The subject of today’s What She Said is a 61-year-old woman who moved to Lagos at 15 to become a caterer. She talks about being her father’s favourite out of his 18 children, surrounding herself with her family, choosing to not get married or have children, retiring at fifty and looking forward to the rest of her life.

What’s your earliest memory of your childhood?

It’s of my father using his bicycle to take me to school. Whenever my elder brother and I had a misunderstanding and he wanted to beat me, my father would put me on his bicycle and take me to school. That didn’t stop my brother from beating me after school closed because my dad was at the farm.

So, you grew up a daddy’s pet?

Yes, I did. Two weeks after I was born, I had an operation. They said it was because I had abnormal growth on my back. In fact, that operation caused another problem. It was carried out in my village in 1960. The technology wasn’t that great, so I don’t think it was completely their fault. One of the wires used to stitch the wound was forgotten. I was just two weeks old, but I was in so much pain. I wasn’t eating or sleeping well. I just cried for days. Apparently, when my mother was massaging my back, she felt something there and pulled the wire out. That was when I slept properly for the first time in days.

But that was not the only reason I was my father’s favourite. His grandmother, whom he was very close to, died before I was born. She also had the same abnormal growth in her body. Before she died, she made my father promise that they would operate on her dead body and find out what was causing the growth. Unfortunately, he wasn’t around when she died, so he couldn’t fulfil his promise. Then I was born.

The only thing I hated about being my dad’s pet was that he never let me leave the house. Luckily, one of my brother’s came to take me to Lagos when I was 15.

Was it the same brother that used to beat you?

No, it wasn’t him. I had 17 siblings, so I have a lot of brothers. This one lived in Lagos, and he came to pick me because I had just finished primary school. I had nothing else to do and was just at home taking care of my sick mother. He and my father wanted me to do something else with my life. I decided I wanted to learn catering, and that’s how I came to Lagos.

Wait, primary school at 15?

Yes. Back then, you could only enter primary school when you could put your left hand over your head and touch your right ear. Short children or children with short arms or big heads had to start school late.

That method is so funny. Wow. Anyways, how did you feel leaving the village?

I was excited. Coming to Lagos was the first time I entered a plane in my life. It was a Benin to Lagos flight, and it cost ₦30. I got on the plane with rubber slippers because my sister took the shoes I wanted to wear. She told me, “Shebi you dey go Lagos. Dem get everything for there.”

Lagos was full of life, and it had things I had never seen in the village. The first time I went to a supermarket, I went with one of my relatives. I saw people putting things in their baskets and thought it was because the things were free. So, I put things in my basket. When we got to the counter, they calculated the things and told me to pay.

LMAO. That is wild.

Unfortunately, it wasn’t the first time something like that happened. When I went to another village to see a family member, I ate in a bukka for the first time. When I was done, I told the woman thank you for the food and wanted to go wash the plate they gave me to eat with. She looked so confused.

I am dying. But it got better?

Yes, it did. Before I started catering school, I took time to get accustomed to a few things. I could only speak Esan and a bit of English, so I had to polish my English and learn Yoruba as well.

Why did you want to study catering?

I like making and experimenting with food. Catering school was great and I enjoyed every moment of it.

When I finished catering school, I went for industrial attachment. Which is when they send you to different companies to work there for about three months.

After my industrial attachment, I went to work for a woman making snacks, then worked for a hotel. I also worked at two other hotels and some companies as their senior caterer. I also did events.

So, all your jobs were food-related?

Well, not all. After my third job, I went to Kano for a while to assist my sister who lived there. She used to buy and sell clothes, and I helped her buy the goods. I would go from Kano to Lagos by road and then return to Kano by air to avoid customs.

Avoid customs, why?

Well, at that time, the government was trying to stop the importation of Hollandies and Ankara, so customs sometimes searched people on the road. To avoid that, I would go by air.

There was a time during my usual movement to Lagos, I had to stop at Benin to deliver a message to my other sister. There were no phones then, so the message had to be delivered in person. While in the cab, some of the men there were 419.

Because I was going to buy things I was always moving around with a lot of money. My sister tied the money and put it inside the sack with pepper and beans. I am sure when the men heard I was coming from Kano to Benin, they suspected I had some money. That’s when they started doing jazz. They spat into their palms and something came out and they did all sorts in the car. I became scared and made them stop the vehicle. I pointed to a random woman on the streets and said that was my sister waiting for me. They threw me and my property out of the vehicle and rained insults on me.

When I got home, I told my sister. We threw the sack on the floor and searched for the money. We had to be sure they didn’t use their jazz to magnet the money from the bag, Luckily, the money was still intact. It was a terrible experience.

So, did that make you stop?

No, it didn’t. I just decided to not go to Benin anymore. I still helped my sister with her buying and selling, until I decided to leave Kano.

Why did you leave?

I decided to relocate to Lagos because that’s where I had the bulk of my family members. I didn’t find it very easy to make friends in Kano.

So, what were you doing after Kano?

Well, I catered events and also started selling foodstuff. Now, I am retired.

That’s nice. When did you retire?

I retired when I was fifty. I realised with my arthritis, eye problems and age, I could not keep up with how stressful the catering industry is. I decided to open a provisions store instead. I needed to rest.

A provisions store doesn’t seem like you’re resting o
Well, rest but I also wanted to be surrounded by my family. Also, the idea of just sitting down and doing nothing seems very boring. I still have strength left, why not use it?

When you say family, your kids?

No. I never had children. I also never got married. Initially, I did want to get married but the men were never faithful to me. They were disappointments and I just decided not to get involved with them anymore. I am very happy with my decision. I have my family around me and they take care of me. They always make me feel welcome. Marriage and children are not tickets to heaven, so they aren’t necessary.

What do you look forward to now?

Retirement phase two. Maybe I will finally rest and get around to see all my siblings and their children — the people I want to see. In general, I am looking forward to the rest of my life.

Source: https://www.zikoko.com/her/what-she-said-marriage-and-children-are-not-tickets-to-heaven/

Read more stories like this here: https://www.zikoko.com/category/her/

One in three men will suffer from erectile dysfunction at some point in their lives. Only a third of these men will seek help for this condition. In Nigeria, men often opt for orthodox and traditional sexual enhancers to treat erectile dysfunction. I spoke to 4 men about their experiences with sexual enhancers.

Deji

2020 was a very stressful year for me, perhaps even the worst year of my life. I was dealing with work stress and other issues in my personal life, combined with the COVID-19 pandemic and the ensuing lockdown. Because of these, I was diagnosed with anxiety and depression. Along with therapy sessions, my therapist prescribed ant-depressants. One of the side effects of that brand of anti-depressants was a loss of libido and difficulty ejaculating. Man, it was not funny at all.

I found it difficult to get and maintain erections when I wanted to have sex. When I managed to get hard, I couldn’t cum. I complained to my doctor, he suggested that I shouldn’t take the antidepressants until after sex. This worked initially, but it restricted the timing of my sex. I complained again and he suggested that I take a pill of Viagra just before sex, assuring me that it was perfectly normal for men in my situation to use it. I was hesitant because no man wants to feel like his equipment is not firing properly.

Using it really helped my erection, delayed my orgasms and boosted my performance generally. I wonder why it doesn’t get talked about more often and why more men with erection issues don’t use it. It’s been a year since I started using antidepressants and I’m happy that I’m getting better. I’m even getting weaned off my meds to see if my brain can cope without them. My erections now occur organically, without any enhancers and I’m back to my pre-medication abilities. Still, I don’t shy away from popping a pill when I think the session could do with an extra push.

Morufu

I started looking for a sexual enhancer when I realised I suffered from premature ejaculation. I had just got into a relationship with someone new and I wanted to impress her, as per first impression. I bought 100mg of viagra from a pharmacy.

When I used it, it didn’t give make me extra hard nor did it give me an erection after ejaculation. However, I noticed that my recovery period between ejaculation and a second erection reduced from 20 minutes to about 15 minutes.

I also suffered side effects, like a headache that lasted till the next day. I concluded that sexual enhancers just don’t work for me.

Dumebi

Out of curiosity, I took the popular burantashi, a herbal medicine just before sex. All it did was irritate my urethra and gave me the urge to pee. It also caused me to produce a lot of precum. It didn’t give me a better erection or make me hornier.

Tunde

When my wife first got pregnant, I discovered that I couldn’t get or maintain an erection. So I bought a brand of viagra from a drugstore. The pharmacist told me to take one pill, but I have coconut head and I really wanted to get the erection of my glory days back, so I took two at a time. Boy, what a bad idea that was!

I got aroused, but from there on, my problems had just begun. I kept thrusting for minutes on end but I couldn’t cum. My dick was hard but it felt dead. No sensation, no orgasm, just hardness and vibes. It would go down anytime she came and we stopped and rested but then it would get hard again. This lasted for about two days and I had to call a doctor friend to save my life. He advised that I eat meals with heavy fat content in order to slow down my metabolism. I was swallowing egusi and pork meat like my life depended on it.

I haven’t used it since then, and my erections are back to normal. It just turned out that my body needed time to adjust sexually to my wife’s pregnant body. Our sex life pretty much amped up after that. I’m never going to mess with viagra again.

Source: https://www.zikoko.com/man/4-nigerian-men-talk-about-their-experiences-with-sexual-enhancers/

Read more stories like this here: https://www.zikoko.com/category/man/

On August 17, a court in Abuja granted an order to the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) to freeze bank accounts belonging to four startups, which allow Nigerians to invest in foreign securities, for 180 days.

The crackdown by the apex bank could result in severe unintended casualties for the companies; but above all, it puts at risk what is arguably their most valuable asset — customers’ trust.

The global finance industry is built on the foundation of trust. And in Nigeria, where more than 80 million citizens live below the poverty line, trust is even more paramount. Most Nigerians are likely to be skeptical about storing their hard-earned Naira with a digital-only company for extended periods.

And the fintech platforms affected by CBN’s move — Trove, Risevest, Bamboo, and Chaka — know this.

Beyond offering financial products with attractive investment returns, the startups have invested in building a customer trust and loyalty bank. This has mostly been through providing consistent financial literacy and transparent communication over the years, primarily via emails and Telegram channels.

Each of the fintech firms has thousands of members in its respective Telegram community — Risevest (+12,000), Chaka (+5,000), and Trove (+3,000) — where inquiries and queries are responded to in real-time with opportunities to further educate their users.

News of the embargo on their bank accounts would ordinarily have sparked a frenzy among customers and it did for a moment. Some users took to social media to express their shock and others made moves to withdraw their funds, exhibiting a natural human instinct to fight or take flight when faced with a crisis or an unexpected situation.

But the majority of users have held on, helped by their trust in the companies, which quickly communicated the suspension to customers while assuring them their funds were safe.

“I got an email from Risevest before I even read in the news that their accounts were barred. So I was already calm knowing that my money was safe,” Motunrayo Koyejo, a software engineer and Rise Vest user, told TechCabal. “I don’t think I would have this much confidence if I didn’t get that email.”

While the suspension affected four retail trading apps, there is a tendency that such clampdown can result in contagion; a situation where a crisis affecting some companies spreads to other players in the industry.

Stephanie Osaji, who uses Cowrywise for savings said after seeing news of the court order, she was “scared, thought about my funds and was wondering what would happen to my money” if the platform suddenly shut down.

“To be honest, I considered withdrawing my money. I remember logging into the app and checking when my next due date for withdrawal was,” Osaji said. “But then I just told myself that they would figure it out. I mean Nigerian startups almost always have a way of figuring things out.”

Another Cowrywise user, Mosopefoluwa Okeowo, told TechCabal she thinks fintech startups will always find a solution. “I honestly believe in them totally.”

This sort of consumer confidence is one that takes years to build. Communicating with customers and stakeholders at the very early stages of a mishap is crucial to reassuring their confidence.

Se the money I have in risevest yh, even if it will go like that we go die there. Thats how much I believe in Eke

— Sani Yusuf (@saniyusuf) August 17, 2021

Sem. Sem. Started investing with Eke so long ago. Before he even started coming this way and we had never met until years later.

Rise will survive. https:///a42wEDeVAW

— Gossy (@gossyomega) August 23, 2021

Nigerians embracing investment-tech amid economic uncertainty

Africa’s bustling fintech ecosystem has been increasingly defined by payments specialists and digital banks.

But a crop of wealth management startups has emerged in recent years, the majority helping Nigerians invest in foreign stocks and assets easier than ever before.

Investing in reliable financial assets appeals to many millennials in the country who are keen on hedging their future wealth against the unstable Naira, amid broader economic uncertainty.

With ₦1,000 (around $2), anyone with a smartphone and internet can register on Chaka and browse through over 11,000 shares publicly listed on the Nigerian Stock Exchange (NSE) and stock exchanges in the U.S.

Savings and investment apps also boast superior returns on deposits. Compared to less than 5% interest rates on fixed deposits offered by Nigerian banks, Rise Vest offers a guaranteed 10% annual return on its fixed-income offering.

“I think it’s safer to save money with banks but one gets little or nothing in return,” Koyejo said. “That’s not an option in this economy. I’d rather keep my money and invest with Rise Vest. I don’t plan to use the money I have invested soon anyway.”

Source: https://techcabal.com/2021/08/25/nigerian-fintech-app-users-confident-despite-regulatory-crackdown/

Read more stories like this here: https://techcabal.com/category/fintech/

Ethiopia has begun developing its own social media platforms to rival Facebook, Twitter, WhatsApp and Zoom, as per Reuters.

According to the state communications security agency on Monday, the government wants its local platform to “replace” existing platforms, although it does not plan to block the other services.

The director-general of the Information Network Security Agency (INSA), Shumete Gizaw has accused Facebook of deleting posts and user accounts that he said were “disseminating the true reality about Ethiopia.”

In June, Facebook pulled down fake accounts targeting opposition figures ahead of Ethiopia’s House of Peoples’ Representatives election, a move that didn’t sit well with the incumbent Ethiopian government. In a local media outlet on Friday, Shumete accused Facebook of blocking users who were “preaching national unity and peace”.

In the past year, the Ethiopian government has been criticized for shutting down access to internet and social media services, including Facebook and WhatsApp, due to unrest in the Tigray region and during the election. The government has not commented on those shutdowns.

Since November 2020, Ethiopia, Africa’s second-most populous country with about 115 million people, has been engulfed in a civil war between the federal government and the Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF), which controls the Tigray region in the country’s north.

Supporters of the different sides have taken the conversation over to social media.

To build these platforms, Ethiopia is relying solely on local expertise. While Shumete declined to share further details about its social media rival project, he proudly asserted that Ethiopia won’t be the first to rely on local talents to build its social networks.

“The rationale behind developing technology with local capacity is clear … Why do you think China is using WeChat?” he said.

Drawing such a parallel with the social messaging app WeChat is a bit troubling. WeChat, which is owned by China-headquartered Tencent Holdings, is widely used in the country and is considered to be a strong tool by Chinese authorities for monitoring its population.

Affected by the pandemic, the Ethiopian government has a lot on its plate as it works towards economic recovery. It’s looking to raise money via sales of telecom licenses and obtaining an additional $1 billion debt.

This begs the question of whether investing in state-owned social network platforms should be on its list of priorities.

Source: https://techcabal.com/2021/08/24/ethiopia-is-building-local-competitors-to-facebook-whatsapp-twitter-and-zoom/

Read more stories like this here: https://techcabal.com/category/news/

Nigeria-based OPay has secured $400 million in a new funding round led by SoftBank Vision Fund, the venture capital arm of Japanese conglomerate, SoftBank.

The latest funding brings investments to date in OPay to $570 million and values the Nigerian mobile payments platform at $2 billion. It is the single-largest investment round secured by an African-based startup and marks the first investment in a startup on the continent by the SoftBank Vision Fund.

Other participants in the round are mainly Asian investors, who are increasingly betting big on African startups. They include Sequoia Capital China, DragonBall Capital, Redpoint China, Source Code Capital, SoftBank Ventures Asia, and 3W Capital.

“We want to be the power that helps emerging markets reach faster economic development,” OPay’s Chief Executive Officer, Yahui Zhou, said.

OPay operates in a competitive fintech space, where others like Paga and TeamApt are equally working to increase their market share as they aim to bring financial services to the millions of unbanked Nigerians.

Founded in 2018, OPay raised two investments in 2019; $50 million in June and a $120 million Series B in November.

OPay previously offered ride-hailing and logistics services as well but shut down the former last year due to a government ban on motorcycles in Lagos.

The fintech firm experienced stellar growth during the global pandemic lockdown last year with the value of its gross transactions rising by 4.5x to over $2 billion in December.

Currently, the company’s monthly transaction volumes exceed $3 billion, driven by its strong network of 300,000 agents and 5 million registered app users.

OPay plans to expand to other African countries as well as focus on the Middle East.

Attempts to enter South Africa and Kenya haven’t been successful, which it blames on the Covid crisis, although the company has entered North Africa with a shop in Egypt.

Last year, OPay revealed the acquisition of an international money transfer license, in addition to a WorldRemit partnership it said was in the works.

“We believe our investment will help the company extend its offering to adjacent markets and replicate its successful business model in Egypt and other countries in the region,” SoftBank Vision Fund’s managing partner, Kentaro Matsui, said on the investment in OPay.

Source: https://techcabal.com/2021/08/23/led-by-softbank-nigerias-opay-raises-400m/

Read more stories like this here: https://techcabal.com/category/fintech/

On this week’s #NairaLife, this 30-year-old lady’s quality of life nosedived after the death of her husband in 2020. Her current biggest worry? Raising her four kids on an average monthly income of ₦14k.

When did you first realise the importance of money?

That would be after my father died in 2003. We lived in a village in Ankpa in Kogi state and didn’t have much. But we didn’t suffer because my father took care of us. He made furniture and was also a farmer.

When he died, my mother had to mourn him for two years. This meant she had to stay at home, so someone had to take care of our family.

And that person was you?

Yes. I was 12 years old and the eldest of five children. The first thing I sold was oranges. A basin of oranges cost ₦700, and I made a profit of ₦800 after each sale. Any money I brought home was what we used to buy food.

After a while, I started going into the bush to gather firewood to sell. One bundle went for ₦300, and that paid for my school fees.

