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.

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When they told me I’d be taking over writing Naira Life in January, I can’t lie, I was excited. What are the financial journeys, similarities, and differences of everyday Nigerians, and how has money affected their lives?

My conversations with strangers led to several captivating stories, but these are the 10 stories people just couldn’t stop reading. 

1. Naira Life: From Internships at 14 to $93K a Year at 24

“After this subject on #NairaLife was fired from her ₦200k/month job in 2020, she found remote work and hasn’t looked back since. Since then, she’s gone from $50k to $93k a year, and she’s only 24.”

This Naira Life is stuff of “God whens?”. Even I didn’t know what to expect when I went into the interview. Have I recovered from the fact that my mate is making $94k a year? Don’t ask me. 

2. #NairaLife: She’s Tired of Being Her Family’s Financial Backup Plan

“The 27-year-old lawyer in this story is the last of six children in a family that grew up very poor. Now that she’s making money, her family looks to her for their daily bread, and she’s tired.”

This is Naira Life 200, our last Naira Life for the year, but the second most-read. If people weren’t already talking about black tax, this one was sure to make them do that. In all, I’m super glad she’s made it out of the ghetto and is making good money now. 

3. The #NairaLife of the 19-Year-Old Student Who Doesn’t Mind the ASUU Strikes

“When we asked the 19-year-old on this week’s #NairaLife about the ASUU strikes stopping him from graduating, he replied, “I don’t mind. They should take their time.” And why not? He’s a millionaire.”

I wonder what he’s up to now that ASUU has called off the strike. 

4. NairaLife: In Just Two Years, This UI/UX Designer’s Income Has Gone From ₦120k to Over ₦3m

By 2019, this 23-year-old Naira Life subject didn’t know what to do with her life. Then she met a friend who told her to try UI/UX design. Four jobs later, she’s managed $65k a year. She thinks it would be more if she weren’t such a bad negotiator.

5. From Nursing to Hairdressing: This 43-Year-Old Mum Is Living in Debt

“Between 1996 and 2014, today’s subject on #NairaLife worked as an auxiliary nurse. Her highest salary in that period was ₦12k. Today, she works as a hairdresser and lives on loans she repays every week.”

Fun fact: In one week, this story got ₦335k in donations from Zikoko’s Naira Life readers to clear her debts and find her feet. As if that wasn’t enough, the subject was placed on a ₦30k monthly stipend from another reader from May to December this year. 

6. #NairaLife: How Did This Third-Class Graduate Manage to Make $20k a Month?

“After graduating from university with a third class in 2006, the 38-year-old subject of this #NairaLife moved to the US and got a $50k/year job almost immediately. How did he manage to grow his career to the point where he wants to retire in three years?”

A third class graduate from a Nigerian university making $20k a month in the US? How? Well, first of all, a few lies on his CV here and there, and a few failed jobs. 

7. #NairaLife: This Marketing Babe Vowed Not to Return Home Until She Made Money

If you shed a tear while reading this #NairaLife, you’re not alone. This subject went from sleeping on the floor with her family to going days without eating to sleeping outside. Then she decided she was going to make money, and nothing has stopped her ever since.

8. #NairaLife: This Gen Z Knows How to Use Her Network to Increase Her Income

“The content writer on this NairaLife made ₦65k monthly at her first job in 2020. Two jobs later, she’s on $2,500. How? She has a solid network and knows how to use it.”

An excerpt: “They reached out and asked how much I wanted to be paid. I told them ₦850k, and their response was that I should come back with a “round figure”. I was so confused. I went to meet the person who referred me to explain what that meant. And all he said was that I should aim higher. Before I could even do that, they sent me an offer — $2,500.”

9. The Soft #NairaLife of the Engineer Making Millions Selling Shoes

“The 30-year-old tech sis on this #NairaLife makes ₦800k from her job. Impressive, right? Well, she also makes over ₦1m a month selling shoes on Instagram. And all her life, she’s only ever wanted to spend money on food and her family.”

Life is funny. One minute, you’re disappointed the shoes you got online are not your size, and you have to sell them to your coworkers; the next, you’re making millions selling shoes because you discover you have a knack for selling. 

10. #NairaLife: What Happens When You Have to Raise Five Siblings at 20?

“When this subject on Naira Life was 27, he received a ₦50k paycheck and tried to return it because he’d never made that much before and thought it was a mistake. From working at age 12 to taking care of five siblings at 20, how did this man survive?”

Even though MTN was after my life during the interview, this is my favourite Naira Life from this year, simply because of how this guy rose through life. It really gives duty and responsibility a whole new perspective.

Luno is a great way to get into cryptocurrency Download and start trading today.

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.

Luno is a great way to get into cryptocurrency Download and start trading today.

This 27-year-old lawyer is the last of six children in a family that grew up very poor. Now that she’s making money, her family looks to her for their daily bread, and she’s tired.

This is #NairaLife 200.

What’s the earliest memory of money you have?

I used to collect ₦50 for breakfast and ₦20 for snacks every day in primary school. I grew up in the east, so I’d normally buy okpa. If it wasn’t okpa, it was bread and then maybe a beverage or pap at home. But most times, I kept the money and spent it on biscuits during break time. 

You got money for breakfast and snacks? Wealth. Why didn’t you have breakfast at home?

Haha… who wants to cook it? I’m the last of six children, and three of my older siblings were in secondary school. My mum was a teacher, so she left the house early. It just made sense for them to give us money. 

And your dad?

He was a businessman, so he wasn’t always around. He sold oil and gas. 

Is that… wealth?

No o. Not that type of oil and gas. He bought cooking gas and retailed to people in the community, and he imported olive oil to sell to churches for anointing. 

You almost had us there. But things were good at home?

I have limited memory of when things were good, but I guess I can say they were at some point compared to when they became terrible. 

Let’s get into that

The first thing I noticed was that we weren’t eating as many meals as we normally would at home. We still got the money in the mornings, but provisions in the house disappeared and we occasionally skipped meals. But when it became bad was in Primary 4. The school started calling my brother and me out for not paying fees. 

School was less than a minute from my house, and we lived in a small community, so the teachers knew everyone’s families. My teacher liked me, so whenever they were sending students out, she didn’t let me leave the class. You know what she did instead? Any time my dad walked by the school, she’d run up behind him to shout, “Pay your children’s school fees o!” and some petty insults. I witnessed it a few times.

Ah

You know what’s even funnier? My dad never heard her. He’s the type of person to face where he’s going and ignore every other thing around him. So as she was shouting, it probably sounded like background noise to him. 

Do you know what happened to your dad’s business?

His shop stopped getting business. That’s what I know.

Things continued like that for a while and my mum made the big mistake of working even harder to support him. She started feeding us and paying our school fees, and this made my dad relax. She’d even lie and tell us it was my dad that bought this or bought that, but we had eyes and ears. We knew it was all her. 

By the time I was leaving primary school, two of my sisters were in university, and the other two were in secondary school. My dad said it was time to marry all of them off because they were old enough for marriage. 

God abeg

According to him, some family members and the people in the community where we lived, there was no point in training five daughters if they were just going to go to a husband’s house. Thankfully, my mum fought it. She was university educated; he never finished secondary school. 

After that entire thing, he told my mum he was washing his hands off taking care of us. If she didn’t want to marry us off, she should carry the burden of taking care of us herself. 

And he kept to his word?

If we went to meet him for money for school fees or whatever, he’d look at us and say he didn’t have. If we pestered, he’d say, “Go and bring a gun and rob me.”

From then to when I graduated from law school, I don’t think I got more than ₦20k in total from him. 

How did your mum do it?

It was grace. I don’t know how else to say it. There was a lot of borrowing and begging, but she also got a lot of gifts. At different times, when my older siblings came home from university, they taught in my primary school so they could also make money to help the family. 

When I was about to enter secondary school, extended family members started suggesting my mum sent me to do an apprenticeship or become a maid because the money she was spending was too much. But she refused. I went to a military secondary school where being a civilian’s child meant I had to pay way more than military officials’ kids. But with borrowing and begging and gifts, my mum singlehandedly saw me through secondary school. 

I never got new clothes. It was hand-me-downs from my older siblings all through. And there was no food at home, so even when my mum increased my daily allowance to ₦100, I used all of it to buy biscuits so I could save some for later. Till today, I can go a week without eating, as long as I have biscuits.

By the time I was wrapping up secondary school at 17 in 2012, things started getting better. My mum got a job at the ministry of education, and money started flowing in. Still, the suggestion to marry me off came. 

From your dad?

This time, from extended family. Again, my mum said no. She could afford to send me to university to study law. In fact, she could afford to move us from our two-bedroom apartment, where we’d stayed all our lives to a five-bedroom duplex where she paid ₦250k a year. Our former rent was ₦10k a year. She also bought a car and made sure there was always food at home. I even remember one time when I was cleaning the house, and I saw ₦30k lying around. Things were good. 

In university, it’s not like I had plenty of money o, but at least I could eat, and my clothes were mine for the first time. My sister was also doing her master’s in my uni, so I had my mum and sister to depend on. 

That’s how things went until I was in my third year, when things got bad again. Even worse. 

How?

Office politics happened, and my mum got fired. We had nothing to fall back on and came crashing down. When my mum couldn’t pay the rent that year, and my dad said, “Did I beg you to move?” We eventually moved to a worse apartment in a worse area.

School was a struggle. After every vacation, I went back in tears because all I heard was that there was no money. My mum would say she was trying to find money; my dad would simply say he had no money. I was surviving on my biscuits and occasional meals. 

My worst memory from that period was in 500 level when my mum was in too much debt to pay my fees. She and my dad are elders in our church, so she went to meet the pastor to help her with fees. The pastor had one request: let your husband come and ask for how much you need. I can’t remember how much it was I needed for my project, accommodation and school fees, but let’s just use a hypothetical figure — ₦150k. We told this to my dad, and when he got there, he asked for way less. Like ₦50k. And that’s what he got. 

Why?

I have no clue. He didn’t explain why he did it. On my way back to school, he gave me two Beefie sausage rolls to eat on the bus. 

My mum had to do more borrowing to see me through the final year.  

Damn. I’m curious about your older siblings’ role in helping your family

Life doesn’t always turn out how you want it. My siblings were doing their own things and trying to come up in life, but things weren’t working out. Some relationships were also strained. My eldest sister, for example, is complicated. We stay clear of her unless it’s an emergency. If she gives you money, she’ll hold it over your head until you pay her back. At some point, she had a clash with our parents and ghosted. The rest of my siblings were just hustling and struggling. 

Gotcha. When did you take your first step into fending for yourself?

April 2018, after university. My mum hated the concept of her children working while in school. She didn’t want to hear of it. It was just, “Focus on your books and come out with a first-class.” And that’s what I did. 

After uni, I moved to Lagos to look for internship opportunities so I could save up for law school. We didn’t have family there, so I stayed with a friend’s sister. The plan was to stay with her for one month, but I ended up staying for three. After that, she asked me to move out. She was very nice to me o, she just didn’t like staying with people. She even had siblings who were shocked she was letting a stranger stay with her for three months while they were staying with relatives in the same Lagos. 

Did you get that internship?

Yes. I started a six-month internship in my first month in Lagos. It started in April and paid ₦30k. I survived and transported myself with ₦10k and saved ₦20k. As usual, I skipped many meals, but I sometimes saw free food with my friend’s sister. 

After I left her place, I spoke with a senior colleague at my office who housed me for a month. 

For the last two months of my six-month internship, I stayed with another friend’s boyfriend. He had an apartment with a few of his guys, and they had an extra room, so they let me stay there. 

Towards the end of my internship, I’d saved ₦100k. But a friend brought an “investment” opportunity to me where I would make 50% profit in a short time, so I put the ₦100k in it. It wasn’t going to cover the cost of law school, but it was something. Of course, it crashed, and all my money went. 

Oh no

I sha worked one extra month so I could see money to take me back home in October. Back home, my mum started borrowing money to send me to law school which was starting the next month. Shortly before I was to go, her mum died. 

Now, in addition to taking care of her children, my mum also takes care of all her siblings and my dad’s siblings too. So when her mum died, everyone looked to her to sponsor the funeral. She told them the money was for my law school, and they said they didn’t care. That was the first time I stood my ground and told my mum she had to choose me. She sent me the money and told her siblings she’d paid for my law school, and that was it. 

How was law school?

My law school was in Enugu, and in that same period, my sister got a federal government job in Enugu too, so I went to her house frequently to get food and provisions. The sister that ghosted also came back and sent me money occasionally. So the year was okay. 

I graduated in August 2019 and returned to Lagos to look for a job. I stayed with my friend’s boyfriend again. This time, the plan was to secure a job so I’d already have a place of primary assignment for NYSC once I was done with call to bar. I sent out over 50 applications and did tons of interviews. But I only got two offers. 

One law firm offered to pay ₦150k on the condition that I finished law school with a first class. They took away the offer when the results came out, and I had a second class upper. 

And the second? 

Their offer came one day before my call to bar. They didn’t care about a first class, and the salary was ₦200k. Because I was in Abuja doing all my call to bar wahala, I told them I’d give them feedback about the offer the next day. I also wanted to call my mum so she could pray and find out if it was the right move for me. By the time I reached out to them the next day to take the job, the offer was off the table. They felt insulted that I made them wait. 

Wow

Luckily for me, one of the companies I applied to was a consulting firm that was looking to hire me as an intern, but they hadn’t made an official offer. I called them the day after the call to bar and asked if it was still open. They said yes. Their offer was ₦100k, and I was to resume in January 2020. 

So from Abuja, I went back to my home town to stay with my family for Christmas. Then I left to process my NYSC posting to the consulting firm. 

Where did you stay this time?

I have a friend from law school who said her parents wouldn’t mind housing me for however long I wanted. They’re an old couple with a big house. So I moved in with them in January with a plan to stay there for the whole year.

January was tough. I came to Lagos with almost no money, so I could only eat what I saw at home or whatever I saw in the office kitchen. 

What did the first salary feel like?

It felt great, but I knew I wouldn’t use it for anything. I used ₦30k for feeding and transportation, and saved ₦70k towards renting an apartment. My entire NYSC alawee went to my parents for the whole year. 

When COVID struck, my only expense became the ₦33k to my parents. I more or less saved the entire ₦100k every month, except when I wanted to buy foodstuff for the house. By December, I had ₦350k saved for rent and ₦500k as personal savings. 

Where did you plan to move to?

I thought I could get a nice place in Lagos Island for ₦350k. 

LOL!

I moved out of the couple’s house in January 2021 and hopped from friend’s apartment to apartment while I was househunting.

By May, I finally got my own place for ₦700k — ₦350k from my savings and a ₦350k loan from my office. I didn’t want to touch my personal savings. 

My salary also moved to ₦230k that January because the firm retained me, and ₦300k in March after performance reviews. 

Boss. What did this new money mean to you?

It didn’t affect me o. I just dey save dey go. I found it hard to spend on anything more than feeding, transportation and ₦50k monthly for my parents. I was still used to not having money. Or maybe it’s because I was saving to furnish my apartment that I didn’t think of spending money on myself.

Did this change at any point?

Yes. Midway through 2021, a few friends who I share similar backgrounds with decided that since we were individually climbing out of poverty, we needed to do things that made us happy, like going out together and buying nice stuff for ourselves. We all noticed that we were all finding it hard to spend money.

Nice. What did you buy?

I got a phone for ₦100k and a laptop for ₦290k. The laptop I had was what I’d been using since my first year in university, so I thought I deserved a new one. Also, I didn’t want to keep using my office laptop for my side gigs. 

What side gigs?

I enjoy research and writing. So in 2020, I tried copywriting, but I didn’t get any jobs online. Then I tried doing virtual assistant gigs on Fiverr, but I also didn’t get many jobs. 

In 2021, a friend introduced me to someone who does academic research and writing, and I got jobs from them. 

It became a lot of work, so in February this year, I stopped, and now my only side gig is virtual assistance to someone that used to work at my company. She pays me ₦150k. 

So you make ₦550k a month?

I got a raise to ₦500k this year. So it’s more like ₦750k. 

Beautiful

It’s beautiful, until the requests start coming in. 

Tell me about it

I promised myself that because of the sacrifices my mum made for me, I’d try my best to send money home and make their lives easier. But it seems like nothing I do is enough.

My family isn’t doing so well right now. One sister is out of a job. My brother also just got out of a two-year medical crisis, and he’s just getting back to his feet. My parents are old and sick, and they don’t work anymore. 

On a normal month, I send my parents at least ₦50k, but there’s hardly a normal month. These days, I can spend up to ₦250k a month on my family, and still, everyone is always asking. 

In March this year, I visited home and spent over ₦500k on stocking up and fixing the house. I also paid off debts for my mum because these days, she’s almost always in debt. Maybe it’s become a habit. When I was leaving, she asked for more money because she knew I’d just been promoted. After spending over ₦500k in a month. I don’t even spend up to ₦50k on myself in a month, even if I go out. 

It’s December, and she’s already called to say I should send Christmas money, even though I’ve sent them more than ₦1m since September. 

My siblings too are always asking for money. One sister even demanded I put her on a monthly allowance. My brother wants me to pay his rent. I spent last December and January paying the hospital bills of one of my married sister’s children. I’ve spent this December doing the same thing. She recently called me to say, “Hope the hospital bills you paid won’t cancel out the money you’ll send us for Christmas.”

Apart from one of my sisters who I have an actual relationship with, the rest of my family see me as a source of money. I’m scared to pick their calls because I know what they’re calling for. And that’s the most painful part for me. At least, let them check on me. I’ve had an overwhelming, stressful year at work. But it’s like nobody cares. I lost ₦1m to Agropartnerships this year. Nobody wants to know. I’ve tried to tell my mum to call me to check on me and not just to ask for money. Nothing has changed. I’m tired of being their financial backup plan.

This is… a lot. I’m so sorry.

…….

I hope this gets better soon

*I donate to an orphanage every month. 

You must save a lot. What are your finances like?

I have different savings for different things. This is what it looks like.

Sweet. Tell me something you want but can’t afford

I want to travel. Maybe if I dig into my other savings buckets, I’ll be able to afford it, but I can’t right now. 

How happy are you? The scale is 1-10

5. If you asked me a month ago, it’d have been much lower, but I’m mentally getting to a place where I’m like, it is what it is. But I’d be much happier if I wasn’t catering to my family’s needs. 

Do you think that’ll end anytime soon?

It ends this year. I’m planning for graduate school abroad, and I need to save towards it. From next year, I’m only taking care of my parents. Everyone else should sort themselves out. We’re all adults.

You might also enjoy: The Heartwarming #NairaLife of a 23-Year-Old Breadwinner

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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.

Luno is a great way to get into cryptocurrency Download and start trading today.

The 45-year-old on this week’s #NairaLife moved to Lagos in 1997 to be a housemaid. Between then and now, she’s been a tailor, shop attendant, cleaner and housekeeper. 

But after 25 years of work, her family still lives from hand to mouth. And she’s exhausted. 

Tell me about your earliest memory of money

It’s when I was 12 and decided to work for my own money so I could afford Christmas clothes. Before then, my dad always got all of us Christmas clothes, but I wanted to buy my own things. So I started selling efo yanrin (wild lettuce) I got from my dad’s farm and keeping the money until Christmas. 

