up in different ways like weight gain and constant bleeding. I’ve decided to take that pain off my wife and get a vasectomy done.

Ayo, 34
I’ve decided to get one. I’m married and I have 2 boys that mean the world to me. People ask if I don’t want to try again for a girl and I wonder if they will help me cater for that extra mouth in this Nigerian economy.

Source: https://www.zikoko.com/man/5-nigerian-men-talk-about-vasectomies/

A vasectomy is a permanent contraceptive method where a male’s vas deferens is cut and tied or sealed to prevent sperm from getting to the urethra, to stop the man from ejaculating and fertilizing the female’s egg. Whew, that’s a lot of grammar. In simpler English, the tube that carries sperm from the testicles is tied up or sealed in order to prevent the sperm from reaching the penis. This procedure is mostly permanent although it may be reversed in some cases.

Men are increasingly considering vasectomies as a contraceptive method. For the most part, they do it to take the burden off their female partners who have historically been expected to use birth control methods that give them nasty side effects and some times, permanent damage. Vasectomies are generally safe and not as painful as most people think it is. I talked to 5 Nigerian men about vasectomies. They had some pretty interesting answers.

Paul, 38
I decided to get a vasectomy because we were done havings kids and no longer wanted to worry about falling pregnant. It’s less invasive for a guy to get a vasectomy than for a woman to undergo tubal ligation (tying up the fallopian tubes). It’s also way cheaper and requires much shorter recovery time. It’s not even comparable.

I had it done three years ago at my doctor’s office. It was a keyhole surgery (a minimally invasive surgery that’s carried out through a small incision in the skin) with local anaesthesia. I was chatting with the doctor the whole time while he had my balls in his hands. The procedure took all of 30 minutes. I had it done on a Friday and only took Monday off work (because its a desk job). I was cleared to return to the gym after a week.

I don’t regret it at all because it was an informed decision. Also, my wife put her body through the trials of pregnancy and childbirth. Getting a vasectomy done is such a small hit to take for the team. It’s even a bonus because you can have sexy time without condoms or fear of getting pregnant.

When people hear that I underwent the procedure, they’re generally chill about it. Except Nigerian men. They act like they’ve seen a ghost or I called their mother a witch. I can see them fighting the urge to grab their balls to ensure it’s still there. There’s no regret for me. I have two kids. I don lock shop. My team has retired my jersey. Full MVP status.

Hamza, 31
I’ve setup a vasectomy appointment for November. I don’t have any children and I’m perfectly fine with the prospect of never having one. My girlfriend is completely fine with it although I dare not tell my mother.

Ejiro, 47
I got a vasectomy six years ago. The birth of my third child was a shock to my wife and me, so we immediately decided that I would undergo a vasectomy. It wasn’t a big deal; I’m a doctor and I knew exactly what to expect. I was told it would be potentially painful but it really wasn’t. I was prescribed painkillers and I stopped taking them about ten days after the procedure.

I had it done here in the UK so it was pretty straightforward and, more importantly, free. Asides my wife, not even my close friends and family know that I underwent the procedure. Even if they did, they wouldn’t be surprised I had it done.

Now that I’ve had it done, I’ve got complete sexual freedom. I’m not bothered about whether my wife remembers to take her pills. I’m happy knowing that I’ve completed my family size. It is something I should have taken responsibility for and done a long time ago.

Sam, 32
I’m yet to get a vasectomy but my wife and I are in agreement on this, and I’ve spoken with a urologist. I’ve decided to get this done in November (that’s when our baby will be born) because my wife and I got married knowing that we’re both AS. You might think it’s a big risk but we both knew what we were getting into. Before we got married, we both wanted a child.

When she got pregnant, we took a test to confirm the genotype of the baby, and if she turned out to be SS, we would have aborted immediately. Luckily, she’s AS.

I’m a health worker, so I have experienced firsthand what women go through with birth control and family planning. I’ve seen how it messes them up in different ways like weight gain and constant bleeding. I’ve decided to take that pain off my wife and get a vasectomy done.

Ayo, 34
I’ve decided to get one. I’m married and I have 2 boys that mean the world to me. People ask if I don’t want to try again for a girl and I wonder if they will help me cater for that extra mouth in this Nigerian economy.

Source: https://www.zikoko.com/man/5-nigerian-men-talk-about-vasectomies/

The subject for today is Mr A, a mortician. He talks about his first day on the job, people asking him for human parts, and why he lives intentionally.

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MONDAY – TUESDAY:
The sound of my phone ringing is the first thing that wakes me up today. Mid-sleep, I hear my boss shouting at the other end: “What do you know about the body that’s smelling in the department?” “Come to work now!” Before I can explain myself, she cuts the call.

I jump up from bed, have my bath and quickly rush down to work.

From the gate, I see people covering their nose. The source of the odour is a three-day-old body in the morgue. When the body got to the mortuary, the relatives couldn’t pay for embalming, so my boss didn’t release the necessary ingredients even after I pleaded for the go-ahead while the family members were out raising money. But now, because of the escalated smell, everyone is suddenly feeling charitable.

At the office, my boss is shouting, so I remind her of her role in our current situation. This calms her down. I then state my case: We can’t embalm the body until late at night because there’s no protective gear and I don’t want house flies from the body to lay eggs on me. I don’t want to carry a disease that’s not my own before people say I got an infection from being promiscuous. The government doesn’t care about our safety, so we must protect ourselves. Before I’m even done talking, the ingredients for embalming have appeared out of nowhere – she just wants the smell gone by this time tomorrow.

I tell her that all we can do is wait until midnight.

Midnight:
I like working at night because there’s no disturbance. I work faster because I have complete focus. Embalming is meant for social gathering, for people to pay last respects to the body in open caskets. In some cases, it’s used to “beautify” bodies that have been deformed through accidents – it helps hold the body together for a befitting burial.

Continue reading: https://www.zikoko.com/money/hustle/people-ask-me-for-body-parts-a-week-in-the-life-of-a-mortician/

Bitcoin Story is a series that tells the eventful stories of Bitcoin and crypto traders. Every week, we’ll interview a Bitcoin or Crypto trader about their experiences and share them with you. This includes everything from those who have it rough to those who smile to the bank.

My name is Stephen Aluko and this is my Bitcoin story.

See, I’ve seen things in this life that have made me ask how I could be so stupid. You know those situations that make you go “Ah, I’m probably an ode?”

Yeah, that was how I felt the first time I traded Bitcoin with my last ₦1000. Today, I am an experienced Bitcoin trader and life is good. But when I look back, I laugh.

I’ve always been a hustler. Like everyone else, I just want more money and a better life. Things were hard, and I was never sure of my food for the next day.

At some point, there was a strike at my university and I was jobless. I was scared I wouldn’t have anything to do, which meant more hunger. I tried job hunting but nothing clicked. I applied for 120 jobs in 2 weeks and nothing clicked. That’s how bad things were.

So I started hustling. What did I not do? First, I helped people register for the Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board (JAMB) exam. Next, I ran Cyber Cafe services. Then I did some work as a videographer. I didn’t stop there. I installed media gadgets and did training on media. The goal was to go wherever the money was or could be. I walked around all day with my beaten shoes, cracking my brain, thinking about what to do.

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My First Trade!
Someone told me about Bitcoin, saying I could invest in this ‘internet money and it would somehow grow. I started laughing because I thought he was crazy. I actually laughed the lunatic out of my room.

Frankly, it sounded like baba was setting me up to lose. Also, I already didn’t have money so it felt like he was just insulting me. The guy refused to drop the matter sha, so I decided to try it with the last ₦1,000 in my account. Honestly, it was food for the next 3 days but I tried it regardless.

The moment I bought the Bitcoin, my body became cold. What if it was a scam? Looking back, it was probably just the fear of the unknown. I think everyone feels like that when they take a huge risk. I just felt like after all my hustle, it was one small boy that came to run me street. I went home in silence and didn’t tell my roommate so he wouldn’t laugh at me.

The next day, the guy told me that the money I invested had actually grown from ₦1,000 to ₦1,300. My blood pressure reduced as I saw that the whole thing was real. I told him to give me back my money first. After doing so, he explained how it worked and for the first time, it seemed straightforward.

Another Risk…
Till this day, I always laugh when I remember what I did next.

I borrowed money to plant a cucumber farm so I could raise some capital. Have you ever been so desperate? I was hungry literally and figuratively.

Fortunately, I was able to raise ₦70,000 after harvesting some really long cucumbers. Haha, I still have the pictures. I sold them and put the money into trading Bitcoin. It was easier this time because I knew I wasn’t being scammed. I know you think I would have looked for how to make fast money. But I took things slow instead. My first set of trades increased the money from ₦70,000 to ₦110,000.

Trading wasn’t a smooth ride. I made rookie mistakes that almost sent me back to my village. One time, I used all my capital to buy Bitcoin and didn’t sell immediately. It ended in hot tears… lol. But even with that, I was hooked from the first set of trades.

I decided to learn more about Bitcoin. I figured one of the best ways was to find a bunch of people who had been in the game for a while. I found and joined a community like this, where I could learn from other traders, share my problems, and get help too.

Continue: https://www.zikoko.com/money/the-bitcoin-story-of-a-guy-who-started-trading-bitcoin-with-just-%E2%82%A61000/

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Let’s start from when you were tiny.
I used to help my mum at her store where she sold perfumes. Then she opened another store for kid’s clothing in the city we lived in.

What city?
Delta. My mum used to buy clothes from Dubai, so I’d travel with her, and pick out the kids’ clothes. I think it was at the end of primary school. Then I started scamming my parents in secondary school.

Ah. How?
Markups. Whenever we have all those school events, I’d just add money on top. So let’s say I’m supposed to pay ₦10k for something, I’d ask for ₦30k.

Ehn? Where did you learn that?
My daddy is a spendthrift. He used to say “all my money is in my pocket”, I mean it makes no sense but… hahaha.

I wonder who else is like that.
Me, hahaha. I’ve actually had to learn to be different from him because it’s really bad. My daddy can have ₦200k in his pocket, let him reach the gate and come back, pew. My mummy says that I and my dad just carry money and burn it.

What about uni though, did that change?
Ah, I went to a private uni and they gave me my school fees – about ₦400k. I blew everything and gave my father stories. Like, I can’t even remember the story, but my dad was so upset. I was a very somehow person. This was around 2009. See, I can’t even have a child like me.