How much was your school fees?

₦1200.

How long did you do this for?

About two years. In 2005, one of my aunts who live in Lagos came to the village and asked me to come with her. She said we were suffering too much, and she wanted to help us. My mother’s mourning period had ended, so I didn’t have to stay in the village if I didn’t want to. I agreed and followed my aunt to Lagos.

What did you do when you got to Lagos?

I helped my aunt with her soft drinks business. She showed me how it worked, and I started selling on the streets. At the end of every month, she paid me ₦5k. She also put me in a tutorial centre. I sold drinks during the day and went to my classes in the evening.

It didn’t reach two years after I came to Lagos when I got married.

Tell me about how it happened.

A soldier took an interest in me. Whenever he bought drinks from me, he gave me something extra. That was all at first. Later, he said he wanted to marry me. I looked at him, and I looked at myself. I thought if someone like me could marry a soldier, maybe our suffering would be reduced. So I agreed to marry him.

I introduced him to my aunt and her husband. From there, we went home to my village to meet the rest of my family. We got married later in 2006. I think the whole thing cost him like ₦50k. My people don’t collect a bride price, but my uncle took ₦50 and my mother took ₦20 out of the money to show that they supported the marriage. The remaining money was used to entertain our guests.

Ah, I see.

He was a lance-corporal in the army and his salary was about ₦48k when we got married. We gave birth to our first child — a daughter — in 2007.

Things were good: I won’t lie. He took good care of me. From his salary, he’d give me ₦10k to send home to my mother and give me extra money to buy food in the house and take care of myself.

In 2009, we gave birth to our second child. That was also when I decided to start making some money on my own. I started selling fruits — oranges, pineapples and watermelons. For every ₦5k market I bought, I made ₦7500.

I did this until 2011 before my husband asked me to stop. The market wasn’t selling very well anymore, and I was also pregnant with our third child.

What made me stop was what he promised me.

What did he promise you?

A shop where I could start a better business. At some point, he wanted to take a loan to start me up, but I told him not to — I fear loans.

Now that I wasn’t working or selling anything, my children and I relied on him, and he didn’t fail. Not even when our last child came in 2015. He had started earning ₦60k and was close to being promoted to a corporal.

Every month, he sent us ₦20k for our feeding. It was enough because things were still cheap at the time. I’d spend ₦5k on baby food and diapers, ₦10k for foodstuff and save the remaining ₦5k so we could have something to spend before the month was over.

My husband also took care of the children’s school fees. When it was time to pay, he’d send his whole salary for that month. That’s how our family worked — I stayed home to take care of the children and he did the rest.

Then in 2017, they said he should go to Maiduguri to fight Boko Haram. My last child wasn’t even up to two years at the time. Nothing much happened until March last year.

What happened?

One night, I got a call around 9:30 p.m. The person introduced himself as a major and said that he was sorry, but they lost my husband in combat. I wanted to run mad. We had spoken the previous day, and he talked about coming back home in three months.

Oh my God. I’m so sorry.

Thank you. They buried him there and sent his things home. I couldn’t even go for his burial because it was during the lockdown, and they said everybody should stay at home.

I’m very sorry. He passed on active duty. Did you get any of his benefits?
That’s where the problem is. His brother was his next of kin, so his name was on paper. After they got the money, his family turned their back on me. Now they don’t even remember me or the children. I don’t know how much they gave them, but nothing got to me or the children.

Ah!

That wasn’t all. We were living in the barracks before my husband passed. After the army paid my husband’s people, they asked us to leave the barracks. I moved in with one of my cousins and that’s where I’m squatting now.

What are you doing these days?

Since June, I’ve worked at the barracks. I sweep two blocks in the barracks every morning for ₦14k at the end of the month. I have no money in my bank account or my savings. I use everything to buy food and take care of my children.

How do you manage it?

The first thing I do is to take ₦4k out every month. From that, I give my children ₦50 each every morning when they go to school so they won’t be looking at other children. The rest of what I make is for food. Thank God for the neighbours that bring something from time to time. My aunt sends me money when she can and my younger ones send foodstuffs.

My biggest headache is their school fees.

How much is their school fees?

My first child is 14 years old and is in JSS 2. I withdrew her from the private school after my husband died and took her to a government school. They don’t collect school fees there even though I pay ₦5k for PTA and other things. The second child is 12 years old and in Primary 5, and the school fees is about ₦25k. I also pay about that amount for the third child who is 10 years old and in Primary 3. My last born is six years old and in primary one. His own school fee is ₦20k.

How do you raise the money?

Ah, when it’s time to pay their school fees, I start to disturb my people. Some of my husband’s friends also send me money for this. I gather the money from everywhere I can find. I fear that people will stop helping me soon. That’s why I want to start my own business.

What business do you have in mind?

I want to get a shop and start selling provisions and drinks. I don’t even know how much I need because I’ve not started asking around. I want to have some money in my hand first.

But I know it’s the next thing for me. It’s my prayer request every day. I even drop something when I go to church — even if it’s ₦100. I just want to have enough money to take care of my children.

As you are now, how do you see life and money?

If you’re alive and you don’t have money, you’re nothing and nobody. But if you have money, you will be okay and happy. The people around you will also be happy and proud of you because they know you can help them.

Hmm. What was the last thing that made you happy?

When my husband was alive, he would send us extra money during holidays so I could take the children out. That used to make me happy. Now, it’s their school fees. Once I pay it like this, I’m happy.

It’s been a difficult year, but how would you rate your financial happiness on a scale of 0-10?

2. But I know that nothing is hard for God. I’ll be happy very soon, and people will know that I’m happy.

Source: https://www.zikoko.com/money/naira-life/the-struggling-nairalife-of-a-widow-whos-raising-four-kids/

The Nigerian Information and Technology Development Agency (NITDA) is proposing amendments to its regulatory Act.

Although the announcement was made earlier in March, a recent leak of the draft bill has reignited conversations surrounding the proposed amendments.

The amendments include provisions for new license categorizations, licensing fees, 1% profit-before-tax levies for companies with revenues higher than ₦100,000,000 ($243,831), and prison sentences for defaulting parties.

Debated parts of the bill also include the provisions that list out offences and penalties. Under Section 22, non-payment of levies is punishable with a 0.5% increase in the assessed sum per lapsed day. In addition to fines, offenders are also liable to serve prison sentences of up to three (3) years.

The bill also states that failure to adhere to directives issued by the agency also attracts a fine of ₦3,000,000 ($7,315) for individuals and ₦30,000,000 ($73,149) for corporate bodies. This is a far cry from the 2007 Act which listed out lesser fines for the same offence: ₦200,000 ($487) for individuals, and ₦500,000 ($1,219) for corporate bodies.

Unlike its 2007 predecessor which focused on telecoms and banks, the proposed amendments, under its Third Schedule, will cover tech companies including e-commerce platforms, foreign digital services targeting the Nigerian market, and fintechs.

According to NITDA Director-General, Mallam Kashifu Inuwa Abdullahi, the amendments are crucial for the agency to keep up with the accelerating changes in the global IT ecosystem. The DG also affirmed that the amendments are imperative if Nigeria is to secure a place in the emerging global digital economy.

Many key players in the Nigerian tech ecosystem disagree. Founders and managers alike have proposed that the amendments, particularly sections dealing with fines and fees, are the government’s way of getting a slice of the proverbial pie.

Of the $1 billion raised by African start-ups in the first half of 2021, Nigerian startups account for at least $300 million of it, an amount that’s double the total amounts raised in H1 2018 and H1 2019 combined.

Source: https://techcabal.com/2021/08/17/nitda-tec-to-introduce-levies-fees-to-tech-companies/

Read more stories like this here: https://techcabal.com/category/government/

Being on call as a medical doctor means that being on standby, ready to work on anything that needs your attention immediately. In this article, five Nigerian female doctors talk about the things they hate about being on call.

Dr Chichi

What I hate most about being on call is being on call. I work in a big hospital and we get a lot of patients every day. During the day, I struggle with the pressure that comes with a full hospital of sick people needing urgent care and my anxiety as I try to work through it. I can be performing surgery on one person while another person is crashing in that moment. On most days, I come in earlier than 8 AM and leave later than 5 PM. It takes a lot from me. Sometimes, I cry to release the tension.

I hate that patients often expect doctors to just know what’s going on with them and have an immediate solution. They don’t care what happens to the doctors or how they feel. On a good day, I only get four hours of sleep. Sometimes, I don’t even have enough time to shower before starting work in the morning. I miss out on a lot — events, intimate time with loved ones, friends and family milestones. What keeps me going is thinking about my bed or spending time with my friends and family. Sometimes, I wish my patients would spend a day in my shoes, maybe then, they will be nicer to their doctors.

Dr Olayide

Being on call almost always means you will be working through the night. There are more emergencies to attend to at night and more referrals to be made. I hate when patients have to be referred to a different hospital at night so being able to help anxious patients without referrals is one of my biggest joys when I am on call.

Dr Ayo

I don’t mind being on call at night because I have gotten used to it. I work in a private hospital so the workload is less than it is during the day but that changes anytime. During call at night, there are fewer people at work so the atmosphere is relaxed and commuting is easier and faster.

During my internship a few years ago at a tertiary hospital, I was scared of walking alone at night because there were many reports of people who got robbed or assaulted. I would run from my room to the wards or the emergency rooms but I feel safer now. Aside from that fear, I am always happy for the little things like a newborn and a happy mother. The truth is during call, you never know what you will get.

Dr Kakamor

During calls, I sleep less. I spend most of my time on-call on my feet, which means back pain is my friend. On some days, the work can be endless and I don’t get a break until the following morning. Sometimes, I end up going home during the weekend because of an overload of work. On other days, it can be calm. That’s when you will see doctors smiling. Having to deal with too many things at the same time strains the mind. Sometimes it’s so bad that I am already unhappy thinking about the next shift while I am on one.

During calls, food is the last thing on my mind and this is what makes doctors collapse on the job. The crazy thing is that you can be on call for a whole week, dragging your grumpy self around, stealing short periods of sleep in uncomfortable call rooms with mosquitoes or rats. Some days, there might be no water to even freshen up.

Another thing that frustrates me during calls is working with nurses that do not like to do their work. They will call my attention to every little thing, even when it’s something within their job description. Regardless of all this, I love what I do even though the hardship in the Nigerian hospitals is so unnecessary.

Dr Adetola

I hate the fact that calls deprive me of rest because emergencies could come in at any time and I have to be on my toes. Calls are almost always tedious and unpredictable. However, when you work at night in some departments, you get the next day off. Personally, I prefer working at the obstetrics and gynaecology department because most of the cases are usually similar and that takes the edge for me.

Source: https://www.zikoko.com/her/5-nigerian-female-doctors-talk-about-what-they-hate-about-being-on-call/

In a traditional African market, traders commonly set aside a particular day to visit manufacturing factories or wholesalers to restock. On this day, in addition to battling with unstable price structure, stressful transit process, and malicious middlemen, they’re likely to close their business and not make any sales while busy restocking. This process mostly inflates the cost of running a business.

Alerzo, one of the Nigerian B2B e-commerce retail startups solving this problem, has raised $10.5 million series A funding to expand into northern Nigeria. The round was led by New York-based Nosara Capital. FJ Labs and several other investors across the U.S, Europe and Asia participated in the round.

This investment round is coming after its $5.5 million seed round last year and $2.5 million working capital facility capital. Alerzo has raised over $20 million since its launch.

Founded in 2018 by Adewale Opaleye, as a last-mile delivery platform that enables direct delivery of goods from manufacturers down to retailers. Alerzo officially launched as a business in 2019 to help roadside vendors and shops in Southwest Nigeria stock inventories quicker and efficiently.

On Alerzo, retailers can order goods via SMS, voice call and WhatsApp and have them delivered to their stores in less than 10 hours.

Speaking to Techcrunch, Opaleye, who grew up in Ibadan says he started the company to empower millions of women who are the most important players in the Nigerian informal retail sector. The decision was majorly influenced by his early experience of observing his mum operate two retail stores to raise him and his siblings.

Ibadan to the world, why Ibadan though?

The founder believed that Ibadan was the ideal market because informal retailers in the region experience these challenges more than those in Lagos.

Ibadan, though the biggest city in West Africa, hasn’t experienced lots of e-commerce innovation, retailers still have to go through the extreme traditional ways of doing business. They are faced with a below-par supply chain.

The decision to capture the sector from Ibadan also gave the company a first mover advantage since other market players focus on Lagos, Abuja and Port-Harcourt.

Alerzo’s growth, how has it done since launch?

Alerzo claims to have built a network of up to 100,000 small businesses, 90% of which are owned by women. The company is currently an exclusive platform serving some of the major cities in Southwest Nigeria like Ibadan, Ekiti and Abeokuta, to name a few. The startup claims it has processed 1 million orders.

Alerzo currently owns over 200 vehicles and 20 warehouses it uses in fulfilling both logistic and warehousing services, respectively.

The enormous growth the company has achieved in a short time has continued to feed the confidence of its investors.

According to Ian Loizeaux, the managing partner of Noasara Capital, Alezo stood out globally in the informal retail marketplace and “it’s at the beginning of a compelling multi-decade opportunity to streamline and digitize Nigeria’s retail supply chain.”

Seed investor Kevin Jung of Signal Hill says Alerzo’s model of focusing on the informal retail market outside Lagos is one of the reasons why he backed Alerzo earlier on.

Alerzo has an office in Singapore and recently opened an office in Lagos. Besides its expansion plan, it also plans to launch new business support services like AlerzoPay, its own cashless payments and lending platforms.

Source: https://techcabal.com/2021/08/21/alerzo-raises-10-5m-to-digitize-informal-retail-supply-chain-in-nigeria/

Read more stories like this here: https://techcabal.com/category/startups/

There is an argument as old as time: Breasts or Bum Bum? Or, in other words, are you a Breast person or a Bum Bum person? There’s probably going to be no end to this argument, but we can only do our own part, and that’s why we decided to call in Breasts and Bum Bum to our office for an interview.

Today on Interview With, Breasts and Bum Bum come together to discuss which one of them is greater, and why.

Zikoko: Hi everyone. Zikoko is pleased to have you here today.

Breasts: But are we pleased to have Zikoko?

Bum Bum: Ahan, Breasts. Stop being rude.

Breasts: Um, excuse me? The interviewer said something and I asked a question based on that. Could you please do me a favour and point out where the rudeness is?

Bum Bum: Oh, please don’t play that game with me. We grew up together, I know you so well.

Breasts: Point of correction — we grew up in different parts of the same house. I live in the front yard, you dominate the backyard. We literally do not have any interactions. Please and please, don’t try to claim any familiarity because we are in public.

Okay, I think we started on the wrong foot… Hello once again. Thanks for agreeing to this interview.

Bum Bum: Thank you for contacting us. I am glad to be here.

Breasts: Yeah, what Bum Bum said.

Would you like some—

Breasts: Our Madam said you had things to discuss, and that’s why I’m here. So, if you don’t mind, could you please get to it? I’ve been in this bra all day and I need to get out of them so I can be free to roam around.

Bum Bum: Ah, no oh. This is where I must talk.

Breasts: About what?

Bum Bum: Don’t blame your rudeness on the bra. Afterall, I am currently experiencing the same discomfort.

What discomfort is that?

Bum Bum: I’ve been in jeans all day, and before that , there’s also panties which won’t stop entering my crack. But with how annoying all of that is, I’m still not losing my cool.

Breasts: Okay, and so?

Bum Bum: What I’m saying is that you are naturally rude, and the earlier you admit to that, the better your chances of you moving forward in life.

Breasts: LMAO. You must think I’m in the same position as you are.

Please, let this not lead to an argument. We are peace-loving at Zikoko.

Breasts: Listen to me, Bum Bum. I am already forward and that’s where I will continue to be. I don’t have to pretend to be humble or fake any kind of attitude in order to “move forward.” If you like, you can fake all the humility in the world, that’s your business. You will always remain at the back.

Oh, and you can try moving forward, but I will gladly show you an example of what that would look like.

Do am if e easy.

That’s NSFW, Breasts. Please take note.

Breasts: Sorry, I’ll do better.

Bum Bum: Amen oh.

Breasts: You mentioned something about panties being caught between your cheeks…

Bum Bum: I’ve moved on from that issue, Breasts. In fact, I am—

Can we pick something else to discuss?

Breasts: Look, I hate to compare suffering, but me and you, Bum Bum, our suffering is not the same. On the worst days,you’re covered by panties. But a bra? It is the worst cage I have ever been kept in. Sometimes, the straps will dig into our Madam’s shoulders and she’ll forcefully adjust it without thinking about my feelings. Sometimes even, wire from the bra will poke my skin.

Tell me, why else do you think bras are the first thing that gets removed on getting home? There is no greater joy than being free from the bounds of a bra.

That’s such a moving story. Sorry for what you go through.

Breasts: Please keep your apologies.

Bum Bum: So why then did you tell it if you don’t want them to tell you sorry?

Breasts: Do you even—

I’m going to stop you right there. Tempers are heated, so I’ll just ask a few more questions and leave you both to sort out your issues.

Bum Bum: “A few questions”. Hmm. Why do I feel like I know what you want to ask next?

Breasts: LMAO we all know what he wants to ask, but let’s pretend.

Wait oh, have you both settled your fight?

Breasts: When it comes to that question we know you are about to ask, we unite to tackle it.

Bum Bum: Lol you people think you are smart.

Um, I feel left out. Can you please tell me what the question is?

Breasts: Hian.

Bum Bum: Zikoko, no dey pretend. Ask what you want to ask.

Breasts: Yes, we are listening.

Alright. So… there is a constant argument about who is the greater one between Breasts and Bum Bum, and—

[Breasts and Bum Bum burst into laughter]

Bum Bum: I knew it!

Breasts: You people are so predictable.

Does this mean you will answer the question?

Breasts: First of all, I do not exist for men to wake up and make decisions about who is greater between me and my fellow sister.

Bum Bum: Preach sis!

Breasts: I have elevated myself beyond the male gaze and I shall not be brought low for the sake of cheap comparisons.