How much was a bundle?

I can’t remember o, but I know the money used to be a lot at the end of each year. Maybe like ₦200 — I’m not sure. But I wasn’t making money selling only vegetables. My dad was majorly a tailor, but he had a big tobacco farm. He had workers who processed the tobacco before he sold it in bulk to white people, but he also had 12 children who helped for free. As the eldest, I approached him and said he needed to pay us too, and he accepted. So that also added up to the ₦200 at the end of the year. 

Every year, I used the money for new Christmas clothes, shoes and underwear. 

You grew up with 11 siblings?

Yes. It was normal for one man to have many children. My dad married two wives. I’m the first child of the first wife. I have four siblings from my mum; the rest are from my stepmum. But I didn’t grow up at home. I don’t know if it was a tradition, but both my stepmum’s firstborn and I lived with our respective maternal grandmas. 

When were you born?

1977. I’m 45.

Can you tell me what growing up was like?

I enjoyed my childhood. I never heard anyone complain about lack. We always had food. We lived in Saki, a village in Oyo state, but we didn’t feel like we were poor or villagers. Even when I hawked shea butter for my grandma, it was fun for me. 

Did you go to school?

I finished primary school in 1991 and secondary school in June 1997. After one month of staying at home to wait for WAEC results, I started getting worried I was waiting too long. I was also scared of going to university because of talk about cult killings. So when I heard people were going to Lagos to find work, I started thinking about it.

What type of work?

Housemaid work. I didn’t want to leave my parents, but after my friends encouraged me, I decided to go. My parents agreed. 

So you just came to Lagos yourself?

No o. There was a woman who took people from my village to Lagos. That’s what she did for business. A few friends and I met her, and in July 1997, she brought us to Lagos. Omo, we got to the bus park in Palmgrove and couldn’t stop crying. It was like a dream. I wanted to go back to my parents. But I was already here. We were taken to a house, where we met other people waiting for work. 

I’m curious, what would you have studied if you went to university?

I wanted to be either an accountant or a customs officer. Accountant because I was good at accounting and economics in school; customs officer because I heard they got a lot of free money from travellers. WAEC results eventually came out in January 1998. I failed, so university was off my mind. 

What was the process of getting a job like?

Someone looking for a maid would contact the woman who brought us to Lagos, and she’d bring them to the house to inspect us and select who they want. For me, it was about a week after I got to Lagos. A woman came and selected two people; one for herself and one for her daughter. I worked for her daughter from July 1997 to April 1998. 

How much did they pay?

We didn’t talk about pay. They had that conversation with the woman who brought us to Lagos. Whatever money they gave to her was given to us at the end of each year. Me, I didn’t get my money until April when I was travelling to visit my parents for Easter. 

How much?

She first took me to Eko Idumota market. I bought like four lace and ankara materials and some jewellery. Then she gave me ₦20k and put me on a bus home. At the time, I decided I wasn’t returning to Lagos to work for that woman.

Why?

It’s not like she treated me badly, but food wasn’t always available. Many times, I had garri for lunch; I don’t like garri. But I heard stories about how other people treated their maids, and I was happy I was one of the lucky ones. For example, one of the people I came to Lagos with was sent to hawk pure water in traffic and kept getting injured by cars. Others lived with people who beat them. 

After a few days at home, I decided to return to Lagos. I hadn’t learnt any trade and didn’t want to stay at home idle. It just seemed like the best option for me, and that’s what I did. 

Did you go back to work for the same family?

No. I just went back to the house in Palmgrove to wait for a new person to show up. And three days later, they did. One of the friends I came to Lagos with had worked for their family between 1997 and 1998 and also returned home, so they were looking for another maid. The woman of the house, a mother of three, came to pick me up, and I moved in with them. 

Were they nice?

They were great. Even though I did a lot of work — cleaning, cooking, and caring for the children — I wasn’t made to feel like a maid. I worked for them from April to December, then requested to go home for Christmas. 

How much did they pay?

The woman that brought me to Lagos paid ₦30k, but the family I worked for gave me some extra money and foodstuff to take home. 

Before I left, they asked if I would return. My answer was no. The woman was heavily pregnant, and I didn’t want to become a housemaid plus nanny. After begging me, they offered to pay for me to learn a trade if I returned. My answer was still no. 

Back home, I told my parents I wasn’t returning to Lagos to be a maid, but they were against my idea of staying. Then I told them that the family I worked for had offered to pay for me to learn a trade. I expected them to say no, because they could pay for me to learn a trade in Saki. Instead, they even used it to persuade me. So it seemed like I didn’t have a choice but to return in January 1999. 

In January, I started learning tailoring. But this meant throughout the time I was learning, I wouldn’t be paid for my maid services. 

Huh?

They paid for my tailoring classes, bought whatever materials I asked for and bought me a sewing machine. I accepted the deal. It’s not like I had a choice. 

My boss also had her baby in January, so I had to pause my tailoring school for a few weeks. I don’t think I’ve ever told anyone this, but on the day of the naming, I cried so much. 

Why?

I just felt like I was making the wrong choice. The fact that there was now a baby to care for made it seem like my life was over. Like I would work with them forever because I now had an extra responsibility. I thought I wasn’t ever going to see my parents again because I was going to be stuck there. I don’t even know where the thought came from because it’s not like they said or did anything to make me feel that way. 

When did you resume tailoring?

Maybe March. When my boss had to return to work after maternity leave, I became the baby’s nanny. Let me not lie, it was hard being a nanny and learning tailoring at the same time. Apart from the new baby, I also had to take care of the other children, pick them from school and cook for them. My progress was so slow! I would see simple styles and wonder if I could ever make them. 

Slowly sha, I got better, and by 2002, I did my freedom. The family threw a party for me, invited my own family from the village and gave me a ₦30k cash gift, clothing materials and a new machine. Then they asked me if I wanted to continue working for them, and I said no. This time, they thanked me for my services and took me back to Saki themselves. 

Did you stay this time?

No. In 2003, I returned to Lagos to stay with an aunt while I saved to get a shop. That year, I earned ₦6k monthly for six months as a shop attendant for a man who sold building materials. I left to learn some more tailoring with a really good tailor I found in my aunt’s area. But she didn’t want to teach someone older than her, so she took me to another woman. I didn’t enjoy my time there.

Why?

She was a Deeper Lifer, so she only sewed Deeper Life styles. Me, I wanted to learn how to sew what was in fashion. I sha stayed there for six months. By 2005, I got my own tailoring shop. I paid ₦30k a year for it from money I’d saved. 

How was business? 

It was okay. I made enough money to feed myself, and that was it. Nothing extra. 

I still kept a good relationship with the family I’d worked for. So I visited them from time to time. But I also had a boyfriend who stayed close to them. We’d been dating on and off since 2002 because I wasn’t sure my family was going to accept him — he’s a Ghanaian. I’d tell my aunt I was going to see the family, but I was actually going to see my boyfriend.  

In January 2007, I found out I was pregnant for him, so we got married in August, and I moved to his place.

Did you continue your tailoring work there?

It was a new area, so I didn’t find a place to work on time. Plus, I was pregnant. After I had my baby, I found a “joinman” job that paid about ₦2k weekly. My husband, who sews aso-oke, was also finding it difficult to get jobs. So we just managed however we could. Times were terrible for two years until the child started school, and I could look for another joinman job. This one paid between ₦16k and ₦25k a month because we were bulk-producing school uniforms. 

In 2010, I had my second child and had to stop working for a while. By the time I was ready to resume work, they’d already hired someone to replace me, so I just stayed at home with my children. 

For how long?

Until 2011. An extended member of the family I worked with heard I was looking for a job. She reached out to tell me her children’s school needed a cleaner. They offered ₦10k monthly. I took it. They also admitted my children to school for free, and the head teacher lived around my area, so we got free transportation most of the time. 

At home, things were still bad. Even if I tried to save out of my ₦10k salary, something would come up. My husband was also struggling badly. We could only afford food. That was it. 

Did things change at any point?

I had to stop working at the school in 2013 when I had my third child. Once I could work again, a friend advised me to put my sewing machine in front of my house and wait. Business would come. 

Did it?

Small small. People who wanted to adjust their clothes occasionally stopped by. If I was lucky, I got a job sewing attires from scratch. I was sha doing an average of ₦1500 to ₦2k daily until 2014, when I went to Ghana to bury my husband’s dad. We stayed there for eight months. 

When we came back in 2015, another extended family member of the family I worked for called to say her friend needed someone to clean their house three times a week. I’d promised myself I wouldn’t do housemaid work again, but we had no money and tailoring wasn’t working again. So I took it. 

How much did they pay?

I asked for ₦15k, but they paid ₦10k. I worked on Mondays, Wednesdays and Saturdays. 

That same year, another person called to say they also wanted me to help them clean. ₦8k. I took it. Tuesdays and Thursdays. They increased it to ₦10k later.

By 2017, the original family I worked for called to say they also needed me to help them clean. Friday was the only day I had to rest, but even though I didn’t want to take it, I didn’t want to tell them no. So I took it too. The deal was a full day on Friday and an hour or two on Saturday evening to complete any unfinished tasks. 

They paid ₦15k, reduced it to ₦10k after a few months, and increased it back to ₦15k during COVID. Now, it’s ₦20k. 

Do you still work for all three of them?

I stopped the Mondays, Wednesdays and Saturdays job in 2021 but got one to replace it. That one pays ₦15k. I still do the other two. That’s ₦45k a month. 

Will you stop anytime soon?

I’ve wanted to stop for a while, but we have absolutely no money to fall back on. My plan is when I save up enough money, I’ll buy a commercial blending machine, put it in front of our house and get customers. I heard it was ₦25k in 2019. I don’t know how much it is now. But how can I save up when I’m the only one bringing money home? 

My husband hasn’t really done much since 2020 because he’s not getting customers. I think aso-oke isn’t as popular as it used to be. I’ve begged him to get a security guard job, but he’s not interested. He says they don’t pay well. But at least, it would put some food on our table na. I feed us, pay the children’s fees, and even recently, the house rent. It’s too much. All five of us live in one bedroom. We don’t have a freezer, so I have to store food in a clay pot so it doesn’t spoil. It’s that bad. 

And it’s painful because I’ve been struggling for so long. When I think of it, is there actually a period in my life when I’ve enjoyed myself? I don’t think so. 

[Editor’s note: Although the interview was already close to an end, I didn’t ask any further questions — about financial happiness and expense breakdown — because the subject was overwhelmed and seemed close to tears.]

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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.

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Today’s subject on #NairaLife is motivated to make money for one reason: to be as far away from 2016 as possible. In 2016, she and her husband had to pick between borrowing to save her unborn child and her fractured knee because they couldn’t afford both. Today, they have over $300k in savings.

What’s your earliest memory of money?

Around New Year’s Day when I was five or six, my older sister got a calendar that had a list of years and the animals that represented them, according to the Chinese zodiac. As my siblings and I looked through it, we stopped at the years each of us was born to decide if the animal there matched our personality. Everyone decided none matched until we got to my year — 1984, the Year of the Rat. My siblings burst out laughing because they thought it was accurate. The explanation was people born in that year were frugal, and apparently, that was me. 

Were they correct?

They weren’t wrong. At the time, I was the only one who still hadn’t touched all the Christmas money we got from uncles and aunties. I don’t know where I got the habit from, but I saved a lot. I just didn’t think money was for spending. Maybe it’s the Year of the Rat thing.  

Was there money at home?

My parents weren’t wealthy, but we were comfortable. They never gave us pocket money for school, but they didn’t need to because we took food to school. I grew up in Edo, and we never really lacked anything. 

As a child, I could relate very much with Silas Marner from a book I read. He worked and had a lot of money, but he didn’t spend it. He came home every day to admire it. 

You made money as a child too?

Yes o. One day when I was seven and in primary three, I took guavas from the trees in our house to school, and my classmates liked them, so I started selling the guavas — 30 to 50 a day at two to three for 50 kobo. Again, I didn’t spend the money. I just had it in one kolo somewhere. This went on till I finished primary school two years later.

Did this habit change at any point?

After secondary school, I started spending all my money on clothes. For context, I grew up skinny and thought I was ugly. And I was a nerd. But you know that part of the Ugly Duckling story where the duckling realises it’s actually a swan? That’s kind of what happened to me after secondary school. I was still a nerd, but I was beginning to see beauty in myself. I just thought wearing fine clothes would bring out my beauty. 

I remember one time on my way to JAMB lesson, my eyes caught the clothes hung on display outside a boutique. I had every single one of them. I still have that problem now. 

Where were you getting money from?

Some of it was the money I’d saved over the years; the rest was money I occasionally got from uncles and aunts who visited. My parents still didn’t give me pocket money. In fact, throughout university, my pocket money was ₦2k weekly because my school wasn’t far from home. I went home every weekend for foodstuff. The money was just for transportation and emergencies. I was dressing very pretty, but I was very broke — especially before my third year.

What changed in your third year?

I met my boyfriend, who’s now my husband. He was a part-time student who was also incredibly broke, but we pooled our resources together, and that made things better. He also brought food from home sometimes, so we had enough to eat, and we could use our allowances for other things. It’s not like things were good; they were just better than the previous three years. Then he got a low-paying job in 400 level, and things got slightly better. 

I spent six years in university because I studied medicine, so I graduated in May 2009. In August, I moved to Ibadan for my housemanship. They paid me ₦173k a month, and I started saving again — ₦120k monthly.

That’s 70% of your salary

It was Ibadan in 2009/10. My rent for the year was ₦50k. ₦53k was enough to feed and transport me, even with change. Also, I was saving for one of two things: a car or a master’s program abroad. My parents have a policy — once a child graduates from university, they stop giving them money. So I had to sponsor myself. The budget was ₦1.5m or so. By the end of my housemanship year, I had saved ₦1.7m. 

Did you buy a car or go for a master’s?

I first went for NYSC in Delta in June 2010. I chose Delta because that’s where my boyfriend worked. I got a job that paid ₦43k monthly, and that’s what I lived on. I didn’t touch my alawee till the end of the year. 

That year, my plans changed. I decided to do my residency instead of a master’s. I had friends who graduated at the same time as me and still hadn’t found their feet because they hadn’t started a residency. Residency is a five to seven-year process in which you get paid to work at a hospital and specialise. 

I bought a used car for ₦800k and immediately after NYSC, I got a job at a specialist hospital back home in Edo state. It paid ₦214k. 

Residency?

No. I worked as a medical officer. You earn averagely and get promoted, but you don’t specialise. I didn’t want that. I was 27, earning ₦214k two years after school, and I had very basic needs, except when I wanted to buy clothes. Money wasn’t’ a big deal to me. But I wanted to specialise. That’s why I stayed in Nigeria.

I wrote my residency exams and waited for an offer. I got one in Lagos six months after. I reluctantly accepted.

Why reluctantly?

I didn’t like the idea of Lagos. I grew up in a much calmer environment and knew Lagos was fast and rough. In fact, I had a housemanship offer from Lagos University Teaching Hospital (LUTH) after uni, and I rejected it.

I tried hard to get a residency in my state, but it didn’t work. So my boyfriend moved with me, and we got married in 2013. 

God, when?

He also started a marine services company. He got a few small jobs that paid $100 a day for a few days. But we never really took it as anything more than a side hustle. Keep this info. It’s important for later. 

Got it. What’s a marine services company?

A company that offers services to individuals and companies that need to go offshore. For example, a boat going for oil work might need security operatives on board, a Nigerian chef, or anything. As long as it’s a service, our company finds a way to provide it. Also, some people have idle boats, while others are looking for boats to use for jobs or a cruise. Our company links people like that to each other. 

Back to your residency. How much did it pay?

₦200k at the beginning. Then it increased to ₦250k and ₦300k when I became a senior resident doctor in 2016. By the end of my six-and-a-half-year residency, it was ₦400k. 

I had my first child in 2014. In July 2016, when I was pregnant with my second child, my husband lost his job that had family health insurance. We’d just used most of our savings to rent a three-bedroom apartment. The rent was ₦1.2m a year, and the landlord said we had to pay for two years. We still had ₦1.6m in savings, and I wanted to have my second baby in the US in October. Things were already looking bleak because we had to survive on my ₦300k salary with a baby and US hospital bills on the way. 

In August, three days before I was meant to leave Nigeria, I slipped and fell, and fractured my knee. First of all, we had to shift my flight because the baby was in distress. I was in a lot of pain, but they couldn’t give me painkillers because my baby’s heart rate would drop if they did. It was a terrible time. Financially, things just got much worse. 

Oh my. What did you do? 

I still travelled but was in a lot of distress. I thought I could have my baby and also do a knee surgery. In Nigeria, they were saying I would need a total replacement and may never walk again, but maybe US doctors would have a shot. As a doctor, when I looked at the X-rays, I knew my chances of walking again were almost non-existent. My knee was gone. 

The dollar rates were also going crazy, so our ₦1.6m savings was beginning to look like a joke. We tried to apply for Form A for medical payments at bank rates through CBN, but they frustrated us. To have the child in the US, we needed $5,600. To do the surgery, we needed $7,800. If we knew the dollar exchange rates would climb, we would’ve bought it when it was ₦360 or something. It had climbed to ₦520. We’d spent money on our flight and accommodation, so we had almost nothing. So we had to resort to borrowing. We called every single family member and friend we could think of. It was so humiliating. I’ve never felt that low and terrible in my life. When we borrowed all we could, it still wasn’t enough to do both my knee and the delivery, so we had to choose. Of course, we chose my baby. I came back to Nigeria with my broken knee in November.

So what happened to the knee?

A miracle. My very prayerful mother forced me to try physiotherapy. She was sure God would heal me. As a doctor, I knew it was a dead end, but I decided to try anyways. In January, I started, and it was the most painful experience of my life. But in June, I proved six orthopaedic surgeons and myself wrong, and I was walking again. 

Love it. Were you still earning ₦300k?

Yes. I was on paid maternity leave until April. Even when I resumed work in a wheelchair and didn’t work much, they paid me. But because of the immense shame we felt when we had to beg and borrow, my husband and I decided we would make proper money. Until my accident, I saw money as something you just had. The accident showed me that money was a means to an end. Money would save you embarrassment. 

What did you do?

We decided to start offering marine services again. My husband had done a few oil and gas jobs in the past, so he had contacts. We put out the word that we’d do anything: wash boats, hire a chef, anything. He didn’t have a job, so he was able to chase these leads with energy. 

He went back to the first people we did business with.  They had a boat just lying there, so my husband met his former colleagues in the industry to ask for a job for the boat. What happens is you make contacts, apply a lot of pressure, pray and apply more pressure. A job will come. We started by providing security escort services for big ships. Those are the smaller, easier jobs that paid us $300 to $400 daily. When you offer small services well, bigger services will come, and with time, they came for us. The goal is to always have as many vessels on water as possible. 

But even as we were making money, I was still scared of getting broke. I was scared to call family members because we were owing them. There’s just something shameful about being in debt. What if they thought we were calling to ask for more money? I think I stopped being scared sometime in 2018 when we paid off our debts and did a big security escort job worth $40k in profit. That’s when I relaxed. 