So you learned this from your dad too?
Where my dad used to work, there were allowances for his children’s school fees. My dad would take all our school fees, markup the amount. He’d put the school fees higher than the maximum amount allocated, so they’d just have to pay him everything. That’s how I learned how to do it.

You’re your father’s daughter.
Yes, and that’s how I remember money growing up, it was just there in abundance, not something you hoarded.

Did it ever reach a point where it flipped?
Yes! It was so bad! I hated that new life. I felt sorry for my younger sibling’s because it hit them while they were still in secondary school. Me and my immediate younger sister – we’re the first two – we’d sailed through and gone to the best secondary schools and universities.

For me, it hit when I was trying to get my life together. This was around 2012. I’d just dropped out of uni where I was studying computer science.

How did you find out things had gone south?
First, my dad was angry with me after I dropped out, so I wasn’t his favourite child anymore. He said I was spoilt and didn’t appreciate the things they did for me. Everything else was going downhill at the time.

We had up to four or five cars. I’d just come home one day like to find out one had been sold. Then we’d ask for certain things and they’d say, “we can’t do that now.”

I imagine this scarcity triggered a new mindset.
Yes. Before, I always thought that there’d always be money. And it’s not like we were rich-rich o, but my dad made sure we didn’t lack anything at all. We always flew, never went by road. We went to the best schools.

I know I’m my father’s daughter, but it was this period that made me realise I didn’t want to be like my father. I think I was mad at him because I felt like he could have saved. Or invested. Or something. And all of this was what triggered my enterprising side.

How did that happen?
First of all, I changed my mind and decided I wanted to go to do something else. Flight school. But my dad was like, you want to go and waste my money again? So I had to get a job. My cousin’s boyfriend was like “oh she’s really smart” and then he recommended me for a job. They didn’t even ask me for my CV, I just resumed.

A flex.
It was a real estate company; I was cute, young and could speak plenty of English. They paid ₦50k. This was around 2013. Funny thing is, my dad used to drop me off at work every day. I was there for about four or five months. I got bored.

So what did you do when you left?
I started my own company, a cleaning service. It still feels like one of my biggest achievements. I learned that the companies where I was were more into commercial cleaning, so I turned to domestic cleaning. You’d register and a cleaner would come and clean. I was so involved with it. In fact, I actually learned how to clean like a pro, so I was the first cleaner. My biggest staff strength was about 8 or 9 at the time.

The real money maker was cleaning government offices. When I made my first million, I almost ran mad.

Mad o!
Funny thing is, when I started, my dad used to troll me. But when he saw that I was serious, my dad was the one hooking me up with clients. “Oh my daughter does this” everywhere. He even gave me his car to use for business runs.

But the business no longer exists today?
Yeah, I eventually got money for flight school.

From the business?
It was a mix. I got money from family and friends – I don’t deserve any of them. It was a lot of money. One of my dad’s friends gave me ₦1 million – my dad spent that money. This was 2014.

Inside life.
My dad actually gave me the documents to some land he owned. He asked me to sell it, then take back my money. The land was like ₦4.5 million.

So when I sold the land, I told the person to pay the money directly into my school’s account. Then he paid some in cash to me.

You…used your father’s money?
My father threatened fire and brimstone, but I was already out of the country. The good thing about him is that he doesn’t stay angry for too long.

Do you deserve your father or does your father deserve you?
We deserve each other. I’ll use dollars to explain my school fees. Is that okay?

Sure.
Everything was supposed to cost about $100k. I left in 2014, just when the naira’s value was beginning to suffer. I didn’t have the complete cash, so I just paid for what was possible. What I could pay was about 50% of my fees, which was about ₦4-5 million. And by the time I could pay the balance, what was supposed to be 50% was now back at 100% because the naira had crashed.

I left Nigeria with about ₦4-5 million in just tuition money. This didn’t include accommodation, tickets, feeding. And when I got there, I got stranded.

Oh wow. How did you un-strand?
My mum sold her land and sent me money – and that land was precious to her. Then I started writing to my state government. While the bureaucracy was happening, people in government would ask me what my next stage of training would be due for payment, I’d tell them and they’d send me money. We toiled. In fact, there was a year where I had to come home because there was no money to continue.

So, I’m like a community project. I put in work, but so did my family, my friends and my state government. Finally, in 2018, I got my licence.

You did it!
I used to dream of wanting it so bad. When you dream of wanting something so bad that you become scared you might never get it, it starts to feel like a nightmare. When I got my licence, I was relieved, but it was quickly followed by a “now what?”

Getting a commercial pilot licence is just the start. You have to get something we call a type rating. It’s a certification to fly only a certain type of plane.

So, like a driver’s licence but for planes.
Yes! I have only one, but it’s for a small plane. That cost me $30,000. I paid for that in 2018. I got $20k from my state government and $10k from my friends.

Who are your friends?
Like! They’ve really come through for me over the years! Someone sent me $2k while I was in flight school and had run out of money! I have a very loyal community. I tend to get a lot of help from people.

Anyway, I got certified in 2019. Luckily, someone had just bought a plane of the same type I had the type rating for. A private jet. Someone took me to a person, who then took me to a person, who took me to the owner of the plane. I didn’t even start immediately, because there wasn’t an opening. And that was the beginning of my journey into Corporate Aviation.

Well done! What next happened?
There’s another important aspect of my financial life that I didn’t mention. Someone I was dating. He used to be like, “you can’t keep using that spendthrift excuse. Learn to manage money, it’s a muscle.” So he started teaching me how to save. He calls it the 30/30/30/10 formula. Also, I get a lot of tips at work, and that’s where flexing money really comes from.

What’s the highest tip you’ve received?
$5,000. Anyway as I –

You can’t just say someone tipped you $5,000 and then keep going as if nothing happened.
Buhahaha. We danced and celebrated, and he became our favourite flyer. Oya, back to my ex.

Back to your ex.
I didn’t want to save my tips, but because of my ex, now I actually save 70% of it and spend 30%.

I wanted to start spending money on assets and investments, but he taught me that you have to have at least a year’s worth of living expenses saved. Then you need to build a buffer, which is my actual emergency fund.

So, he was the defining period of my financial life. I have budgets now. Even after we broke up, I still continued learning more. So now, I’m focused on cutting down on my expenses and creating multiple streams of income. Right now, my only stream of income is my salary.

Talking about salary.
My first salary as a pilot was ₦500k in my observation stage. Then when I started flying, it got upped a little.

How much was the upping?
A million naira.

What an upping.
That’s even low. The problem is that people aren’t talking about their salaries, so you don’t know who’s earning a lot and who isn’t. I know someone in another company with my level of experience who’s earning ₦1.7 million per month. By the time my million came, I’d already flown enough hours to sit on the right seat. But I’m just going to focus on learning more.

How many hours do you think you have in total?
I got out of school with a little over 200 hours. Now it’s about 500. Progress!

What does 500 flight hours mean?
It means you’re a baby. I’ve met pilots in Nigeria with 8,000 flight hours.

What’s a misconception people have about pilots and money?
That pilots are rich. There’s comfort and there’s being rich. Pilots are comfortable, but seven out of ten times, the lifestyle makes them live above their means.

What happens if you quit your job now?
I’m fine. I’ll start worrying after about six months. But I’ve also taken on more responsibility, that means I increased my benevolence budget to 15% and cut down on my disposable income by 5%.

For example, I have a daughter now.

…
Adopted. I just really love her. And it was just one night I met her o. I added that 5% because of her and I send it for her welfare.

What’s something you want right now but can’t afford?
A new passport that’d make it easy for me to quit this current job and see more of the world. My passport budget is about $150k. I just need a passport that makes it possible for me to live wherever I like.

Do you have any health insurance?
My emergency fund is my health insurance. It’s currently at $20k sitting in a dom account, but it’s not just for me. It’s for my family too. I also have another $7k I want to use to invest, but I don’t trust high-risk investments. I feel like you need to get money to a certain point before you start thinking too much about investments. Right now, I’m just thinking of how to grow my capital base. Should I sell something online? Should I Airbnb my house?

I find it interesting, the role your relationship played in all of this.
To be honest, every relationship I’ve been in always has some of that. I tend to gravitate towards people who are smarter than me, more creative than me, well-to-do. I probably don’t even see it inside the relationship, but when I leave, I’m like oh wow.

What does financial freedom look like to you?
First of all, my siblings will be sorted. They have their own steady and dependable stream of income. I don’t want to be the only tree in the compound. Once they’re comfortable, my parents will be mostly fine because their needs have become fewer. All my mum ever says is “just take care of your siblings.”

Then be able to afford to live a traveller’s life, comfortably. At this point, I’ll be working because I enjoy it, not because I need it to survive. I won’t be using the money for much else. No kids – they’re too expensive. I already got an IUD that I intend to keep in for 10 years.

Interesting.
I always play down how much I earn, it saves you stress. This is the first time I’m sharing it with anyone that isn’t my sister. In fact, the only reason my sister knows my details is that if for any reason I die, I want them to be fine. So she knows where all my money is, she’s also my voice of reason.

On a scale of 1-10, rate your financial happiness.
8. There was a time before that it got so bad that I didn’t think I’d get a job. Neither did I think I’d be comfortable. I feel like it’ll get to a 10 when I can go and see the world. I just need a passport that will save me from visa stress in one of those island countries. The taxes are lower, the citizenship is cheaper. I’m happy with my life right now, and it’s not just about money, it’s my peace of mind.

I feel…grown.

tospel:
Nice write-up, nice format, good thought!

Thank you!

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What is your oldest memory of money
I was on my way to school — I was in JSS 3 at the time — my money was in my breast pocket. I sat inside the danfo, and as I was about to give the conductor money, I checked my pocket and the money was not there.

Ah.
My pocket had torn. After the conductor yabbed me, one woman pitied me and paid for me. I was 14, and this was 1999.

Now, about that torn uniform…
Life was tough. My mum used to go to a big pharmacy and help them sell drugs. Sometimes, I’d have gone to sleep by the time she got back. The only time I saw her was on weekends.

The only adult who was at home with us was an aunty and she was mean. I couldn’t tell her if I had any problems sef.

Ah, that struggle. What about your dad?
My dad used to work with another family member to do construction work. When it got to a point and things weren’t working out, he decided to leave the country. The thing is, leaving the country to America and Europe was hard if you didn’t have money. So he went to Pakistan. I know he used to go to other Asian countries from there, but Pakistan was his main base.

I know this because I overheard him talking about it with my mum.

What changed when he got there?
At first, nothing. You know there weren’t GSMs then. We used to go to a place to make calls on NITEL phones. So after we, first of all, confirmed that he’d reached Pakistan, we didn’t hear from him for a long time.