Bum Bum: Even if we will compare ourselves, will it now be for men?

No, women also—

Breasts: Oga please. Don’t even start. Do you know the rubbish I have suffered in the hands of men?

Bum Bum: The interviewer does not have breasts. Tell him your experience so he can know what his people are doing on Ngozi Ezeonu’s internet.

Breasts: My Madam will post a photo and men will come under to comment “Fallen heroes.” “Oluympus has fallen.” Like, first of all, Mr. Man, you are the one whose brain has fallen.

Bum Bum: See ehn. His life has fallen apart and he doesn’t even know.

Breasts: Now, women are afraid to post photos where they are wearing clothes with plunging necklines because of the he-goats that come to post rubbish under their photos. Some of these men don’t even have decorum. A breast cancer survivor will post photos and they will be there acting as breast constables.

I always beg our Madam to let me fight them, but she doesn’t like trouble, so she just deletes their comments and moves on.

Bum Bum: LOL please. What would you have done if our Madam gave you permission to fight?

Breasts: Plenty! First of all, if God intended me to stand at attention, he would have put bones inside me. So why are they bothering me?

Secondly, I am ashamed of these men. Many of them have not even touched real breasts. They watch porn and come out expecting breasts with nipples that are pointing towards the heavens. If any man knows he wants firm breasts, he should walk into the hospital and ask them how much it would cost to install silicone in his chest.

Bum Bum: Sorry dear. You are really trying. Uneasy lies the breasts that wear the bra.

Breasts: I tell you! At the end of the day, it’s all these things that make me greater than you.

Bum Bum: It’s like you are sick. You are greater than who?

Ahan. Another fight has started so soon?

Breasts: Bum Bum, I literally serve multiple functions. I make clothes fit better, for starters. That’s an aesthetic purpose. I produce milk to nurse babies, and sometimes, adventurous men like to suck on me. I provide a resting place for tired heads, and during sex, I perform a lot of functions I don’t even want to start mentioning here.

Bum Bum: Sorry oh, multipurpose supermarket. Is it now me that does not serve any purpose?

Breasts: Okay, mention them.

Bum Bum: I am aesthetic; I make jeans fit better. I even—, I—

Breasts: LMAO, go on now. You literally cannot produce milk, and try as you may, men cannot rest their heads on you.

I guess we have our winner.

Bum Bum: Not yet. Tell me, Breasts, if you are that perfect, why do women with big breasts complain of backache? In fact, why do you get tender and painful during periods? And you literally cannot keep secrets. When madam is aroused, your mouth has already become pointed, cho-cho, begging for attention.

Breasts: Versatility dear. You cannot relate if you don’t have the range.

Bum Bum: AT LEAST MEN EAT ME!

Breasts: Oh, so it’s me they don’t suck? Look at this joker.

Bum Bum: So, you are—

Breasts: Look, Bumbum, you have lost this argument. I am greater than you. Period. Maybe when you get better points, you can come back and argue. Right now, I have no argument to give. I need to get out of this bra so our landlady can massage me to check for lumps.

[Breasts walk out]

Wow. I am impressed! Bum Bum, thank you for coming. Will you drink water before you go?

Bum Bum: [Lost in thought]

Bum Bum?

Bumbum: [jolted back to reality] IF YOU ARE BETTER THAN ME, HOW COME SOME WOMEN ARE CONSIDERING BREAST REDUCTION SURGERY? WHY IS THERE NO BUM BUM REDUCTION SURGERY?

In fact, a man denied his mother because of me.

Has anyone denied their parents for breasts?

Erm, Bum Bum. It’s like you have lost this argument oh. Shey you will you start going?

Bum Bum: I’ll go. Please ask them to open the front door for me so I can pass.

Front what? No oh. Breasts has passed there. Please use the backdoor.

Bum Bum: God will punish you.

You are the one who lost the argument. Isn’t that a clear sign of punishment?

Bum Bum: Wow. All of you at Zikoko are scum!

[Bumbum walks out angrily]

Source: https://www.zikoko.com/life/interview-with/interview-with-breasts-and-the-bum-bum/

Read more stories like this here: https://www.zikoko.com/life/interview-with

Yesterday, a horrific video from Afghanistan broke the internet. Hundreds of Afghans, in a desperate bid to flee the country, were captured in the footage running after and clinging to the body of a US Air Force plane as it prepared to depart Kabul airport.

Over the weekend, the Taliban hijacked the government and assumed total control of the capital city— it wasn’t long before they had the whole country to themselves. The central government was disbanded; Ashraf Ghani, the president of Afghanistan fled the scene unannounced, leaving what remained of his administration in the mercy of the Taliban.

Afghani citizens aren’t the only ones affected by the current crisis. African entrepreneurs and skilled workers who run operations in Kabul are also dealing with the consequences of the Taliban’s actions. How are they coping with this heat? Are they packing their loads and fleeing or are they staying put to see where the leaf drops?

Last year Olumuyiwa Olowogboyega, former senior reporter, TechCabal, interviewed Vincent, a Nigeria Cybersecurity expatriate working out of Kabul, who described Afghanistan as a city on the edge, an unstable mountainous city with two presidents.

More recently, Chekkit, a Nigerian authentication and product tracking startup, expanded to Afghanistan after landing a partnership with the Afghanistan Ministry of Health to help in combating the endemic counterfeit medicine products in the country.

In a conversation with Tosin Adelowo, Chekkit CMO, I asked: why Afghanistan? Tosin disclosed that the country was urgently looking for a solution to the counterfeit market plaguing its cities and streets and “Chekkit has the perfect solution to the problem” and that, alongside other brokering factors, is a major determinant of the expansion.

After a successful pilot of Chekkit’s drug verification solution in collaboration with their blockchain partner, Fantom Foundation (which was the major broker of the deal), the Afghanistan Ministry of Health announced the rollout of the service nationally on the 2nd of May 2021.

Now, a little over three months later, Chekkit is pulling the plug on all its operations in Afghanistan. Their exit wasn’t much of a decision as all their partners have been forced to exit the country.

“We have discontinued our communication/operation in the region as our partners have also exited the region due to the civil unrest,” Adelowo told TechCabal in an email. ”Our heart is with the people of Afghanistan and we pray for strength for them to withstand and surpass the current issues.”

Chekkit’s exit is just the beginning of a series of backward movements that are expected to happen in Afghanistan as a result of this unrest. And in the absence of Chekkit’s solutions, and similar solutions in the market, there’s a likelihood that counterfeit products will return with unchecked and unverified vengeance.

Since the takeover, different analyses have been released on the impact it will have on trade and economy of the country. According to Times Now, the Afghan economy has been reliant on international aid with a limited private sector. Nearly half (around 44%) of its workforce is in agriculture. Observers predict that with the Taliban in control, international trade will come to a standstill, leading to a surge in smuggling.

The prediction is already happening, we can see that international businesses and organisations are already closing shops and evacuating their people. Though after the capital takeover, the Taliban announced that the war is now over, can the dust settle that easily?

“Today is a great day for the Afghan people and the Mujahideen. They have witnessed the fruits of their efforts and their sacrifices for 20 years,” Mohammad Naeem, the spokesman for the Taliban’s political office, told Al Jazeera TV.

Source: https://techcabal.com/2021/08/17/nigerian-startup-checks-out-of-afghanistan-due-to-the-unrest/

Read more stories like this here: https://techcabal.com/category/news/

Women deal with a lot of things from very early on in their lives. One of those things is the male gaze. These seven Nigerian women share what it was like for them to be pursued by older men when they were just teenagers.

Hadiza, 22

I dated this man who was 29 at that time and I was just nearing 20. The relationship lasted about 3 months and it was frustrating. I couldn’t keep up.

I had to constantly prove I was smart and an adult. I know I’m smart but I was still a teenager. There are some things I’d want to read or find funny, but he’d look at them as childish.

I couldn’t just go and hit up my boyfriend with crazy talk on what was trending on Twitter because according to him, it was gossip and not beneficial. Being with him felt like I was acting. I wasn’t myself.

I was ready to meet him halfway, but it was like he wanted me to just meet him up there; like I was expected to throw away my teenage self and just straight up become an adult. It got to a point I had to go and ask myself if it’s that I don’t have a direction or know what I’m doing, because clearly, I do but he made it look like I didn’t because I wanted to have fun.

Amanda, 23

When I was 19, I dated two guys who were older than me. I wasn’t that free with them. I wasn’t even comfortable sharing anything with them, and I couldn’t even get angry if I wanted to.

I was always afraid of expressing myself so I wouldn’t say anything that would incur their anger. They already had a lot more sexual experience than I did. We’d have sex till I was spent up and dry. It hurt but they were only after their own pleasure.

It was so bad and I didn’t even know how to break the damn thing off. I just ghosted them and we all went our separate ways. It was such a terrifying experience.

Bisi, 22

There was this married man who had his wife and kids abroad. He told me we can just be friends and help each other and if anything happens then that’s fine. I always avoided him but one time I agreed to go someplace to say hi to him because it was a place I knew.

I told him I didn’t want to meet any of his friends because he’d always invite me to go out to where his friends were. So that day he said I should just come by and I got there and met his friend. I was already annoyed. He then asked me if his friend can kiss me. I was shocked and he started laughing. That was also when he asked for my age. I told him I was 16 and he said he’s sure his friend can wait for two years. I just stood up and left. This man was about 40.

Janet, 18
On my first day of diploma, I was literally just waiting for class to start when this man approached me and started asking me for my name. I thought he was a lecturer so I tried to be nice. Anyways he started talking about how he wants us to be close and apparently he was a master’s student. I told him I wasn’t interested because there’s nothing to discuss with a 17-year-old I even told him I had a boyfriend because I did at the time. He said he’d take me to places my boyfriend couldn’t. I just started smiling and nodding so I could go to my class. This man started waiting for me every day after I finish class to talk. It became really exhausting that I’d have to leave classes early to not have to see him.

Obehi, 20

A 26-year-old man tried to court me when I was 13. He was always outside my house, trying to buy me gifts and shit. I don’t think he knew I was 13, but he definitely knew I was young. I was in secondary school for God’s sake.

The most annoying thing he got me was a g-string. It was so inconvenient because his office was right next to my house. One day I’d had enough because he was harassing me. He said I’d be alone forever because I didn’t want to open up my heart to him. I was always afraid to leave my house.

Eventually, he stopped disturbing me. He even had a fiancé so I don’t know what his issue was. You’d think these men don’t have work to go to.

Adaeze, 20

I knew this man when I was 16. He lived around my house and had just finished his national youth service. In the beginning, he was very friendly so I didn’t think it would be anything bad. We used to see once in a while.

When I entered university, I was 17 and coincidentally, he had started working somewhere close to my school.

One day he told me he was around my school and wanted to see me. After about four visits like that, he started confessing his feelings for me. At this point, he was 29. He would buy me a lot of gifts and spend a lot of time with me, even with his tight schedule. We started dating and everything was going well until it wasn’t.

I wasn’t ready to have sex, and he seemed to have a very big problem with that. He told me that if I couldn’t, he’d find it outside. Then, he’d call me childish and make me feel stupid. Eventually, I gave in.

He gave me the first infection I ever had. I was scared to tell anyone about it because I thought they’d discover I was no longer a virgin. I told him about it and he got angry. He told me I probably got the infection from my school’s toilet. I even had to apologize to him for accusing him wrongly. When I eventually got to the hospital, I found out it was an STI and I couldn’t talk to him because I didn’t want to make him angry.

He also had this particular female best friend. They worked in the same office and would go on dates. Sometimes, she even slept over at his place. When I brought it up, he kept saying I didn’t understand and was childish. He asked me if I thought I was smart. He never failed to make me question if I was smart.

The relationship ended when I was 18, and it lasted 7 months. I got tired of constantly apologising and blocked him everywhere. He tried to reach me but I was done.

Jumoke, 20

I was 17 and was in my first year of university. He was 24 and in his final year. We met at a school event, and he said he liked me and wanted to be close to me. He got my number from the event organisers and kept texting me till I agreed to meet with him.

I told him I wasn’t interested in a relationship and we could remain friends, and he agreed. I had a 23-year-old female friend of mine who had a crush on him and tried to introduce them, but he was so insistent on being with me. He eventually tried to get sexual with me and when I told him I was scared, he laughed at me. One day I just stopped talking to him. He kept asking my friends to reach out to me, but I was done.

Source: https://www.zikoko.com/her/7-nigerian-women-talk-about-how-they-felt-being-pursued-by-older-men/

Read more stories like this here: https://www.zikoko.com/category/her/

The subject of today’s “A Week In The Life” is a club hostess and waitress. Club hostesses help clients with reservations and carry out bottles with sparklers when people buy expensive drinks. Our subject talks about the stereotype associated with her job, balancing school and work, and some of the most expensive drinks she has served.


FRIDAY:

I feel lucky that I have a job because I can’t imagine how I’d cope without one. A little back story: I’m currently living in Akure because of school and outside of classes, I have nothing to do. A typical day for me usually involves class, hostel, class, hostel, rinse and repeat.

With a job in the mix, I’m happy there’s finally some variety: class, hostel, work, rinse and repeat. Keeping a job as a student requires constant moving around of my schedule. Some days, I go from work to class. On other days, it’s from class to work.

Today, I’m going from the lab to work. School ends at 4 p.m., and I have to prepare for work at 6 p.m. The club officially opens at 9:30 p.m. but resumption time is 6 p.m.

I work as a hostess in a club and I like to call it waitressing pro-max — if such a name exists.

My job is to go to work, be on my best behaviour, look beautiful, put on a smile and welcome customers. It’s also my job to show them to their table and make them comfortable. On nights where we have a full house, I also substitute as a waitress and help serve drinks.

The part of my job I love the most is seeing people buy expensive drinks, hey Jesus! Dorime things. When I’m hyping the person popping drinks by dancing and carrying lights, I’m constantly reminding myself that if the drink falls, I’m finished. Some of these drinks cost more than my annual salary. I haven’t gotten used to seeing people casually spend millions of naira on alcohol in one night.

But, I try not to visibly show my shock because the show must go on.

School is currently in session, so my work schedule has changed from every day to only Friday to Sunday. From 6 p.m. to 6 a.m. Although, I still find myself working during the week because work is fun and my co-workers feel like family.

SATURDAY:

Midnight of Friday/Saturday morning:

I resumed work at 6 p.m. yesterday. I barely made it to work on time because I overslept when I got to the hostel. It took the grace of God for me to jump up when I did and I rushed to work.

The first thing I did at work was to eat the cereal I packed. Next, I started making reservations for guests coming later at night when we fully opened. At some point, I helped the barman take inventory and plan the drinks for the night. When I was tired, I went to a restaurant in the same building as the club to chill.

At 9 p.m., I went to change. I was torn between a red dress with a thigh slit and a plain black round neck shirt. I almost chose the red dress, but I remembered that the last time I wore it, a man pointed at my nipple, another slapped my butt and one couldn’t stop staring at my breasts — even though they aren’t that big. And so, the plain black round neck won.

3 a.m.

I’ve been by the door welcoming guests all night. In that time, I and the other hostesses have danced up to five times for people popping drinks. I’ve also worn a mask to hide my face during those five times because I’m shy.

In this same night, I’ve also gotten offers from people who say they want to Bleep me. One even offered to triple my monthly salary if I go home with him. Wonders shall never end.

4:00 a.m.

The alcohol has finally kicked in. The DJ’s playlist is fire. People have stopped coming in and now I’m catching my own fun.

5:00 a.m.

I’m not doing again. I’m tired. These people should come and be going home.

6:00 a.m.

God. These people are still here dancing and partying. Don’t they want us to go home? Are they not tired? I’m tired.

I miss my bed.

7:00 a.m.

Finally, the last customer just left. Thank you, Jesus!

Noon

Nobody can separate me from this bed. Not food, not water, not even phone calls. I want to sleep till tomorrow if I can.

5 p.m.

I can’t believe I have to get up for work. This adulthood is very somehow because someone can’t even relax. Just work every day until you die.

SUNDAY:

Midnight of Saturday/Sunday morning

Tonight has been uneventful. People are coming in much slower than usual and the energy on the dance floor is off. With the kind of evening I had when I got to work, I’m glad things are slow now.

For the longest time, I’ve suspected that people view so-called “club girls” differently. However, today’s incident proved me right.

The owner of the club I work in owns a hotel within the building our office is in, and I chill at the hotel’s bar and restaurant all the time. Yesterday, [male] friends from my school came to lodge in our hotel. That’s how I went to say hi to them because these are friends I had before starting this job.

As I was leaving their room to start work, I heard someone say, “she has gone to do the job they hired her for. The job of fucking customers.”

My heart dropped, my palms and face were covered in sweat, and I was speechless.

It’s somehow when people just stereotype you. Club girl doesn’t mean she bleeps around. Club girl doesn’t mean she’s for sale or wants your money. Club girl doesn’t mean she’s not a person; she’s a human being too.

Last last this work is not for everyone because if you don’t have sense they’ll run you streets.

3 a.m.

The last customer just left, so we’re done for the day. However, according to our contract, we can’t leave until 6:00 a.m. Everyone is either sleeping or about to sleep. I can’t because my body is already used to sleeping during the day.

To pass time, I try to match drinks to their prices. We have:

— Hennessy Paradis. We sell for ₦1M and people buy it like pure water.

— Azul costs ₦400k and is decent.

— Ace of Spades is ₦450k.

— Hennessy xo is ₦350k. Same price as Remy XO. Dom Perignon is around ₦300 – ₦350k too.

— Don Julio is ₦400k.

— Then we have the Moet family which costs ₦65k. This is in the same category as Hennessy VSOP.

— We sell Glenfiddich between ₦65 – ₦85k too.

— Our Ciroc goes for ₦45,000

There’s a drink for everybody.

6:00 a.m.

Finally, my watch has ended. I’m going home to sleep all day. I’m grateful that my colleagues told me to go home while they stayed back to balance the account and clean up.

MONDAY:

6:00 a.m.

The only thing powering me this morning is energy drinks. Last night was so busy that you’ll never have imagined that the next day was Monday. Customers were everywhere, so I barely had time to rest. To make things worse, my first class starts at 8:00 a.m. today and attendance is compulsory.