Apart from co-running the company with my husband, I also manage the business and family finances. This year, we looked through our finances and saw the $40k in an account we hadn’t touched in a long time. I, a saver, had kept the money, and honestly, we’d both forgotten about it. It was hilarious. 

Wait, what? 

Oh, after that job, business got really good. At one point in 2019, we had five vessels offshore that each brought at least $1k daily for five months straight.

WAIT, WHAT?

When I saw money coming in like that, I decided it was time we built our house, so we bought land, then spent about ₦98m building the house to our taste. And then, we furnished it. That cost many millions too. 

Do you still practice medicine?

Yes, I do. Since I finished my residency in 2019, I’ve earned ₦650k monthly. My husband and I jokingly call it my side hustle, but the reason I still do it is because I find fulfillment in being a doctor.

What does an average month look like for the business?

A good month is $4k daily. Many times, it’s much lower when we don’t have as many vessels working. Sometimes, we act as middlemen. For example, I was looking at our business account recently, and I saw we’d received ₦250m in the past three months. However, only ₦50m of that was for us and the business directly. If we get a boat for a company, they pay us, but the money is technically for the boat owner. We just keep a cut. We also pay a lot of people on a contract basis rather than hiring them. Our office engages only essential employees longterm.  

How do you approach savings these days?

My husband and I do everything together. We have a ₦10m limit in our accounts. We try not to exceed it because naira depreciates fast. Most of our savings are in dollars, both in and outside Nigeria. 

How much?

About $300k in total. 

What of investments?

We try to invest in repairing abandoned boats and putting them back to work, but many times, the owner comes to reclaim them. 

Let’s talk about your lifestyle now that you’re rich rich

I think we’re still pretty conservative for the amount of money we have. I have a new car, but I still drive a 2012 car to work. I’ve never been a big spender on non-essentials… apart from clothes. But I’ve travelled on vacation three times this year, and I still love shopping for clothes I won’t wear.  

Is there something you want but can’t afford right now?

It’s not like we can’t outrightly afford it, but it’ll require heavy money. It’s a second passport for my husband and me. We’ve been making inquiries and it’ll cost us about $170k. 

We’ve discussed relocating because Nigeria is scary at the moment. To do that, you either have to spend money or time. 

Let me see how you spend money every month

What’s the last thing you bought that required planning? 

The house. We had to plan because we needed it to be in an estate and close to the kids’ school. We wanted it to have a pool and other features. It took a long time to get it close to what we wanted.

On a scale of 1 to 10, where would you put your financial happiness? 

6. I need to be as far away as possible from 2016. I also want to sort out my kids’ college fund as early as I can, and I want to get a second passport. So it’s 6 over 10 for me.

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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.

Luno is a great way to get into cryptocurrency Download and start trading today.

If the 34-year-old in this #NairaLife stopped working, she’d be fine. But even with free ₦4.3m yearly and wealthy parents, she enjoys being independent while catching business owners who try to evade taxes.

What’s your earliest memory of money?

My grandma worked at CBN and used to bring home mint notes from work for me and my siblings. I was about five or six when this started, and it was so cool just holding new money, no matter how many times I got it. 

When you say “bring home”… You lived with her?

We lived in the family house owned by my paternal grandpa, which was a mansion. My nuclear family — dad, mum, me and three siblings — and two maids lived upstairs, and my grandma lived downstairs. 

What did your parents do for a living?

My dad was a banker and my mum was an accountant. 

Sounds like money all around

I didn’t notice how privileged I was until I got into boarding school when I was 10. In retrospect, I think my parents sent me there to see that there was another side to life. In primary school, my classmates were children of ministers and even governors, I had a driver, and I travelled during the summers. 

In boarding school, I waited a whole week and ran out of clean clothes before I found out there was nobody coming to do my laundry. I had to learn to wash my own clothes. I had classmates whose parents were drivers and who lived in face-me-I face-yous. 

When I was 13, we moved back to the UK.

Back?

I was born and spent my first five years there. We returned because that’s what my dad wanted. 

So why did you go back at 13?

My mum ran away from my dad’s domestic violence. We waited for him to go to work one day and japa-d. Extended family tried to mediate, but they never got back together. We, his children, never stopped talking to him, and he came to stay with us in London a few times in a year. He also still sent money for school and upkeep throughout, so we were never in need of anything. 

What was moving like?

I had to quickly learn independence. There was nothing like having a driver or being sheltered. I bused to school and had to run errands for my mum. I even got my first job as a sales assistant at 15. Not because we needed the money as a family. It’s just something many 15 and 16-year-olds in the UK do as their first job. I used my money to go out to the movies with my friends. 

How long did you stay in the UK?

12 years. I returned to Nigeria in 2013, three years after university.

What was that like?

I came back for a wedding, and family members and friends kept telling me to move back, so I thought, “Okay”. When I got back to the UK, I told my mum, and she thought it was fine. My dad was excited I was coming to Nigeria to stay with him. So I quit my job and returned to Nigeria. The plan was to do NYSC first and decide what to do afterwards. 

I’m so confused. First, you quit your job for Nigeria?

LOL. First of all, I was confused after uni. Then I saw a master’s in human resources programme and thought, “Let me try this”. When I told my dad, he said, “HR? what do you want to use HR for?” And that’s how I decided not to do a master’s anymore. 

Instead, I got a job on the marketing team of an advertising agency. My job was to help them ensure their campaigns were seen by as many people as possible. It’s not what I studied in uni, but I learnt on the job and did well at it. 

I see. So, NYSC camp…

I just wanted to do it. And camp was so much fun. I’d go again if I had the chance. 

After camp, Nigeria itself wasn’t so fun. It was frustrating. Like I moved from sanity to chaos. I had to learn to be sharp. People were scamming me because I seemed soft and new.

Welcome. Where did you work for NYSC? 

They posted me to a school that would pay me ₦8k a month, but my dad wasn’t having it, so he got me a job at Lagos State Internal Revenue Service (LIRS) instead. This one paid ₦25k monthly, and that was enough to see me through a month. I only needed the money to fuel my car. I lived with my dad, there was food at home, and I only went to work. 

What did you do there?

Nothing. Corp members weren’t allowed to know too much about the operations because a lot of it is sensitive, so I just sat all day. They tried to retain me at the end of my one year there, but I rejected their offer. I was tired of Nigeria. 

So you left again?

Yep. I moved back to London and got another marketing job almost immediately. After two months, I realised I actually preferred living in Nigeria. London was boring. The only thing it was offering was a structured society, nothing else. So I moved back to Lagos to look for work.

What did you find?

I met an NGO founder through a friend, and he hired me. His NGO helped small business owners get grants and funding, and I worked as his assistant. It was a lot of work for ₦80k, but I did it to engage my brain. Again, I didn’t need money for survival. I had everything I needed at home. If I needed extra money for anything like flight tickets or car problems, I saved towards it. 

Have you ever had to work for money to survive?

Not yet, no. 

What’s that like?

It means I never have to feel tied down to a job. If I ever feel like something is not right for me, I’ll leave. I know I’ll be fine. 

After about a year at the NGO, I quit. 

Why?

I had to do some travelling with my mum and siblings. Just to unwind.

When I returned to Nigeria, I started thinking about getting a long-term job so I could be a bit more settled. From the conversations I had with friends, the two major jobs that stood out were banking and federal parastatal jobs. Top of that list was Federal Inland Revenue Service (FIRS). 

Banking was a no-no for me. It just seemed like slavery having to do so much high-intensity work and be under pressure all my life. And I also heard banks sometimes hired people based on their looks. I didn’t want to be a professional call girl. 

What of FIRS?

It seemed much better. I heard people got promoted when they were meant to, without politics, and the working environment was welcoming. So I decided to apply to work there. In the months before I got the job, I interned at an accounting firm for ₦35k a month. Sometime in 2018, I started work there, and that’s where I’ve been since. 

What do you do? 

I’m a tax collector. There are different ways the government collects taxes from companies that don’t want to pay. I don’t look at companies’ tax records and reach out to them directly. My job is to look for loopholes and make business owners pay their taxes. For example, when business owners want to get visas, they have to submit their business accounts to show proof of funds. If they don’t pay tax, we’ll know and reach out to them. It’s really interesting work because I get to see people try their best to try and outsmart the law. 

How much do you earn?

I earn the same thing I’ve earned since I joined — ₦280k. I also get some bonuses, but as part of company policy, I’m not allowed to talk about them. I’m due for a promotion soon. Fingers crossed. 

Would you say you’re financially independent?

I’ve not had to ask for money for many years. Apart from living with my dad, I’ve handled every other aspect of my finances since I began working. I’ve thought about moving out, but my very Nigerian father has many issues with it, and I don’t want wahala, so I guess I’m not moving out yet. For car issues, travel or whatever other trouble, I handle them all myself. 

Is your job your only source of income?

Up until two years ago, yes. After that, my siblings and I started receiving rent from properties my dad and grandma own. My dad has two apartments that bring ₦2m each, and my grandma’s apartment brings ₦300k. So that’s ₦4.3m at the end of every year for the past two years. 

Do you do any investments?

A few months ago, if you mentioned investments around me, we would’ve fought. I lost ₦6m to agro partnerships last year. That’s the end of any investments for the foreseeable future for me. Now, I just save in dollars. 

Is there anything you want but can’t currently afford?

Nah. I don’t desire a lot of things. If I want something, I plan and save towards buying it. 

I’d love to see what you spend money on

How financially happy are you on a scale of 1-10?

5. If I could get the ₦6m I lost, I’d probably be at a 10. Other than that, I’m pretty grateful to have the family and privileges I do. 

Luno is a great way to get into cryptocurrency Download and start trading today.

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.

The 30-year-old tech sis on this week’s #NairaLife makes ₦800k from her job. Impressive, right? Well, she also makes over ₦1m a month selling shoes on Instagram. And all her life, she’s only ever wanted to spend money on food and her family. 

What’s your earliest memory of money?

Staying in my mum’s shop, attending to customers and counting money with her at the end of each day. 

What did she sell?

Pure water and soft drinks. Before that, she was a hairdresser, and before that, she was a full-time housewife. She only started working when I was seven and the chickens in my dad’s farm started dying. I remember when she made her first ₦1k in a day from the drinks, and we were all excited. 

My mum was a hustler. From selling soft drinks, she somehow started importing fabrics from Cotonou to sell in Ibadan where we lived, and in a few years, she was making multiple Dubai trips, importing expensive fabrics in bulk. In the course of her business, she encountered some Chinese merchants, who wanted to import household and gift items, and partnered with them. Today, she has seven big stores. 

So you grew up rich

There were ups and downs. Before my mum had to start business, things were okay. They had four cars between them, all bought by my dad. But he never recovered financially from the loss of his birds, so there was a period when things weren’t so great. These days, my mum would apologise for constantly feeding us eko when we didn’t have money. In my head, I’m like, “I love eko!”

As my mum’s business got better, things picked up again — this time, even better. She made the money and my dad took care of us, especially when she was out of the country. We went from living in a rented apartment to building our own house, having cars, maids, and my sisters went to a private university. 

You didn’t?

I wanted to go to my dad’s alma mater to study computer engineering because we’d spoken about it for years, so that’s what I did.

Why computer engineering?

I was good at maths, and the adults around me said there was money in engineering and computers were the future. 

University itself was pretty uneventful. I survived on ₦7k weekly from my parents and faced my studies. I’ve always been confident and not-so-social, so people always thought I was a snub. Before each semester, I got everything I needed — bulk provisions, new clothes, a new phone, everything — so I didn’t really need anything from anyone. I didn’t have many friends, no boyfriends, no after-school parties. After each semester, I went home and stayed with my mum at her shops.

Why didn’t you have friends?

I’ve been like that since childhood. My older sister was the beautiful one, and I was the big one friends insulted and compared to my sister. So I learnt to be unfriendly, to insult people when they insulted me. I was always brilliant, so I always came first and got prizes. That’s how I consoled myself.

Because of my personality, my mum would jokingly say I wasn’t the best person to do business. I didn’t know how to haggle or persuade people.

Interesting. Back to school

In 2013, when I was in my fourth year, I worked as an intern in the IT department of a bank. The pay was ₦40k. 

About a year later, during NYSC, I overheard people talking about how the banking industry was the next big thing because a popular Nigerian bank was offering graduate trainee programs and paying ₦230k. That piqued my interest, but I didn’t do anything about it. 

What happened next?

I served in Lagos, so I lived with my older sister who’d married and settled there. She’d just started an event planning business, so I helped her do some running around. My NYSC PPA was kuku at a local government office where we didn’t do much. 

Did your sister pay you?

Nothing official, but there was the occasional ₦10k here and ₦20k there. I’ve never been a spender, so I was saving all the money. 

Seven months into NYSC, I saw a Tweet about the same bank offering graduate trainee programs, so this time, I decided to apply. My dad, ever the pessimist, discouraged me from taking the exams. “They just want to scam you!”

Did they?

Thankfully, no. I passed the exam and a few interview stages, but when it was time to resume, the bank was concerned that I was still a youth corper. The interviewer asked me to send an email when I finished serving, that my job would be waiting for me. 

I applied to two other places for work. I qualified for the first one but didn’t get the job because there was no space in technology advisory, the department I applied for. 

For the second job, I was disqualified at the second stage of their interview because I couldn’t find a Nigeria ‘96 jersey.

Huh?

Internships used to ask for weird stuff like that. I know someone another company asked to bring a white Nokia 3310. 

LMAO

By October, I finished NYSC, so I sent the email to the bank’s recruitment officer. They didn’t get back to me, so I just returned to Ibadan to help my mum at her shop. By November ending, they finally responded, asking me to resume training school in December. In May 2015, I fully joined the bank’s tech department at one of their Lagos Island branches.

What was that like?

My parents were excited. They thought it was great that they didn’t have to do anything for me before I got a job. They didn’t even have to buy me a car like they did my older sister because my job came with one. 

It did?

Yes, but I had to pay ₦88k monthly from my ₦236k salary until I paid off the ₦5.84m it cost.

I was on the product team, and I became popular because I was handling an application that was crucial to the operation of the entire bank. This meant more work and less time for myself. I had to go from deep in the mainland, where I lived with my sister, to the island everyday. I even lost weight and was breaking out on my face, but at least, I enjoyed my work. It’s ironic because the one thing I never play with is food. Till today, I don’t spend money on a lot of things. But when it comes to food, I have no budget. Every time I was on leave, I went to Ibadan to be with my parents and regain weight. 

Love it

In 2018, I ordered six shoes on ASOS for $15 a pair, and they were delivered when I was on leave in Ibadan. When I got back, I tried on the shoes. None of them was my size because I’d grown fatter, and my legs were bigger.

Because they were good quality shoes, I decided to buy them again in my new size. When I got back on ASOS, I saw that the same shoes I bought for $15 were now on sale for $7.50. I bought six pairs again, but with the intention to keep one and sell the rest.

How did you sell them?

I showed them to my coworkers who liked and bought them for ₦10k per pair. The dollar rate was about ₦400/$1 then, so I made a profit. 

I guess you weren’t so bad at business

LMAO. A friend who was impressed that I sold everything in such a short time brought up an idea: shipping in shoes from China to sell. The stereotype around Chinese products being fake first made me reject the idea, but she persuaded me. 

An old secondary school colleague was doing her PhD in China at the time, so I reached out to ask her about it. Coincidentally, she was already into that business. So we partnered. 

She sent pictures and prices of shoes. I selected the ones I liked and could afford. We paid for the items and got them shipped by air to Nigeria. Everything happened so fast. From the time my friend presented the idea to me to when I paid for my items, only one month passed.

How many did you buy?

I’m not a risk taker, so I started with five shoes. Each pair cost ₦3500, shipping inclusive, and I sold them at ₦8500 to colleagues. 

With time, I increased the number of pairs I bought, quality of shoes and selling price. I started buying at ₦5k and selling at ₦10k because Instagram vendors were selling the same shoes at ₦15k. The ones I bought for ₦7k, I sold for ₦15k. Instagram vendors sold at ₦25k. 

You didn’t sell on Instagram?

Not until 2019. It was just referrals and WhatsApp stories. It was the same friend who advised me to start selling on Instagram so I’d make more sales. Initially, I didn’t, but once I started running ads, sales were flying in left, right and centre.

I also started my master’s in 2019.

Were you still at your job?

Yep. By 2019, I was moved from the technical development department to the projects department, and my salary jumped to ₦374k. Everyone in the office already knew me as the babe who sold shoes. I was getting in-house offers from people who weren’t even in my department. 

Because I was making steady sales, my business partner in China pushed me to buy more shoes. Our relationship transcended from friendship into a business partnership in which she charged me commissions. That’s how it is till today.

I was earning more money from my salary and still not doing anything with it apart from feeding and transportation, so I decided to throw more of it into the business. I started buying over 100 shoes a month. 

By the end of 2019, I was doing up to ₦1 million in monthly sales and between ₦180k and ₦300k in profit. At some point, I couldn’t meet up with sales because I was getting too many orders to handle while I still had a bank job. Business was that good. 

You keep saying you weren’t spending your money

That’s just how I am. I only spend money on food and my family. I used to give my dad the occasional ₦20k before business got much better. The first time I gave him ₦50k, he called me and said, “For you to be able to give me ₦50k, I know you now have plenty money”. 

LMAO

At the end of 2019, a colleague got his Canada permanent residence permit and needed some money to move. I loaned him enough naira to buy $4k. The catch was that he had to return the money in dollars. That was the first time I ever got dollars. Since he returned it a few months later, I haven’t touched it. 

How much money did you have at the end of 2019?

Let’s say ₦5m. 

How did the COVID year treat you?

Business stopped. In April, I left my bank job to join the engineering support team at a fintech company. My salary was ₦450k.

I eventually managed to sell all the shoes I had left. And because the job was remote, I went to Ibadan to stay with my parents for a few months. In this period, I partnered with my dad to start fish farming. I lost a lot of money.

Ah

The fishes were stolen. I’m not saying it’s my dad’s fault, but a lesson I’ve learnt from that is nobody can run a business for me the way I’d run it myself. 

Thankfully, by August, COVID restrictions eased up. I hadn’t done business all year, so I decided to buy ₦1m worth of goods. My business partner was shocked. I’d never spent up to ₦400k on a single shipment before. That was when she introduced me to the game changer. 

What’s that?

Sea shipments. 

I thought they were for big business people, so I never even tried it. She explained that the reason people don’t ship by sea is packages take three months to get to Nigeria. But it was way cheaper. They charge according to size of package, and not weight, like air. If I was doing air for ₦1 million worth of goods, the delivery prices would be crazy. 

So I made payments for the goods in early September, hoping to get them in time for Christmas. They didn’t come until January. 

Do you know why?

The world was still opening up since COVID, so operations weren’t in full swing. 

Between goods, shipping and clearance, I spent about ₦1.3m in total. My total sales were about ₦2.4m and I made over ₦1m in profit in like one month. 