How long?
About a year and a half.

Ah!
Things got hard. So hard that I had to go live with my grandpa. When my father finally called, it was to tell us that he actually got arrested. He was in the wrong place, with the wrong people. But they’d already released him, which was why he was calling.

What did they hold him, or the people he was with for?
The people that helped him travel were into shady stuff over there. He came back in 1996, and I remember everything getting better. In fact, we moved from a ‘face-me-I-face-you’ to a flat. He went back to working in construction. Then people started sending him clothes to sell from Pakistan — Jalabiyas and all that. When it looked like that was picking up, he travelled to Pakistan again.

Then. Sigh.

Then what?
I went to school and when I came back, there was a crowd inside our house, and people were crying…

Sigh
Someone walked up to me and said, you’re a man, don’t cry. Your daddy is dead.

I’m so sorry man.
I cried ehn. They said he felt sick, went to the hospital, got admitted, and died there.

What did this mean for you and the family?
It was as if when he died, he went with all the money. We know he had some small investments, but we didn’t know where. We know he had friends owing him, but we didn’t know who. In fact, I remember that one of his friends came in 2007. He said that my dad’s spirit was disturbing him to return his money to his family.

Interesting. How much did he return?
₦100k. He said he was going to bring the rest. He didn’t say the amount sha. The only thing my mother had was her shop. That shop was the only source of income for the family. When the stock went dry, I had to get a job, so I went to work at a video club for two years. That paid me ₦3,500. By the end of the first year, my salary climbed to ₦5k.

You were 18 years old when you started.
Yes. I used to give my mum ₦1,500, then I later added ₦500 to it. The rest was for my upkeep. Later, my sister started her own video club, and I was managing it.

How many people were living in your house at the time?
Like 10 o.

Ah.
We’re four children, but my mum went to pack her brother’s children. Three of them were staying with us. That harsh aunty too. Then someone else joined.

A lot of mouths to feed.
My mum likes her family more than herself. She was a petty trader and took care of all of them from that petty trading. They left when they could and never looked back. That meant that I had to figure out how to take care of myself. Especially after I entered University in 2006.

Ah, nice.
I had an aunty – my dad’s younger sister – who was trying to take care of us. But she said the pressure was getting too much on her. She had her own kids and suggested that the best thing to do was to get a job. So she helped me get a job in the Civil Service. I entered with my SSCE.

Hmm. Tell me about your first salary.
They paid my 6 months at once for the period I spent in training school. This was 2009.

How much?
₦155k. Total.

What was it like the day it first entered?
Nothing. The people who’d been helping me calculate it were already expecting it. I went to Lagos the next day and I gave my mum ₦50k. I started at Level 5 and the salary was ₦26k then. It’s now about ₦45k.

So, when did you graduate?
December 2011. Computer Science. Now, the way it works is this. When you start with an SSCE and you have a complete result – that is with Maths and English – you get into Level 5. When you don’t have a pass in any of these, you start in level 3 or 4.

But now that I’ve gotten a degree, I should be in Level 8, but I’m not. People are promoting only their people. I’m still stuck in Level 6.

How much is a Level 6 salary?
₦51k.

Tell me how your salary has grown since 2011. Year-on-year.
They add ₦400 yearly to the monthly take-home. But when I got promoted to Level 6 in 2016, it got increased to ₦50k. Then they started adding ₦500 per year.

Between 2009 and now, which responsibilities have you added?
Marriage in 2015, a child in 2016. My wife started working in 2017.

What’s your current household income?
The combination of my salary and my wife’s salary? ₦110k. Other expenses are emergencies and miscellaneous.

Tell me about those.
My son gets sick sometimes. The last two times, we paid up to ₦25k for medicine alone.

Don’t you have health insurance?
I have, but I always need to go outside to buy drugs, and my health insurance doesn’t cover that.

How much do you feel like you should be earning right now? After 10 years of experience?
At least ₦130k. But If I get promoted as I should, I’ll be earning ₦70k.

What is something you need but can’t afford right now?
I want to move to either Canada, USA or any European country. I want to leave this country, and try to help from there. People are suffering.

I’m wondering if there’s an actual plan towards this
There’s a plan, but there’s no money. To be honest, I’m cautious too, because I’ve got duped before. I gave someone my NYSC savings of ₦120k. My sister added another ₦120k, and we lost everything. This was in 2013.

Have you ever considered picking up a skill that will fetch you more money on the side?
I’m thinking of learning barbing, I hear it’s very useful when you travel abroad. There are other things I’m interested in learning. I’d like to learn photography, design or programming. The problem is that these ones need money to start.

Do you have a computer?
No. My phone is so bad that a friend even borrowed me his extra phone to use.

What are some things that will make your life feel better if you buy them?
A laptop, because I can do things with photography and learn other stuff. A car, because I can do some side hustling. Also, having my own house, because rent every year is tough.

What’s the last thing you bought that made you feel better?
The food we were supposed to sell. We ended up eating most of it.

You sell food?
My wife and I decided to collect a cooperative loan last year. We rented a shop at ₦4200 monthly, then decided to start selling foodstuff; rice, beans and all that. Now, we can’t even account for most of the money. The original loan was ₦500k, and we used everything to set up for the shop. For example, a freezer cost ₦110k.

We started the business because we were targeting student areas. And then, the lockdown started.

Eish. And they had to go home.
Now, we can barely account for the money, and we intend to shut down the shop by December.

I know it’s all you want, but do you have any back up plans if the travelling abroad doesn’t work out?
Maybe I’ll start a viewing centre, or a farm.

Do you ever think back at a point in your life where things might have turned out differently?
Football. I’ve played everywhere; in school, at work, in the neighbourhood. I’ve always been the MVP, the one everybody picks to play on their team. I wanted to chase football at some point, but my mum didn’t agree.

Why?
She banned me from going for training. I used to go to lesson instead. You know what’s paining me? I have a certificate I suffered so much to get, yet I’ve never used it.

I want to ask about your financial happiness, on a scale of 1-10, because it’s an essential question.
3. It’s bad. My financial situation is just really bad. That is all.

Have you ever considered leaving the service?
Yes, but there are no guarantees that I’ll find something else in this country. Also, age is no longer on my side. I’m 35 years old.

On August 20, the guidelines for e-hailing companies in Lagos will come into effect. But the new regulations are inconsistent and fraught with privacy issues.

Before technology, it was easy for governments to get a piece of the pie in every sector through taxes and fees. Businesses used office buildings as a hub to organise activities and the bigger they were, the more physical touchpoints they had.

Technology has changed that.

Today, ride-hailing companies like Bolt can operate in Nigeria, with thousands of taxi-cabs as partners without offices. For states like Lagos, it presents a problem: how do you collect your “share” from companies like this?

The last few years have provided answers; for every industry where technology is making rent-collection difficult, the industry is hit with regulations that only have a place in the old world. The pretext for these regulations is usually concern about the safety of citizens.

Although data shows (PDF) that motorcycles are not the leading vehicle involved in road crashes, commercial motorcycles were banned in Lagos. This move ended the mobility sector.

This time, the government’s concern is in a new direction, the safety of Lagosians who use ride-hailing services like Uber and Bolt.

“In view of the above statement, there is an urgent need to upgrade the existing guidelines for the operation of Taxi Business in Lagos State based on the reality of insecurity and safety confronting the sector as people of questionable characters have hijacked the process which has resulted into increased road crashes, kidnapping, robbery, pollution and insecurity, thereby eroding the confidence of the general public in Taxi business.”

-Guidelines for online hailing business operation of taxi in Lagos state (2020).

Safety concerns drive new regulations for online taxi hailing services
TechCabal spoke to the commissioner of transportation in Lagos state Dr. Frederick Oladeinde who said he was busy trying to “crystalize the new regulations.” He asked that we speak to Toriola Hafeez, the head of the vehicle inspection office in Lagos.

“The regulation has been approved by the governor. We have called the operators and other intending companies to cooperate with the new guidelines which are in line with global best practices,” Hafeez told TechCabal.

He added: “We created these guidelines with the operators. What we have done is to look at developed countries and how they maintain their infrastructure and we’re applying that here.”

But when we asked for a copy of the regulations, Hafeez said he would need the permission of the commissioner to share the new regulations. At the time of this report we haven’t received the draft from the ministry of transportation.

Despite Hafeez claims that e-hailing companies participated in drafting the guidelines, several of our sources painted a different picture.

A source privy to the regulation discussions said that Uber, Bolt and other operators were invited to the ministry of transportation last week Wednesday. But that the meeting was postponed without notice to Thursday, and Uber and Bolt were not present at the new meeting.

The meeting, chaired by the Special Assistant to the Governor on transportation was to discuss licencing, data collection and a service charge: the same issues which had come up in previous meetings with stakeholders.

In the end, those present at the meeting said that the SA read out from the draft document of the new regulations. Despite protests about many aspects of the guidelines, the ministry of transportation says it will begin implementation on August 20.

The new guidelines for e-hailing companies in Lagos:

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Regulations for e-hailing companies in Lagos have come a long way. At the beginning of regulatory engagement with the government, the initial plan was for the drivers on these platforms to pay a licence fee on each vehicle.

It was a position that did not suit Uber or Bolt, whose drivers often have full time jobs and drive as a side-gig.

So, one minor improvement is that the government has now changed its position, with a blanket licence fee for operators. Under new regulations, that fee now stands at ₦10 million ($25,814) for every 1,000 e-hailing taxis. There’s also an annual renewal fee of ₦5 million ($12,907).

The licencing fee will not present a problem for the larger e-hailing operators, but it will raise the barrier for entry for newcomers. The bone of contention for all the operators is a provision that stipulates “all operators of e-hailing taxi service must pay the state government 10% service tax on each transaction paid by passengers to the operators.”

The provision means that the Lagos state government will collect taxes, licencing fees and then a percentage from every trip completed on these platforms. While operators kick against this provision, if it goes ahead to be implemented on August 20, the real losers will be the customers. Uber and Bolt will pass this 10% cost along to end users, making cab fares more expensive.

This throws up an interesting question: how will the government collect a percentage of every transaction without access to data from Uber or Bolt?

Lagos state wants access to all the data of e-hailing companies
In Section 4.2 of the Lagos e-hailing guidelines: “the ministry and her agencies shall have access to the database of the operators/companies operating e-hailing taxi business in Lagos.”

This broad based section allows the government to access the database of Bolt or Uber and the section contains no clauses or restrictions.