I have to do everything in my power to not touch my bed. Anything that makes me lie down small, that’s the end. I’m gone. I just need to manage till 2 p.m. when school ends for today. I don’t know how I’ll survive the lectures, but the first step is getting to school in one piece.

It’ll soon be a year since I started doing this job. It’s funny how this job started as a way to keep busy and earn passive income after the lockdown was eased, and school was still closed. Now, it’s something I’ve come to enjoy. Beyond that, I’m really grateful I have a job I enjoy that occupies my time.

As a student, there’s no greater feeling than knowing I have my own money. I don’t depend on anyone for anything: I see something, I like it, and I save for it. Apart from the occasional harassment, this is a job I enjoy doing.

I can’t imagine what my life would be like if I had nothing to do.

Source: https://www.zikoko.com/money/hustle/club-girls-are-not-runs-girls-a-week-in-the-life/

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

The Central Bank of Nigeria has just frozen the bank accounts of Nigerian fintech platforms Risevest, Bamboo, Trove and Chaka for the next six months.

According to The Whistler, the Federal High Court in Abuja has granted an exparte motion which sought temporary freezing of bank accounts belonging to these online investment and trading platforms where Nigerians are transacting business online.

The motion was filed by Chief Micheal Kaase Aondoakaa, SAN, on behalf of the Central Bank Of Nigeria Governor for the purpose of probing the financial activities of these four fintech companies in Nigeria.

The CBN alleged that Rise Vest Technologies Limited, Bamboo Systems Technology Limited, Chaka Technologies Limited and Trove Technologies Limited were complicit in operating without license as asset management companies “and utilizing FX sourced from the Nigerian FX market for purchasing foreign bonds/shares in contravention of the CBN circular referenced TED/FEM/FPC/GEN/01/012, dated July 01, 2015.”

The prosecutor told Justice Ahmed Mohammed that the foreign exchange deals done with the defendants were making the Naira weaker to the United States dollars, hence, the need to block 15 of their accounts for about 180 days.

In response to this announcement, Risevest’s CEO Eke Eleanya Urum came out on Twitter to assure users of Risevest that trading activities will continue as usual and the issue will be sorted out with the regulators.

Hey guys, in respect to the most recent news regarding @Risevest and our FX dealings, rest assured all user investments and funds are safely managed, funding and withdrawals will continue to be processed as normal and all our US operations are intact.

— Steve Jobs of Investing (@eldivyn) August 17, 2021

TechCabal has reached out to the affected fintech companies and is awaiting their comments.

Source: https://techcabal.com/2021/08/17/cbn-freezes-accounts-fintech-risevest-bamboo-trove-and-chaka/

Read more stories like this here: https://techcabal.com/category/news/

The Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) has announced the issuance of new guidelines for financial institutions that want to offer at least two of its four licensed payments systems. This is part of the apex bank’s moves to improve financial inclusion and create efficient payments systems.

The announcement was made on Tuesday, August 3, by Director of Payments System Management, Musa I. Jimoh, who mentioned that all companies who are interested in offering any two of payment switching and issuing services, mobile money operations (MMOs), or payment solution services (PSSs) will now be required to set up a Payment Service Holding Company.

In December 2020, the apex bank had announced new license categorizations for Nigerian payments systems, dividing all operations into four units, and announcing that institutions who wanted to combine MMO with payments switching and processing would be required to set up holding company structures.

What is a Payment Service Holding Company?

According to Section 2.0 of the Guidelines for Licensing and Regulation of Payments Service Holding Companies in Nigeria, they are holding companies whose principal objectives are to manage equity investments of two or more companies that are payment service providers dealing in any two of mobile money operations, switching and processing, or payment solution services.

A point to note is that all PSHCs are non-operational and will only manage investments in either of these systems. This means that PSHC won’t handle the day-to-day operations of any of the payments systems, the holding companies can only manage investments or create subsidiaries that will directly engage in those activities.

In fact, S.5.1 states that “the activities of the PSHC shall be restricted to the holding of equities in financial and technological subsidiaries that facilitate and/or enhance innovative digital financial services.” The Guidelines also list out other activities including human resources management, risk management, and ICT which PSHCs can engage in provided they get prior written approval from CBN.

A new hurdle for financial institutions

Earlier in July, CBN issued new directives for Payment Service Banks and Mobile Money Operators, ordering operators of the latter to standardize their operations and infrastructure. These directives were aimed at ensuring MMOs and PSBs could access underbanked rural and peri-urban communities, and provide them with working financial solutions.

There are a few hurdles that some of them will have to cross with the previous guidelines including provisions for information dissemination, and reach of activities. These new guidelines also present a new hurdle that some of the institutions will have to face.

Any financial institution, including banks and fintechs, that offer at least two of the three systems listed in the Guidelines i.e mobile money services, switching and processing, and payment solution services, will have to set up a Payment Service Holding Company.

Banks that offer payment switching and processing services as part of their banking operations, will be required to adhere to the guidelines and delineate their processes.

This, according to the CBN, will help create clear distinctions between the activities of each institution, and provide the apex bank with sufficient regulatory oversight.

What it will take to set up a PSHC

For the budgetary aspect, a non-refundable application fee of ₦1,000,000 ($2,439) and a non fee of ₦5,000,000 ($12,121).

On more technical terms, institutions looking to apply for PSHC licenses must traipse two stages: submitting an application for an Approval-in-Principle, and applying for a final license.

Source: https://techcabal.com/2021/08/06/cbn-new-license-for-payment-systems/

Read more stories like this here: https://techcabal.com/category/fintech/

Every week, Zikoko seeks to understand how people move the Naira in and out of their lives. Some stories will be struggle-ish, others will be bougie. All the time, it’ll be revealing.

This 23-year-old has an investment banking job and a couple of side hustles, but that’s not the most interesting thing about him. It’s how he makes much more money from his side businesses than he does at his 9-5, and how leveraging his privilege and connections got him there.

What’s your oldest memory of money?

I can’t think of a specific memory but growing up, my cousins and I danced for my uncles and aunts at weddings and other family events, and they sprayed us money. I liked balloons, and I understood that I needed money to buy balloons. I had to dance to get the money. It was that simple.

Haha. That makes sense. Can you tell me what growing up was like, financially?

My dad works in financial services and is a senior employee at a company he has worked at for decades. My mum did and still does a lot of business. I grew up comfortable although I didn’t understand how well the family was doing until I was older. A part of it was because I was too young to understand how money works. Also, I was exposed to a lot of kids who came from wealthier families, and that skewed my perception of money. At some point, I may have developed a bit of an inferiority complex.

For context: I went to a private secondary school and the kids there could spend $500 on an item when they go on vacation without blinking. There was no way my parents would sign off on such purchases.

However, once I started to get a wider perspective, I understood that my family was indeed doing well.

When did you come to this realisation?

That would be around 2014. I was 15 and about to leave Nigeria for uni. My dad had planned for me and my sister’s education and had a university fund for us. I had to go for my A-Levels first and I decided on a private college in Canada. The tuition was C$50k and my dad told me he couldn’t afford it at the time. Subsequently, I got a partial scholarship at the college and my dad still paid about C$30k. That was a lot of money, but he made it happen. Later that year, I moved to Canada.

Lit.

At first, I was living on a C$100 allowance every month, but my dad always ended up sending more money before the month ended. When he realised that it was more expensive sending smaller sums of money to me, he started sending C$2k at a time. Now, it wasn’t a monthly thing. The money was supposed to last me for a few months before I could request more. On average, C$2k lasted me for three to four months.

I finished my A-Levels in March 2016 and got into a university in the US to study Economics. I moved there in May 2016

How did it go in the US?

Nigeria was in a recession in 2016, so I knew that my dad must have been stressed having huge expenses in dollars. He was sending $200 every month, and I was determined to make do with it.

In my first year, I lived in school housing and was on a meal plan which had been paid for. I wasn’t saving money or working, so the $200 was everything I lived on. I finally picked up a job at a call centre on campus in my second year but I wasn’t completely committed to it. Thankfully, the minimum wage was $14 in the state I lived in. On average, I worked 20 hours in a month, which brought in an extra $200-$300. At that point, I’d say that at least half of my income went into feeding. I managed to save some $100 a month if I didn’t party a lot in the month, but those were far and between. I partied a lot when I was in uni.

Haha.

2018 was when I became intentional about making money.

How?

I saw what was happening in the financial market in Nigeria, and I was like “Wait, this could be a gold mine.” Here’s what happened: the CBN decided that they were going to start a “promo” and would be giving between 13% and 15% returns on short-term government securities. I thought that was a sweet deal and went in.

With ₦100k, I started buying and trading treasury bills. The returns weren’t a lot but I started to understand how money compounds over time. I did the math and the ₦100k would compound into millions of naira in 30 years, and I wouldn’t even have turned 50 years by that time.

However, in the short term. I realised that to scale, I needed to increase my capital. The way I saw it, it could happen in two ways: I could work more hours to earn more money or I could convince people to let me manage their money for them and charge them a small commission. I went with the second option.

Mad. Tell me how it went.

I started with my dad. I pitched the idea to him and managed to get ₦1m from him. I bought a few equities and invested most of the money in treasury bills, and it did very well. I made about ₦200k in fees I charged him.

I managed to convince a couple of other people in my family to help me invest for them and I got small sums of money here and there. I put whatever money I made from them into my portfolio and by the end of the year, I had about ₦500k in it.

That’s interesting.

I had been coming to Nigeria every summer since my first year in uni to intern at investment companies, so I was plugged into the climate. This came in handy in 2020 when COVID hit. Prices of assets all around the world dropped like crazy. I reacted quickly and sold as many treasury bills as I could and started putting money in the Nigerian stock market, which was also pretty risky at that point. But when I was returning to Nigeria in August 2020, my investment portfolio was worth about ₦2m and I had another ₦250k in cash.

You want to know why I returned to Nigeria, don’t you?

Now that you mention it, please.

I’d been thinking about it since my second year at uni. For the most part, I got my summer internships in Nigeria through my dad’s connection. My privilege became clearer and I thought it wouldn’t make sense not to take advantage of it.

Also, something happened when I was in the US that solidified this decision.

What was it?

I tried to get into an internship program at a big investment bank. During one of the interview stages, I met a girl I knew from school and her dad was one of the managing directors at the bank. We were in the interview room when one of the analysts came and was like “This is so and so daughter.” They took her from the interview room and gave her a tour of the facility. It was very clear that she was going to get the internship. I felt like I had this in Nigeria, so it made perfect sense to return and explore the opportunities I have here.

That makes sense.

I knew getting a job here wouldn’t be a problem. I had an understanding with one of the investment banks I had worked with to return to work for them when I graduated. I reached out to them, took a few tests, and that was sorted. In October 2020, I resumed work. My salary was ₦100k.

That didn’t make all the difference though. What I did between August and October did.

What did you do?

A couple of my old friends had returned to Nigeria before I did, so they had their feet on the ground already. When I got back, one of the first things I did was reconnect with them. I realised how much money they were spending when we went out.

We could go to the club and by the end of the night, they would have spent ₦1m on drinks. They split the bill but each person chipped in at least ₦150k. For the first few times we went out together, they didn’t ask me to chip in but I knew it was only a matter of time. The first time I dropped ₦50k, I knew my cash savings couldn’t possibly sustain that kind of lifestyle. I figured that they must be making a lot of money if they could afford to spend like that, which was interesting because they weren’t working 9-5 jobs — they had businesses.

What kind of businesses?

They did everything they thought could work. Eventually, I spoke to a couple of my friends and asked about businesses I could do with little capital. They gave me a couple of ideas but the most viable one was pushing large volumes of commodities. In my case, it was finding a rice supplier who needed to sell their trucks of rice and a buyer who was willing to buy.

A truck takes 600 bags of rice. Now, if the supplier sells a bag for ₦24500, I could add my markup, sell a bag for ₦25,500 and make a profit of ₦600k. The good part was that I didn’t need capital to start — I was just a middleman. The hard part was finding a buyer, but I committed to it.

The easiest way to find the right buyer was by leveraging my contacts. I asked everyone in my family and someone linked me to another person who knew the right person to call. Ultimately, it was about my connections. Between August and December 2020, I was able to sell three trucks of rice, and I made about ₦1.8m from these deals.

Sweet!

This was also the period my perspective started to shift away from my job. It would have taken me 18 months to make ₦1.8m at my day job. Naturally, I started looking out for more business opportunities. The next one happened in January 2021.

I’m listening.

In December 2020, I met someone looking to sell two plots of land in an upscale neighbourhood on Lagos Island valued at ₦350m. I told them that for a commission, I would ask around and see if I could find a buyer, and they agreed to it. I was pretty confident about it because a few of my friends’ families are into real estate development and are constantly on the lookout for properties. Within a week, we found a buyer. Less than a month later, the deal closed and they bought the land for about ₦340m. I got the biggest lumpsum amount ever in commissions.

How much?

₦20m. It was a complete dream. I mean, it was the kind of thing I envisioned would happen for me in Nigeria — being able to use my contacts for opportunities like that but I had no idea how it would materialise. Then this happened.

I was just looking at my phone over and over again, trying to take it all in. Once I got over the excitement, I knew I wanted to keep grinding. Now that I had some cash, I could afford to join a few of my friends in one of the businesses they were so big on — importing cars.

These moves. Inject it!

I wanted to see how it would work out, so I dropped ₦1m the first time when the total cost of bringing the car in was ₦4m. My cut on that was ₦100k when the car arrived and we found a buyer for it. Afterwards, I started increasing the amount of money I had in the business.

What types of cars were you bringing in?

At first, it was the old 2008/2009 Lexus RX and Toyota cars. We have a car dealer in the US who finds these cars at auctions and ships them to us. On average, it cost ₦3m or ₦4m to bring one of such cars in and we typically added a 30% markup, but it’s not set in stone.

Later, we noticed an uptick in demand for higher-end cars, so our focus shifted to the Highlanders, the newer Lexus RX, and Mercedes C-300 cars. We could make a profit of about ₦2m each on these cars. It’s only been a couple of months but we are growing and expanding the business.

I put ₦18m in the last batch of cars we imported from the US. They should arrive soon, and I expect to make about ₦4m in profit, which I think is very fair. Fingers crossed on their arrival.

Fingers crossed. I’m curious about what your earnings look like now.

Well, I still make ₦100k from my day job. But I make anything from ₦3m-₦4m every quarter from importing cars. Usually, I re-invest whatever I make back into the business and only take money out once every quarter.

What about your investment portfolios, how much are they worth now?

Most of my money is tied up in physical businesses, mostly car importation. The total value should be about ₦30m now. My other major investment is primarily in the Nigerian stock market and my brokerage account has about ₦10m in it. Because my portfolio is liquid and I can take money out any time, I don’t feel the need to save a lot of money in Naira. I have less than ₦500k in cash at the moment.

I’m very focused on opportunity cost and returns. If I think that I can make more money from my portfolio in the period it would take to ship and sell a car, I will pull money out of the business and put it into the portfolio.

Interesting. Let’s break down your monthly running costs, please.

How much do you think you should be earning now?

At least ₦600k at my 9-5. I’m underpaid at my day job, and that’s mostly because I haven’t done my NYSC yet. I love my job but I’m starting to value my time more than I value the work and the experience. The original plan was to work in the capital market for five years, then branch out on my own to start a business in fund management. Now, I’m not even interested in managing money for other people. I’m all about generating money from multiple businesses and pumping it into my investment portfolio. That’s always been the end game.

Nice. How have all your experiences shaped your perspective about money?

Working in the capital market where my job is to bring people who need money and the people who have it together has shown me that the best way to make money is to have money. It gets exponentially easier to grow wealth when you have some of it.

Also, the people around me have always been wealthy, and the more I see the way they spend and make money, the more confident I am to take risks.

Do you think there’s a part of your finances you could be better at?

Ah, yes. My investments are not as diversified as I’d like them to be. Most of my money is currently tied up in the car importation business. If something goes wrong — like if a ship sinks — it will wipe out most of my net worth.

I could be better with budgeting as well. Sometimes I need to make a purchase but can’t because I don’t have liquid cash around. For the most part, this wouldn’t happen if I’d budgeted better.

Speaking of purchases, is there anything you want right now but can’t afford?

It’s not a pressing need but I’d like a new car. I only started thinking about it when our focus shifted to higher-end cars. A Mercedes GLE-63 will be great but I need around ₦20m for it. As much as I want it, I can’t spend that much money on a car right now. My net worth has to be at least 10x what it is now before I consider it.

What about a purchase that significantly improved the quality of your life?

I paid for a one-year subscription to an online service that provides data in financial markets across Africa. It cost only $300, which was such a good deal and since I paid for it, it’s been way easier to do research. The quality of my life has improved because of it.

On a scale of 1-10, how would you rate your financial happiness?

7. I’m not doing badly for a 23-year-old, and I acknowledge that I had a lot of help to get here. I know the role my privilege has played, and I’m proud of the ways I have leveraged it. My salary from my day job is only enough for my baseline expenses, and I don’t know where I’d be if I didn’t have people to help me get into these side businesses. I’m definitely in a better place than I was a year ago. However, there’s a lot of things I want but can’t afford yet but I’m taking it one day at a time.

Source: https://www.zikoko.com/money/naira-life/privileged-nairalife-of-the-investment-banker-with-multiple-side-businesses/

Chaka has teamed up with TradingView, a leading online charting platform used by investors, to help its clients better spot and evaluate investment opportunities in global markets.

Announced on Friday, the partnership comes after Chaka secured the first license to be awarded to a Fintech entity by the Nigerian Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC).

“We’re excited to announce the release of our first Nigerian stockbroker, Chaka,” TradingView’s General Manager, Pierce Crosby, said. “We’re delighted that African traders and businesses can now access TradingView through a local, licensed broker and we look forward to building on this partnership.”

TradingView is a social network of traders and investors. Up to 30 million clients – more than 15.5 million of which are active investors – are in the online investment community, according to data on the company’s website.

Using TradingView, traders follow investment assets, find trading ideas, chat with other investors, spot trends in global markets, assess opportunities, and place trades directly on charts.