Whoa

Because air cargo is delivered in one week, I did an air batch in February so I’d have goods at hand. After that, I did seven sea shipments between March and August so that as one is being delivered, the other is in transit. For the ₦1m I spent in September, I got 190 items. From March, my shipments increased to about 290 items and ranged between ₦1m and ₦1.5m.

In 2021, I finished my master’s and moved out of my sister’s place. I also got my own apartment. Rent is  ₦800k per year.

Also, I got promoted six months into my job because I was excellent, and my salary increased to ₦830k.

By December 2021, I had about ₦5m in cash and millions in goods.

How did you go from not being good at selling to making millions a month in sales?

Recently, someone asked me who my role model was, and my answer was my mum. I think I got my business resilience from her. She’s even trying to get me a shop in Ibadan so I can sell shoes there. I told her I’m fine doing it all online for now. I saw her working and striving hard to meet her goals, and somehow, I turned out like that. I don’t think it works out for everyone, so I’m not even sure it’s all resilience. For example, it didn’t work out for my dad, and I won’t say it’s because he didn’t put in the effort. 

His experiences in life have made him a pessimistic person. He constantly tells me he’s scared of how much money I’m making at such a young age because it could easily be gone, so I should be watchful. I just say, “God forbid”.

I’m still not the chattiest person. If a customer is spending too much time trying to confirm the quality of my goods, I just move on. 

Are you still not spending money?

These days, I spend on my family. I recently gave my sister over ₦1m as a gift. My mum has her money, so whenever I go home, I just take her out — movies, dinner, etc. For my dad, I still help him with his businesses. Just last week, I gave him ₦250k. 

Other than that, it’s just food. I order anything I want to eat whenever I want to eat it. That’s where I get my comfort — trying new recipes and satisfying my cravings. If I’m not ordering, my housekeeper is cooking. 

But my sisters have been putting pressure on me to enjoy myself, so I tried to apply for UK visa earlier this year. Denied. 

Why?

Apparently, the money in all my accounts — personal, business and domiciliary — seem a bit suspicious for a one-person business. 

What they didn’t know was I’d just spent about ₦7m on goods. 

How much do you spend on one dispatch now?

About ₦3.5m. I currently have three separate shipments enroute that cost ₦15m in total. At this point, business is moving really well. Even if I don’t do ads, I make at least ₦50k in sales a day. I sell nothing less than 300 shoes a month. 

How much do you make in an average month?

My salary is ₦830k, and in an average month, I do over ₦1m in profit from the business.

What’s something you want right now but can’t afford?

My own house, maybe. I’ve been thinking of buying land, so that might happen soon. Just not in Lagos. Maybe in Ibadan. I’ve been making enquiries. 

My parents are steady on my neck about marriage. I turned 30 this year, and I’ve never had a boyfriend. Again, I’m just not the most social person. 

What do your finances look like?

And your monthly expenses?

I spend ₦200k to ₦250k on myself monthly, barring any unforeseen circumstances. I also randomly give my dad money. It could be between ₦100k and ₦300k, or even more, as I feel led. 

For my business, I spend about ₦30k monthly on Facebook ads and ₦50k biannually on packaging.

What’s your financial happiness on a scale of 1-10?

7. I derive happiness from seeing my family members smile. I don’t have expensive tastes, so there really isn’t much I’m looking to spend on.

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.

If you shed a tear while reading this #NairaLife, you’re not alone. This subject went from sleeping on the floor with her family to going days without eating to sleeping outside. Then she decided she was going to make money, and nothing has stopped her ever since. 

Tell me about your earliest memory of money

A specific memory isn’t coming to mind, but one thing is certain — I grew up in abject poverty, and I knew it. I’m the third of four kids. We lived in a mini flat where the room was storage for our clothes, and everyone slept on the living room floor.

I’m talking poor as per we didn’t go to school for a whole year because our parents couldn’t afford the fees. We couldn’t afford medical bills. We barely ate. It was normal for my mum to take us to hang around in church and pray until someone gave us money or food.

Our parents even taught us to lie that they weren’t around when the landlord came to ask for rent.

Omo

Because everyone was frustrated, there was constant emotional abuse from my parents on us. They also constantly fought over money. During one of their fights, there were threats of pouring acid on one another. 

Thankfully, they got jobs the year I turned 10. 

Did that change anything?

Yes. My mum got a job at the church as an administrative employee, and my dad joined the technical staff of a hospital. 

In the space of five years, we moved out of the mini flat into our own house. My mum got a car as a giift from someone who was leaving the country and gave it to my dad, then bought her own car.  We were eating multiple meals a day. But we were still being sent out of school for defaulting on fees. 

Why?

My mum made more money than my dad from her salary and people giving her gifts, but she insisted she wouldn’t pay our fees. She contributed most to building the house and feeding us, so it was on my dad to pay the school fees for all four of us. 

But at this point, my older brother was in a private university, so it was difficult for my dad. Every time I was sent out of school, I ‘d cook up a lie because my classmates couldn’t understand why my parents seemed well-to-do, but I was owing fees.

“My parents forgot to pay.” 

“They’ve paid. I just forgot to bring the teller.” 

You learn to lie a lot when you grow up poor.

When I turned 15, things got bad again.

Damn. How?

Both my parents stopped working.

First, my mum resigned because of office politics and people saying she was overly favoured by her boss. We lived on my dad’s salary for a while. And then, he lost his job. 

My parents didn’t have any money kept anywhere because they used their salaries for those five years to build the house and send us to school. We had a house and cars but went hungry for days again. We eventually had to sell the cars to survive. 

When I turned 16, in 2014, my parents couldn’t afford the ₦15k university fees. It’s not like they were trying to find it o. They straight up said I should sit at home and maybe learn computers for a year.

Is that what you did?

After many tears, they gathered money from family members, and I went to school. 

In my first year, I was the broke roommate, and it was obvious. I wore trash clothes, never had money and hardly ate. In fact, a roommate pulled me aside one day and asked if everything was okay at home because other people in the room were asking why I was so haggard. 

One four-day Muslim holiday, all my roommates went home, but I didn’t have any money, so I stayed back. When I say I didn’t have money, I mean I had just ₦100. I bought a bag of pure water on Thursday of the long weekend, and that’s all I had until Monday. I’d wake up, drink water, sit around in the room and go back to bed. 

When a roommate came back on Monday morning, I was half dead. She had to rush to the shops to get a bottle of soft drink to pour into my mouth before buying me food. 

Beginning of my second year, my parents were blunt: “You can’t keep calling us for money. You know the situation at home.” I had to start looking out for myself. 

What did you do?

I helped people sell stuff, cooked for boys who had apartments and didn’t want to make their own food and ushered at birthday parties and offic events. I was making about ₦5k every week, so at least, I could eat. But I was also missing classes and tests because I had work to do. People thought I was unserious, but they didn’t get that I literally wouldn’t have anything to eat if I didn’t do those jobs. And it’s not like I was enjoying the jobs. Ushering is hell.

It is?

Don’t even let me start. Is it the standing for hours? Or the uncomfortable dresses? Or having to smile while people throw food at you, insult, threaten and sexually harass you? My eyes have seen shege. 

Damn

Towards the end of my second year, I saw an ad for an internship at a PR company. I was a business administration student, but I didn’t mind doing social media marketing work. I just needed money, and this was going to pay ₦40k. 

The day before the interview, I had zero money. I couldn’t call my parents because I knew how that was going to end, so I went for church fellowship and just hoped somehow someone would give me money. 

Long story short, I didn’t get any money. Thankfully though, the interview was postponed at the last minute to the holiday period when I would be at home. At least there was a small chance I could get money from home.

One week before the interview, they called to say it was just a formality and I’d resume that day either way. Every day, I reminded my parents that I’d need money for transportation. They said, “God will provide”. On the day of the interview, they said, “We don’t have money.” I cried, rolled on the floor, begged; no money. I lost the job opportunity. 

Wow

When I resumed for my third year, I packed everything I owned. I called home and told them I wasn’t returning until I made money.

They thought I was joking.

Year three was bad too. Because I was squatting in the hostel, I literally had to sleep outside many nights when the security guards didn’t let me in. One of those nights, I called my mum to tell her my situation, and her response was, “What should I do?”

I think it was on one of those nights I told myself I had to be rich in this life. 

After year three, I got a job as the social media manager of a boutique. It paid ₦50k. I stayed with my friends during the holiday and saved most of my salary. By the time I resumed my final year in 2018, I had enough money to pay my school and hostel fees, and to feed myself. 

Were you still ushering in this period?

Yep. But after university, I moved in with my boyfriend, and he told me to stop ushering because I always came home crying and exhausted. We started dating when I was in my final year, and he knew everything I’d been through. He had money, so he made sure I never lacked. There was no more hunger or sleeping outside. I was also doing more social media management gigs and building my CV, so things looked good. 

 A few months later, I moved out because we didn’t want to live together for too long since we were not married. He paid the monthly rent for my apartment. 

What was your plan for making money after university?

I didn’t have specific plans. I just knew I wanted to graduate with good grades and get a corporate job where I could get promoted. Maybe a banking job.

My first job after graduation was as a social media assistant at a PR firm. It paid ₦70k. 

I was only there for five months. It was a fast-paced environment where my boss shouted and used swear words. I left because it reminded me of home — the shouting and insults. 

Sorry about that

Thanks. My next job was for NYSC. This was from July 2019 to July 2020. It was also social media management at an advertising agency and paid ₦100k. Just like the last job, it was fast-paced, but I decided to stay this time because it wasn’t as toxic, and I needed to learn the ropes. I worked on social media for bigger, world-renowned brands. Did I know what I was doing? Not really, no. I had a burner Instagram account where I stalked competitor brands’ pages for inspiration. That’s how I got better. And whenever I worked on a new brand, I added it to my CV. 

First time making consistent money. What was that like?

I was relieved, but I started paying black tax immediately. I was also saving up for my own apartment. My boyfriend and I broke up amicably in 2019, and he still paid for my apartment, so I didn’t have to worry about rent. I also started dressing better because I was now meeting with clients.

In July 2020, I got a new job. Same social media manager role, but this time, it was on the in-house marketing team of a competitor of one of the brands I used to work for. This job paid ₦258k and was remote. I moved out, so I could become responsible for my own rent. 

After 11 months at this job, I left, for two reasons. 

Tell me

First of all, they wanted us to come back to the office. I’d tasted the remote work life and wasn’t looking forward to returning to in-person work any time soon. Secondly, and more importantly, I needed to switch from being a social media manager to being a full-on marketing manager. I didn’t see a career in social media management long term. 

I took a pay cut and switched to a tech company. My salary was ₦200k, but I knew it was the price I needed to pay to become a marketing manager. Also, shortly after I got the job, I got a marketing strategy side gig that paid ₦200k, so I didn’t mind.  

But this new job triggered me. 

How?

It was very customer-facing, so once more, I had to endure insults, threatened violence and slurs. It was like I was back at university, doing ushering jobs. If not that I liked my boss and the company, I would’ve left immediately. Enduring all that took me to a dark period in my life, and I hated it. 

I stayed for a year. In 2022, I got a new job in the marketing department of another tech company. It paid ₦550k. I also got  two side gigs. One that paid ₦300k and another that paid $1k. 

How do you get jobs and side gigs?

Mostly through referrals from friends, former colleagues and bosses. And during interviews, I’m very convincing because I sabi the work. I had to learn most of the things I know myself. 

Are you still at the job from earlier this year?

Yep. It now pays ₦700k. I still have my ₦300k and $1k side jobs. These days, my monthly income is about ₦2m. 

Love it for you

For the first time in my life, I can say I’m genuinely happy. And omo, I’ve spoilt myself this year. I got a nice new apartment furnished to my taste, and I treat myself to whatever I want. I deserve it. The only thing I haven’t done this year is travel, and it’s because the naira is bad. 

For some time, I had something I called poverty trauma. I found it hard to spend on myself because I was scared I’d go back to being poor. Now, I spend. Money is utility. It’s for me to increase the quality of my life. I believe I’ll make back whatever I spend, so why not?

If you had to break down your finances in this moment, what would it look like?

I have ₦600k in cash, over ₦1m in my PiggyVest and about $3k in my dollar account. I’m looking to go big on investments. It’s one of my goals for next year. 

Another is to apply for big-paying jobs so I don’t have to have multiple jobs. Just one is fine, as long as it pays in millions. 

Looking back, how do you feel about what you’ve accomplished?

If someone told me at the beginning of the year that this is what my finances would look like now, I wouldn’t have believed them. I don’t know how I did it, but I’m here. I now hang out with people I used to serve as an usher. I was having drinks with one of them recently and laughing in my head because this guy once shouted at me to bring him champagne. 

I know it’s only going to get better from here. But sometimes, I hear stories of people who make it young and one sickness or emergency takes it all away. I don’t want that. 

I reject it for you. How would you break down your monthly expenses? 

I try to spend only my main salary, ₦700k. Here’s how I break it down. 

Money from freelance jobs go straight to savings for big-ticket items and emergencies. For example, I’m saving to travel next year. Oftentimes, I have to dip into those savings for family and to manage increases in expenses due to inflation, but I try not to when I can help it.

Your black tax. E choke

E choke o. Both parents don’t work. I’m now the breadwinner, so everything is on my head. My parents are separated — money-inspired, of course — so I’m sending allowances both ways and fully financially responsible for my younger sister. My older siblings are still trying to find their feet, so nobody bothers them for money. Also, because it’s visible that I earn proper money, people just assume I should take care of everyone else.

I’m looking to set my parents up financially soon. I don’t know how yet, but I’m tired of having them call me every day for one thing or another. I need to help them get back on their feet so I can be the owner of my money.

I’ll assume your financial happiness is a 10

I’d say a 7. You know what they say; people always want more money. I think the number can increase once I stop paying black tax.

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.

In 2020, this 33-year-old got a ₦10m loan to start a farm. Today, the farm is not operational. He’s also been a teacher, gym instructor, HR manager, tailor, marketer, admin assistant and army recruit. He hopes to add ‘governor’ to that list. You’ll enjoy his #NairaLife.

What’s your earliest memory of money?

I went into my mum’s purse to steal money to play PS1. It was about ₦5 per game.

How old were you?

Between six and 10. 

You were already going out to play games that young?

Yes o. I was one of those children that matured pretty fast. 

As a child, I was abused by an older lady, so I think that made me grow up faster than people my age. Before my friend introduced me to gaming, all I did after school was read. My dad didn’t like beating me, so he always found punishments that encouraged me to read or just be smarter. 

It started with writing one to 1000 on foolscap paper. After that, even when he wasn’t punishing me, he’d bring home up to 20 short books every Thursday from his office’s library. I had to read and summarise them for him by Sunday evening. All that reading also helped me develop faster mentally.

When my friend introduced me to gaming, I started to read faster so I could have time to go out. 

I’m now curious about what home was like

I was an only child until I turned six, so I was often bored. My dad is a chartered accountant, and my mum is a caterer. Ours is a humble background. 

What does that mean?

I had garri for breakfast and lunch almost every day for years. In retrospect, I think that’s why my eyesight is terrible now. It was common for me to be sent away from school because I defaulted on fees. I had such low self-esteem. I used to run away from church before service closed because I wore tatters and didn’t want to interact with my age mates who were better dressed. 

When my parents had me in 1989, they weren’t even close to being financially stable. I think it’s these days people look for financial stability before getting married. Things started to get better when I was about nine years old.

How did you know things were getting better?

Yorubas have a saying — “T’ébi bá kúrò nínú ìsẹ́, ìsẹ́ búse”. It means once hunger is no longer a part of your problems, you’re no longer a pauper. We started eating less garri and more rice, beans and spaghetti. Chicken was still a luxury, but things were getting better. I also wasn’t getting sent out of school anymore. 

But it’s not like things were great great. I still had to walk about eight kilometres every day for my six years in secondary school.

What happened after secondary school? 

I finished secondary school in 2009 and didn’t pass maths in WAEC or GCE, so I couldn’t go to university. To be honest, I didn’t even want to. I wanted to join the army. All the books and newspapers I read growing up gave me knowledge about politics and history, and the army just felt cool. Being in the army was popular when I was growing up, even until Obasanjo was president. Also, because of my parents, I listened to a lot of old songs from Fela and the likes that spoke about change. Many of these songs mentioned the army.

In retrospect, too, I think I wanted to be in the army because of my self-esteem and anger issues. 

So you joined the army?

Not immediately. I first went to computer school for six months. There, I learned Microsoft Word, Corel Draw, Excel, how to clean a hard drive, and how to fix computers. It was ₦15k, but my dad could only afford ₦7k. Thankfully, they never asked for the balance because the owner took a liking to me. 

Why?

I talked about history and politics with him. So instead of sending me away when it was time for defaulters to leave, he sent me on errands instead. I bought food, delivered messages and shared flyers convincing people to join the school. At some point, I even taught other students.

After computer school, I did factory jobs that paid ₦5k a month just to hold body. That’s how most of 2010 went. In 2011, I joined the Nigerian Defence Academy (NDA). 

How does one join the NDA?

I don’t know about now, but I had to write JAMB and pick NDA as my first choice. If you pass JAMB, you then have to do physical and psychological evaluations before you’re admitted. NDA is free to attend because it’s in service to your country, so my dad didn’t have to worry about money. In fact, I got monthly stipends from the government. Like ₦15k. Because of my political dreams, I decided to study political science. 

Study political science in NDA?

Yes, the NDA is like a university. In addition to military training, you also study a course for four years so you can specialise in the army. 

Makes sense. What was NDA like?

I dropped out after two years. 

Sir?

An uncle in the army advised me to. He thought I had “bigger potential” than being a soldier. For example, if I became a governor — I still want to — I’d have soldiers at my beck and call. He wanted me to go to a university, get a proper education, and establish myself as a non-military man. Being in the army meant I could only get promoted when the army wanted me to. On the outside, I had the potential to be whatever I wanted.

I’d probably even be dead now if I was in the army. If not from Boko Haram, then from being too radical and getting in trouble. 

So university?

Yep. After I had to rewrite WAEC. I studied public administration. It was meant to be political science, but I made a mistake with the JAMB form. 

Did anything fun happen in school?

When I was in my second year, in 2014, there was a long ASUU strike. Because I was bored and broke, I decided to look for ways to make money. I went to a school near my house and told them I wanted to teach for them, and they agreed. The pay was ₦14k to teach government. Over time, they added English, commerce and literature with no additional pay. But I didn’t collect my salary until the end of my six months there. I told them to keep it for me because I wanted to use it to buy a laptop. The money I survived on was after-school lesson money. Like ₦5k a month. 

There was also a brief stint where I learned to sew during this strike period. I had to stop because my eyesight was a problem.

By the time I was resuming school in late 2014, I’d used my saved salary and a ₦20k bonus to buy a ₦52k laptop, pay my ₦20k fees and buy foodstuff. When I got back to school, I started a security business.

Money man!

LMAO! I’m naturally big, so I reached out to departments on campus and offered them bouncer services for their parties. So I and a few other big guys would stay at parties from 11 p.m. to 2 a.m., and depending on the size of the party, get between ₦5k and ₦15k to share amongst ourselves. 