Should the government have access to your data and are there no provisions to prevent this sort of thing?

But the NDPR is not enough here, because it deals with the rights of an individual and how to ensure data privacy.

However, the guidelines for the application of NDPR by public institutions in Nigeria (2020) shows how public institutions can gain access to your data from companies like Uber.

First, the consent of the people whose data is collected is not necessary.

As long as the public institution and the data controller follow the guidelines, then your data is fair game.

The only caveat is that the public institution must show that their request for this data is in the public interest. It bears asking how collecting the details of accidents or having access to the entirety of the database of e-hailing companies is of public interest.

But here’s the catch: the NDPR guidelines are silent on access to an entire database.

Legal questions like this mean that if this section is retained in the approved guidelines, litigation will likely follow. It is hard to imagine that these companies will give up access to their database without a legal fight. Litigation might also be useful in helping to shape Nigeria’s data privacy regulations.

Under these existing regulations, it is all too easy for governments to justify wanting access to company’s data. TechCabal reached out to Bolt for comments, but the company declined to comment.

At Uber, a spokesperson at Uber told TechCabal via email: “we have always been willing to engage with governments on regulations to ensure our operations align with best practices locally and internationally, as we believe regulations need to support innovative technology ideas that fit 21st-century businesses.”

“The current proposed regulations are inconsistent and unclear. We are working to better understand how they will impact the future of our business and network of driver-partners. We will give an update in due course.”

See full guideline: https://techcabal.com/2020/08/11/guidelines-ehailing-lagos/

Today’s subject is a soldier in this mid-thirties who walks us through fighting bandits in the North, corruption in the military, and his plans for civilian life once his military service is over.

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I wake up as early as 5 am. I say my prayers and listen to some gospel messages [from my pastor] on my phone. As a soldier, I can’t really predict my day. I might get to work and be told that I’m going to Lagos or Kaduna. I might also be told to go home and report to Kafanchan or Jos the next day. I only ever know what my day is like when I get to work. As a result, it’s difficult to surprise me because I’m always prepared for any scenario. If you call me now that my mum is dead, I won’t be shocked. I’ll just be like “mummy die.” I’ll feel the impact but the pain won’t linger because I’m used to moving on quickly.

So, after I finish listening to my gospel messages, I dress up and go to work.

At work, we get a distress call that bandits are robbing people. In the North, where my barracks is located, there is a high prevalence of banditry and it’s our job to protect the civilian population. Today, hoodlums are robbing on the highway linking Abuja to Minna, so we are going to clear them.

The life of a soldier man is dedicated to maintaining peace and order. Many times it is at our own expense. This distress call reminds me of a day I’ll never forget; December 1st, 2015. That’s one of the fiercest battles I’ve fought in my entire life. We responded to a call as usual but those idiots [bandits] kept on exchanging fire with us. They’d fire at us and we’d fire back at them. Then we had to use our military tactics to flank them and put them in the middle. After which they had no choice but to surrender. Some even ran away with gunshot wounds but we were able to capture their weapons.

Another thing that made that day memorable was that a colleague got shot beside me. On the battlefield, when someone gets shot, you no fit just rush help am because they [bandits] will shoot you too. So, you go just dey look am dey give am words of encouragement: “Guy don’t fight it.” “Just breathe easy”, “Take it easy.” As you’re watching him, you’ll also keep fighting so that your enemies don’t close in on you. If you’re lucky to be on covered ground with barriers, your colleagues will cover each other while they come to you to apply first aid. However, if it’s an open ground and they can’t make it in time, they’ll throw you a first aid box – That’s if it’s an injury that you can apply first aid by yourself.

We’ve had so many cases, at different locations, in different areas where we watched our colleagues and friends bleed to death. It’s painful seeing soldiers dying on a regular basis because, at the end of the day, we’re all human. But what can we do? – we bear it and life goes on. Someone you saw this morning can be gone the next minute. It’s not a thing of joy.

Thankfully, we were able to rescue my colleague and he didn’t die.

It saddens me that corruption is also part of the reason soldiers die. Imagine risking your life and getting substandard weapons to use in battle. I’ll rather not talk on the matter because it’s just so painful. I keep saying that if we want to totally eliminate corruption as a whole in Nigeria, we should start from the military. The armed forces as a whole – paramilitary, everybody. They are the main groups of corruption in Nigeria. If they can tackle the corruption in the armed forces, then corruption will be reduced if not eradicated in other sectors.

Omo, it’s been a long day and I can’t stress myself thinking too much about these things. For now, I just want to go home.

I look forward to civilian life when I retire from the military – I’ll enjoy my gratuity, flex my wife, and watch so many American films with her. By that time my kids would all be grown up so my wife and I can enjoy ourselves.

wackpoet:
Wow. I have got to say I just read two of your interview series bigcabal and they've been the most interesting and inspirational thing for a young struggling boy in this Nigerian economy. I'm super happy for the interviewed guy whose financial situation has greatly improved. It just goes to show the importance of not giving up. I am curious as to what gigs resulted in getting up to 800k monthly.

Also this is equally front-page worthy. Lalasticlala

The ₦800k is from 3 jobs combined. Programming.

sexylassie2:
I believe there is an agenda and only you guys know what you are up to.

That's okay.

The subject of today’s Sex Life is a 34-year-old heterosexual man who’s been married for half a decade. He talks about racking up a body count of over 350 in his 20s and how things have changed since he settled down.

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What was your first sexual experience?
I grew up as a church kid, so I was team ‘virginity until marriage’. All through secondary school, the occasional hug got me so excited. Whenever it happened, I would feel like I was eating the forbidden fruit. Yes, I’m still talking about just hugging.

It was a lot. I even remember ending a relationship because we kissed. I think I was in SS1. I kissed her and for like two weeks, I was riddled with so much guilt. I just had to break up with her.


Wow. What happened after secondary school?
You know how this story goes now. I entered university and started rolling with “bad boys”. That’s also the period I realised I was conventionally attractive, so I started making out with a lot of babes.

The first proper sexual experience I had was getting head when I was 17. It was with a babe I had met on hi5. That’s the moment I realised this thing I had been running from was actually sweet. The next year, I had penetrative sex for the first time.


Were you still religious at this point?
I would say yes, but I was already halfway into rebellion. So, I still prayed and read my bible, but it wasn’t uncommon for me to go straight from the club on Saturday night to my church on Sunday morning, complete with a hangover.

I remember praying for forgiveness A LOT.


So, what was penetrative sex like for you?
I won’t lie, it was disappointing as Bleep. Since I had initially planned to save myself for marriage, I was expecting my first time to end up being some kind of magical, almost cinematic moment. It wasn’t even close to that.

It happened after I went out with a bunch of friends. Couples were pairing up for the night, and the last people standing were me, one babe and another guy. I was still dulling, but the babe just got up and told the other guy to be going to his house.

After he left, she led me into a room and brought out a condom. I didn’t tell her it was my first time, but it must have been clear that I didn’t know what I was doing. After like three thrusts, my boner disappeared and we ended up gisting for the rest of the night.


LMAO. Ah. What happened next?
Literally the next morning, I went on the internet to research everything I could about sex — from positions to pre-intimacy. I gave myself time to prepare. It was like all those action movie montages where the hero is training for a rematch after getting brushed.


Don’t kill me. How long did you train before your “rematch”?
About a month or two. The next time was much better, but there was a catch: I didn’t come. In fact, I had sex about 10 more times with three different partners before I had an orgasm.


Wait. What?
Yup. I would just keep thrusting until I lost my boner.


Were you even enjoying the sex?
Do I know? At that point, I was foolishly measuring my enjoyment by how many rounds I could do. So, I can’t tell you whether I was actually enjoying it. All I can tell you is that I was feeling myself because I was “beating that pussy up”.


So, when did you eventually orgasm from sex?
It happened when I met this older woman. I was 20 and she was 25. After we’d had sex twice, I confided in her that I thought I might be impotent. She helped me unpack my entire approach to sex, which was really me just treating it like a competition.

She taught me to focus on mutual pleasure. I’ve never forgotten that. She was the first person I had an orgasm with. We stopped hooking up after she got married, even though she was engaged when we met.


Seriously? That wasn’t an issue for you?
Nah. I even hooked up with a few other married babes. Honestly, I had a pretty wild run in my 20s. You know how they say once a good person goes bad, they basically fly off the deep end? That was me.


Just how wild are we talking here?
Guy, I was a bastard. I slept with about 350 women, both at home and abroad. I lived in multiple cities where I was the token black guy, so I ended up giving a lot of white women their “black experience”. I know it’s dumb, but I was really doing the most.


When did you cool down?
The older I got, the more exhausting the whole thing became. So, I eventually decided to focus all that energy into my work. By the time I met my wife, I’d been out of the game for a little while. I was ready to enter the next level of maturity.

So, what’s your sex life like now these days?
Married.


LMAO. What does that even mean?
I heard this joke that pretty much sums it up. If you put a coin in a jar for every time you have sex in the first year of marriage, and then remove one every time you have sex in the second year, you’ll still have a full jar.

That being said, my sex life isn’t actually bad. Considering the fact that we’ve been married for over five years and have two kids, I think it’s safe to say that we are not doing terribly in that department.


How was it when you first met?
We lived in different cities when we were still dating, so whenever I travelled to her city, there was this sense of urgency. We’d have sex non-stop. We only took breaks to eat and drink water. Then we got married and both decided to move back to Nigeria.

We were still having a lot of sex for a while. She got pregnant within the first year.


How often would you say you have sex now?
On average, we have sex once a week. Moods permitting on both our parts, but mostly hers. Thankfully, we’ve gotten into a rhythm where we try to have sex consistently enough to keep the passion alive, even though it can feel a bit too scheduled.

Once in a while, when I do something nice — like randomly send her money or buy her a shoe she was eyeing — I know I’m having sex more than twice that week. That also applies to random small gestures too, like sending flowers or visiting her at work.


Is once a week enough for you?
It was tough at first, but I’ve learnt to accept it. Sure, I could do with more, but I’m not complaining. Every now and then, I do get more. Sometimes we reach three times a week out of nowhere, and I’m like, ‘Wow. Look at us.’


Does scheduling take the passion out of it?
Yeah. It definitely does. Especially when we outrightly discuss it: “No let’s not have sex today, let’s do it tomorrow.” In those times, I’m just like, ‘Is this what it has turned to?’ Still, I just take it like it is.