Professional traders and investment enthusiasts across Africa that use Chaka can now access the wide trading community on TradingView with their brokerage accounts.

Clients that access TradingView through Chaka will pay fees as low as 0.69%, under the company’s dynamic fee system that helps investors preserve their capital.

In addition to having direct access to over 11,000 assets trading on international stock markets, Chaka’s users get to trade with the help of advanced analytical tools for effective trading analysis. These include six million real-time trading ideas, 34 million user-created charts, and other TradingView community features.

This partnership is equally significant for Chaka, as it becomes the first African broker to launch TradingView for retail investors and businesses on the continent.

“This partnership with TradingView aligns with our mission to enable borderless digital investing for every African,” said Tosin Osibodu, Co-founder & CEO of Chaka Technologies, which owns the Chaka.com platform.

“As we work to expand our footprints on the continent, one of our key objectives is to identify and harness strategic partnerships such as this, as well as leverage our proprietary infrastructure, to deliver world-class, leading tools and platforms for Africans to invest, trade, and build lasting wealth.”

Osibodu told TechCabal that more partnerships like this are in the pipeline as Chaka intends to continue to leverage them to drive its mission of powering digital investments in Africa.

After a recent $1.5 million pre-seed fundraise, Chaka is also mulling a continent-wide expansion with a planned launch in Ghana in the near term.

For now, Chaka users can only access TradingView by invite, which they can request here.

Source: https://techcabal.com/2021/08/09/chaka-tradingview-partnership/

Read more stories like this here: https://techcabal.com/category/fintech/

What does it mean to be a man? Surely, it’s not one thing. It’s a series of little moments that add up. Man Like is a weekly Zikoko series documenting these moments to see how it adds up. It’s a series for men by men, talking about men’s issues. We try to understand what it means to “be a man” from the perspective of the subject of the week.

This week’s Man Like is MC Lively, an MC, comedian and, surprisingly, a real lawyer. He talks to us about struggling financially when growing up, studying law so he could study rich people and why he switched careers to end up as a comedian.

What was growing up like?

Growing up was both exciting and challenging. I grew up in the small town of Ile Ife. We had to move houses in 2000 because of the violent Ife/Modakeke crisis. I remember being eight years old, lying on the floor, trying to avoid bullets. My father knew he had to move us away from that area, but we didn’t have the resources to.

We had to squat with some family friends for months before we could save enough money to rent our own place.

Wow. Sounds rough. What was your teenage life like in Ife?

We were broke, but it was fun. I had a lot of friends. My parents only provided breakfast and dinner, so we had to figure out lunch by ourselves or starve. My friends and I would set fire to bushes to hunt grasscutters, which we’d share for lunch. It was rough but it was fun.

I was lucky to have grown up in the midst of a loving family. My parents deprived themselves of clothes just so their five kids could get what they needed. My dad is a junior civil servant at the university in Ife where I grew up and his income wasn’t a lot. All income went into our education and feeding, after which there wasn’t much left.

What was an important lesson you learned from him?

He taught me to always do the honest and right thing. Despite having worked in the civil service for years, my dad didn’t progress far because he refused to turn a blind eye to corruption. He’s a freedom fighter type of guy, so he stepped on a lot of toes during his time. Although this had the ripple effect of having his family live on a meagre salary, I’m proud he always doing the right thing.

He also taught me something that probably changed the course of my life. He’d say, “If you can, avoid salaried employment. Avoid it at all cost.” This was due to his terrible experience in the civil service. I grew up despising salary work. When I had to choose between practising law and comedy, I didn’t have a hard time choosing comedy.

Wait, you studied law?

LMAO, yes. I’m a lawyer. I studied law at the Obafemi Awolowo University. Getting in wasn’t easy though — I had to write JAMB three times.

Why?

I went to a public secondary school — the only one of my siblings to do so. My parents couldn’t afford to pay for private school education for all of my siblings, and I was the unlucky one. In retrospect, going to a public secondary school helped build my character and my knowledge of Yoruba, which are important to my craft.

However, the quality of education I received was below standard, so passing JAMB was a big hurdle. On my third try, I was determined to gain admission so I studied really hard and attended a private lesson. I also listened to motivational speeches which helped me get my mind in the right place. I applied to study law at Obafemi Awolowo University and got in.

Why law though?

I grew up in a small city and had always wanted to leave there to see the world.

Most rich kids studied law, and I knew I would be able to learn a lot from just hanging out with my peers and it would be my first step in getting more exposure. From academics to politics and extracurricular activities to social activities, I was involved in everything. Studying law was tasking, but I loved every minute of it. I was a very serious student.

However, surviving in uni was tough. My parents were still broke, so they could only afford my school fees and a small stipend every month. I was mates with rich kids who could easily afford things so it was somewhat difficult for me. I couldn’t afford to pay for my final year package, so I never even got a yearbook to remember my time in uni. It was depressing, but I’m grateful for the experience I had and the people I met.

I’m sorry.

It’s okay. I tried my hands at different ventures while in school with my older brother, God rest his soul. Reselling pure water wholesale, organising events, JAMB registrations. These ventures left us in even more debt when they failed. But we were never fazed. We went from business to business to figure out a means of income.

How did you go from all of that to wanting to do comedy?

When I was young, I was terribly shy. I was so shy that I couldn’t ask a girl I liked out in SS 1 until my friends carried me to her. However, I was a lay reader in my catholic church. This really impacted my growth in speaking because I had to read the bible to a large congregation most Sundays. It was here I discovered I wanted to do public speaking. It was really hard for me because I would almost get panic attacks when I had to speak in front of a crowd. I still do.

In my 500-level, I wasn’t very confident in my career path because I wasn’t sure about practising law. I offered my services to my faculty chambers to MC their events, in return for a doughnut and a cup of punch. From there, I scouted social directors of different departments and offered to MC their freshman parties for N5k. Five of them agreed. I was over the moon.

My first party was a huge flop. Everyone said I did terribly. So for the next party, I took my friend who was an experienced MC along with me and followed his lead. That’s how I improved.

People didn’t understand why someone in 500-level, at the end of his law studies, would want to become an MC. My friends used to banter me and I thought about quitting a couple of times, then law school happened.

What did law school do?

My dad had to borrow money to pay my law school fees and I strongly thought about quitting then. But I decided my five years in school would be wasted if I didn’t go to law school. When I arrived at law school, I started hosting bigger events including the law school dinner, and I was brilliant. It was at this point I realised that if I could make people laugh in law school, the most serious place on earth, I could make anyone in the world laugh. In fact, in my law school yearbook, I put an advert for people to hire me as an MC for events.

During my NYSC in 2017, I knew I had to be as close to Lagos as possible — because Lagos is where it all happens — so I requested to be redeployed from Ughelli, Delta State. I got a job in a law firm in Ibadan that paid N5,000 a month. I knew that my law degree was worth more than that, so I quit the job after the first month. I experienced a dilemma of whether to continue as a lawyer or to become a full-time comedian.

It was a very rough year because I wasn’t receiving upkeep from my parents anymore. I created a five-year plan for what I wanted to do with my life, and comedy was my Plan A. I stuck to it.

What did you do next?

I started making video skits. Unfortunately, my skits weren’t getting engagements or views. I had to think about what could make my comedy different, and the fact that I was a lawyer was the most obvious thing.

I made a skit wearing the legal profession’s wig and gown, but when I watched it, I knew the Legal Practioner’s Disciplinary Committee was going to debar me if it ever got out, and I didn’t want to waste my six years of work in uni and law school.

LMAO. How did you get around that?

I decided to do it in the trademark white shirt and black pants lawyers are known for. To my surprise, my third skit wearing white-and-black went viral. I didn’t see it coming. I think that’s where my career in comedy really kicked off.

Do you have any regrets about leaving law practice?
None at all. I’m glad I chose comedy. Court proceedings and legal research used to bore me to death, and I just didn’t get the feeling of fulfilment I got from making people laugh. Spending two minutes on stage felt more thrilling to me than even the most exciting court case. There’s a fire that ignites inside me every time I get on stage to make people laugh.

Interesting. So I have a…personal question.
Shoot.

What’s your love life like?

LMAO. Ah. I don’t have anybody o. It’s been quiet on that front, for a while now. There’s just been no one for me.

Why?

There just aren’t many people that I vibe with like that. I’m still searching. We dey look up to God say make he help us find person.

Source: https://www.zikoko.com/man/earning-5k-as-a-lawyer-made-me-choose-comedy-man-like-mc-lively/

Read more stories like this here: https://www.zikoko.com/stack/man-like/

The Nigeria Government has hinted at lifting the ban on Twitter after a series of meetings and agreements with the company.

Minister of Communications, Lai Mohammed, while speaking to the press at the Federal Executive Committee meeting held earlier today, said that most of the conditions given to Twitter have been accepted by the company.

Most importantly, the company has agreed to open an office in the country. Though there is still an ongoing deliberation on when that will be, Twitter said the earliest it can make that happen will be in 2022.

It’s been a little over two months since the Nigerian government banned Twitter in Nigeria over the “inappropriate presidential tweet” (according to twitter’s guidebook) that was taken down by the social media company.

The event happened a couple of months after the social media CEO, Jack Dorsey, threw his weight behind the #EndSARS protest, and also weeks after the company announced it’s opening a shop in a neighbouring country, Ghana.

This is good news for millions of Twitter users in the country who now rely on VPN to access the platform; both lifting of the ban and the prospect of having a Twitter office in the country.

Will this disrupt Twitter’s operation plan for Africa?

Source: https://techcabal.com/2021/08/11/nigeria-government-to-lift-twitter-ban-in-a-matter-of-days-or-weeks/

Read more stories like this here: https://techcabal.com/category/news/

Attending boarding school in Nigeria is an extreme sport. The long time effect it largely has on people is often time not spoken about enough. Some people have good memories of their boarding school experience, while some are still living with the trauma from it, many years later. Here are stories of some unforgettable experiences a few Nigerians faced in boarding school.

John

When I was in JSS 1 someone messed up the senior toilet with stool. It was spattered everywhere. The seniors got really angry and asked all my classmates in that hostel to pick a portion and show them before observing our real punishment. I had to use a broomstick to pick my portion. It was a really disgusting experience – definitely one of my worst boarding school experiences.

Joe

When I was in JSS3, a senior of mine in SS3 had given me one of his things to hold for him and I misplaced it. When I told him I had misplaced it, he forced me to masturbate in front of him. I didn’t know what masturbation was at the time, till he showed me how to do it. He said that was my punishment for misplacing his stuff. I still hate him to this day.

Lily

I had a lot of bad experiences, but one of them had to be when a boy in the same class as my room prefect was trying to ask me out. He was sweet, bought me nice things like chocolates and chivita, but I wasn’t interested at all (kinda hated boys and was low-key afraid). I tried to reject them and send them back to him, only to find them in my bag or on my bed.

My room prefect decided to take it upon herself to make my life a living hell. She couldn’t believe a boy in her class like me. I had to move to my cousin’s hostel to avoid my room perfect, but I got unlucky one day when she saw me in her hostel. She asked me to sit on the floor with my legs and arms stretched out at shoulders height, she placed lots of textbooks on them and told me not to drop my hands or let any book fall. I stayed there for about 2 hours or 3. I went from being in intense pain to numb.

Eddy

I had a classmate who always smoked weed – he would smoke and become insane and uncontrollable. Every time he smoked and became and became uncontrollable, he would pick on any junior who had previously offended him and beat them. One day, he beat a junior so badly, the boy could not go to school for almost a week because he couldn’t walk.

The event still haunts me because I always wish I tried to stop him – but I didn’t. It’s one of the few events I would change in my life if I had a time machine.

Maria

I went to a Catholic secondary school in Nigeria. If you were not a prefect, you get assigned chores to you. The chores varied from sweeping surroundings to cleaning laundry and any other tasks you can think of. I was assigned to clean the laundry.

One night, the people who were assigned to laundry duty were not around and I had to do it all by myself. I spent a lot of time cleaning the laundry and couldn’t get done in time for night prayer. I was taking a shower after finishing my task when the Reverend sister came into the hostel – she saw me in the bathroom and immediately started to flog me.

She made sure I had no clothes on and continued to beat me. When she was done flogging me, she asked me to follow her outside the hostel, still naked. She took me out in the cold and told me to squat, all while naked. One of my friends had to beg on my behalf after I had been there for hours.

I was 13/14 years old when this happened.

Oreofe

I was accused of stealing my roommates’ money that went missing when we were in SS1. Whenever I walked by, and any of my roommates were there, they’d start singing “beware of her, she is a thief”. They eventually found out that a girl from JSS3 was going room to room stealing peoples’ money. She was severely punished. My roommates found the money she accused me of stealing inside her socks.

Amara

The worst thing that happened to me in boarding school was the day I was given the ‘pig of the day’ tag. The tag was usually given to the person they considered the dirtiest. I was taking my English lesson when they came to call me out to put the tag on. When I refused to wear it, they dragged me, beat me and took me around the school, from class to class, all while beating me. I became a bully in senior school, I was the bullied person who went on to become a bully.

I still suffer from self-esteem issues to this day – issues that started from my time in the boarding house.

Keziah

I used to be really chatty, loud and confident till I got to boarding school. When I got to boarding school I was always told to tone it down and keep quiet. I got used to being quiet, I didn’t realize it had taken a hit on confidence. It affected my confidence till 2018.

I got bullied a lot by my mates and my juniors, I also suffered from sexual harassment from my juniors and seniors. I always knew I was queer, but for a long time, my sexuality felt like abuse to me because of the amount of sexual harassment I dealt with in boarding school.

My mates from secondary school try to reach out to me, but I do not respond or reciprocate. I am still healing from a lot of trauma I experienced in boarding school. I told my parent about what I was going through while in boarding school, but they dismissed it because they had good experiences in their own time.

Missy

Right before WAEC, I found all my books soaked in a bucket of water under my bed. To this day, I don’t know who did it. I always suspected a friend of mine, but the suspicion was never confirmed. I wonder what I did, that could make someone do something so wicked to me. Of all my bad boarding school experiences, that’s the worst one and the most unforgettable.

Nina

One night, I was gisting with my friends, we were actually gossiping about another friend of ours who was also in the room when we heard a knock on the door. We all ignored the knock because we thought it was a random senior who was knocking on the door till we heard the knock again. This time, it was senior we were all afraid of that was knocking at the door.

The senior got really upset that we locked the door and she decided to punish all of us in the room. She asked around for who locked the door and my name came up multiple times. I have no recollection of locking the door, but I served the longest punishment of my life. I was punished for so long, she also threatened to have me sleep under her bunk. Thankfully, my friend informed the house mistress and that was how I got released from punishment. I still do not remember locking that door.

Source: https://www.zikoko.com/life/nigerians-talk-about-their-boarding-school-experiences/

Read more stories like this here: https://www.zikoko.com/category/life/

The world is experiencing a rapid economic and societal evolution; things are changing really fast and adopting new realities doesn’t take a long time anymore. Every minute old trends are dying and new ones are taking form. But it looks like we are stalling in the department of gender inequality.

Gender inequality is way expensive and is costing the world too much. The World Bank estimates the economic cost of gender inequality around the world to be $160.2 trillion, a huge loss in human capital wealth.

Gender parity on the other side will add more prosperity to the world. McKinsey reports that closing the gender gap in the workforce could add a staggering $28 trillion to the global GDP, that’s a 26% gain. Even if complete parity is not achieved, we could still add $12 trillion (11%) to the global GDP.

This is only achievable by allowing working women to reach their “full potential” and having equal access to resources while playing identical roles in the labour markets to that of men and getting paid what’s worth.

Looks like companies like MTN understand the assignment and are taking the lead with incentives that promote gender parity. MTN knows that for more women to assume more senior roles in the future, confronting the early-career gender gap is important ( i.e more women must first enter the workforce and progress with time.) Now, it will admit 80% women and 20% men into its graduate trainee program.

“We have set our graduate development program at 80:20; women take 80 while men take 20,” said MTN Nigeria CEO, Karl Toriola during a brief speech at the launch of Nigeria2Equal’s peer learning platform and the gender gap assessment report, Gender Equality in Nigeria’s Private Sector.

Nigeria2Equal’s core mission is to bring companies in Nigeria’s private sector together to reduce gender gaps in leadership, employment and entrepreneurship.

In partnership with the International Financial Commission (IFC) and Nigerian Exchange Limited, Nigeria2Equal started a gender gap study and 15 top private companies in Nigeria participated as specimens. Now, they launched the report and one of the initiatives to help bridge the gap, peer learning among companies.

MTN, which recently appointed its first female chief marketing officer, said they’re very intentional about gender parity and that’s why they are going all-in on that decision.

Adia Sowho and Shoyinka Shodunke join MTN as CMO, CIO

“To achieve gender parity at the workplace, companies must be intentional and committed to walking the talk,” Toriola added. He added that the development is not only in the papers and that they’ve already kick-started.

“You’d be surprised what women can achieve when given the resources they need to excel,” he said, citing an example from his time in Cameroon. “I have seen it,” he concluded.

The event hosted about 14 other CEOs from the companies that participated in the study, including Sterling Bank, Cadbury, UAC, Access Bank and AP. Among all these CEOs, there was only one woman. And this further legitimizes the case of the initiative.

Similarly, according to Nigeria2Equal’s report, though women represent 17% of Board Chair (greater than global average of 6%), 7% of CEOs (same with global average), and 17% of CFOs (greater than the global average of 13%), the average percentage of women in the workforce is 33% which is lower than the global average of 37%.

These two reports indicate that commitment to gender parity at the senior level has been on the rise. The average C-suite has 24 per cent more women than in 2015. The share of open roles going to women is rising, through either promotions or hiring. But the gap is still wide across all metrics.

In Nigeria, there was huge evidence of this in the first half of the year. Four women assumed the echelon seat in some of the biggest banks in Nigeria, making it eight banks out of the 26 commercial banks that are led by women. A decent number but not anywhere close to where we should be par the SDG 5 (to ensure women’s full and effective participation and equal opportunities for leadership at all levels of decision-making.).