By the time I was nearing my fourth year, I had to stop because I’d become my department’s president, and I couldn’t be doing stuff like that anymore. That’s the only business I did in university.

What happened after?

I finished in March 2018 and wanted to go into human resources management, but I didn’t get a job on time. In May, I saw an ad for an administrative assistant at a NGO that was right beside my house and I applied and got the job. 

What did you do there?

Where should I start? It was an NGO whose focus was to help widows and orphans. Because I had teaching experience, one of my jobs was to teach the orphans every evening. Whenever we had events, I was head of operations. I was also the principal’s PA and bouncer because of my size. And I was a typist too. 

For how much?

₦30k. Thankfully, I didn’t spend any money on feeding or transportation because work was right beside my house and I could go home to eat whenever I wanted. By December, I left because I got a new job. 

What kind?

A small start-up that was looking for marketers. I got the gig from a church-member-turned-mentor. This job paid ₦45k, but I couldn’t survive on it because of transport costs. I sha managed for six months until I went for NYSC right before I turned 30. I specifically wanted to go to the north to serve, so I worked my NYSC to Jigawa. 

Why?

I’d been hearing all around that agriculture was the next big thing, and I wanted to learn. Agriculture is big in the north, so why not? 

Makes sense

While in camp, I came second in the Mr Macho competition, and that meant I got to pick the local government I wanted to serve in. My aunt lives in Jigawa, so I picked her local government. My PPA was a school, and I only had to show up during my period. I spent the rest of my time working on an Alhaji’s farm. 

How did you meet this Alhaji?

We ate at the same canteen and got talking. He liked me because, according to him, I wasn’t a bigot. Apparently, many corp members who he’d met had a thing against Hausa people. 

On his farm, I learned how to care for, butcher and prepare farm animals — goats, cows, fish and sheep — without pay. 

After NYSC ended in early 2020, I returned to Lagos. I briefly worked with my mentor at the same job again. The pay was ₦50k this time. He’d bought a small land for farming in Ogun state, so I took over and helped him plant vegetables so that we’d sell, make a profit and use the profit to start animal farming. When lockdown came in March, we couldn’t move the products, so we made a loss. That’s also when I left the company. 

By July, I had a bright idea. I was going to start my own farm in Ogun state too.

With which money?

I drew up a business plan and sent it to my cousin in Canada. ₦13m. He didn’t have ₦13m, but he had ₦5m he could loan me. I bought two plots of land worth ₦750k, 12 pigs worth ₦700k, and spent ₦300k on drilling a borehole. When I was done spending the ₦5m, we decided to go big on the farm, so I got another ₦5m, bought four more plots, and built a bigger structure. I also hired people to work on the farm and an accountant for the books. Lastly, I rented an apartment near the farm for ₦400k. 

How long did this take?

Seven months.

What was your cousin’s profit from loaning you the money?

He’d get a five-year repayment plan with 5% interest per year and a 50% stake in the business. After those five years, I’ll then own 70% of the business. 

How much does the farm make you on an average month now?

Nothing. 

Ehn?

I’ve paused operations because I made mistakes in the setting up of the farm. I spent almost all the money setting up assets and was left with little for running the business. So I was paying salaries, spending ₦300k to ₦500k monthly on feed, and spending money on transportation with the money I had left. If I’d gotten a vehicle for the business, for instance, I wouldn’t have had to pay ₦35k monthly to transport feed to the farm. I should have also gotten a shop where we kill and sell the pigs instead of optimising the sell them whole. It’s more difficult that way. And if I wanted to optimise for selling them live, then I have to have a vehicle to transport them. 

How much did you make selling pigs?

Between 2020 and early this year, the 12 pigs I bought reproduced to about 120. I sold 70 for an average of ₦150k each and 50 died. I didn’t keep the money from the 70 I sold. I was repaying loans to my cousin because I wanted to be done in three years. Again, not the smartest decision. 

So what do you do for money these days?

From December 2020 to January this year, I had a job as an HR manager at a government parastatal. It paid ₦50k, but I didn’t have to be at work physically. That’s how I survived. I left because working for the government is the ghetto — office politics and toxic work environment. 

After that job, I took some free and paid online and offline certifications on personal training. I’ve been a steady gym bro since 2020, and because I’m buff, people always ask me to train them. I’ve been inconsistently training people since February and I’ve made about ₦100k. Other than that, people call me for HR consulting, training, strategy and the likes. Small gigs.

What’s next for you?

I’m looking for either a job or a vehicle. 

Explain

If I got a job that paid ₦200k right now, I’d restart the pig business. I’ve recently learned that some farmers are desperate to sell off piglets at ₦10k. I already have the structure. If I get 30 piglets and feed them for four months until they reach 65kg, I’d sell them off at ₦1k per kg and make almost  ₦2 million. My business model before was to keep them until they reached over 100kg, and even have them reproduce, but I’m not looking to do that anymore. It’s just to buy and sell them all now. Obviously, I’ve not factored feed and transportation into these calculations, but at least I know it’s possible to restart this business after a few months of ₦200k.

What about the vehicle?

If I got a Sienna right now, I’d become a driver for a few months — taking people to work on Lagos Island and driving others interstate. I think I’ll make good enough money from doing that to restart the farm. Once the farm is running, the vehicle will also be used to transport my farm produce. I’ve planned everything in my head. I’m even thinking of using my credentials as collateral to get a loan for the Sienna.

What’s one thing you want but can’t afford right now?

The Sienna.

What about your plans to become a governor?

When I start making money, I’ll buy more land in Ogun state —that’s where I’m from. The land is for schools, hospitals and orphanages. I want to give to the community before I begin my political aspirations. 

Can you break down how much you spend in a month?

What’s your financial happiness on a 1-10 scale?

2. I’m broke. 

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.

When you read this #NairaLife, you’ll realise why the 32-year-old subject wanted to be a lecturer. But after finding out lecturers don’t make so much, he switched to work in finance. Five years later, he now earns more than many senior lecturers.

Tell me about your earliest memory of money

One day, my uncle gave me ₦100, and it meant I had so much more money to spend the next day. I  was used to collecting ₦50 for lunch. That day I realised, omo, money is good. 

LMAO

It’s like getting 2x your salary unplanned. As I got older, these small gifts from relatives or my mum sending me on errands and asking me to keep the change became more frequent. They brought so much joy to my heart. If I had extra money, I knew what snacks I’d buy with it the next day. But as I got older, my spending priorities began to change because I had interests. 

Interests like…

Football. When I was in primary school, my dad bought my footballs. In junior secondary school, my guys and I had to buy our balls. When you play football on the streets, you lose a lot of balls. Sometimes, the ball bursts. Other times, it goes into someone’s compound who won’t give you back. 

All this talk about balls…

LOL. My guys and I hated losing balls, so we either always had an extra one or bought a new one at least once a week. It was Health 4, and it was ₦300. We contributed for it pretty often. In fact, because we were regular customers of the woman who sold the balls, she gave us on credit sometimes — as long as we made a ₦200 deposit. 

What this meant was I spent less money on snacks and more on football. It also made me understand more money meant more pleasure. I had to protect my money from getting lost so I could afford what I wanted. 

I’m guessing you always wanted more money

Yep. 

How did you plan to get it?

Grow up, go to school, get really good grades, get a job — I think that’s how us millennials grew up. 

Who is us? I’m young, please. Was football your only motivation to make money?

Nah, it wasn’t. There was something my dad would say that inspired my second reason to make money in this life. 

Tell me about it

Whenever he bounced my siblings and me from watching cartoons because he wanted to watch the news, he’d tell us the story of how, when he got to Lagos, he couldn’t afford colour TVs, but now, he had one. He’d say if we made money when we got older, we could get as many TVs as we wanted — even in our bathrooms — and nobody would say anything. 

So do you have a TV in your bathroom?

LMAO, nope. Just the one in my living room, but I can watch whatever I want.

Haha. I’m guessing the next phase of your life was uni

Yep.

What did you study?

Economics. It was my dad’s choice. I wanted to study electrical and electronics engineering, but he wanted me to be a banker like my mum. In fact, I started with science class in SS 1, and he threatened to not pay my school fees any further if I didn’t switch to commercial class. 

My major options after commercial class were economics and accounting, and I chose economics because it felt more practical and versatile. Like I could solve real-life problems. Accounting was just numbers. And that’s why I actually enjoyed studying it in uni. 

What was uni like?

I enjoyed it. I went to classes, got good grades, made friends, played video games, partied, everything. I entered in 2007, and monthly allowance from my parents started at ₦10k. By the time I was graduating in 2011, it was ₦20k. I can’t remember when it increased. 

Was it money you could survive on?

If I lived according to my means, yes. I went to a federal school somewhere in the east where things weren’t so expensive. But because I had extra things to spend on — girlfriends, parties, drinks — I either had to cut living costs or make extra money. 

How did you make extra money?

I wrote exams for people. Because my grades were good, I got asked to write exams for someone, and I passed it. That’s how word spread, in small circles, that I could write exams for people. It was ₦5k per paper. 

By my third year though, to reduce the risk of getting caught, I dropped all my clients except one guy, and I wrote exams for him until I graduated. If he had nine papers in a semester, I wrote them all and made ₦45k. We also became friends, so sometimes, I went to chill at his house, and we went out to get drinks together. He’d pay, of course. 

Why didn’t he write his exams by himself?

I asked him one time, and his response showed he just didn’t think he was smart enough to. You know what’s crazy? He was going for classes. He just didn’t think he could write and pass exams. He was also just in school to satisfy his parents. 

On my own end sha, I was happy I could make extra money. He even tried to fly me down to help him write his final papers. 

Ah

I thought about it. My mum saw I was worried, so she asked what was going on, and I told her. If you see her reaction. She was so shocked. She said if I went, the plane would crash, and I’d die. Omo. 

Nigerian mother 101

LMAO. For NYSC, I was making ₦40k as an office assistant to add to NYSC’s ₦19,800 in Abuja. That was a good year. After NYSC, I went back to the school I’d graduated from to do a master’s in economics. 

Why?

At that point, I’d decided I wanted to be a lecturer because I was good with academia. I’d always had outstanding grades in school, so it felt like that was the perfect career for me. 

In December 2015, shortly before I rounded up my master’s, a friend introduced me to someone who lectured at a postgraduate institution in Lagos. During that meeting, we spoke about research projects we’d worked on, and he was impressed with what I was doing for my master’s final project. So he offered me an internship once I graduated. 

Did you take it? 

Yes. I interned as a research assistant with him from March to August. He paid me ₦50k monthly. In August, I officially began working at the postgraduate institution. The pay was ₦120k for the same research assistant role. 

How long were you there for?

Eight months. Working there made me realise I didn’t want to be a lecturer anymore. I wanted good money. 

Lecturers don’t make good money?

I didn’t know until I found out that senior lecturers at the postgraduate institution made like ₦400k.. And I knew young guys who were fresh out of uni getting corporate jobs that paid better. I didn’t want to work my whole life just to look for a side hustle in my 40s and 50s. 

A conversation with a senior lecturer sealed the deal for me. He told me his brother, who worked at an oil company, had a gratuity of almost ₦1 billion waiting for him after retirement, but his own gratuity would be about ₦12 million. 

Whoa

I applied and got an internship a friend told me about at a financial institution, and I resumed in October 2017. It was a three-month contract that paid ₦120k monthly. It was the same thing I earned as a research assistant, but at least it was a start to my non-lecturing career. If I did well, they’d hire me full-time. 

Did they?

After the first three months, they renewed the contract to run for another three months. And after those three months, they renewed it again. And when they were going to do it the fourth time, I left. They were making me do full-time work while paying intern salary.

When I left, I did freelance jobs researching for people’s master’s projects until 2019. 

Wait… were you still living at home at this point?

I moved out and got a shared apartment when I got the job as a research assistant. My dad contributed some money for my rent, and I paid the rest. Apart from that, I was feeding and transporting myself on my ₦120k salary. No savings.

Okay, back to 2019

I got a job as a strategy analyst at a financial services firm.

Explain your job to me like I’m five

Investment banks have financial goals, and strategy analysts help ensure everything the bank does aligns with the goals they’ve set. If they don’t, it’s the job of the strategy analyst to advise management on how to realign. 

How much did they pay?

₦250k. And I stayed there till late 2020. 

Did the role or salary change?

The role didn’t change, but the salary grew a bit. It never entered ₦300k. 

Is that why you left?

Another financial services firm poached me. 

How does poaching work in your industry?

LinkedIn. Recruiters go through your page to see your work history and the projects you’ve worked on. 

Interesting. How much did this one pay?

₦400k. 

Big man

A lesson a friend taught me that prepared me for this bump was to not let income increases overly influence my lifestyle. Income increases are meant for saving and investments, and that’s what I began to do. I got essentials like a new mattress and AC, and I could give more people small money when they asked, but apart from that, my money went to savings and investments. 

What do you invest in?

Stocks and mutual funds.

Can you break down what you have in savings and investments?

Let’s just say they’re solid.

Are you still at this company? 

Nope. I left this year (2022). I was poached again. This time, by a big consulting firm. Another strategy role. 

Another salary bump?

Not too big. By January this year (2022), I was already earning ₦600k. The new job pays ₦650k. But because it’s a big company, it’s good for my resume. I know my salary will still go up over time, but even better, I’m sure the role will open doors for me, even in companies abroad. 

Can I see how your expenses look on an average month?

And what’s something you can’t afford but really want?

Hmm, let’s see. Maybe something sentimental. Like a Rolex watch. 

How happy are you financially? The scale is 1-10

6.5. Am I happy? Yes. Am I satisfied? No. There are people younger than me who earn more, and there are people older who earn less. I can go out when I want and afford the things I need. But do I think I can do even better? Absolutely. 

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.

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After seven years, two children and a failed marriage, the 32-year-old subject of this week’s Naira Life returned to her parents’ home with just ₦500 to her name. How have things picked back up for her? 

What’s your earliest memory of money?

Growing up in Kaduna, my parents never gave me and my siblings money for school. Whenever children went out to buy ice cream, I couldn’t because my parents just gave us food. I found it weird and assumed they were mean. 

My next memory is when our names were called out during assembly, and we were sent home for defaulting on school fees. I was 7, and we’d moved to Abuja. 

Why? 

Insecurity in the north. When we moved, my dad didn’t have a job so my mum had to carry the family’s financial burden. She’d always had a shop where she sold provisions, but my dad being out of work meant she also hawked bananas and soft drinks. 

Our names got called out during assembly a couple more times, and I tell you, it was too embarrassing. Imagine standing on the assembly line with your crush and someone shouts out your name for not paying school fees on time. 

By the time I turned 9 in 1999, I went to boarding school, and that was the first time I ever got money from my parents. ₦100 at the beginning of the semester, and ₦100 every time they came to visit.

What could ₦100 do in 1999?

I never even wanted to spend it because I’d gotten used to not having money. I had provisions, so I took them instead of spending money at the tuck shop. I mainly spent the money on notebooks and random stuff like repairing my sandals. At the end of the term, I used the money to buy snacks to take back home and give my siblings. During those holidays, I hawked soft drinks for my mum. 

I think what my parent did helped me remain content. Now, I don’t give my kids money to take to school. I just give them food. 

What did you want to be as an adult?

A lawyer. My dad studied English and had a lot of books lying around the house, so I’d read John Grisham’s books, and I thought law was cool. I finished secondary school in 2005. I wrote JAMB in 2006 but got English at the University of Abuja. I didn’t want it. 

The next year, I got in for law at Nasarawa State University, but the indigenes complained not many of them got in to study law, so they revoked admissions for some non-indigenes. Of course, I was among. 

By 2008, I was ready to study anything to get out of the house. I got English again at the University of Abuja, so I just took it. 

What did you do with the years you were home?

Babysitting. I’m the first born. After my immediate younger sister and me, my parents waited before they had more children. One was born in 2001, and the other, in 2004. Also, my parents discouraged skill acquisition. They thought the only path to wealth was to go to school, get a degree and get a job.

Tell me about uni

I didn’t like the course I studied, so I didn’t enjoy uni. I finished with a second-class lower division. But I sha made money. 

How? 

Let’s rewind to 2006. A neighbour, who was part of the Abuja Carnival planning committee, asked my father if he could invite me to work as an usher. After asking multiple questions, my dad finally let him take me along. I ushered for four days and made ₦40k. The same happened in 2007. 

By 2008, they cut the budget and were looking to pay ₦15k so I stopped working for them. However, I’d made some connections, so people called me for ushering jobs that paid ₦10k for a few hours and ₦20k for a full day. I did that inconsistently throughout uni. My dad didn’t know about it sha. He wouldn’t have let me. 

Omo

In February 2009, when I was in my second year, I decided to try selling stuff. I bought 15 male shirts at ₦1,800 each, to sell at ₦2,500. I could only sell two pieces. I eventually gave the rest out. That same year, I had a boyfriend who gave me the idea to sell underwear. I found someone who sold in packs, but when I broke it down, one piece was ₦200. I sold at ₦300. I marketed by wearing them myself and walking around the hostel.

At some point, I also sold shoes for my mum. She gave me the price she wanted to sell them for, and I added my markup. I returned the ones I couldn’t sell. I didn’t do any business in my third year because the hostel burnt down, and we had to move to another hostel. In my final year, I made up to ₦12k a week selling jewellery like earrings, rings and chains. Throughout uni, I also got ₦5k, sometimes ₦10k, a month from my dad.

Where was all this money going, please?

To my siblings. I wanted them to enjoy life so they didn’t see things like restaurant trips, food and money as a big deal when they eventually got into university. I had zero savings.

Interesting. What happened after uni?

I graduated in late 2011, and the plan was to serve, get a job and make money, just like my dad told me would happen. In 2012, I couldn’t go for NYSC because of a school strike. My department stopped processing graduates for NYSC to participate in the strike. Same thing happened in 2013, and because my parents didn’t understand what was happening, they began to question whether or not I actually graduated from school.

During the waiting period, I tried to learn tailoring, but my dad didn’t let me. Instead, in January 2013, I got a job as a project officer at an NGO that educated young adults. The pay was ₦20k per month. My dad dropped me off at work almost every day, so I saved all my salary. By September, I quit the job and took ₦100k out of my savings to learn tailoring. This time, I didn’t ask my dad. I was sponsoring myself so I just informed him. 

How did that go?

I started learning tailoring in October 2013. Unfortunately, that same month, I met the man I would marry two months later. 

I —

A family friend introduced me to him. He was 40, and I was 23. I liked him and thought I’d grow to love him when we got married. I’ll be honest, the only reason I decided to get married was because I was tired of how stagnant my life felt. My mates had served, gotten good jobs, and some were married. I just wanted something to move my life forward. If I’d been called up to serve, marriage wouldn’t have been on my mind. 

What did your parents think about this? 

My mum was excited her first daughter as getting married. No matter how many questions my dad raised, she had a point to argue against them. So we just moved on with it.

Why did you describe it as unfortunate?

Shortly after we got married, I found out he only married me because of his mum. He’s from Enugu. He was in love with a 32-year-old Imo woman, and his mum disapproved of her. She wanted him to marry from Enugu so she wouldn’t “lose access to him”. She also wanted him to marry a young, “inexperienced” lady. I checked both boxes. 