Sometimes, I’m the one that’s not in the mood to have sex. I can imagine 25-year-old me laughing his ass off, but yeah, that’s my reality now. These are just some of the things that happen when you get older.


Can’t imagine that having kids makes it any easier.
It really doesn’t. Sometimes, we’ll be cuddled up in bed, ready to get it on, and one of the kids will just burst into the room. I’ll just be there thinking, ‘I love you, but can you geddifok?’


Has there been a conversation about spicing things up?
Yeah. Well, while I was gallivanting in my 20s and putting my dick into every hole I could find, I was my wife’s first. So we are not on the same experience level. I’ve been trying to add intimacy gadgets into the mix for a while, but she’s not really into it.

I definitely can’t suggest anything like a party because she’ll stab me. She’ll poison me and stab my dead body. I don’t mind though, I think threesomes are overrated. I’ve explored enough for one lifetime, and our sex is pretty good as it is.


Oh wow. You were her first?
Yeah. Sometimes, I even tease her that she doesn’t know what she’s enjoying because she doesn’t have any other experiences to compare it to. I think sex is as much a talent as it is a skill, and I’ve had A LOT of practice.


Does she know about your wild past?
Yeah, she knows most of it. The ones I can remember at least. She doesn’t hold it against me. She even used to tease me when we were dating that I was the stereotypical bad boy who found a good girl to settle with.


Do you ever miss that time in your life?
Nah. I think I’ve had my fill. Sometimes I do wonder how different things would have been if I was still as wild, but I don’t miss it. Maybe it’s a 30+ thing, but I just care less about doing a lot of the excessive things I was doing in my 20s. I’m very content.


How would you rate your sex life on a scale of 1 to 10?
A 6. It’s not a fail, but it’s not a score to pat myself on the back over either. Speaking to my married friends, I know that I’m in the top half when it comes to frequency. Maybe when the kids grow up and need a little less attention, we can get our groove back.


What if you have another kid?
No, abeg. I’m probably getting a vasectomy this year.


Probably?
Well, that shit is pretty much permanent. So, yeah, probably.

Read other interviews in this series: https://www.zikoko.com/category/life/sexlife/

sexylassie2:
One question.

What are you guys trying to promote

Cuckold and infidelity in marriage.

Are you guy trying to breakdown society.

We're not trying to 'promote' anything. People approach us with the desire to share their stories, we document and share them. If you perceive it as 'promotion' of anything, then that's your personal opinion.

thesicilian:
Lies

Not at all. These are stories from real people. Things dey happen. One of the goals of this series is to show people like you that there's more to sex than the average Nigerian thinks.

majamajic:
Let's see her pictures

Our Sex Life series are anonymous interviews. We do not reveal the identities of our subjects.

Read other interviews in this series: https://www.zikoko.com/category/life/sexlife/

The subject of this week’s Sex Life is a 48 year old woman who has been married for 24 years. She talks about ignoring all the rules of sex prescribed by her church before marriage and how she and her husband keep their sex life exciting.

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Do you remember your first sexual experience?
In the beginning, I was saving myself for marriage. I used to manage the small kiss here and the small breast pressing there. My body was really itching me to do more, but I made a promise to God. At the end of the day, I had sex with someone I thought I was going to marry. It didn’t work out.

What happened?
He jilted me after he went abroad. I was supposed to go and meet him there after I finished university, but he said he was still setting up himself. It wasn’t his marriage I heard about first, it was his child. People were saying she was very white. I almost died.

I’m sorry. How old were you?
I was 21 when we started dating. 23 or so when I heard about his new family.

Did you feel bad about it?
Bastard bad. I had saved myself for marriage. I thought, since I’m going to marry this man, let me give him my ‘flower’, as we called it then. Then he left me and I felt like I had sold myself short.

That sucks. Was the sex good at least?
It was really just sex.

So not good or bad?
It would even be good if it was bad. It was terrible.

Why was it so bad?
I didn’t really feel anything he was doing. That’s for the sex part. With regards to the making out part, it was too much saliva. I don’t think I was very attracted to him, even though he was a very attractive person. So today, I say, good riddance.

LMAO. How often did you guys have sex?
We were only together a few months before he japa-ed. So maybe like once a day when we were together.

Did you say something about how bad it was?
I didn’t know what to say. I didn’t know how sex was supposed to feel.

So when did you know how sex was supposed to feel?
When I married my husband, which wasn’t too long after. We saved ourselves for marriage and it was very sweet when we started doing it. We dated for only a few months before we got married.

I remember being apprehensive at some point that he would jilt me the same way the first guy did and that’s why I wanted us to get married sharply. I was also very adamant about not having sex till we got married. Luckily, he was on the same page.

Why did he want to wait till marriage?
Our faith. He’s also a Christian. He was a bit extreme sha because while me, I was open to kissing and MouthAction, he wasn’t interested in doing any of that. His motto was that we won’t be able to get enough of each other on our wedding night.

I had brief periods pre-wedding where I wondered whether the problem was that he wasn’t attracted to me or that he had a medical problem that prevented him from getting aroused, or maybe even that he had somebody elsewhere.

Ah. How did you get rid of those thoughts?
Relationships — whether friendships or marriages — can’t be built around distrust. I had to let go and trust him. And if I’m being fair, he hadn’t done anything to give me the impression that there was a problem and that it wasn’t just his faith.

So, I had to just let go of those thoughts and trust him. It was hard because I’d ask myself: what if it’s my friend he’s sleeping with? Or what if he cheats on me and we have to break up?

I realised I was more afraid of how people would react, and how they’d feel sorry for me — especially given what had already happened to me in the past. I’d often think of myself as having ill luck with men on top imaginations of my husband leaving me. I really had to learn to trust him.

What was the first experience with your husband like?
It was great. It wasn’t our wedding night as we thought it’d be and actually planned for. We were so tired after the wedding that we just fell asleep. When we got around to it, we couldn’t let go of each other.

I’m curious, what kind of plans did you make for the wedding night?[/b]
Lingerie, wine and aphrodisiacs. We even rented some ‘blue film’.

Despite your faith?
Faith doesn’t mean you shouldn’t have fun in bed.

So when was the first actual time?
Two nights later.

How long have you been married?
Almost 24 years now.

How often would you say you have sex?
At least 5 times a week. On a good week, we have sex every day. Except when we are in different places for work and even then, with mobile phones now, we have found creative ways to do it. There’s virtual sex and sexting.

That’s incredible.
Yes. From the onset, we made up our minds that ours won’t be the normal sex life of ‘Christian couples’ that collapses after a few years. We had heard so many stringent rules about how Christian married couples were supposed to have sex and things not to do on the marital bed.

So we made our own rules and started working on increasing our knowledge of sex. Till today, we buy books and exchange articles on sex.

What kind of rules do you have?
To go against every rule the church gave us. For example, during counselling, we were told doggy was bad and that as the name implied, it was for dogs. We disobeyed that one and tried out different positions.

Doggy is actually our favourite position. Then there are other rules: we’re to ensure that we have sex every other day. We also enjoy roleplay, so we made a rule recently to ensure that we roleplay at least twice a month.

Does having rules ever make it feel mechanical?
In the beginning, it didn’t. But there are times it feels like that. Especially if we just had a fight, we’re not in the mood or we’re tired and it’s time to have sex. These are few and far between. I have a very sexy husband, if he just opens his mouth and says A, I can jump on him. If I don’t, it’s just because I’m doing shakara. And me too, I’m not bad.

We pray before having sex. Not all the time, but we do. We ask God to make both parties fulfilled during and after the act.

Lmao. That’s interesting…
Haha, people have called it weird.

What about your children? I imagine having children would have —
We don’t have children.

Mad. So it’s just you and your husband?
Yes. There’s no place or surface in the house we haven’t had sex on.

What else do you do to spice up your sex life?
Like I said, we love roleplaying a lot. Especially as doctor and patient. My husband is a doctor, so I’m his patient. When we don’t do that, we roleplay as madam and gardener or something. Things like that. Recently, we opened up our marriage. Just for a short period of time. That’s the most enthralling thing we ever did.

Why did you do that?
We didn’t exactly say that we were opening our marriage. We just decided to explore sexually with one person each. Monogamy is hard. My husband and I are on the same page on that. Since the beginning of our relationship and then marriage, we’ve allowed ourselves to ‘appreciate’ members of the opposite sex, without doing more. So if I see someone who I find really attractive, I can let my eyes linger and even tell my husband about it and he does the same too. So seeing someone else outside each other, just for sex didn’t seem too far fetched. It was like an experiment.

What was the outcome?
My husband says he didn’t really enjoy it and I have chosen to believe him. I did. I really enjoyed having sex with someone new and different. But it also made me realise just how much I really love having sex with my husband. So going back to him after that? We had the best sex till date. We haven’t spoken anymore about seeing other people.

I’m just wondering how you reconcile this with your beliefs or what your faith believes generally?
I’m not going against anything I believe in. I’m pretty sure that God wants us to find creative ways to entertain each other in and outside our bed, so yeah.

Sounds fair. How would you rate your sex life?
10 or maybe 9. But I’m just looking for the next adventure. There’s just so many things out there.

McTobe:
Lalasticlala this is worth front page. I was wishing that the write up does not come to an end.

Thank you so much. See other interviews in this series: https://www.zikoko.com/category/money/naira-life/

tot:
BigCabal, please you need to promote zikoko more, it's an amazing entertaining website that deserves more attention than it gets. I'm a BIG fan.

Thank you so much. We will!

We have other interviews in this series. Learn about people's relationship with money. Read them here: https://www.zikoko.com/category/money/naira-life/

beau49:
I enjoyed reading. Got me thinking though, especially about the morality part.

We have more interviews here: https://www.zikoko.com/category/money/naira-life/

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Let’s start in the trenches. When did you first feel like you were in a hole?
That must have been when I was in Uni. I wanted to study Medicine, but it wasn’t working out. I tried going abroad, gained admission, but my parents didn’t have money to pay. So, I just settled for one other random course here. That was the first time I knew that I and life were one kain.

What was money like growing up?
There were different phases. There was one where I didn’t know that we didn’t have money. I remember that my mum used to come and beg them to allow us to enter the school even though we hadn’t paid school fees.

It didn’t click until I was in uni and constantly broke. I just didn’t get it.

You started with your parents, but at the school fees point, you said ‘mummy’. Where was your daddy?
Hahahaha.

Hahahaha.
I always refrain from talking about the misadventures of older people, because I’m not there yet. But he pulled a typical “that type of daddy” move. He tried in some aspects sha, but that’s the summary.