This is not an overnight success but a result of decades of constant advocacy. Initiatives like that of Nigeria2Equal and efforts from companies like MTN are making sure that it doesn’t take us another chain of decades to achieve full-blown gender parity.

Source: https://techcabal.com/2021/08/09/mtns-graduate-development-program-to-take-in-80-women-20-men/

Read more stories like this here: https://techcabal.com/category/companies/

What’s your oldest memory of money?

When I was eight years old, I found a big bar of soap at home and dissolved it in water. The younger kids in the compound were fascinated by the bubbles it formed, and they wanted it. I told them they had to pay ₦5 for a handful. They all went to their apartments and brought the money. However, their mums found out and confronted me. I had to return the money.

I liked how I felt when I thought I was going to make some money, and I wanted to feel that way again. I told my mum, and she said I could sell something tangible and she would help me get it started. During the next holiday, she helped me set up my first business — selling homemade zobo drinks. A cup went for ₦10, and I sold it in a neighbour’s shop. I don’t remember how much I made at the end of the holiday period, but I gave everything to my mum.

I sold a couple more stuff when I was in secondary school. My mum owns a primary school and during the summer lessons, I’d make snacks and sell them to her students.

However, I got my first real job at my mum’s school after I finished secondary school in 2008.

Tell me about it.

I wrote an application letter to my mum, asking to work as a staff, and she agreed to bring me on as a teaching assistant. My salary was ₦6k and I stayed for two months. Then I got into a pre-university programme in a state in the north-central and moved in with a family friend living in the state. My parents put me on a ₦10k monthly allowance.

The programme lasted for seven months, and I returned to my parents after that. When I didn’t get into uni that year, I returned to working at my mum’s school. My salary was now ₦10k. On the side, I was making and supplying snacks to the school and some of my mum’s friends and making a monthly profit of ₦5k and ₦8k.

Baller.

Hehe. In 2010, I quit my job and went for a diploma programme in another university, which meant I had to go back to being on a ₦10k allowance. The family friend I lived with gave me an additional ₦5k every month.

A year later, I finally got an offer to study biochemistry at the university where I did my diploma. I moved out of the family friend’s home and into the hostel.

I renegotiated a new allowance with my parents, and they started sending me ₦10k every two weeks. This was what I was on until I finished university. When I settled into school, I looked for ways I could make extra money but that happened only once. I constantly had to figure out the best way to manage my allowance. Funny story. . .

Yes?

Sometime in 2012, a friend introduced me to a lady who was looking for students to help sell her magazines. A copy of the magazine sold for ₦300, but she said we could add a markup and keep the extra money. It sounded easy, so I signed up for it and I took some copies off her. I walked the length and breadth of the city and couldn’t sell one. As I was returning home, tired and frustrated, I met a group of people and one of them was like, “Fine girl, what are you doing out so late?” I told them that I was out selling magazines and hadn’t sold any all day. They asked for the price and for some reason, I said it was ₦5k. They took one magazine and paid.

Oh wow.

There’s more. I decided to make one last stop at a country club close to where I was. I approached two guys who were leaving and told them about the magazines. When they asked for the price, I told them it was ₦10k, and they also paid. They didn’t even take the magazine with them. On some level, I think they just felt some pity for me. Anyway, I made close to ₦15k that day.

Mad.

I didn’t do anything else for money until I left university in 2015.

NYSC was next?

I took a gap year before I went for NYSC. My parents had started a publishing company when I was in uni, and they needed someone to manage the place. I took it up since I was available, and I was put on a ₦30k salary. Also, I started selling hair products by the side and made about ₦20k in profit every month. I was saving my salary and living on what I made from the hair business.

Towards the end of 2016, I was mobilised for NYSC and went on to serve in the north. My Place of Primary Assignment (PPA) was a health centre, and they paid a monthly stipend of ₦5k. There was also the federal government ₦19,800 allowance. But I thought I could do better than that, so I started looking for a new job. I got a part-time job at a primary school where I taught two days a week, and they paid ₦7k. A few months later, I got a better paying offer at another school — ₦12k per month, but I had to go in every day. Not long after, I found another job in a spa as an attendant. This paid ₦15k.

Interesting. How did you juggle three jobs?

I had stopped going to my PPA because there was hardly any work to do. I worked at the school from morning until afternoon and resumed at the spa afterwards.

It worked for me, and I was able to save as much money as I could. When NYSC ended in 2017, I returned home with about ₦240k in savings.

Lit.

My parents still wanted me to work at their publishing company. My starting salary was ₦50k, but it was going to increase to ₦100k after my first six months. I agreed, but I didn’t spend up to six months there.

Why?

I got restless after five months and wanted to do something else. My parents weren’t happy with it because they thought I was abandoning the family business, but they respected my decision. I actively started looking for a job in FMCG companies and banks. I applied to a few places and landed some interviews. I joined a bank in 2018. In their training school, I was paid ₦30k. After training school, my salary increased to ₦80k.

A few months later, I realised that the money wasn’t a lot. But it was fair in comparison to what a lot of my friends were earning.

I was spending a lot on transportation too, and the best thing to do was move closer to my workplace. I found a mini-flat and the total package was ₦600k. I got ₦240k from a monthly contribution scheme I was a part of. My parents took care of the rest and I moved into the apartment.

What’s happened between then and now?

I was promoted for the first time in 2019 and my salary was bumped up to ₦100k. My standards of living remained the same, and I started saving ₦20k every month. In January 2020, I got another promotion and my salary increased to ₦195k. This meant I could save more, so I joined another contribution scheme with a few people and started putting ₦50k away every month. Three months after my promotion, the pandemic hit.

How did that affect you?

It didn’t affect me directly, but my parents felt the heat. Shortly before the lockdown started, they had invested heavily into publishing some new books, hoping to recoup their investment when schools opened, but that didn’t happen and they had salaries to pay.

My parents are proud people, and I knew they would never ask me for money even though they needed help. During the height of the pandemic when they were out of business, I sent about ₦300k home to them.

I don’t think my savings took a big hit because, at the end of the year, I had ₦1.2m in savings.

That’s lit.

Then I blew everything away.

What happened?

I got married and the wedding wiped out my savings.

Lmao. How much did your wedding cost?

About ₦4m. It’s weird it cost that much because it was a small wedding, and we invited only 100 guests. My parents were recovering from the effect of the pandemic and couldn’t do a lot. My husband’s family did what they had to do, but I had to chip in something too.

Fast forward to January 2021. I started the year with nothing. I tried to save more but realised that it was going to take some time before I recovered. So I did something different.

What was that?

I took a ₦700k small interest loan from work and I invested in a mutual fund, which yields anything between 7% and 14%. Now, you’d expect me to have more than ₦700k in my mutual funds account, but I have ₦500k in it. I have access to the account and can liquidate it at any time. This has happened a few times in the last couple of months.

I’m curious about how you approach savings and investments.

At the moment, I only have investments in mutual funds. I like to have emergency funds too, so I used to take ₦30k out of my salary and save somewhere. But I kept dipping into that because I needed to do something before my salary came in. Recently, I started another ₦50k a month contribution scheme with a few people, and that money will probably go into starting a new business. I’ve been thinking about starting one because I’m not making as much money as I’d like to.

How much do you think you should be earning now?

The number I have in mind is ₦400k, but it’s tricky. On one hand, I feel like I can’t ask for that much because I have only my BSc certificate. I have a couple of skills, but there’s no certification to back them up, and I work a job where certification is important.

What do you need to do to unlock your next level of income?

For starters, I need to upskill. I was going to start getting the certifications I needed a few weeks ago, but my laptop gave up on me. Can you believe it?

Also, I need to return to having a side business. Working in the banking industry has shown me that having one source of income can be dangerous. Last year, I saw people with families and responsibilities come into work in the morning and before the day ended, they lost their jobs. It was horrible. I’m sick and tired of my job and thinking strongly about returning to my family business. I feel like I will be better appreciated there, and it wouldn’t even affect my finances. My parents have agreed to pay me what I currently earn, and I’ll have more time to focus on starting and running my side business. However, it’s not an easy decision to make.

I get that. What part of your finances do you think you could be better at?

Making more money. I don’t have a bad savings habit, but I end up dipping into my savings because I’m not making enough. I could do better with following a strict budget, but the priority is to get my earnings up.

This feels like a good point to talk about your monthly running costs.

There’s not a lot left after all of this, so I’m mostly surviving on vibes. Thankfully, my husband comes through when I’m almost out of money and salary day is still some time away.

How have your experiences shaped your perspective about money?

As a kid, I didn’t have a reason to worry about money but now I think about it all the time. While money is not the most important thing in the world, it’s central to the quality of life you can afford. I like to see money in my account at all times because it’s security for me. I always want to know that I have something to fall back on if push comes to shove. It’s stressful, but it’s what it is.

I’m wondering if there’s anything you want right now but can’t afford?

I’d love to get a car. Public transportation in this country is killing me. But I imagine that I’d need about ₦3m to get me something that works, and I don’t have it right now.

What about something you bought recently that improved the quality of your life?

A pair of earbuds. I talk to more than 50 people on the phone every day, and I’m doing other things while I’m on the phone. The earbuds have made the experience better, and it cost only ₦28k. Great value for the money.

Love that for you. On a scale of 1-10, how would you rate your financial happiness?

2. There’s a lot of things I currently don’t like about my finances — my paltry savings and the fact that my salary is not enough to get me through the month sometimes. I don’t like that I don’t have an extra source of income even though I’m working on it. It’s stressful crunching numbers every time I need to buy something.

Source: https://www.zikoko.com/money/naira-life/the-nairalife-of-banker-tempted-by-her-family-business/

Read more stories like this here: https://www.zikoko.com/category/money/naira-life/

Parents might have been the ones that birthed us, but that does not mean everyone likes theirs. 6 Nigerians tell us why they don’t like their parents.

Sarah, 18

I don’t like my parents because of all the physical and emotional abuse I’ve gone through with them over the years. Some might see it as “discipline” or “training” but all it did was traumatise me and maybe make me develop some concerning kinks. It didn’t help matters that when I tried to talk to them about it so we could bury the hatchet and at least try to live harmoniously, all I got was more abuse.

Bolanle

So, I don’t like one of my parents and since I have moved from hate, this is progress. Now, I just wish they never existed in the first place. I don’t like that my father was not present in my life while growing up and when he came back around the time I was 16, he didn’t come back to stay. He came back to be inconsistent and mess with my mental health. Whenever I feel like I have made progress and I’m getting better, my dad shows up again to take me back to ground zero. If he were dead, this wouldn’t be happening.

Lily, 21

How utterly alone talking to them makes me feel. Everything turns into a lecture or a disagreement and it would be nice to just get things off my chest with the people who birthed me. I can’t even see a dress and comment on it without my mother making weird faces and talking about decency. I would have liked to be able to talk to my mum to talk about the stupid boys that broke my heart, but I had to figure all that out myself. I love them, but I don’t like them and I’m happiest when I’m not around them.

Jane, 44

My mum and I are currently estranged because she made fun of me for being sexually attacked as a child. She then lied to say I never told her. It was such a horrible lie that I went on with life with no contact with her. She could always be found to be on the side of people who did me harm.

It is her consistent and clear choice. My former brother-in-law was abusive to my sister. My mum would entertain him and even let him know where my sister was staying when he was stalking her. I had to protect myself and with space, I had to think. I knew and had to accept that I did not like her.

Zainab, 20

I don’t hate my parents. In fact, I like to believe that I love them very much. I just don’t like them. My parents see me as an extension of themselves, constantly forcing their way of life on me. I like to believe I’m an adult and can make certain decisions by myself, or that I know what’s right for me and what isn’t. They don’t think so. It’s irritating and leads to resentment. I really love my parents, but I resent them for not letting me by myself.

Derin, 22

I don’t hate them, I just don’t exactly like them. Especially my mum. She’s extremely difficult and ununderstanding. If she wasn’t my mum, I wouldn’t like to be her friend or want to be associated with her, but I don’t hate her. She gives me anxiety and can be very toxic. We don’t have a good relationship and she has never tried to build one but she seems to be forcing it these days which gets me annoyed.

My father on the other hand turns a blind eye when my mum is being herself. That’s why I don’t him so much. I think I have mixed feelings about him but my mum? I don’t.

Source: https://www.zikoko.com/ships/6-nigerians-tell-us-why-they-dont-like-their-parents/

Read more stories like this: https://www.zikoko.com/category/ships/

Policies & African startups is a monthly series written by Titi Akinsanmi. All musings are hers and attributable to TechCabal or any organisations she is serving, working or affiliated with.

First of all, introduction

It has taken many years for me to put pen to paper – in this form. Why? Well, I focused and hoped ‘those’ who have the expertise, the skills to write etc, etc, etc would get round to doing this. But…the impactful change one seeks truly does begin with one. So here goes…

I write as I speak – painting pictures with words, sometimes rambling and stopping at bus stops to share an extra nugget, insight or to detour completely. And sometimes I will enter the rabbit hole of writing informal academic language to address a specific issue.

You see, in this ‘column’, my writing is not your typical treatise or intellectual exposition on the what, why and how of policymaking in the digital economy. It’s a peek into my perfectly imperfect policy wonk mind. A sharing of my thoughts in progress around shenanigans in this space – the good, bad and ugly.

Musings.

My goal? Tripartite (that means in three parts!). First is to let the words out of my head beyond when I take the ‘stage’ and speak to a select few who know; second is to normalize conversations on policy implications of all the innovations happening – and if just 0.1%, get more innovators thinking on this before and when they hit the market! Third, and for me the most important is to bring this discourse to you – the end user, the customer, the target of all these innovations. So you understand, get it – and use the power to influence in an informed way. You see that latter? Well You have the power to be the instigator of the change you want to see.

So here goes: this first piece is like a get to know you more, more information gathering before a possible first date (I hope we make it to the latter ;-))

Before we go on though – what is Policy making? Again no assumptions made right?

See, Policy making is far from ‘sexzy’ work – except for wonks like me :-). It is typically a long and arduous ‘figuring out’, drafting, negotiations, convincing and consensus building. In plain english: It takes a good amount of time to get close to having the right policy backed by law – from development to influencing process to adoption, influencing, implementation and then impact tracking (and its measurement).

The policy making process

It can seem like it’s overnight, that hardly the case – but it does happen. [For instance, the Murambatsvina policy and the ‘look East’ policy in Zimbabwe]. The thing you don’t know, having not paid attention or invested time, resources or built a network, is that it’s likely been brewing under the surface (think lava, volcano eruption; or an underlying like that catches you unawares). Or you have done all this yet still…

Let’s make this practical…use our imaginations (for some reading this is a reality I know).

Imagine: You are a startup in some city or town in a tier 2 African country. You practice some solid frugal innovation and come up with a needed product and or service. You worked hard (alone or with a small team) and hit the market. You have a frugal marketing and reputation building strategy that harnesses the power of social media across jurisdictions. You begin to see a return on investment, just a trickle at first and then it steadily (or maybe not – dips are normal!) and then wham! The government ‘sees’ you.

Jisoos!

Well, that imagining is a reality lived by many businesses across our continent – in these times seemingly targeting Tech enabled StartUps. The world more than ever before is at terms with the fact that digitisation is important for the growth of the economy and society. For the economically disparate economies on our continent however, it seems players are working in different directions – albeit looking to reach the same goal of a thriving digital economy, apart. With the Covid-enabled growth of the last 18 months these ‘high IQ toddler’ businesses have faced stiff regulatory actions and inconsistent policies, – regardless of the intentions behind them. This at a time when African startup ecosystem is garnering global recognition and investor confidence.

Here are a few examples of shifts in policy based on laws (sometimes not!) across our continent in the last 18 months.

Fintech in Nigeria, South Africa, and Kenya

Nigeria’s technology sector was its second-fastest-growing sector from Q1 2018 to Q4 2019. A look at the well appraised Nigerian fintech sector reveals the recently released regulatory directory of the Nigerian Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) which states that “by the provisions of Sections 67-70 of the Investments and Securities Act (ISA), 2007 and Rules 414 & 415 of the SEC Rules and Regulations, only foreign securities listed on any Exchange registered in Nigeria may be issued, sold or offered for sale or subscription to the Nigerian public. Accordingly, CMOs who work in concert with the referenced online platforms are hereby notified of the Commission’s position and advised to desist henceforth.”

The South African Reserve Bank’s (SARB) cautious attitude towards virtual currencies like Bitcoin, as stated in Article 5.1 in its Position Paper on Virtual Currencies NPS 02/2014 that ‘the Bank does not oversee, supervise or regulate the VC (virtual currencies) landscape, systems or intermediaries for effectiveness, soundness, integrity or robustness. Consequently, any and all activities related to the acquisition, trading or use of VCs (particularly DCVCs) are performed at the end-user’s sole and independent risk and have no recourse to the Bank.’

In 2015 Central Bank of Kenya(CBK) with regard to the legal status of virtual currencies, issued a public notice cautioning the public that “Bitcoin and similar products are not legal tender nor are they regulated in Kenya. The public should therefore desist from transacting in Bitcoin and similar products”. On 18 December, 2015 the CBK again issued Banking Circular No 14 of 2015, which cautioned, ‘all financial institutions against dealing in virtual currencies or transacting with entities that are engaged in virtual currencies. Financial institutions are expressly advised not to open accounts for any person dealing in virtual currencies such as Bitcoin. Failure to comply with this directive would lead to appropriate remedial action from the Central Bank’.

Just like South Africa, Kenya also has no specific legal framework tailored specially for its Fintech sector. One therefore sees the fintech sphere being regulated by a variety of statutes and rules governing various financial products, services and market participants, as well as other provisions of more general application.

The lack of specifically tailored regulations to govern the fintech sector, seen in Kenya and South AFrica, leaves regulators at each point, responding to issues that arise individually. This leaves a gap for potential conflicts in regulating fintech, and reveals a situation where the regulatory environment would keep lagging behind technology.

The ban by the Nigerian Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) negatively impacted thousands of Nigerians who have lately been drawn by technology to investing in foreign securities. Untoward hardship to fintech platforms such as Bamboo, Trove, and Risevest who work with local and foreign brokerage firms in allowing Nigerians to invest and trade in stocks listed on the Nigerian and foreign stock exchanges.