How did you find this out?

He called his mum during our first fight and all the info came out. That’s how the cheating with his ex and emotional abuse started. Also, I stopped tailoring because the place I was learning was far from where I now stayed.

By February 2014, NYSC called me to serve. On my third day in camp, I began to bleed. I was pregnant and having a threatened miscarriage. I had to be on bed rest until I had my baby in November 2014. NYSC knew I was sick, so they let me come in only once a month for clearance.

Any plans for your career at this point? 

Zero. I was just trying to stay alive. Every time I tried to apply for jobs I saw, or tell people I was looking for work, my ex-husband would shut me down and tell me not to worry. That he’d find work for me at CBN ot FIRS.

May 2015, when my baby was six months old, I moved back to my parents’ place because we kept fighting. Every time, he’d say, “I’ll kick you out of my house.” This time, I took my baby and left. 

When I got there, my dad asked what I wanted. I said I wanted to go back to school. Most schools had closed application for master’s, so we decided I would start preparing for JAMB again so I could study law. I really wanted to study law. 

How did that go? 

My ex-husband came back with his family to beg that he’d turned a new leaf. My dad wasn’t having it, but again, my mum begged me to go back and try to make things work. “What would people say if they saw you at home?”

I returned in July 2015. By August, I was pregnant again. 

Omo 

Thankfully, I wasn’t sick during this pregnancy, so I decided to take on a postgraduate diploma in education. At some point during the diploma in 2016, I had to do teaching practice so I got hired by a school to teach kindergarten. Pay was ₦30k. Even after I finished the diploma, I stayed at the school. I eventually left in October 2018 when they wanted me to teach JSS 3 and primary 5 with no additional salary. 

I’m curious about what the finance dynamics were at home?

My ex-husband never gave me money. He went to the market himself and bought foodstuff. I lived on ₦30k a month, which I used to take care of my children because he also didn’t drop money for them. My only other source of money was the profits from palm oil storage once a year. 

Ehn? 

I started doing this thing in 2014 where I sent money to my grandma in the village to help me buy palm oil in bulk when it was in season, and then, sell at a profit when there was scarcity. I started with ₦100k I got from savings and wedding gifts, and made ₦240k a year later. 

I didn’t tell my ex-husband about it, but he saw the ₦240k bank alert on my phone and asked for a ₦100k loan. He never repaid.

I made small profits from palm oil storage until 2020 when I decided to stop. Food was already scarce and expensive because of COVID and the lockdown, and I didn’t want to take advantage of the situation and overcharge people. 

Aww

LMAO, please. After I left the school in 2018, I visited a friend in another school and saw they had space for a creche with beds for children. We agreed on a ₦100k yearly rent for the space and I set up my creche. 

I didn’t want my ex-husband to find I was the one setting it up, so I told him the creche was for a friend and I was just working there. Somehow, he still found out, and after raising hell with my parents, decided the best solution was to stop contributing even the foodstuff at home since I was now “making money”.

Were you?

For the first two months, I had to do a promo on Facebook for young mothers to bring their children in for free. If they liked my service, they’d keep coming and refer other people. 

Did that work? 

It did, but I didn’t make a dime for those two months. Thankfully, I got 10 children to sign up as consistent members. During the long holiday, the number of children increased. 

How much did they pay?

₦20k per child. 

You were doing ₦200k a month

Yes, but I paid my two employees ₦30k each. The remaining ₦140k was spread across surviving, feeding my children, sending them to school. Then, over time, I had to buy more beds, toys, a TV, a DVD player, air conditioning and study materials for the children. There was never anything left. 

How long did this go on for?

A year. The school decided to turn the creche into an extra room for JAMB CBT exams, and just like that, we were done. I wrote proposals to orgnanisations to allow us rent some part of their space for a creche, but nothing came through until COVID and lockdown hit. 

What happened then?

That’s when I left my marriage. September 2020. 

Was it planned?

Right from 2018 when the creche thing happened and he stopped providing, I knew the marriage had to end. I set a target for 2020, thinking that’s when I’d have made enough money to leave. That didn’t happen, but I still left. 

I called my dad and told him I was coming home. He knew things were bad, but because he he’s hypertensive, I hardly gave him any details. I didn’t tell him my children had to miss school for almost a session because their father wasn’t paying fees. 

He told me I could come back home any time I wanted. So a few days later, I packed everything my daughters and I owned, the last ₦5k I had in this life and got in a cab to my father’s house that cost ₦4,500. 

Man…

I returned home with my daughters and just ₦500. No job, no savings, no investments. At age 30. That’s point zero.

I spent the first few weeks crying. But as time went on, things got better. My dad enrolled my daughters in school and paid for them. The migraines I had daily for years stopped, and I started sleeping without using medication or alcohol. 

What did you do next?

I started applying for whatever jobs I saw, and two companies called me back. One was a hotel where I would be a receptionist for ₦55k a month. The other was a business development executive role at a restaurant. I’d even started the training at the restaurant, but it seemed like it would be chaotic. They were already telling me I would be strict to people and deduct salaries, and I wasn’t mentally ready for that wahala. The pay was ₦70k. I went with the receptionist job. This was December 2020. 

How did that go?

I made more than ₦70k monthly. On the 14th of every month, each employee got something called a service charge. It was a profit sharing arrangement for when the hotel reached it’s revenue targets. The lowest I ever got was ₦23k. Many times, it went up to ₦40k. Oh, and I got tips too. 

It felt so good knowing I could make that much money. Small small, I began to provide a bit more for my daughters so they wouldn’t depend too much on my parents. The tips I got were always enough to cover transportation, so the service charges went directly to my savings. 

In February 2021, a man gave me a lift and we became friends. For some reason, he took it upon himself to send me at least ₦50k every month, all of which I saved. There was no romance involved. He didn’t even live in Abuja. Then in October, he started saying stuff like, “I’m coming to Abuja, and you will come to my hotel and stay with me.” Abeg o. The relationship just faded away like that. We didn’t fight, but I wouldn’t let him speak to me that way. 

Sounds like your savings had become plenty 

By October 2021, I had almost a million in savings because I’d even started saving my entire salary. I was considering investing in crypto, but no matter how much I read about it, I didn’t understand it. I found out my manager at the hotel helped people invest in stocks, so I reached out to him. He helped me invest ₦700k first, then ₦250k, and now, the ₦950k has a yield of ₦1.3m. Sometimes, it goes up; sometimes, it comes down. It depends on the market. 

Anyways, I quit the receptionist job in June 2022. 

Why?

My children started to complain that I wasn’t there to hold them to sleep whenever I did night shifts. They don’t have a father, so they need me to be there for them as much as possible. 

I started taking online courses on IT support, customer service, and becoming a virtual assistant, so I can work from home. 

What are your finances like? 

Apart from the money I had in stock, I also had ₦350k, which I thought would tide me over until I got something new. Omo, every day, my children want me to buy something. Also, I had to pay for driving school, a driver’s licence and an international passport. So yeah, the money is finishing fast. 

Two weeks ago, one of my daughters fell really ill and only wanted to eat pizza. After spending ₦5,500 on pizza for three days straight, I had to beg her to beg her appetite to accept shawarma and Chicken Republic. 

So I’m back to applying for hotel jobs, but this time, more managerial and administrative roles that don’t have night shifts. 

What’s something you want but can’t afford?

A rented apartment so my daughters and I can have our own place. It’d also be useful for the divorce process. The court said the major requirement for a divorce is a two-year separation, but having my own place and a steady job will also make my case stronger. 

What’s your monthly spending like? 

This is what it looked like when I was working and making about ₦100k monthly.

Now, it’s just…

And your financial happiness on a 1-10 scale?

I want to shout 8 because of how far I’ve come, but there’s still a lot of uncertainty, so I’ll just say a 5 or 6. 

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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.

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After working at his mum’s bukka and motel for free almost all his life, and having to fend for a child at 22, the 27-year-old on this #NairaLife wants to make more money by going into tech…right after he’s done being a driver.

Let’s start with your earliest memory of money

I turned eight in primary 3 and as young as I was, I knew we were poor because I’d been sent out of school because of fees. At some point, my dad took me out of private school and put me in public school because he couldn’t keep up with the fees. 

For secondary school in 2006, my mum put me in a private school that collected about ₦20k per term, and my dad had a problem with it. He thought they could’ve been using the money for something else. This was one of the many fights that eventually led to their divorce in 2006. 

Ouch. What did your parents do for a living? 

My dad was a carpenter, and my mum owned a bukka close to my school. Because of my mum’s bukka, we always had food. 

After the divorce, my mum moved close to her bukka, and my older sister, younger brother and I moved with her. One of my older sisters stayed with my dad, while the first born stayed with my aunt, where she’d been for years. 

Why was she there?

To be honest, I don’t know. She was there from primary school till she finished university.

By the time I got to JSS 3, my mum withdrew me from private school and put me in public school. 

Why?

Money. I relate so much to the Naira Life subject whose dad was obsessed with building. My mum was making good money from the bukka, but you’d think we were poor. She  always wanted to build. We only got new clothes at the end of the year and ate food from the bukka. All our free time after school and during holidays was spent working at the bukka because she was trying to cut costs on hiring employees. Sometimes, we even slept there.  

But she had enough money to build houses for rent, and eventually, a motel in 2014.

When did you finish secondary school?

2011. I didn’t make all my WAEC papers, so I spent the next year doing a computer training program. I also worked at the bukka, running errands, making coleslaw, and sometimes, standing and serving for hours. In the course of that year, I heard someone talking about a part-time National Diploma (ND) program, and I was interested, so I registered for it. My mum gave me the money because she liked that it was part-time. It meant I could work at the bukka when I wasn’t in school.

Did you get paid for the work? 

Never. My mum always said she assumed we were taking money from her business somehow, so there was no need for her to pay us. 

Were you?

If I could bargain well at the market, I kept the change. From that, I could make up to ₦5k on a good month. Other than that, I wasn’t taking any money. 

And that’s all the money you were making? 

Well, I sold recharge cards for like one month in 2012. I used the ₦5k I had gathered that month as capital. But at some point, I had to go to school, so I left the recharge cards with one of my mum’s employees. When I came back, she’d made a loss and didn’t know how. 

I also made some money designing. In my computer training school, I’d learnt how to use Corel Draw and some Photoshop. I started going to cyber cafes a lot to use the internet for news and entertainment. In 2013, I met a man there who was into fraud. When he learnt I knew how to design, he contracted me to help him edit the figures on cheques for ₦2k each. This went on inconsistently for about a year. 

After some time, I decided I wanted to do my own fraud, so I asked him to teach me. He refused, but because I’d watched him enough, I tried on my own. I sha got one woman to send me $150 via Western Union. That was like ₦20k, but if you see the guilt that held me after? I gave my girlfriend ₦5k and used ₦15k to buy a bicycle. After that, no more internet fraud for me. It was just school, bukka and my mum’s motel. 

What did you do at the motel?

When it opened in 2014, nothing. She hired someone to be in charge of drinks and lodgings, but he ran away with the money. By 2015, I was done with my ND, so she assigned me to work there. My job was to sell drinks at the bar and lodge customers. On nights when she wasn’t around, I kept the money to myself. 

I’m curious if you still had a relationship with your dad

Yes. My mum allowed me visit him but was always bitter and moody whenever I got back. 

What was your plan for after ND?

I wanted to move out and be on my own because I was tired of working for my mum. If I could’ve got like ₦150k, I’d have moved into a cheap apartment and maybe found cyber cafe work. At least, I had an ND in computer science. But plans scattered when my girlfriend got pregnant. 

Omo

Her parents didn’t want people in the area to know she was pregnant, so she had to come and live with my family. Of course, my own mum scolded me, but that was it. She accepted her living with us. 

A baby was on the way. How did it change things for you?

January 2016, I created a CV and went to a school behind the motel near where we lived, and applied to be a teacher. I got the job as the primary 4 class teacher. The pay was ₦11k monthly. After some time, they made me the primary 3 class teacher too and added ₦5k to the salary. I also taught the entire school computer appreciation for an extra ₦1k monthly. In my last month, I became a school bus driver, but I didn’t get paid because I got the bus stuck in mud.

By the time I was leaving in July 2016, my salary was ₦17k.

Why did you leave after just six months? 

I had to run away from the area because of oil bunkering in the area. Apparently, the boys who did the oil bunkering also kidnapped people, and they were regular customers of my mum’s motel. We didn’t know. One night, SARS came to the motel to arrest them and, in the resulting wahala, shot and killed one of them. They also arrested my mum. The next day, more of the boys came to vandalise and rob the motel because they thought it was my mum who snitched on them. When that happened, people advised me and my siblings to leave the area because it wasn’t safe. 

Where did you go?

My girlfriend and son had to go back home for about three months while I looked for a place to stay. I eventually got a self-con for free. It was owned by my dad’s family. 

My dad was super helpful in the period when I had a child and needed stability. He gave me money before and even after I got another job, and occasionally brought food.

When did you get another job?

Late 2016. First, I got a tomato paste processing factory job that paid ₦800 daily. Then I was a security guard at a restaurant. ₦15k. But I had to stand for eight hours a day. It was two days on, two days off. So whenever I wasn’t at the restaurant, I was working at the tomato paste processing factory. And when I wasn’t at the tomato paste place, I sold peanuts on the road. This brought me a total monthly income of about ₦20k. 

That’s how we survived until March 2017. 

What happened in March 2017?

I found a job opening for a driver of a fintech exec. on Nairaland and got the job. ₦40k monthly. That was a huge raise for me. I could now afford a bit more to take care of my girlfriend and son. I also did odd jobs like washing cars and buying food for people at the office. In October 2017, my boss’ wife was going abroad to have a baby so he didn’t need two drivers anymore. Then he asked that we changed the payment model to a pay-per-days worked model since he wouldn’t be needing me every day anymore. I didn’t want that, so I just left. 

I went back to Nairaland to look for jobs, and saw that people were looking to rent out their cars for ride-hailing services. It took me two months, but I eventually found someone who gave me their car for ₦35k a week. I did the fuelling, he did the fixing. 

How much were you making?

Like ₦70k a week. ₦35k to the guy and ₦18k for fuel. The money coming to me in a month was sha between ₦60k and ₦70k. Better than my previous job. But because I’ve always been the only one working, all my money goes to the family. 

I started discovering how to make more money by staying in certain areas and moving at rush hour. My monthly income eventually increased to about ₦120k. My son was already going to school, so that was extra money for fees and snacks. 

In 2019, I decided to get my own car. It cost ₦3m, and I had to pay ₦40k every week while I started using the car. I was on track until lockdown in 2020 when I couldn’t pay for three weeks straight. I’d paid ₦1.3m, but they collected the car because it was agreed in our contract if I defaulted payment for that long, they would. To get the car back, I reached an agreement with them to pay ₦1m to buy the car off for a total of ₦2.3m.

Where did you get ₦1m?

My dad. 

Daddy funds

He remarried into a wealthy family and has been living pretty well since. He doesn’t even work anymore.

God, when?

He loaned me ₦1.2m from his wife. ₦1m to buy the car, ₦200k to fix it up to premium conditions. I repaid ₦100k per month. 

Since I  stopped repaying loans in 2021, I now make about ₦250k monthly.

What’s being a driver like?

Driving is generally stressful, but customers make it even harder. 

In 2020, I built an android app that helps drivers make more money. 

Explain

You basically put the amount you want to make from a trip on my app and it looks exactly like the interface the ride-hailing app uses to show charges. It’ll even show the passenger’s name. 

So basically, fraud

Something like that, yes. 

Why?

Sometimes, you do long trips in traffic for hours, and the app charges the exact thing it showed in the fare estimates. And they’ll still take their charges. No now, that’s not fair. 

But because I easily feel guilty, I only use it when I know the app is about to move mad. Also, I don’t add too much to the price so they don’t suspect. 

How did you learn how to build an app?

During 2020 lockdown. I found this android app that teaches you how to build apps. It doesn’t require coding. 

Is this app out there for drivers to use?

It’s not on the app store, no. I shared the installation file with drivers I know. Sometimes, I see people on social media complain that a driver scammed them by showing them a fake price. That’s probably one of the drivers I gave the app. 

How long do you think you’ll be a driver for? 

I should be done before the end of this year [2022]. I’m looking to sign up for a mobile development course. It costs ₦540k. Then I’ll buy a new laptop for ₦300k. I would’ve signed up by now, but I had to spend all my savings — ₦500k — on an engine problem recently. I’ll keep the driving job while I do the course, but once I get my first job in mobile development, I’m done. 

What’s one thing you want but can’t afford right now?

I want to emigrate to the US with my babe and son. I think we’d see good career opportunities there. 

Can you break down your monthly expenses? 

How happy are you? The scale is 1-10

No matter how much people make, they’ll never be content. Right now, me, I’m content. I’d say a 5. 

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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.

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18 years, two companies, 10 different roles. It’s no wonder the subject on this week’s #NairaLife is looking forward to retiring at 45. His plan? Buy and lease a house in the UK and live off the rent money, then buy another. 

Tell me about your earliest memory of money

It’s receiving money from visitors and my mum collecting it to keep for me but never giving me back. I never even tried to ask. I also remember knowing very early in life that we were poor, but not as poor as we should’ve been. 

Explain 

I spent the first five years of my life in the UK. My parents had my sister in Nigeria, moved to the UK to work and go to school, had my brother, then me. At five years old, we moved back to Nigeria and that’s when I noticed things began to change. We didn’t have the freedom and luxury we had in the UK. We didn’t have a car or a generator, and we rationed food. 

But my dad was building houses and schools. 

I don’t understand

He had a strange obsession with building. That’s where our family money was going. I’m sure we were meant to be above average financially. My dad had worked at the Central Bank of Nigeria, as a lecturer at a university, and at the Securities and Exchange Commission. So there was money; he just wanted to use all of it to build. 

First, he built a school for himself. The building had two floors and was already much bigger than the capacity of the students he had. So, why did my dad decide to increase it to four floors? It’s been almost 35 years, and his school still uses only the ground floor. 

Our house is a gigantic duplex. He’s the only one that lives there now. 

He built another even bigger structure for a secondary school because of a rule that primary and secondary schools can’t be in the same building. It’s abandoned. 

In Abuja, he built a bungalow and then, along the line, decided to turn it into a three-storey building. To the best of my knowledge, nobody has been there in 20 years. 

Whoa. What about your mum?

She supported him as best as she could. She was a trained teacher, so she became the administrator of the school. As early as age 10, when I finished primary school, I used to help teach younger children maths, english and verbal reasoning. In fact, I taught at intervals until I got my first job at 22.

And what was your relationship with your siblings like? 

I’ve always liked to be on my own. My siblings and I were never close. My dad always mentioned that our home didn’t feel like he had kids because nobody was running around and screaming. 

We reacted to our upbringing differently. I couldn’t wait to become independent and leave them. My older brother was always a happy, sociable guy who didn’t mind. As for my older sister, well, one day in 1995, she took ₦125k from my parents’ wardrobe and disappeared for three years. She was about 18.

Ehn?

I wasn’t shaken by the experience because, like I said, I didn’t really care. We weren’t friends when she was around, so why should I care that she ran away? 