Back to uni.
My allowance was like the stock market, always up and down. My siblings went to school far from home, so my mum always had to send money. I was the only one close to home, and she used to say that I can always come back home to eat.

There’s rice at home.
Hahaha. I had a bunch of friends, we were collectively broke. We’d wait till like 11 am, then we’d go and eat fufu, so it’d last until night. Hahaha.

After uni.
NYSC was the first time I was making consistent money. This was 2012/2013. My mum also stopped funding me. I think this was also the time I knew I was bad with money. I was earning ₦19,800. It wasn’t a lot of money, but you hear stories of people that saved through NYSC. My rent had been paid up already.

That was when it became clear that I was bad with money. After NYSC, I wanted to take a gap year. I just felt like I needed to breathe and learn more about myself.

Interesting.
You see, there’s broke and there’s brokenness. I got so broke, I had to cut that gap year short. My mum wasn’t giving me any money because she thought I was making a bad call. So, I went to Lagos to look for work.

Someone – extended family – was starting a small business, and they needed an extra hand. The business never got off the ground, but they got me a job at an NGO. That paid ₦25k. This was 2015 and my first real salary.

What were you doing?
Research Assistant. I was there for about seven months. The money wasn’t adding up again. How do I know it’s seven months? I had one shoe, a really nice shoe. I wore it every day. It spoilt, then I bought another one, and that one spoilt too. So you can say the lifespan of two shoes you wear every day is 7 months.

Interesting thing is that it was there I started learning some basic web development. There were some challenges the company was having with some tasks, so I just started researching stuff and picking up some skills. I just kept stumbling into things, until I got introduced to someone who’d give me feedback on some things I’d tried.

Then one day, in 2016, I asked to be an intern at his office, for three months. I actually said I wanted to work for free. I didn’t know how I was going to survive.

What kind of place were you in at that point?
I was low, with no plans, and I was getting old – I was 26. Everybody seemed to just be getting it right, except me.

Anyway, they didn’t let me work for free. So they paid ₦25k. Three months later, when my internship should have ended, I got a raise to ₦50k. Another three months later, it increased to ₦100k. At that point, interestingly, I’d gotten married.

Wait. Wait. You were in the middle of figuring out your –
– Yep.

First of all, you barely earned. And in the thick of all of that, you decided to get married.
Yes. So, I’d always wanted to get married. Like, I really hold religion in high se… See, at that point, I really just wanted to have sex.

Ha. So, konji.
I’ve thought about it properly, but I’ll just be lying to myself. I just wanted guilt-free knacks at that very moment.

Oh, my days.
There was no ceremony, we just became legal – families and consent and all. The good thing was that she’s quite entrepreneurial, so she had a lot of things going. Also, her dad was still covering her big bills. Also, we actually weren’t planning on living together immediately. She had a place in a family house different from where her parents lived.

Then I moved in, and it just took rent away for a while.

This aggression that you used to enter marriage. Hmm.
First of all, I got laid off, then my wife got pregnant.

Hayy.
Looking back, I know that if I was focused on being extremely better at the job, I would have done much better. So many things were happening, and I was not giving my job the best. I started chasing many tiny small gigs, but nothing significant.

You were unemployed and expecting a baby. What was that like?
There’s one moment that sums up how that period was. My wife was frustrated and understandably angry. One day, she came out of the room while I was working. She was like, “you’ll just be working but you’re not making any money. The person that is sleeping is better than you.”

Omo.
Yah. So, I was just working on bad projects, anything that’d pay the next bill. The thing about being in that place is that you’re always owing. So any money you earn, you’re trying to use to pay debts.

What is ₦50k in the market when you’re buying baby stuff? I think there was another thing that made the whole period a struggle.

I’m listening.
So, it’s not like she grew up rich-rich, but all the male figures in our lives had their shit together. When you start in marriage with dreams of “e go better”, it gets really old quickly. Save your stories, abeg.

In all, solid babe. Two weeks before she gave birth, I got another job. Two of my guys gave me money to pay for the hospital bills. Now, I started the job at ₦180k per month. A breath of relief.

When you have months of financial backlog, it takes a while for things to stabilise. First of all, I’d partially ruined my wife’s business, so I had to fund that. Thankfully, someone sent enough clothes to last a year from abroad.

Three months later, it became ₦220k, and things started to ease up a little. I was there for 8 months, then I quit.

Why?
Nothing was happening, and I wasn’t growing. Most of the team I was working with had quit too. I left before I even got another job, which was a valuable lesson.

When you have a wife and children, you don’t leave before you get another job. You suck it up. Those two months before I got another job?

Intense.
Ahhh. Boy. I didn’t have to sense to have an emergency fund before quitting. I just did Insha Allah.

And vibed the rest.
I don learn. I got another job that was paying ₦235k. This was 2018. I was there for four months when I got this amazing new opportunity. It was supposed to pay ₦500k. With pride, I quit my other job. I didn’t like it there, it was toxic. I don’t understand why the Oga will come to the office and be shouting at people.

But you see, in the space of two weeks at the new job –

Tears?
– they shut down operations. Some financial issues sprung up.

Hayy, what of your ₦500k?
I just saw a credit alert of ₦130k, without warning. When I called the Oga, he started telling me stories. I was so disappointed. I’d just quit a job with a family o.

I quit immediately. At this point ehn, you either just completely lose it, or pray and hope. But I was constantly switching between the two.

And just around that period, we had to leave the family house we were living in, at two months’ notice. It’s wild because we’d been living there for a year and a half, and it felt like it flew by. But all of it was my screw up.

How?
There are certain basics that you need to fulfil before you even consider marriage. You need a dependable job, and a house to live in. I had a job, but the money was not responsible.

This last job wahala, I’d just started winning the confidence of my wife back, and then all of that happened.

Coincidentally, another family member of hers from another side – a father figure – called my wife like, you said you wanted to buy a car, oya I’ll send you money.

How much did he send?
₦1 million.

Hmm. There’s no car now, is there?
I took a loan a ₦700k from my wife, and then we got a place. She put ₦300k in her business. I didn’t get a job for 5 whole months.

Not even small gigs?
Oh, I got those small ones to survive and pay the next bill. I also just focused on supporting her business, because that was what was really feeding us. So, I ran all the errands, did all the legwork. I mean, I felt I could have been supporting her more, but it was the least I could do at the time.

Then she started feeling that heat again.

“Working without money” heat?
Yes. I was so frustrated. It was the end of the year, and companies don’t hire that much at the end of the year because they’re closing books. I’d interviewed and interviewed.

In March of 2019, I got a call. A job. My salary went back to ₦183k. When they confirmed me as a full staff, my salary was increased to ₦224k. It’s the best place I’ve worked.

While I was there, another opportunity came, and it was offering ₦370k. It’s the first time I transitioned from one job to another, seamlessly. I didn’t even leave immediately. I was juggling both.

It was the beginning of a new chapter.

Mad o!
Serious confidence boost. I was happy because it was the first time my wife could stop thinking about money constantly.

I juggled the two gigs for four months, then dropped the lower-paying one.

By January 2020, someone was willing to pay me ₦250k. Part-time. It also happened to come just before the lockdown. Another company needed me on a short time basis. ₦180k a month. My wife was telling me that ah, you’re going to get exhausted. I think it was born out of all those years of chasing.

And now, all the opportunities just came.

So, here I was, in the middle of the pandemic, making ₦370k, ₦250k, and ₦180k in the middle of a pandemic.

₦800k. What does that do to the brain?
I dunno, but the first feeling I felt was gratitude. People were losing their jobs, and I was getting more, and I just felt a sense of duty. I was just wiring money up and down.

“My mum nee – ” pew!

“Someone is sick –” pew pew!

I made ₦1.6 million in two months, and I have only ₦600k in savings. It was the first time in years that I could be useful to other people. I was trigger happy. It felt very good.

What has this switch up done to your perspective on money?
Frankly, I don’t even feel like I worked hard this year. Maybe experience means I’m not more efficient. But all of it coming as everyone was unsure, was weird. Like, the period I really really hustled, the money didn’t come.

I guess you can call that career capital. I’m at a place where I’ve even stopped applying to Nigerian jobs. I only take it when it comes. Foreign gigs are what I’m on the lookout for.

Energy. Let’s break down your best income month’s expenses.

What’s something you want right now but can’t afford?
A car, for my wife’s convenience. For me, I really dunno.

What’s something you wish you could be better at?
Financial planning. I also want to get better at my work, because when I get better, I get more money.

What’s your emergency plan for general stuff like?
Just that ₦600k. But I’m definitely working on it going forward. So, I think I’m just new to the money, and I just spent the last year misbehaving. Now, my head has started to settle. I’m even re-learning basic things like how to buy clothes. When you’ve been chasing the next meal for too long, you don’t even think about clothes.

Let’s talk about your financial happiness, on a scale of 1-10.
I’ll say 9. I’ve always worked on my contentment for as long as I remember. The thing that really bothers me is other people I’m responsible for. I really just want to take care of other people. Building a family, the rewards are slow, and it can sometimes feel mundane. But when you ask me what I am, I’ll tell you I’m happy.

https://p3y6v9e6.stackpathcdn.com/wp-content/uploads/zikoko/2020/07/Nairalife-finance-man-civil-service-912x912.jpg

Tell me about what it was like growing up.
I was born in ‘95 in Lagos. My dad was Director of Finance in a government agency at the time. He became DG in ‘99 when Obasanjo came into office. So life was really good. I had everything I needed growing up.

We, the smaller kids had a car and a driver attached to us, we mostly just needed permission from mumsy to go chilling.

Mad o. What level do you have to be to become a director?
Level 16 in most places. I think 1-3 have been eliminated. You come in at level 4 if your highest qualification is an SSCE and you max out at 7 unless you bring extra qualification. Degree holders start at 8, MSc holders at 9, PhD/ICAN at 10.

There’s 3 years between each level up until 14. There’s no level 11.

Why?
To be honest I don’t know. At GL 12, you’re a Principal Officer; at 13 a Chief; 14 you’re an Assistant Director; and 15, Deputy Director. You can still be a Deputy Director on 16 if there’s no vacancy in the organization.

Tell me about your mum.
She was a teacher before they moved to Lagos in ‘92. That was also the year my dad became Director. She stopped working since then. My dad died in the mid-2000s. She became a businesswoman afterwards; poultry farming, buying stuff from Dubai and reselling.