Logistics policies in Nigeria

The Lagos State Government on 27 January 2020 enforced a regulatory ban which restricted the operation of commercial bikes and tricycles on major roads within the state, stating that “after consultations with stakeholders, the State Security Council, in compliance with the extant Transport Sector Reform Law 2018, has decided to commence enforcement of the law which bans the operation of Okada and Keke in six Local Government Areas and nine Local Council Development Areas (LCDAs)”. This ban forced unplanned pivots and total shutdowns of services for hitherto thriving local organisations like Gokada and ORide. The regulatory blizz also extended to the regulation of online ride-hailing companies like Uber and Bolt with the enforcement of the requirement for a service entity regulatory permit provisional application/renewal – ₦10 million licence fee for service entities with 1,000 units of e-hailing taxi; ₦25 million for those with more than 1,000 units of e-hailing taxi; with the provisional license subject to an annual renewal with a renewable fee of ₦5 million for every 1000 and ₦10 million for every 1001 and above unit of e-hailing taxi. It also mandated that 10% of every transaction by the passenger to the ride-hailing operators must be paid to the state government. At the national level the new guideline for the regulation of logistics and courier companies which increased the license fees for logistics companies and courier services was also approved on July 23, 2020. The amount mandated as licensing and renewal fees is shocking, as it creates an impediment for most players in the sector, who are mostly struggling MSMEs without the economic wherewithal to afford the fees.

An immediate implication of the ban of commercial bikes and tricycles was the drastic unemployment it resulted in across a broad base of lagos. Unemployment directly correlates to an upsurge in crimes and insecurity.

Data and Infrastructure in South Africa and Kenya

The draft National Policy on Data and Cloud which is generally aimed at “exploiting opportunities presented by the digital economy, through the development of policy frameworks that harness the economic and social potential of data and cloud computing” was recently released (April 1 2021) .

The Draft Data Protection (General) Regulations 2021 of Kenya also introduces data localisation, while among other provisions, requiring countries or territories to which personal data is transferred, to have ratified the African Union Convention on CyberSecurity and Personal Data Protection. This provision apart from restricting the free flow of data needed for a digital economy to thrive, includes a requirement for ratification of a convention which Kenya itself is yet to ratify.

Although the goal of the policies might be applauded, their restriction on cross-border transfer of data through local storage and processing of data is capable of affecting productivity and innovation, and ousting the countries’ startups.


Digital Tax policies in South Africa, Nigeria, Uganda and Kenya

South Africa was the first, in 2014, to tax digital services by imposing a 14% value added tax (VAT) on digital imports. Several African countries have since followed its steps.

The Nigerian Finance Act for instance imposes 5% VAT on online transactions.

In Uganda 74% of businesses reported a reduction in earnings following the imposition of digital tax – excise duty on over-the-top services over the internet – in the country. This same proposal for digital tax was only shut down by the Benin Government after a peaceful protest was staged by its people.

In 2013, the National Treasury of Kenya introduced a 10% excise duty on money transfer services.

Governments rightly claim taxing digital services helps to raise revenue for ailing economies – totally plausible IF funds raised were channeled into providing infrastructure and enabling more innovation. This has not been the case however – digital tax policies and laws have mainly been used to restrict digital activity of citizens, infringing on their digital rights.

So why should YOU care, I hear you ask? This long story, we know all about it – it’s not stopping bread from getting to my table.

Question is: is it not?

From an increased cost in basic services you have come to take for granted – from hailing a bike by app, phone call or on the side of the road to the inability to afford to continue to feed your family with premium turkey or listen to your favourite artiste due to new Copyright rules that don’t support Fair Use principles.

Why? Because hey you can no longer ride uber at an affordable rate (Hi, Hackney permit), through to it getting harder to shop for that item from Senegal since the taxes on it are higher (that’s if the customs barriers are surmounted by AfCFTA) and it becoming significantly harder (if at all possible) for you to get timely help by raising a social media cry for help.

So you see, it matters. It touches you. Not just the ‘big businesses’ or the startups – You. As Nigerians like to say, “… o di kwa serious?!“

Over the next few ‘musings’ I will ponder on what we should be prioritising and why. If the data allows and my brain strings the words I will project on the impact – possibly speak to the future.

Till next time – keep musing �

Source: https://techcabal.com/2021/08/02/policies-african-startups-how-inconsistent-policies-are-killing-african-startups/

Read more stories like this here: https://techcabal.com/category/policy/

The subject of today’s “A Week In The Life” is a security guard. He talks about being intimidated because of his job, forfeiting 50% of his salary to security companies and spending all his time at work. He also talks about his plans to escape it all.


MONDAY:

The first thing to do when I wake up na to thank my God because I no know wetin happen for night. And things dey occur. After thanking God for protection, all other things follow — bath, brush and toilet. By 6 a.m. sharp, I don pull boots to wear and my day begins.

I work one week on and one week off. The week I’m on duty, like today, I run 24-hour shifts. This morning, the first thing I do is to walk around the compound to clear sleep from my eyes. In this job, I only get to sleep at night but last night was rough.

Our small and tight security room with only one window was hot like an oven because NEPA took light. As a result, I had to carry my mosquito net and bed outside to sleep under fresh breeze. But it started to rain so I couldn’t sleep because there was no cover. Between the hot room and cold outside with nowhere to stay, I ended up not sleeping and pressed my phone from midnight till around 5 a.m.

This job is taxing [on the body] because even on a day like this, I still can’t afford to rest. I still have to be at constant alert: I have to open the gate for visitors, receive packages and ensure visitors are who they say they are.

I will try my best today but there’s only so much I can do with little sleep. One day, I’ll talk about the problem with this job where you can’t do anything else apart from it. I’ll also talk about the not so great pay.

But today is not the day. Today is for surviving the day on minimum sleep.

TUESDAY:

Today is better than yesterday. At least, I slept without any disturbance last night. Even though it wasn’t deep sleep, because I was waking up to patrol every one hour, I still feel relaxed.

Today I’m looking back at how far I’ve come. I initially started life as a waiter in a big hotel in Lekki. Although the salary was small, I used to make at least two times my salary from tips and service charges before the end of the month. Unfortunately, due to some things that happened on the job, I got fired.

After that, I went to a sack production company. I started as a loom operator and then moved to become head loom manager. From there I moved to the quality control department. As I was enjoying my new career, the company folded and we were all sent home.

So that I’ll not just be at home sitting down idle, I decided to pursue security work while searching for jobs. It is going to be two years now since I made that decision.

I don’t mind the job because I find that security work is all about intelligence and using your head. It’s also not hard because we didn’t bring the job from heaven; we learned it here. Apart from the basics like checking surroundings, etc we didn’t cover a lot of new things during security training. Additionally, as a contract security personnel, I wasn’t taught about arms because I’m not allowed to carry them.

God forbid bad thing but if armed robbers attack now, as contract security, my job is to hide, take my phone and call the police. Because of this, I’m always reminding myself to use my senses on this job.

WEDNESDAY:

It’s intimidating being a security man in Nigeria because most people assume you’re done for. They think because you’re wearing a uniform you can’t ever make it in life. The wiser ones among them understand that it’s Nigeria of today that’s pushing some of us to do the job. But the majority of people, you’ll greet them and they’ll reply with their nose. Nothing spoil. God is upstairs and he’ll answer our prayers one day.

I’m at work today thinking about how my current company has good people. This is the first place I’ve worked where people don’t look down on security people. Everyone here is a guy-man. But me, I still don’t pass my boundaries. I’ve learned to read body language and facial expressions to use in determining when to greet or when to keep quiet.

I’ve never been molested or insulted and I want to keep it that way. There’s no one to report to if anything happens with the client. Is it the security company that will save me?

The same company that told us that the customer is always right and the best we can do is record any incident in our logbook pending when a supervisor comes around. And God knows the company will always support the client because that’s where they’re seeing money. Is it the same company that collects ₦50,000 from clients and pays security people ₦25,000 that’ll protect us?

I can stand every aspect of this job but you see that poor pay? I hate it. By the 18th, 19th of every month, I’ve exhausted my money and I’m struggling to meet up. I think my situation is even worse because I’m a family man and many people are depending on the small money.

I’ll not lie to you, this work is somehow. I love the people I work with but I dislike the job.

THURSDAY:

This job takes and takes and takes from you with nothing in return. The most recent thing it has taken from me is my church-going habit. Because of the nature of my shifts, I don’t attend church as much as before. I’m either working or resting because I’m tired from working. As a result of this, I spend extra time thanking God this morning. I read more Bible passages and sing more worship songs.

I know God is still with me. Even if I don’t frequent church regularly, I know that when I call on him he’ll be there for me, especially in my days of trouble. I trust that the God I serve is in control.

Once I’m done praying, my day begins.

FRIDAY:

This is my last shift of the week and I’m happy today. I already have plans for my week off. Every day, for three hours, I’m learning how to drive at my friend’s place. My plan is that in the next two months I’ll master driving and become a commercial driver. Someone has promised that by the special grace of God he’ll buy me a car for Uber. At least, I know that one is better than a security job.

I won’t mind if I can even go from ₦30,000 a month to ₦80,000 — that’s still something. If that happens, I can even bring my wife and my boy to Lagos. Since I started this security job I haven’t been able to rent a house so I sent them to Benin to stay with my mum. Every month, from the little I earn, I try to send them upkeep but it’s never enough.

It’s been two years — since May 2019 — since I saw them last. I miss them so badly but I can’t bring them to suffer here with me in Lagos. This is July, the plan is that if everything goes well, I’ll bring them to Lagos by January 2022. I want us to be one big happy family again.

I know God is in control so I’m not too bothered. I’ve done many things before now and I’m not afraid to try new things. However, this job has taught me something: Security na human being. They no just fall from heaven and most of them, na condition make them do the work. More people should treat us like human beings. Sometimes, the insult we receive adds to our problem. It can be very painful when someone looks at you from up to toe and just concludes that you can never make it. It’s unfair.

Source: https://www.zikoko.com/money/hustle/security-na-human-being-a-week-in-the-life-of-a-security-guard/

Read more stories like this here: https://www.zikoko.com/stack/a-week-in-the-life/

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

Tega

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

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

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

Michael

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

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

George

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

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

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

Tomiwa

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

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

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

Akpos

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

Sam

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

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

Chike

My girlfriend is German and it’s more peaceful than dating a Nigerian. It costs less because financial burdens are split equally. She’s a better communicator and has no problems saying what she wants when it comes to sex, unlike Naija babes that you have to be guessing. She has also taught me to enjoy things like picnics, hiking and walks in the park.

However, the lack of cultural similarities gets to me sometimes. Our jokes are different; for example, she doesn’t get why I find Nigerian comedy skits and memes so funny. Still, she’s a big fan of Nigerian music. She listens to more Afropop than I do. We also have different tastes in food so we don’t have as many joint meals as we would have if she was Nigerian. She doesn’t understand my struggles such as why my cousins and siblings are taxing me for money.

Bayo

There’s a remarkable difference between Nigerian and foreign relationships. First, they seemed to be more interested in me for who I am. There’s no need to impress like I would have to with Lagos babes. There’s also less financial pressure. It was the first time I felt comfortable telling a babe I was broke because they would cover for me when I couldn’t and they never made a big deal out of it. It felt really refreshing to be spoiled by her and it made me reciprocate a lot more.

Are you a man who would like to be interviewed for a Zikoko article? Fill this form and we’ll be in your inbox quicker than you can say “Man Dem.”

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

Read more stories like this here: https://www.zikoko.com/category/man/

For most Nigerians, 40% of whom live below the poverty line, buying electronic devices in a single installment is a daunting task.

Most devices and work equipment cost more than Nigeria’s minimum wage, a meagre $73. The average price of mobile phones was $95 in 2020 and without constant power supply, it can cost about $48/month to run generators.

Electricity and connection play a large role in growth and development. It’s fair to estimate that many people cannot access the tools they need to succeed because they cannot afford them.

In recent years, asset finance and Buy Now Pay Later platforms have become sources of relief, allowing customers to pay for products in installments.

One such platform is M-KOPA, a Kenyan company that is expanding its services into Nigeria so more people can have access to installment payments for devices like solar systems and smartphones. Earlier in 2021, M-KOPA ran a successful pilot test in Lagos where 20,000 devices were reportedly sold.

With the appointment of a new general manager, the company is now looking to accelerate its Nigeria operation.

Over 1 million customers in eight years

In an email to TechCabal, M-KOPA’s Chief Commercial Officer, Mayur Patel said, “Last October, we reached an exciting milestone of 1 million customers served by M-KOPA after 8+ years of work on the ground.”

Since its launch in Kenya in 2012, M-KOPA’s financing model has been helping people get instant access to products while slowly building ownership through micropayments. Usually, BNPL services are offered to credit-worthy customers only and this means that customers whose credit history cannot be discerned are denied access to these services.

An estimate of 500 million African adults are unbanked without formal access to financial institutions. This means that they would be naturally excluded from BNPL providers that require credit history.

However, M-KOPA uses a different financing model. All payments are automated, and the company doesn’t accept cash payments. The devices are also connected to M-KOPA’s CRM by IoT so default payments on a customer’s end will result in the automatic lock of their devices.

Initially, M-KOPA only offered its solar lighting products in Kenya, aiming for 80% of the population who had poor access to electricity at the time. In 2019, however, it entered into a partnership with Safaricom and Samsung to begin offering smartphones to customers. While its current portfolio includes refrigerators and television sets as well, the company has successfully sold over 500,000 smartphones in just two years.

Scaling in Nigeria and Babajide Duroshola’s role

“Nigeria represents the largest smartphone device market in Africa, with well over 12 million devices sold annually. We started piloting in Lagos, and have built up a great team and base. With an established foothold in the market, we will now rapidly expand across Nigeria,” said Mayur Patel.

After the pilot, M-KOPA is moving to spread its wings in other parts of Nigeria.

“We want to reach 2 million customers in a fraction of this time and our expansion into Nigeria will help build momentum,” Patel said.

“The rollout is underway, and we’ve already started setting up operations in Oyo State this month. Babajide Durshola, M-KOPA’s new Country General Manager has experience in scaling companies in Nigeria, and we’re excited for him to be leading our expansion across the country.”

Babajide Duroshola previously served as the Country Head for SafeBoda, a ride-hailing service based in Uganda, where he helped scale the business to 1.5 million rides a year. Before SafeBoda, he worked as a Community Manager for Andela.

Duroshola told TechCrunch he plans to balance the number of products M-KOPA offers Nigerians to reflect what is offered to Kenyans. On its website, M-KOPA only offers four Samsung smartphones to its Nigerian customers. In Kenya and Uganda, where it expanded to in 2013, customers can access other products included in its portfolio.

In speaking about how its operation in West Africa will differ from its East African activities, CCO Patel noted that only weekly and monthly payment options will be available in Nigeria.

“As part of our early piloting in Nigeria, we’ve spent a lot of time localizing our service and adapting our product offering. For example, we’ve refined our payment plans to match the preference of our customers. Whereas in East Africa, the prevalence of mobile money penetration facilitates daily transactions, in Nigeria we’ve focused on weekly and monthly installments.”

Source: https://techcabal.com/2021/07/29/mkopa-aims-for-2-million/

Read more stories like this here: https://techcabal.com/category/companies/

Nigeria’s Central Bank (CBN) has stopped the sale of foreign exchange (FX) to Bureau De Change (BDC) operators in the country. The registration of new players has also been halted, with immediate effect.

Governor Godwin Emefiele made the announcement at the end of the monetary policy committee (MPC) meeting in Abuja on Tuesday.

As with almost every announcement made by the CBN regarding the regulation of foreign currency, the decision has sparked a debate between economists, monetary policy experts, and other Nigerians on social media.

Why is Nigeria halting the sale of forex?

BDCs were set up to receive a weekly supply of FX from the CBN for onward sale to retail end-users, that is, people who needed $5,000 dollars or less.

However, Emefiele said the MPC noted that the money changers had become wholesale dealers and illegally traded FX to the tune of millions of dollars per transaction.

According to him, the CBN receives about 5,000 fresh applications monthly for BDC registration as players continued to make huge profits while Nigerians suffered from the “dollarisation” of the Nigerian economy.


The apex bank also accused BDC operators of speculative, rent-seeking behaviour and involvement in money laundering activities.

“They have turned themselves away from their objectives,” Emefiele said. “They are now agents that facilitate graft and corruption in the country. We cannot continue with the bad practices that are happening at the BDC market.”

The CBN will henceforth channel weekly allocations of dollar sales to commercial banks to meet legitimate FX demands. The banks will be monitored to provide forex for the legitimate use of Nigerians.

“We will deal ruthlessly with Nigerian banks that deal with illegal BDCs and we will report foreign organisations patronising them,” Emefiele said, adding that they are mandated to sell forex to every customer.

Assessing the potential impact; Good or bad move?

Some have praised the CBN for ending the “mindless sales” of foreign currency to BDC operators and an end to the reign of traders.

However, there are concerns that thousands of Nigerians working at the 3,000+ BDC operators in the country will be thrown into the already large unemployment pool as a result of the ban.

“It’s not a bad decision in itself but it’s bad for the times we are in,” said Kelechi Opara, an economist and Market Insights Officer at MMS Nigeria. “This isn’t the time to close businesses. We are talking about unemployment and more people are about to be thrown into the same labour market.”

Opara added that instead of an outright ban, the CBN could “go the extra mile” to properly profile and monitor every BDC operator they license, to ensure a working system void of corruption.

“Even with the move, there’s no assurance that commercial banks will not become a supply chain in the BDCs market. The CBN should assume fulfil its regulatory role and create an enabling environment for legal businesses to thrive.”

As commercial banks settle to adjust to the CBN directive, the ban is likely to put more pressure on the Nigerian naira in the parallel/black market – where forex is traded unofficially – in the immediate term.

Due to the low inflow of U.S. dollars into the Nigerian economy, banks struggle to give foreign currency to their customers on demand.

Although the situation should improve with the CBN channelling its weekly allocation to lenders, doubts exist over their capacity to replace BDCs in serving the huge demand for forex in Nigeria’s import-dependent economy.