What was your plan to leave home?

I got into boarding house when I was 10 in 1991. Again, I noticed the difference between other kids and myself in little things like the quality of provisions. But at least I was away from home. 

Secondary school also brought some changes. I don’t know why, but I began to do very badly in school. I went from being the most brilliant pupil in primary school to being average in junior secondary school and very bad in senior secondary school. It got so bad I had to repeat SS 1.

In SS 2, I took GCE. But I realised I wouldn’t be ready to write SS 3 WAEC in a few months. Of course, I failed that GCE and WAEC, but I passed the next GCE. That one year of intense studying changed me again because I was one of the top students in my department from when I got into UNILAG in 1999 until the end. 

What did you study? 

Insurance. 

Why?

My mum had done some insurance work in the past and always had books lying around the house. I used to read them for fun as a kid. So I just thought, “Why not?”

What were your finances like in uni?

I got allowances from home that peaked at about ₦4k a month. That’s what I survived on.  My mum used to bring food for my older brother — I didn’t want — and she’d drop my money with him. I tried to make money, but the business failed catastrophically. 

Tell me about it

In 2001, my friend was starting a comic book business and needed some money to fund it. I gave him ₦5k. There was no gain from it, so I made a bad investment mistake. He was only interested in making the comics beautiful and high quality, but he wasn’t marketing them, so I joined his team to encourage them to market. I couldn’t do it myself because it wasn’t my strong point. 

I sha kept pumping money into the business. In 2003, when I got my first salary at my first job, I gave it all to the business. It was ₦15k. When I still didn’t make any profit, I pulled out.

What was this first job?

It was a policy writing role at an insurance company. They poached me and five others right from university because we were top of the class. They wanted us to be the future of the company. 

But the job was boring. Insurance is like medicine — you have to do things the exact way you learnt them in school. People used to bring textbooks to work. It was like I was back to doing school work. And to add to that, people began to give me their work when they saw I was good. 

About 10 months into the job, NYSC posted me to Enugu, and I left. The company had tried to make me stay and serve under them in Lagos, but I needed a break. It meant I’d lose the job and opportunity to grow within the company, but I didn’t mind. 

What did you do in Enugu?

I was a teacher. It was the best year of my life. The school was meant to pay ₦500 monthly, but I don’t think they paid up to three times. I survived on NYSC’s monthly ₦7,500. And I could. It was a village that didn’t have electricity, water or network. I moved around on a bicycle and had to wash at the stream. The students brought fruits for me. There was no fast life, and nobody was rushing me anywhere. Again, best year of my life.

LMAO

When I returned to Lagos in 2005, my boss from the insurance company reached out to ask if I wanted a job outside the scheme they brought me in for earlier. I would have to compete and come in through the graduate trainee program. I wrote the exam, passed and got in. This time, the pay was ₦73k for the same role. 

How long did you stay at the job?

About four months. I let peer pressure get to me. Many of my mates were working in banks, so I decided to apply to a bank too. I got two offers. One was offering ₦1.3m gross per annum and the other, ₦650k. My salary at the time was ₦1.2m gross so I just took the first job. I got in as a transaction officer. 

What was this one like?

I stayed at the job for 10 years because my role changed nine times. I get bored easily, so a way to keep me is to make me do new stuff. I started as a transcation officer and ended up leading virtual channels such as eCommerce and Internet Banking. By the time I was leaving in 2016, my salary was ₦9.6m gross — ₦8.2m net. I left because I’d gotten to a mid-senior level where I was a specialist at many things. Many times, companies don’t promote people from positions like that — they leave them at the same level so they can keep doing plenty work. As someone with financial responsibilities to my wife and children, I needed to increase my earnings. 

When did you get married?

2009. I met my wife in 2008. 

Tell me how marriage affected your relationship with money

It made me understand the pressure my dad may have faced. But I had my own rules. Nobody forced me to marry or have children, so I would ensure that they enjoy life. 

I was already living alone before my wife came into my life — I moved out of my parents house in 2007. So I was already paying rent. I pay the children’s school fees, drop 10% of my salary for feeding every month and get my wife gifts. My money is the family’s money, and even though she has a well-paying job too, her money is her money. It’s been like that since we got married, and nothing’s changed. 

Where did you go after the bank?

A fintech company. I’d been getting job offers and opportunities before I thought it was time to leave the bank, but I always turned them down. One of those opportunities was at this fintech. I went for the interview, and when they explained the role to me, I told them I didn’t want it. A year later, a business development role opened up, and I thought it was right for me, so I took it. 

How much did it pay?

It was slightly lower than my ₦9.6m bank salary, but because it was different, and my wife told me I could, I went for it. But it increased really quickly. By 2019, I was already on ₦19m a year and now, I’m on ₦42.5m a year. 

What’s that in a month?

It varies. It can be as low as ₦1.6m on some months and as high as ₦5.7m on some other months. There are bonuses and allowances in my contract that determine how much I get each month. 

What’s that money doing for you?

Life is in stages, and some things get more expensive as time goes on. For example, my children are in secondary school now, and I have to pay over ₦3m next month for their fees. I can afford it, and I’m grateful. 

In the past few years, life has been easier. I have a car that’s bought, serviced and fueled by the company. I have enough money to travel, buy anything I want and spoil my wife. 

From every salary, I pay bills, I give my wife a monthly stipend and money for the house, then save. My savings depend on how much I get, but it’s at least ₦750k every month. In a month when my salary is ₦5.7m, I save ₦4m. 

What does that look like, broken down into expenses?

I’ve documented every expense in a spreadsheet for the past five years. Here’s for last month’s ₦1.6m: 

Every quarter, I give my wife ₦200k to restock the house with staple foods, but we still spend ₦155k on food monthly. 

Do you invest your savings?

All my savings are in mutual funds because I need to be able to easily have access to my money in case a business opportunity comes up. I have about ₦30m saved. It could be more, but I spent £35k on an MBA in 2021. I also have about ₦1m in MTN shares. I don’t have land in Nigeria because I’m not interested in building. 

Do you think you’ll stay at this job much longer?

Recently, I’ve been telling my friends, “I missed the mark of retiring at 40. Let’s see what 45 brings.”  I’m 41, and I’m exhausted. I want to retire. In the past couple of years, I’ve got job offers that pay 4x what I earn, but because it’s the same role, I don’t want them. If I’m going to leave here, it has to be for a different role, and maybe even in a different industry. I’ve done insurance, banking and tech. Maybe it’s health, construction or consulting that’s next. Who knows?

How much do you need to retire?

There’s no figure. It’s a question of how much I can have. Right now, my plan is to buy a house in the UK, where I’m a citizen, lease it and make my cool pounds monthly while I’m in Nigeria. After a few years of doing that, I’ll have enough to buy another house.

Random: Does your dad still build houses?

I don’t know. We’ve not spoken in three years. 

What’s your financial happiness on a scale of 1-10?

8.5.

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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.

Need to send or receive money fast? Let’s help you send and receive money internationally on the go. Use Afriex.

By 2019, this 23-year-old Naira Life subject didn’t know what to do with her life. Then she met a friend who told her to try UI/UX design. Four jobs later, she’s managed $65k a year. She thinks it would be more if she weren’t such a bad negotiator.  

What’s your earliest memory of money?

I know when my friends in school would get picked up in cars, I took bikes or buses home, so that means we weren’t as rich as other people. But I also know we weren’t poor poor. I mean, I got chased out of class because of school fees debts, but I never starved.

What did your parents do?

My mum is a local government worker, caterer and owns a provisions shop. I’m her only child, and my dad isn’t in the picture. 

Divorce? 

They were never married. He visited from time to time and gave me money when he came. It was even through an aunt I found out he had his own wife and children who are way older than me. 

I met his children in secondary school — when I started going to his office to say hi. 

My mum eventually got married in 2014. 

Sweet

Do you want to hear how I found out?

Found out?

I was 15 and in SS 3 in boarding school when she came to my school for PTA. The principal had called a parents meeting to report my set for being the worst SS 3 set ever. 

After the meeting, I was going through her phone and next thing, I saw pictures of her in a wedding gown. Ehn? When I confronted her, her response was, “But you were in school. How did you expect me to tell you? Or did you want me to come and pick you up for the wedding?”

Wow

Fear Nigerian women. 

Did you know the man?

Yes. They’d been friends for a while. After I finished school, we moved to his house. He already had three children from an earlier marriage; one older than me and two younger. 

Tell me what that change felt like

I’m shy around adults so me and my step-dad didn’t really have a deep relationship. It’s a not-so-close-to-your-parents-but-you-still-talk kind relationship. He scolded me a few times when my mum was angry at me, but nothing too over the top. When I got into university that year, he gave me money on most weeks. Like ₦5k. 

Is that all you survived on?

My dad also gave me ₦10k monthly. I went to Ekiti State University which was like 30 minutes away from home so I would go home to get foodstuff when I ran out. My mum gave me an occasional stipend too. 

What did you study?

Microbiology. 

You wanted a career in Microbiology?

Nope. It’s just what I studied. Throughout university, I was worried about my prospects in life because people in school kept talking about how difficult it was to get a good-paying job with a microbiology degree in Nigeria. My plan was to do a master’s in public health to increase my value and chances. 

In fact, after I graduated in 2019 and was waiting for NYSC, I started learning fashion design just so I could do something before I got a job. But I couldn’t be consistent because I had to stay in my mum’s shop too. She paid me like ₦5k every other week. I eventually didn’t learn any fashion design before I got posted to Ogun state for NYSC. 

Where did you work?

A haulage company. I was the front desk receptionist. The pay was ₦15k, NYSC paid ₦33k, and I got an extra ₦2k every week from my boss just because he was a nice guy. He never tried anything inappropriate, and I appreciated that. I spent ₦400 daily on transportation and stayed in an apartment my parents rented for me. So it wasn’t difficult managing the salary. 

That same year, I met a software developer on Twitter and we became friends. When I told him I didn’t know what I wanted to do with my life, he advised me to learn UI/UX design and sent me materials and YouTube videos. I had a laptop then so I began to practice. Whenever I did a design, I showed him and he told me what he thought about it and how I could be better. Then I joined online design communities too and made friends. I sha took it very seriously because I was scared of poverty and saw it as an avenue to make good money. 

And you got better?

Yep. Four months into NYSC, in March 2020, COVID happened and I had to go home. I spent the entire time designing and posting my work on Twitter and LinkedIn. I was in front of my laptop everywhere, even when I was in my mum’s shop. 

In fact, my mum had problems with it. First, it was that people thought I was doing yahoo yahoo. Next, it was that I never came out of my room to spend time with the family. I told her I was learning design, but she just didn’t understand. 

By July, I got my first design job. 

How?

They reached out to me on Twitter because they saw my work. I was back in Ogun state by this time, so I was working more. It’s probably a great time to say I’m not a good negotiator because tell me why they offered me ₦80k and I said I wanted ₦150k instead, but immediately they said ₦120k, I jumped at it.

LMAO

But it was good money for me at the time. I could even send money to my mum and siblings from time to time. They paid biweekly. 

A few months later, a Senegalese design agency opening a branch in Lagos reached out on LinkedIn to hire me. The pay was ₦200k, and it was a hybrid role. I didn’t have to be in Ogun state for NYSC anymore because of COVID. NYSC had told corpers to return home since COVID started and I wasn’t doing the receptionist job anymore. I was just staying in Ogun state. So I asked my mum if I could move to Lagos to take the job. I lied to her that the pay would be ₦120k. This woman told me she wanted to pray about it and then said her pastor said I shouldn’t take the job. I was sad, and my friends were telling me to just move regardless, but I don’t like wahala so I just accepted my fate. 

Ouch

In September 2020, another design company reached out to me on Twitter saying they wanted to hire me. This time, I was determined to move no matter what, so I created a fake ₦150k job offer that said I had to be in Lagos and showed my mum. Again, she said she had to pray and ask her pastor, but I’d decided in my heart to move no matter what the pastor said. 

What did the pastor say?

He said I could go. 

Where were you going to stay?

My mum asked this same question, and I already had all the answers. There was a hostel my friend told me about. It cost ₦170k for six months. That’s where I stayed. 

I finally got the job in October 2020. It paid ₦120k, and it was hybrid — in-person Mondays to Wednesdays, remote on Thursdays and Fridays. I combined it with my other ₦120k job but quit the fully remote one after a month because I couldn’t cope.  

Why that one?

The design agency in Lagos had more clout. People respected them and they had a great portfolio so I wanted to benefit from that. But I eventually only stayed there for six months. 

Why?

Omo, it was toxic as hell. Well, one person — the design lead — was toxic, and it made work difficult for me. He had a history of being mean to people, as I later got to find out. People shared stories with me about how he made them cry because of the way he spoke. 

As time went on, he started speaking badly to me too. His method of giving feedback was so condescending. On Figma — an app UI designers use — there’s a part of the screen that shows when someone else is on the document you’re currently working on. I put black tape over it because whenever he was on the doc with me, I had panic attacks, so I’d rather just not know. On Mondays to Wednesdays, when I had to go to the office, the first thing I did in the morning was cry. 

Omo x1000

It was terrible. But I’d already been applying for jobs and speaking to friends months before I left. I eventually got one from a friend who worked for a remote company that had one designer and was looking for another. The job interview process wasn’t so long. They saw my work and just asked me to hop on a call and that was it. 

When it was time to talk about pay, they offered $750 monthly and I said I wanted $1k. The interviewer said he wanted to pay a naira round figure so he offered me $1050. I took it. 

How much was that in naira?

Between ₦450k and ₦500k. 

Fundsss

Yes o. I started saving and sending money to everyone — my mum, dad, step-dad, mum’s mum, step-dad’s mum, cousins and siblings. I also moved out of the hostel and got a small self-contained room. 

How did mumsi react to you sending money?

She was happy, but she also used to say stuff like, “Hope you’re saving o!” And if she asked me for money and I said I didn’t have, “What are you even using your money for?”

How long were you at that job?

I started in March and left in November 2021. Six months into the job, I asked for a raise because I realised I was doing all the work on the design team. First of all, working in the toxic place had made me a very fast worker, so I met deadlines very quickly and then did more. The other person on the design team was hardly available. They increased my salary to $1500 and that’s how much I earned till I left. 

Why did you leave?

I knew I could get more money elsewhere. And I wasn’t challenged. They were accepting everything I was doing without question or asking for improvement. While there, I applied for hundreds of jobs and got L’s. But I finally got an interview in November 2021 — an interview in six stages. 

What were the stages?

The first was a “Let’s get to know you” with the CTO. I was asked technical questions in the second. At the third, I joined the company’s weekly show-and-tell meeting where the designers talked about what they’d worked on. I had to sign an NDA before joining. Then, I met with a co-founder, another co-founder, and finally, with the lead engineer. 

How much did they offer after that many meetings?

$65k yearly. It’s a UI/UX designer role. That’s a little over $5,400 a month paid in biweekly installments. That’s like ₦3m a month depending on the exchange rates. I didn’t even bargain. If you see the way I jumped on it. I regret that now sha. I definitely should’ve asked for more. If that was their first offer, I’m sure they could’ve offered more.  

Probably. ₦3m a month isn’t bad though

No, it’s not. Now, I have a mini-flat and I’m just a baby girl. 

What does that look like in monthly expenses? 

The rest stays in dollars as savings. 

And what does that look like?

My core savings is at $17k now. I invested $2k in crypto, but it has tanked. I also have like $400 in another savings account.

Do you think you’ll leave this job soon?

No, I want to stay for at least a year for my CV. It’d be good for getting more remote jobs — probably one that can even relocate me abroad. 

What do you want but can’t afford right now?

A foreign passport, please. I want to be able to travel freely. And maybe, a car. Wait… do I actually want a car?

I’m pretty sure you can afford a car

Yes, but I don’t want to just carry money and throw on a car. Seems like a lot.

How happy are you on a scale of 1-10?  

I’d say 5, and it’s because I’m still living in this country.  

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.

Need to send or receive money fast? Let’s help you send and receive money internationally on the go. Use Afriex.

Since the 27-year-old on this week’s #NairaLife finished secondary school in 2013, he’s had just one dream — to go to university. For now though, he’s working two security guard jobs in Lagos and running a small farm in Benue.

What’s your earliest memory of money?

I remember making ₦120k in 2016 from soya beans storage. That’s the first time I ever made that much money, so you can imagine how happy I was. 

Can you explain this storage thing? 

In Benue where I grew up, when crops are in season, they’re very cheap. So to make a profit, people buy and store them in perfect condition so they can sell when the scarcity of those crops begins. I bought six bags of soya beans for ₦8k each and stored them with my older sister. When soya beans became scarce, I sold each bag at ₦20k each. 

Was that your first time doing storage?

Yes. I was 22 at the time.

What did you do before then?

I worked as a salesman at a pure water factory. I started working there in 2013 after I finished secondary school. My original plan was to go to university to study engineering, but my parents couldn’t afford it so I just decided to work until I could sponsor myself. I worked at the pure water company from 2013 to 2017. 

How much did they pay you?

When I started, they paid me ₦10k per month. In 2014, they increased the pay to ₦12k. My job was to follow the drivers around and offload pure water for whoever wanted to buy. Because I was getting older, I decided I wanted to be a driver and not a salesboy, so I begged the drivers to teach me how to drive. By 2016, I started driving for the company and they increased my salary to ₦15k. 

So this is your earliest memory of money

Haha! That’s true. How did I forget? 

Tell me what it was like growing up in Benue

I grew up in Konshisha Local Government. I’m the third of four children. My father is a farmer and my mother sells things like onions, palm oil and pepper. By the time I was about to finish secondary school in 2013, my father was getting old and couldn’t do farm work so much. That’s why he couldn’t afford to send me to school. He’d already sent my older brother to a College of Education and my sister to a School of Nursing. So it was left for my little sister and me to take care of ourselves. That’s why I moved to Makurdi immediately after secondary school.

Was ₦10k or ₦15k enough for you to survive?

No, but I survived. I had to look for other ways to make money sometimes. For example, the company told us to sell bags of pure water for ₦80 to customers who sold in bulk and ₦100 to customers who didn’t. Many times, I sold the bags at ₦100 to everybody — even people buying in bulk — and kept the difference. That’s how I made extra money.

Food in Benue is very cheap, and my house rent was ₦18k per year. So I survived. 

What did you do with the ₦120k from the storage? 

I gave my uncle to help me put it in shares, and after a few months, it grew to ₦150k. I collected the ₦150k,  bought an okada, found someone to ride the okada and told him to bring ₦4k every week. 

Businessman! 

Well, after two months of collecting ₦4k weekly, the bike man called me one day to say he went to eat in a restaurant, and by the time he came out, he didn’t see the bike again. That was one of the saddest moments of my life. 

Ouch

Because I didn’t want the sadness to affect me too much, I decided it was time to move on and go to school since that’s actually what I wanted to do with my life. 

Wait… Did you ever try the storage thing again? Seems like it was an easy way to make money

Yes o. December 2016. This time, I bought ₦50k worth of soya beans but stored it with my uncle who stayed in Makurdi. By the time I was meant to resume school in 2017, I went to meet him for the money and he started giving me excuses about how he sold my soya beans at a profit, but his own yams didn’t make profit so he just kept the money from the soya beans. 