Sorry about your loss man. How was it for her?
She was devastated but had to worry about us. I remember when she started the poultry. We had just moved houses in ‘07. The farm was my dad’s but it had no structures. So she built the structures and put the chickens in it. It became huge in two years but we kept having issues with the farm manager. It was always chickens dying or the eggs not adding up.

Ah, farm managers and eggs.
Sha, she sold the farm in 2011 because she said she was running at loss for like 2 years. She got around ₦15m for it.

That was when she started trading fabrics from Dubai. That lasted for about three trips over like 2 years. Since then she hasn’t really been into any business, apart from a few catering contracts from senior government relatives here and there.

How’s she been getting by?
Rental properties. We all work apart from my younger brother, the last born – he’s in his third year – so we all chip in at the end of every month. We’re 7 kids; 4 of them are now married; 1 man, 3 women; and the remaining of us, 3 boys, are at home.

7 kids. Your mum raised 7 kids?
I swear down. Big ups to her.

I’m curious about your dad’s inheritance.
From what I can remember right now; a house and 3 plots of land in Abuja, a farm in Niger State, three houses and two plots in the Northwest. I loved snooping around since I was a kid and I can remember seeing cash figures of about 70 million before they divided it. We also got $100k death insurance. It was actually the airline that paid us – he died in a plane crash.

Eish. So sorry man. What were the first things that changed financially when your dad died?
No more pocket money obviously. Our cars went from 8 to 4 – official cars were returned. We could no longer sustain 24 hours light and only used the generator overnight. Along the line, we started turning it off at 11 pm.

We had to move houses and get a smaller one – I think it was because of maintenance. The initial house was a 7 bedroom with a study and 3 sitting rooms, huge boys quarters also. We moved to a 4 bedroom with boys quarters.

Two of my siblings got married, so we didn’t need that much space.

How did it change you, personally?
Devastating. I feel I was the closest to my dad and it wrecked me emotionally even at that age. I kept wishing it was me instead of him. Financially, I didn’t feel much of the difference because my mum made sure I had all I needed.

Obviously not sleeping with gen was annoying, not getting any money weekly when I was home from boarding school was tough too. But I was quite similar to a lot of my friends so I couldn’t really complain.

My dad used to buy a lot of gifts because he travelled a lot, all of that stopped.

I was in one African country in January to collect a posthumous award on his behalf and I couldn’t hold back the tears fam. I cried on like three different occasions.

*Hug*. Let’s digress, what’s the first thing you ever did for money?
NYSC; January ’17. I was an Office Assistant in the finance department of a government parastatal. It prepared me for getting retained. I now became an accountant in the budget section. While serving, I didn’t do much work and I felt like the whole place was just dead. But when I became a staff, my boss switched up on me and work became really serious.

Buhahahaha
I dey tell you. It’s a small parastatal that feels redundant but they have revenues topping ₦7 billion per annum since 2017, so there’s a lot of work in finance. Expenditure equaling revenue as well.

So basically, no profit?
The difference is usually less than ₦20 million.

Abeg wetin dey chop this 7 billion abeg? Abeg.
The largest expenditure for the agency is transportation. And that is at the heart of the agency.

Logistics is a crazy businessman.
It takes about ₦1.5 billion. Also, there are offices in every local government. Over 1,000 in total. So fueling of vehicles and weekend allowances.

Then there’s money for Ogas too; international travel gulps over ₦100 million. Local over ₦150 million, that’s for all staff sha.

So basically, the Ogas who make up probably less than 5% are spending more than the entire workforce.
More or less. A minister used to send some of his international travel bills too.

How does this even work?
The thing was crazy o. Sometimes, letterhead approval will just come from the ministry saying the conference or whatever they’re going to relates to our parastatal. And as such, we had to cover the cost.

OLUWA WETIN DEY HAPPEN?
Guy, hahaha. This Naija ehn. I saw things and I learnt a lot while there – I benefited also. I got to save enough money to buy a car. Although my mum had to give me money from my inheritance to complete it sha.

Hold up. Tell me what you learned, and of course what you benefited.
I learned how government accounting works. I learned how approvals are passed from Director-General to Director of Finance to Deputy Director and me or my colleagues.

Any kobo to be paid has to pass through about 4 or 5 offices. Directors’ approval limit was ₦2.1m I think and the DG was ₦4m if I can remember.

What were your expectations about the civil service, and what were your realities?
I expected a dysfunctional system without accountability. Civil servants were supposed to be the same, and couldn’t care less about their jobs. I came to find out that the civil service actually works. Also, what I mean by accountability is systems like the Treasury Single Account and some internal checks. Everything that has been done can be tracked, except you don’t go looking for it.

There is just so much redundancy. Selfish people want to cheat the system all the time. For example, the accounting model doesn’t allow for any payment to be made without checks and balances but everybody along the line is ‘settled’ and thus looks the other way. External auditors come and they’re automatically expecting the same treatment too.

Anybody that doesn’t tow this line is quickly turned against and a witch-hunt starts almost immediately; I saw this first hand with a senior member of staff. She became unwilling at some point to approve the multiple payments and she claimed to have something on all of the top management.

They swung into action to find something on her and they did. At that point my morality had been so affected too that I was against her, I’m probably just realising this now.

Fascinating, your realisation that is.
Well, what can I say? She was frustrating my boss and his boss and the way it was conditioned, I couldn’t help but support them. Disloyalty is rewarded with an immediate transfer.

There are people that still manage to go home with money that is clearly not their salary, where do those come from?
So many ways o. For the big bosses, most of their illegal money comes from inflated contracts and collecting kickbacks from contractors. A 2015 Prado for example, will be bought in 2018 for ₦75 million. A car that would most likely not have cost above ₦25m.

For that to be possible, the DG, Director of Finance, Head of Audit and Head of Procurement all have to be in on it. Then the money will trickle down to the lower boys, and that makes you complicit. And in a place that spends ₦7 billion a year, you can imagine the number of inflated contracts a year.

Then we had Duty Tour Allowance or estacode as the case may be. There’s already a budget before the start of the year stating the amount to be spent on local travels and international travels. The organisation makes sure every kobo is spent, no matter how frivolous the trip. In some cases, you don’t even need to travel, as long as your boss – usually a Director – signs off that you indeed were supposed to travel. You’ll be paid without stepping out of the office.

This has happened to my face countless times.

That is crazy.
If you have something important that needs to be passed, you’ll go office by office and drop something for the boys so your paper can be passed till it gets to the appropriate office.

During internal budget defense week, I got ₦30k just for being there.

“Thank you for coming” money?
Exactly. But we were about four in my grade range. I don’t even have any idea what my bosses would get.

Tell me about the first time this thing ever happened.
During NYSC, my boss asked to see me. I went to see him that day but couldn’t because he was so busy. The next morning, an elderly colleague asked if I had seen Oga, I told him no, he said: “Ehn Oga dey find you, you no wait for am, this boy you don’t know good things.”

When I went to see him, Oga gave me ₦20k just like that. I received this about 15 times during my 2-year stay at the agency.

Crazy. How did that make you feel?
I went to tell my colleague, a level 9 staff at the time. And he said, Oga gave everyone in the division.

“Is this frequent, what is it for?” He said Oga understands salary cannot be enough and because of his benevolent nature, he helps his boys out whenever something comes in.

I reflected on whether it was right or wrong for a while until I forgot about it.

That’s heavy.
I know for a fact that it is wrong and contributes to whatever rot we’re seeing in this country. But maybe I’m saying this because I’m not eating anymore. These things are extremely hard to stop when you’re a part of them.

I had a colleague who was a very devoted Christian. She came when I was there sometime within my first year. I told her how people get money and she told me that she’d never collect money whose source she has no clue about.

Then one time, our Oga gave her 20k, but she didn’t say anything. The next day, I asked her about the money, and she was like, “how did you know?”
I told her, remember that time you said you’d never collect money whose source you don’t know?

Has there ever been anyone who’s gone into this system and completely resisted?
Not a single person I know of. It actually made me start thinking twice about my dad and all of my friends’ parents in govt. Everyone I spoke to always found a way to justify it. I always come to the conclusion that my dad was a good person in office. Bad people are usually discarded after death. My friends’ parents, if you see the balling they do, it’s hard to imagine a government official getting it legit.

What level did you start with, and what level are you in now?
8, officially started in December 2017. Left the agency and went to another one from April 19 to start afresh from 8 again. The transfer process is cumbersome. So I was advised to resign and take up a new appointment. So I’ll be due for promotion 2022.

It was quite disappointing, but I did start afresh.

I still want a career in govt though, somewhere that fits my interest and skills like the Central Bank, NSIA, NDIC etc.

I’ve always had an interest in governance and I would like to contribute my skills and ideas to improve this country.

Now’s the time to breakdown your monthly income. Every dime. Where does it go, where does it come from?.

Also, what do you spend your money on monthly?
Fuel: ₦20k
Eating out (office and otherwise): ₦25k
Data: ₦9k
Miscellaneous: ₦8k (Laundry, car repairs and other stuff)
Savings: ₦30k

Do you have a monthly savings target?
2019; ₦40k. 2020; ₦30k. I’ve not missed a naira. The pandemic has helped a lot though.

How much is in your savings chest?
About ₦1.4m, $1k and the rest naira. I’m scared of putting everything in one place. Even the $ are in different forms.

Do you have insurance, pension and all of that?
I have NHIS as my health insurance, doesn’t cover everything but it’s not bad. I have a pension as well. And it’s growing nicely, love checking it every quarter. I forgot to mention, I also receive roughly ₦200k every year from rent.

From your dad’s property?
My property now.

ENERGY.
Hahaha.

What’s something you really wish you could be better at?
Making money off intellectual property. Financial consulting so to say. That’s what led me to write feasibility studies.

How would you rate your happiness levels on a scale of 1-10?
4 TBH. Alhamdulillah for what I currently have but I feel like I should be earning roughly 220 net a month at this stage. I’m still far off from that.

I would have been earning the same but my promotion would have been due December this year so technically early next year.

What’s something you want right now, but can’t afford?
In the short term, a new car. Long term; a Masters’ from a school worth going to (Salford, LSE, INSEAD etc.). In the long run when I’m vying for a management position they definitely help. There’s also the fact that I want to learn from the best. I saw my dad’s CV and I found out he had 5 international appointments. I want something like that; being good enough to hold those positions and titles.

https://www.zikoko.com/money/naira-life/nigerian-civil-service-corruption/

When conversation starts to wane, one of the questions that often comes up with my group of all single friends ironically is ‘what would you do if you found out your partner was cheating’. Over the years the reply to that question has evolved for most of them from ‘dump his ass and burn his car’ to ‘it depends, relationships are complicated’. The woman in this week’s interview can relate to the latter. After finding out her partner of 3 years had cheated on her, she was quick to forgive. The only problem is she’s having a hard time forgetting.