“Getting dollars could become even more difficult than what we have now,” Opara said, noting that this is likely to push more companies and business people actively in need of dollars to the black market, further adding pressure on the naira.

Following the CBN’s announcement, the local unit fell by ₦1.00 or 0.20% to close at ₦505 per $1 on Tuesday, from ₦504 on Monday. This is according to data recorded on abokiFX.com, a website that collates the parallel market rates in Lagos.

Over the long term, the central bank’s effectiveness in disbursing foreign currency to retail users through the banks – if the new system is sustained – will dictate how the exchange rate at the parallel market will vary from the official rate of ₦410/$1.

For freelancers, remote workers, and remittance recipients that get foreign currencies through banks, the increased quantity of FX in the hands of lenders bodes well for their demands, except for the high fees banks charge on remittances.

“If banks will be the sole seller of forex to the retail users, then the CBN has to do something about their high remittance charges so as to avoid people rushing to the black market,” Opara added.

Source: https://techcabal.com/2021/07/28/cbn-forex-sales-bdcs-nigeria/

Read more stories like this here: https://techcabal.com/category/news/

Every week, Zikoko seeks to understand how people move the Naira in and out of their lives. Some stories will be struggle-ish, others will be bougie. All the time, it’ll be revealing.


What’s your earliest memory of money?

I’m not sure I remember. I never thought about money while growing up because there wasn’t any need to. I was an ajebo who lived a very sheltered life. My parents were lawyers who were doing quite well, and we didn’t lack anything.

It wasn’t until I went to secondary school in 2000 that I began to understand what money and wealth meant.

How?

I went to a federal government secondary school and lived in the hostel. It was a melting pot of social classes. The quantity and the brand of the provisions everyone brought to school determined where they belonged. I never felt inadequate, but secondary school made me realised how privileged I was.

I graduated from secondary school and got into university to study law in 2007. At first, my dad sent me ₦10k every month, which was more than okay — you could make a pot of soup with ₦200 in 2007. After the first year, he got tired of the monthly deposits. So he changed the way he sent me money. He started sending me ₦100k in the first semester to cover my tuition fees, accommodation fees and monthly allowance. During the second semester, he sent ₦60k. Now, it was up to me to manage the money and make sure it lasted the three months I stayed in school for every semester. But even if it didn’t last, I could call him to ask for more money.

I won’t lie, my dad spoiled me. But my mum? Left to her, ₦5k was enough.

Haha. Do you remember the first thing you did that fetched you money?

Yes. I was in 300 level when I felt the need to hustle because I had friends who were working to make money. I got an ushering job for a wedding, and the pay was ₦2k. I was so excited. In my head, it was free money. Guess what happened at the event?

What?

I fainted.

My God!

I had low blood sugar. The lady who hired me was frantic and said things like, “If you knew you couldn’t do the job, why did you come here? Do you want to spoil my business?”

Luckily, a doctor was at the wedding and attended to me. After resting for a couple of minutes and drinking a bottle of soda, I was ready to continue. I did the job and got my ₦2k at the end of the event.

You earned your ₦2k.

You get. After that, I said to myself, “I did not come to this life to suffer,” I returned to my ajebo life and didn’t make another attempt to work for money until after university.

Tell me about that.

I was mobilised for NYSC in November 2013 and left the north-central where I grew up for the south-south. My dad paid my house rent, which was ₦120k. After that, he gave me a stern warning. I don’t remember his exact words, but it was along the lines of: “I’m not going to give you one kobo, and I expect you to save ₦10k monthly.”

I had to survive on the ₦19800 the federal government paid and ₦10k I got from the law firm I worked at. I cut down on a lot of things or went for cheaper alternatives in my service year. Not like it was hard, but I wasn’t used to it.

I managed to have ₦40k in my account at the end of my service year. I felt on top of the world. But I was also like, “Freedom is overrated. I’m going back to my father’s house.”

What did you do after NYSC?

I chilled at home for a bit because I didn’t want to work at my dad’s law practice. While I was at home, I started helping people incorporate their companies with the Corporate Affairs Commission, and I got a lot of these clients through my dad. I was getting about ₦15k and ₦50k from these businesses depending on the size of the company I helped register.

A year later, I got a job at a family friend’s law firm. The salary was ₦40k, but I was allowed to continue my CAC runs. My earnings on most months were between ₦60k and ₦80k. Six months after, one of my aunts reached out to me and told me that one of her former bosses, who had just started a new job at a high-ranking government office, was looking for a lawyer to be his executive assistant. I interviewed for the job, and I got it.

The office didn’t have a budget at the time and asked if I could work for free for a few months, but they would pay me a monthly allowance of ₦60k. I would have accepted the offer even if they didn’t offer to pay me anything because of the kind of people that worked there. Nothing much happened until December when I took a break to get married.

That came out of nowhere.

Haha. We were family friends and had known each other for years. Our parents sent the ball rolling, and we started dating officially in March 2015. A few months later, we got married and moved into one of his dad’s houses.

Ah, I see.

By the time I returned to work in January 2016, my workplace finally had a budget and could pay me an actual salary.

How much was it?

₦315k.

That’s a significant improvement from ₦60k.

It was. The good thing was that aside from the occasional shopping I did on ASOS, I had no major expenses, so I was saving most of my salary. In less than four months, I had more than ₦1m in the account.

However, I started to get restless.

Why?

The structure of the office where I worked meant that there was no job security. A change in government could mean I’d lose my job. I started looking for opportunities to change my workplace. One came in August 2016 when a senior colleague was appointed as the managing director of a government agency. He wanted me to come with him, and I agreed. My starting salary at the government agency was ₦382k gross. My net salary was ₦250k.

This was less than your earnings at your previous job.

Yes, I took a pay cut on paper. However, there was no health insurance or pension scheme at my previous job. Also, the agency where I now worked pay me a cut of my annual salary at the beginning of the year, and It was ₦900k at the time. I really liked that.

Fair enough.

I had job security locked down, so I thought it was time to focus on something I had always wanted.

What was that?

Investments. My dad always said that he regretted not investing more when he was younger and hoped his kids would do better. By the end of 2016, I started to give investments a go.

What was the first thing you invested in?

Two hectares of farmland in the outskirts of the city. The whole thing cost ₦3.2m, but I paid an advance payment of ₦1.7m. Subsequently, I paid ₦100k every month until I finished paying for it. I missed a couple of months, so it wasn’t until earlier this year that I completed the payment.

After buying the farmland, my sights turned to crypto. I heard about bitcoin for the first time in 2016 and thought I should get into it. One bitcoin was trading at $800 – $1000 at the time, and I bought one bitcoin. This cost me about ₦450k. A couple of months later, there was a bull run. When the price of bitcoin hit $3k, I sold half of it and held on to the rest.

At the height of the bull run, one bitcoin was trading for more than $20k. Then the bull run ended sometime in 2017, but I decided not to sell. The price of bitcoin started dropping but I still held on to it, hoping it would go back up. I panicked when it dropped to $10k, sold the remaining half, and got $5k from it.

What did you do with the money?

I put it in a mutual fund account. The total amount I had in the mutual funds was $10k. I had put in my 13th-month salary the previous year, the ₦900k lump sum payment I got at the beginning of the year and some of my savings into it.

Things were rough for a couple of months after that.

What happened?

I had a few health challenges. My health insurance package couldn’t cover the service I needed, so I upgraded my plan. My salary took a hit and was reduced to ₦210k.

I got pregnant in October 2017 and gave birth to my son in June 2018. Thankfully, we spent almost nothing on that because of my health insurance. My husband and I had also been saving ₦50k every month from the moment we found out that I was pregnant, so that took care of all the kid’s supplies and stuff.

I was on maternity leave for four months and returned to work towards the end of 2018. There was only one thing on my mind when I returned.

What was that?

Getting promoted. I was due for promotion after three years, and I was looking forward to it. That didn’t happen in 2019, but something else did. I realised that my marriage wasn’t going to work.

Uh-oh.

I started thinking about my options — to move into a new apartment or not. I couldn’t afford rent on my salary, so I decided to stay at the house. My ex-husband and I had an agreement that we were only cohabitating, and it worked. I contemplated taking a federal housing loan, but my dad advised me to buy land and start building my own house.

We found a plot of land for ₦6m. I liquidated some money from my mutual fund account, my dad loaned me ₦3m, and I paid for the land.

Here’s the thing: I bought the land because I was banking on my promotion. I planned all my finances around it. I was finally promoted in October 2020 after months of lobbying and politicking. My gross salary increased to ₦600k but my net was ₦420k. Now, I thought I could start building on the land I bought, but then the Lekki shooting happened. Like that, I couldn’t see myself raising my son in Nigeria anymore. I shelved the plan to build the house and started investing in relocating to Canada.


Two other interesting things happened in 2020: a colleague who knew I liked to invest money gave me an idea to build a student hostel in a neighbourhood close to a university. I got a plot of land for ₦500k, which was pretty cheap. By the end of 2020, I had spent an additional ₦1.7m on early foundation work for the building.

Also, I got a remote job with a law firm in the US.

Yay. How did that happen?

It became clear that I needed an extra job when they wouldn’t promote me at work. I told my friends that I needed help finding a new job. A friend who went to law school in New York recommended me to the law firm he was working for. Luckily, they were expanding at the time. I did the interview and was offered employment in September 2020. $15/hour. I did 66 hours in my first month.

Mad. What about the hostel you were building?

My mum came to me in January 2021 and told me that I wouldn’t finish building it on time at the pace I was working with. She offered to come in and take over the project. I agreed to it and both of us started injecting money into it. We finished building it in May 2021, and it ended up being a 16-room building. When I calculated how much money we spent on it, I realised that my mum had spent ₦7m and I had spent more than ₦4m. The budget was less than that, but inflation affected everything.

How did you raise the money you needed?

From different savings and investments sources. Remember I said my workplace pays me a lump sum at the beginning of each year? The money increased to ₦1.8m after my promotion. It went straight into my savings when I got it, and I didn’t use it until the project.

When I got my remote job in September 2020 and started earning in October, I was saving the money into my domiciliary account for my proof of funds. After I submitted my relocation application in March 2021, I took $3k out of the account and channelled it into the building project. Also, I added my remote job salaries for April and May.

I got some more money from another investment, although it was very risky. In 2020, I took a ₦750k loan from the bank. The dollar was trading at about ₦380, and I converted the money into dollars and invested it in a forex scheme. For six months, they paid me $300 — 15% of the $2k I put in it, and I saved each payout. I was supposed to get my capital back at the end of the 6-month cycle, but it didn’t happen. At the end of the cycle, I had $1800. Luckily, a dollar was trading at ₦400+ already, so I didn’t really make a loss. What I made from this also went into finishing the hostel.

We finished the project in May, and I had to figure out how to pay my mum back the money she spent. We rented each room out for ₦150k, and we agreed that the money we make from rent will go to my mum for two years. Also, I’d be paying her ₦200k for 11 months.d I’ve started doing that already.

Interesting. What has happened between then and now?

The law firm I’m working for in the US increased my wages from $16 to $20 per hour. On average, I work 80 hours per month, so I earn about $1600 extra every month. However, I don’t touch the money — it goes straight into my proof of funds account. My dad loaned me ₦5m for that too. I have $11k in it right now, so I guess that’s covered.

I moved out of my ex-husband’s house in May. We had a fight, and I decided that I couldn’t live with him anymore. I called my parents and told them that I was coming back home, and that was it.

Speaking of, what does your monthly running cost currently look like?

I returned to investing in crypto earlier this year and took a ₦1m QuickCredit loan from GTB. I invested all of it in crypto and have been paying the bank ₦100k every month. I know the market is still as volatile as ever. During the height of the recent bull run, I had about $6k in my wallet, now it’s $4500. I don’t care what happens to it in the short term. I’ve been here before, so I’m going to hold my position.

Hoping it works out. So what are all your real estate investments worth now?
I haven’t valued the properties recently, so I only know about how much I put into them.

Two hectares farmland: ₦3.2m

One plot of land: ₦6.5m

16-room student hostel: ₦15m

How have all of your experiences with investment shaped your perspective about money?

It’s extremely important to have money, but it should be seen as a tool to shape your life and your legacy. Money should always have a goal. My parents have done and are still doing their best to give me a soft landing. I want to build on that and give my son a softer landing.

My goal is to build something for my son and ensure that he has things that will always bring him money. That’s the way I think about what I earn and what I invest in. I also think I punch above my weight a lot, but it’s going to be worth it in the end.

I get that. Is there something you want but can’t afford?

A house. I don’t have a problem living with my parents, but sometimes, I want to have my own space. I don’t want to rent a house in Nigeria before I leave for Canada. I have land I can start a building project on, but I can’t afford to start that right now. I’m doing too much already.

On a scale of 1-10, how would you rate your financial happiness?

6. I wish I didn’t have to put so much time into working and making money. Also, most of my investments haven’t brought me money yet. But I understand that they are long-term investments, so I’m not in a rush. When the returns start coming in, I can expect to move to an 8.

Source: https://www.zikoko.com/money/naira-life/nairalife-of-the-lawyer-who-is-obsessed-with-investment-opportunities/

Lady Donli became popular in Nigeria after releasing her debut album, Enjoy Your Life in 2019. Two years later, she’s ready to drop another project. This time, it’s an EP called WILD. Last week, she talked to us about loving music since she was little, making music before she was Lady Donli, why she doesn’t mind being labelled alté and the influences for her new EP.

When did you start making music?

I started making music as early as I can remember. As a kid, I did poetry, I sang nursery rhymes. It came naturally to me. It was easier than riding a bike. I didn’t start putting out music though, until 2012 when I finished secondary school.

Where can I find those songs?

Nowhere. I took it all down. Before I was Lady Donli, I was two other totally different artists and my transition to Lady Donli meant I had to “kill” those other artists.

Can I at least know their names?

Haha..nope. I’m not saying a word.

LMAO. Did your parents support your music career?

They were fearful, but they did because it felt right. My dad would tell me about how when I was a baby, they would play music for me and I would dance. Me deciding to become a musician wasn’t unexpected.

Cliche question: which musicians inspire you?

Because I make many different types of music, different people inspire me. If I was a jazz artist, I would say Nina Simone was my greatest inspiration. If I was an RnB artist, it would be Beyonce — I’m a Beyonce stan. But there’s a wide range of people that have inspired me; Brenda Fassie, Asa, Angélique Kidjo, Fela, Erykah Badu and many others. Right now, I inspire myself.

When did Lady Donli come into existence?

2014. Right before I got into university to study law.

What was that like?

It was hard. I didn’t actually want to study law, but I knew it would make my parents happy, so why not? Music was my only escape from all the seriousness.

My first song was “Nothing on me”, and then I put out “Mr Creeper” which did super well in Abuja. As time went on, I put out EPs with music I was working on, and then in 2019, I dropped Enjoy Your Life (EYL).

How do you navigate your growing popularity?

I never really notice when I become more popular. I still get surprised when someone runs into me and is excited because they know me as Lady Donli. Someone heard me on a live radio show recently and showed up at the station, waited for me to finish just so we could take a photo. That genuinely shocked me. It hasn’t hit me that I have fans like that.


Is that modesty I hear?

Haha… I wasn’t in Nigeria when EYL dropped. By the time I got back and realised that people were actually actively listening to it, I was super surprised. Happy, but surprised.

Let’s talk about EYL. What jazz did you put in that album?

I didn’t set out planning to make an album. Musicians are always scared of dropping projects and calling them albums. The concept of an album is just so final. We prefer to release EPs and mixtapes.

But in that period, I was making music that sounded really good and decided to turn it into an album. By the time I made “Cash”, I knew it had to be in an album.

In truth, EYL was some type of escapism. I made EYL to escape the fact that I wasn’t actually enjoying my life. Life was very stressful in that period and I wasn’t happy, so I made music that made me want to be happy.

Because I’m my own biggest critic, I don’t think the album did as good as I thought it could. I saw its success and thought, “What’s next?” Maybe the best thing that came out of the album was that Davido reached out to do a Cash remix.

What did that feel like?

It was exciting. I was doing a show in Seattle on my birthday, and I got a DM from him saying he wanted to do a collab. Imagine Davido texting you on your birthday while you’re on tour saying he wanted to make music with you.

Omo. People generally classify you as an alté artist. What’s that like?

I’m fine with people regarding me as an alté artist. I don’t run away from it. It helps me embrace who I am better. The alté scene embraced me and connected me with people who changed my life and have helped me beyond music. For many people the alté space is not just about music. The people here are the family you wish you had. Many people have gotten kicked out of their homes because they’re creatives, and they’ve found people to house and take care of them just because we’re all making this music together. Being in the alté space is also what would make you feel like you’re a celebrity for the first time. So yeah, I love being a part of it.

Let’s talk about your upcoming EP, WILD. What does it sound like?

It sounds like me having fun, but it doesn’t sound anything like EYL. I don’t want people to expect EYL-type music from WILD.

I thought my album was going to drop this year, but I realised it wasn’t ready, so I decided to give my fans something else. The EP contains songs that I wrote and wanted other artists to sing. I picked a few of them and sang them myself. It doesn’t sound like anything I’ve ever made.

How did 2020 affect your music?

2020 was a bad year for me. It was the year I was meant to maximise EYL, go on tours and all that, but then I got stuck in Toronto for eight months. I wish I was in Nigeria because I would still have been able to do shows, but the lockdown was much stricter in Canada. I just stayed there, doing nothing other than making music. I made like 90 songs last year.

90 songs?

I’ve never made that much music in my life. What that does is that it gives me so many options to work with in the future because now I have a ton of unreleased music.

That’s WILD. What Nigerian artists do you want to work with in the future?

Right now, the only Nigerian artist I really want to work with is my favourite Nigerian artist — Rema. Other collaborations might come spontaneously.

What would success feel like for you?

I have no idea. I could have the number 1 song on the Billboard Hot 100 and not feel like I’m successful. I don’t like to measure success. I just want to make music.

Source: https://www.zikoko.com/pop/lady-donli-wild-sounds-nothing-like-enjoy-your-life/?_thumbnail_id=238918

Read more stories like this here: https://www.zikoko.com/category/pop/