Tell me a little about your current relationship.

We met during NYSC camp. We flirted a lot but nothing ever happened. After camp we remained very friendly; we’d meet up for lunch or go to the movies occasionally. I think he was seeing someone else casually then but he never mentioned it. Almost a year after we first met, the lunch and movie dates became more frequent. We also started having sex.

I’m not a ‘let’s just see where this is going’ type of person. A month or two after we started having sex, I asked him point-blank ‘what are we doing?’ He gave me a speech about how he has all these feelings for me. I told him ‘yeah that’s nice, are we in a relationship or not?’ He laughed, kissed me and said ‘yes you are my girlfriend’.

That was three years ago and it has been mostly smooth sailing since then. He’s the sweetest, smartest, most considerate person I’ve ever met. The year we started dating, I was job hunting and he wasn’t. He carried my job hunting wahala on his head, sending out my CV to people, following up and everything. It’s hard to admit but he might have put in more effort than I did because the job I eventually settled on was through him.

Shortly after our first year anniversary, he started hinting at open relationships a lot. He’d send me links to articles or tweets talking about how healthy and fantastic open relationships were. He’s very curious, so I thought nothing about it at first. I thought he just found it fascinating. After one month of consistently getting hints, I finally asked him if that was what he wanted. He said not really but he thought it’d be fun to experiment with it for a month or two. I wasn’t having it at all. We got into a huge fight and I told him if he wanted to sleep around he should grow some balls, break up with me and go do so. He apologised and begged that it was just an idea he was toying around with and how our relationship was the most important thing to him.

I felt very hurt and betrayed at first. I kept on thinking was I not enough for him. I didn’t have a lot of sexual experience when we first started dating. So obviously I felt very insecure when he basically told me he wanted to sleep with other people. But after I calmed down, we had a really long, honest talk about it and I understood where he was coming from. This is the longest relationship he has ever had. He usually dated for a couple of months, got bored and moved on. But with me, he didn’t want that. He admitted that he was getting a little restless especially sexually. But at the end of the day, I and the relationship came first. I wanted to be offended by him saying he was restless, but it’s only human nature. He’s the second person I’ve ever had sex with it. In fact, the first person barely counts. So when I meet an attractive man I can’t say the thought doesn’t cross my mind. Which was why we considered hall-passes.

So a hall-pass is a free pass for the holder to have sex with anyone else they feel like just one time. There has to be full disclosure about all the details and once you’ve used it up, any sexual activity you engage with, even with the same person you had sex with during the pass, counts as cheating. He agreed to it at first, but the more we talked about the details the more reluctant he became. I’m very organised I like lists and stuff so anytime we talked about it I’d write down the terms and conditions we were agreeing to so no one could backtrack. He said I seemed too eager to go sleep with someone else and he didn’t want it again.

Read the full version: https://www.zikoko.com/her/what-she-said-i-cant-forget-he-cheated/

Thank you

Litblogger:
This is insane. People need to realize that these people can choose not to do this. They can decide to go home and self-isolate as well but the fact that they are risking exposure to the virus is enough reason to give them more respect. Why would someone call to 'test' the number? I'm tired of Nigerians.

This is FrontPage material please!
Mynd44
Lalasticlala
Seun
Oam4j
Obinoscopy
Dominique
Sissy3

We spoke to Joke, a call centre agent at the Nigeria Centre for Disease Control (NCDC). She tells us how her life has changed since Coronavirus was first announced and what she looks forward to the most after this is over.

MONDAY:
I stand up from bed by 5 am today. I say “stand up” because it’s not voluntary. I prepare my kids for school, cook their breakfast and pack their lunch boxes. My husband drops the children at school, while I prepare for work. All this happens before 8 am, which is my resumption time.

There was a time I was sure of closing by 4 pm, but since the outbreak of Covid-19, I get off work by 8 pm and I still take work home. I now work round the clock. This means that even when I get home, I still receive messages from people on the night shift asking for help in sieving calls from work. I have to prioritize and ask for further clarification from each caller, before determining whether to escalate the issue to the people on the field or not. So, I get off work physically by 8 pm, but I just replace it with working from home.

Today is a rollercoaster because we are working hard to keep up with the number of calls. My colleague who worked the Sunday shift hasn’t been able to go home because his conscience can’t stand leaving us with such a large workload. So, somehow, he stays to support us and ends up working a 48-hour shift. This would have been strange to us in the past, but we are living in strange times.

When I get home, my husband has cooked for the children and I am thankful for that. I am one of the lucky ones who has a husband who is understanding. During this period, he has been extremely supportive and I don’t know how I would cope if he wasn’t. All I do is prepare stew for the week and he cooks and takes care of the children before I get back from work.

I am too tired to eat. I just want whatever sleep I can get. If I go to bed now, at least when someone at work calls me by 10 pm, I would have gotten 2 hours of uninterrupted sleep.

TUESDAY:
Every job has its ups and downs. It’s easy to envy other jobs from afar but if they tell you what their job entails, it wouldn’t look so glamorous. I studied Microbiology in university; I was looking for a job relevant to my field of study and that’s why I took this job.

This job gives you a thick skin. In a day, you can get up to 40 calls with people just calling to ask if the number is working. Today, I got a call where the person on the other end of the line was quiet. The person listened to me talk without saying anything. Another person called and said: “So, the line is even working. Una well done.”

Coronavirus NCDC

Over the years, you learn not to throw stones at the person, to just laugh it off. As part of the customer service training, you learn that you can’t talk back to the person at the other end of the line, and they have a right to their opinion. No matter how annoying. So, I share the “joke” with my colleague and we laugh over it.

WEDNESDAY:
I have barely slept for 3 hours. I have been writing and coordinating reports about the outbreak and possible cases to send to the field agents. There was a time that I could go to sleep by 8:30 pm or 9:00 pm with no worries. Nowadays, I’m always worried that if I fall asleep, I will miss any call that comes in. And calls come in at odd times.

Today, I wake up feeling lethargic. My husband encourages me to get out of bed and to start preparing for work. He has been supportive even though my laptop has literally taken his place for now. He knows that I must show up whether I feel up to it or not…

I try not to think about how long I have to do this. I am just going to take this situation one day at a time for my own sake. Although, I am worried that despite all our efforts and advice at the NCDC, Nigerians will not adhere to instructions and the infection will spread and all this stress will be for nothing.

Today, I received a call that made my day at work. Someone called saying: “God will bless you, I just want to appreciate the work you people are doing for Nigeria.” I thanked the person on behalf of NCDC but the person added: “I am not praying for NCDC, I am praying for you.” This made me happy. At least someone somewhere appreciates what I am doing and my sleepless nights are not in vain.

THURSDAY:
Another thing I have also learned in this job is to separate home personality from work personality. At home, I am a mother, a wife. At work, I am a worker. I give each part its due diligence and that’s why today is painful for me because I know how much I give for each role.

I got a call and in between all the pleasantries and asking how I could be of assistance, the caller goes: “Please, don’t ask me what you can do for me. You and the government are wicked and stupid. I know there is no Coronavirus and you are joining the government to eat money when people are dying of hunger. Thunder fire your mouth.”

The worst part for me was how helpless I was. I could neither cut the call nor respond. I had to calmly sit through the insults until the caller was done.

After the call was over, I went out of the connect centre to the corridor and started to scream. “What sort of rubbish is this? Why would someone be so mean when I am just trying to do my best? Even as I am on the frontline, I am not sure whether I will get this illness or not, yet I still show up to play my part. Why would someone think this is a joke?” I let it all out before returning to the connect center calmer and lighter.

I scream because I can’t take the anger home. Over the years, I have learned to separate both lives if I want to strike a balance. I have little children at home aged 11, 8 and 6 who don’t know better. I don’t want to go back home as a different person from the one that left in the morning. I don’t want to be the person that was all smiles and cracking jokes in the morning and is now blank and edgy after work. If I am always angry and irritable, my children will run away from me once I get home.

FRIDAY:
These days I don’t even think of unwinding. In the past, I would relax by either going to watch a movie, going to visit a friend, or playing with my kids. Even if there was no social distancing, where is the time?

There’s no time to unwind because when I get even small breathing space from work, I am thinking of my family. How to make sure they aren’t affected too much by my current busy schedule. What should I buy in the house? The children, how will they survive this week? I am trying to make things as “normal” as I possibly can.

I don’t even have the time to be afraid because fear can even kill more than the disease. Over time, I have learned that whatever will happen will happen regardless of whether you are afraid or not. All you can do is get as much information as you can on prevention, adhere to it, and trust God.

Also, because of the kind of person that I am, I don’t like things that I do to fail. This means panic comes last to my mind and I just do whatever needs to be done because my job is duty calling. I just know that I won’t always do this forever and there will come a time when I will rest and unwind.

But right now, I just want to go home and take a cold shower.

SATURDAY:
There’s training at work today. We are bringing on more people to help with the call centre effort and managing the numerous calls we receive every day. Before this outbreak, we could conveniently handle the workload, but now, we need more hands so we don’t burn out.

There is a chain of reporting which we follow. The other call centre agents compile their reports to me along with suspected cases who have called in and have been thoroughly vetted based on travel history and symptoms. I then compile and escalate this report to the state epidemiologist. Every state has an epidemiologist who then notifies the Disease Surveillance and Notification Officer at the local government level. This is the person who goes to the house address to verify the claims and then reports to the state epidemiologist who then reports back to the NCDC.

I am still on duty today even after the training and will probably take work home. Thank goodness I don’t have to come in tomorrow.

SUNDAY:
Well, there is no church service today so I can cook for the week. Sundays used to be my day of rest. I could afford to sleep in the afternoon after church. But now, I use it to prepare meals for the week so that my family will not be stranded.

What I most look forward to when this is all over is going on leave for like 2 weeks. Just travelling to a place where all I have to do is sleep, wake, eat and not talk too much. All this talking every day at work is making my throat pain me already; I need to rest.

I’m going to the market to buy ingredients for my meal preparation. I am back to work again tomorrow until when all this blows over. Then I can finally get to rest my throat and my eyes.

Source: https://www.zikoko.com/money/hustle/a-week-in-the-life-of-a-call-center-agent-at-the-ncdc-since-coronavirus-started/