He later gave me the ₦50k, but it was after plenty fight. And he sent it small small. Today, he’d send ₦5k, tomorrow, ₦3k. 

What school did you go to?

I wanted to apply to universities but my JAMB scores weren’t good, so I just went to Federal Polytechnic, Nasarawa, to study surveying and geoinformatics. 

How many years was your program?

Two. I finished in November 2019. 

How did you survive those two years?

I always had someone to stay with. A friend. In 2017, my brother finshed from the College of Education so he was able to support me from time to time. He really wanted me to stay in school so he tried his best to send money the few times I asked. 

Apart from my brother, there was a God-sent man who also assisted me. 

Tell me about him

We were in class having tutorials one day, in my first year, when the teacher made a mistake. I stood up to correct him because I’d seen it in my textbook when I was studying. After the class, this man who was much older than the rest of the class came to me and told me he liked what I did. When we were speaking, my mum called, and I spoke my native language to her. This man embraced me right as I finished the call. He was from my place in Benue too. 

As we got talking, I told him I wasn’t happy with studying surveying because I actually wanted to study engineering. Then, he told me his story. 

He graduated many years ago with a degree in business administration and lived in Abuja. Things weren’t going well for him until one day, he met a surveyor who took him to a site and paid him ₦2k per day. He found the job interesting and continued to work with the man. After many years, he’d become a big-time surveyor himself and had made millions. The only reason he was there in polytechnic with us was because he beat a university-trained surveyor to a big-money client bid because he was cheaper. But then, the surveyor threatened to report him to the police because he was practising without a degree or licence. He wanted to avoid all that wahala.

Interesting

So we became friends. He gave me money from time to time and I helped him with tests and assignments. He was even the one who gave me money for my final projects. 

Why did you want to study engineering?

It’s just what I wanted to do since I was a child. I remember saying I wanted to be an engineer every time. 

What happened after you graduated in 2019?

I went back to Makurdi. I first tried to work at the pure water factory again, but they didn’t want to hire because business was bad. So I just went to church and prayed and fasted for God to send a job. I also called my friend in Lagos to ask if there was work available. He said no. 

By January 2020, that same friend called and said I should start coming to Lagos because he found a job for me at a company.

Nice

I didn’t have any money, so I called my mum and she gave me ₦10k. Bus from Makurdi to Lagos was ₦8k. So I held the remaining ₦2k and went to meet my friend. It was my first time in Lagos. 

When we got to the company, I found out they hired security guards. I was so shocked and sad. I thought he was inviting me to work with engineers or surveyors. I didn’t want to do security work. And I told him I wasn’t happy. Omo, he just told me to take it like that o. That there’s no work anywhere, so I should just take this one. I didn’t want to go back to the village, so I took the job. 

How much did it pay?

₦20k per month. 

Where were you securing?

They posted me to be the security guard of a surveying company. 

That must’ve hit close to home

Ah, yes o. I was security guard for a place where I could have been working as a surveyor. I tried to talk to the young technicians there, to let them know I could do the work too, but the only opportunity they gave me was to be a technician without pay. I didn’t take it. 

₦20k is not a lot in Lagos. How did you manage it?

My friend really helped me. I stayed at his place, and he fed me. That’s how we did it throughout 2020. People from home were calling me to come back but I didn’t want to go to the city and come back empty-handed so I stayed. My friend also encouraged me. He promised me that once the pandemic passed, I’d be able to get more than one job. 

Did that happen?

Yes. In 2021, I left that job and started working as a security guard at two places — a housing estate and an oil company. The estate paid ₦28k and the oil company paid ₦24k. 

Do you still work at both places?

No. I left the oil company and now work with two estates. The second estate pays ₦25k. So my monthly income is ₦53k now. 

What’s ₦53k like for you in this economy?

My brother, things cost die. Especially food in this Lagos. I try to wash the cars of the residents of these estates so they can give me ₦500 or ₦1k each. Sometimes, they give me money or food just like that. 

Is uni still in your plans? 

I’ve applied for surveying and geoinformatics in Federal University of Technology, Minna, but ASUU is on strike. I’m hoping I get the admission. 

Why not engineering?

I already have my OND in surveying and geoinformatics. Let me just continue with what I’ve started. 

What are your finances like?

I don’t have so much money because I don’t believe in keeping money in the bank. I believe in doing business. The small money I even had, I recently had to spend most of it, ₦70k, on my mum’s health. 

What business do you do?

This year, I bought two pigs at ₦15k each, and now, they’ve given birth to six piglets. Like that, I’m building a pig farm small small. 

Also, I spent ₦40k on a bag of soya bean seeds and fertilizer a few months ago. If the person planting it for me does it well, I should be able to harvest six bags by November and sell them at ₦30k each. 

In January too, I bought a bag of groundnut seeds for ₦20k, and by the time they were ripe this month, we sold the harvest for ₦20k per bag. That’s ₦200k.

Wow

Groundnuts grow really fast. 

Are all of these happening in Benue?

Yes. My brother helped me with the groundnuts. The soya beans and pigs are with a friend. 

Did you pay your brother?

My siblings and I shared the ₦200k. I got ₦80k. When you and your siblings are struggling, there’s no “my money”. It’s “our money”. 

Are you going to do the groundnut thing again? 

I think I will.

What’s one thing you want but can’t afford?

It’s to go to university. But I don’t want to go as I am like this that I don’t have money. It doesn’t make sense. I want to be buying foodstuff in bulk from Benue and selling them in Lagos. That way, I’ll be making profit and getting my education at the same time. 

How do you spend money in a month?

And your financial happiness on a 1-10 scale?

4/10. I cannot lie to you, my financial state is very bad.

Need to send or receive money fast? Let’s help you send and receive money internationally on the go. Use Afriex.

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.

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Between 1987 and 1995, the 52-year-old on this #NairaLife trained and worked as a programmer. After that, she became a secretary and rose through the ranks at the same company for the next 20 years. She retired because of office politics and now owns a laundry business.

What’s your earliest memory of money?

My father gave me pocket money when I started secondary school in 1983. I went to a boarding house, so he gave me the money right before I went to school. I think it was about ₦500 split into clean, fresh 50 kobo and ₦100 notes. 

I was 13, so having my own money was great because I could buy all the snacks I ever wanted. 

₦500 in 1983 seems like a lot of money for a 13-year-old

We were comfortable. My dad was an accountant and my mum sold fabrics in big bulks. I never even spent the entire ₦500 in a term. I’d take the rest home and spend it on more snacks.

What was it like growing up in the ’70s and ’80s?

It felt safe. There was a freedom I can’t quite explain. We weren’t scared of kidnappings or killings, and moving abroad wasn’t something everyone was considering. As children, we went out to play and our parents weren’t afraid something would happen to us.

What did you want to be when you grew up?

A lawyer. I liked the idea of fighting for people’s rights, and I liked lawyers’ uniforms whenever I saw them on TV. By the time I finished secondary school in 1987, my mother didn’t allow me study law. 

Why?

According to her, lawyers received a lot of curses because of the nature of their jobs.  She didn’t want to lose me to people used to do juju for lawyers. 

What did you do instead?

I pursued my next interest, which was computers. At the time, because computers were new, they were becoming more and more popular. `I did a computer programming training for three years, after which I got a job in 1990 at an auditing firm as their computer operator and programmer. The pay was ₦700. 

I initially enjoyed the job, but as time went on, I got bored, so I switched to another, much bigger, auditing firm in 1995 to become a secretary. 

When you look back, do you regret not staying in tech?

No. My job as a secretary was interesting, and my career grew to the highest ranks. Even though the tech industry is big now, I have no regrets. 

What did you do as a secretary?

I helped my bosses organise their days, set up their meetings, took notes at meetings and just ensured everything was well organised.

What was the pay like?

It was ₦22k at the start. Really good money. 

At first, I didn’t do much with it because I lived with my parents. But by the time I got married in 1996, I left my parents’ house and had to start raising my family. I had my first child in 1996 and two other children in 1998 and 2000.

I eventually had to raise them as a single mother because my husband left.

Why?

I like to say he left because of his own inadequacies. It was never really great from the start, so we just separated. 

Tell me what being a single parent was like

Oh, it was difficult. But I’m thankful my parents were there for me. We didn’t live too far from them, so they always helped me take care of my daughters when I couldn’t. My siblings were also supportive. The early stages were very rough, but as children grow older, they begin to learn how to take care of themselves. For example, the older one learnt how to bath for the younger ones at some point. So when I was up by 5 a.m. preparing breakfast, lunch and dinner before work, she’d be getting them ready. Then on weekends, I’d do a comprehensive bath for all of them.

What about financially?

The major thing I had to spend money on was fees. That was tough too. Thankfully, they all went to schools where I could split the payments. So if the school fees were ₦100k for each child, I could pay ₦20k each at the beginning of the term and pay the rest through the term. 

What was work like all this time? 

In my 20-year period at the company, my role grew from secretary all the way to executive assistant to the CEO and COO of West Africa, and I managed about three other top officials. Before I retired in 2015, I stopped working as an executive assistant and set up a secretariat and administrative department for the company which I headed. 

How much did your salary increase?

I started at ₦22k in 1995 and ended at over ₦350k in 2015. 

Why did you retire at 45?

I began to feel uncomfortable working there. Decisions began to be taken with partiality. The environment became hostile. And I’m an open person — I don’t know how to do eye-service and not tell people when they’re doing something wrong. So I just left while I was still on good terms with everyone. 

What was your plan for post-retirement?

If I tell you that I had a plan, I’m lying. But I knew I didn’t want to work in the corporate world anymore. I had put that behind me. The only thing that was left was business. I also knew I didn’t want to do a business where I’d have to rent a shop because of rent wahala. I eventually decided to learn interior decoration because I felt like I had a good taste for beautiful places. 

But first, I travelled to the US just to unwind. Over there, I stumbled upon some materials — books and DVDs — on interior decoration. They helped me strengthen my decision to go into interior design.

What does a retired CEO assistant’s finances look like?

I didn’t have savings and investments, but I received a gratuity. That’s how I survived. I don’t live a flashy life, so it’s not like I was spending that much money. 

When did you start making money from interior design?

2016. My sister and a close friend are architects, so they began to recommend me to their clients. In addition to interior design, I decided to help people do post-construction cleanups for their sites. I hired young men to handle the cleaning and paid them. 

Between 2016 and 2020, I made money from interior design and post-construction cleaning. 

Was it enough to survive? 

It was. I was home alone most of the time because my daughters were in university. And it was enough to send them to school and survive on my own. 

What changed in 2020?

I decided to open a laundromat. My home’s compound is big, so I set up a structure, bought machines and hired people to do the work. The laundromat meant I made money more frequently. So if I didn’t get clients for interior design and post-construction cleaning, at least we were making money from the laundromat every week. These days, it’s every day. 

How’s the business now? 

We’ve been able to acquire industrial machines. On an average month, afterwe’ve restocked, other business expenses are gone and salaries for both my staff and I have been paid, we still have a profit of over ₦100k to spare. 

I still do the other two businesses now, but only when I get clients from people recommending me — which isn’t so often these days. 

Do you have savings and investments now?

Yes. I save and have shares now because even though my children are grown, I want to be able to support them when they want to do things like master’s and weddings. They’re the reason I save and have investments. 

What’s the plan for your business in the future?

I want it to become a household name in the laundry industry in Nigeria. So, as we grow, we want to expand and open more branches and offer satisfactory services. 

Is there something you want right now but can’t afford? 

My first daughter is trying to go abroad for her master’s. I want to be able to support her financially.

Can you share how you spend money in a month?

What would you rate your financial happiness on a 1-10 scale?

Maybe eight over ten. I think it’s an eight because I’m content. I don’t struggle to get anything. 

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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.

Leadway offers simple insurance products that protect you and everything you care about. From your personal belongings, to your health, your life, and that of your family. Sign up on Leadway Assurance to learn more and get started.

The 35-year-old electrician on today’s #NairaLife worked for eight years after secondary school before he could go to university to study electrical engineering. Now, he has an electronics shop and does contracts on the side, but he wants more.

Tell me your earliest memory of money

I don’t have a specific memory of money from when I was a child. I just know we didn’t have a lot. I grew up in Lagos, my mum sold fruits in bulk to retailers and my dad was a painter. From time to time, I got money to take to school and to buy snacks. That was it. 

What was home like?

Not so great, to be honest. My parents were always fighting. They had deep marriage wahala. When I was 10, they separated. Daddy sent me to live with his older brother in Ogun state, and my younger sister stayed with my mum.

How long did you stay there for?

Like five years. I moved there in 1997, so there was no phone to talk to my mum for those five years. In that entire period, I only saw her twice when she came to visit me. 

Must’ve been tough

It was. No matter how close you are to the people you’re staying with, they can’t replace your parents. I was always cautious around them, and I couldn’t fully be a child. You can’t just go and lay down on your aunty or hug her like a child would their mum. And when you have stuff to talk about, it can’t be with them. Thankfully, they treated me very well, so that made things a bit more bearable.

Did your dad ever visit?

He didn’t visit; he didn’t send money. Nothing. It was my mum who found ways to consistently send money, foodstuff and clothes through market people travelling through Ogun state.

What did you do when you got back to Lagos?

I moved back with my mum and continued secondary school. Between looking for a new school and writing entrance exams, I eventually finished in 2004. Immediately after, I became an electrician’s apprentice. 

Why?

I wanted to study electrical engineering in university. That’s what I’d always wanted since I was a child. I spoilt many appliances at home just because I found a screwdriver and started opening them. I liked seeing what the insides looked like and how they worked; people were already calling me “engineer”. 

But my mum didn’t have money to send me to school, so I decided instead of waiting around, I’d just start learning the trade, and when money comes, I’d go to university.

How did that go?

I learnt very fast. By my third month, people in the area already knew I was an electrician, and they’d call me to fix small things in their houses. The first money I made was ₦200 to replace a neighbour’s socket. I was so happy. 

How long were you an apprentice for?

I stopped being an apprentice in 2008 and started working on my own. Apart from people calling me to fix stuff in their houses, if bigger electricians had building contracts, they would call me to work with them on site and pay me like ₦2k a day till the work was complete. The money I was making was just enough to survive. Sometimes, when I was dead broke, my mum would give me money. 

In 2009, I made my first ₦100k. A deacon in our church, who was also the principal of a school that wanted to set up a computer lab, gave me the project of setting it up. That was my first ever personal contract, and omo, ₦100k was really good money for me. I don’t remember everything I did with the money, but I know I bought a few clothes and some tools for my work. 

Was school still in the plans?

Oh yes. After four years of working on my own, I could send myself to school, and that’s what I did. I went to a federal university four hours from Lagos to study electrical engineering from 2012 to 2017. The first few months of school were tough because I’d spent almost all my money — which wasn’t a lot — on fees, moving to school and registration. But after my first semester, I got a house contract that paid me decent money to survive for a few months. After that, I travelled to Lagos every other weekend to service clients. That’s how I survived school. 

You already had hands-on knowledge of the stuff you were learning. Was school worth it?

Yes, yes, yes. Knowing the theory of your work is very important o. I even noticed my work as an electrician improved as I progressed in school. If I do some work and someone who just learnt as an apprentice does the same thing, you’d see the difference in quality. Why should I use a thick wire instead of a thin one for this project? As an apprentice, I didn’t know. It was in school I learnt the calculations and justifications.

Did your coursemates know you were an electricia— electrical engineer? Is it electrician or electrical engineer?

They’re the same thing. It depends on who I’m talking to. I can’t go to a big company and say I’m an electrician. They’ll look at me like I’m a joke. I have to say electrical engineer and even mention I studied electrical engineering in school. But in the streets, I’m an electrician. That’s what people want to hear. 

And yes, a few of my classmates knew. Just the ones I was close to. It’s not like I was hiding it, but I didn’t do any electrician work on campus, so it only came up in conversations with friends. 

What was the plan for after university?

My big plan was, and still is, to have a company where I hire engineers and we write proposals and bid for big electrical projects. But to do that, you need to have money. 

I returned to Lagos and continued my electrician work after school. A few months later, I decided to rent an apartment. Since 2009, I’d been switching from living with my mum to living with my pastor. I wanted to be on my own for the first time. So I rented a room and parlour somewhere in Ogun state. I just found out the price — ₦100k per year — and decided to rent it. 

Why Ogun state?

It was a new estate where I was called to do the wiring of some of the houses. I could pull together the money to pay for rent, so I thought, “Since this place is just opening up, I’ll be the only electrician here and get a lot of business from residents who might need my services.” I didn’t o. The only business I got was from Lagos, so I had to travel there every week. Sometimes, I travelled to work somewhere, and they gave me ₦2k for my workmanship. It’s that same ₦2k I used to transport myself back home. 

My rent was from December 2017 to December 2018. After that, I moved to a tiny self-contain in Lagos that also cost ₦100k a year, and just roughed out 2019. Some contracts here; some site work there.

How do you get contracts?

Recommendations from people I’ve worked for. Site work is different because I’m not the one who gets the job. It’s the electricians who get contracts that contact me to come and work for them. But I stopped doing site work in 2020 when I opened my shop. 

Tell me about it

The government was doing a major road repair near where I lived, and people’s houses were being demolished. One man saw his demolished house as an opportunity to create a shop that faced the road, so he said whoever could turn it into a shop could take it. 

Without rent?

We arranged that whatever amount I spent on fixing the shop would be taken out of my rent. Then, we agreed on ₦3k a month as rent. I spent about ₦160k fixing the place, so I got the place for over four years. 

Mad 

In that same period, I got my biggest electrical contract. After paying workers and removing transportation and feeding, I made a profit of ₦400k. 

Before that, an uncle in the UK asked what I was doing with my life and if I needed any support from him. I told him I needed ₦500k to set up a shop. He only had ₦100k which he sent. So I added the ₦400k I made from the contract and bought ₦500k worth of electrical appliances like lamp holders, bulbs, sockets and extension boxes. 

Did you know how to sell?

No. But I’d been an electrician for years. I could convince customers to choose a product and knew the right terms to use. 

I got the shop because I was tired of staying at home, eating and sleeping when I wasn’t on a job. I needed a reason to leave the house in the morning and return at night.

Has the shop been profitable?

Yes! The good thing about electrical goods is they don’t expire. And I can’t make losses because I never sell anything cheaper than the cost price. 

How much profit do you make from the shop on an average month?

I’d say about ₦150k a month. But then, if I had to be away for something, the shop would be locked. Now, I have a sales rep who’s always there, so let’s say it brings like ₦160k to ₦170k a month. 

And contracts?

They don’t come every month. A small project can make me ₦50k while bigger ones make me between ₦100k and ₦400k. Sometimes, contracts bring profit to my shop because I buy materials from myself. 

Do you have any plans to change things in the future?

I want to expand my shop. I want to make it a place where people, even companies, can find anything they want in bulk. When I make solid money from that, I’ll open my company with engineers sending proposals. I’m not considering it now because it’s hard to set up things like that in Nigeria. You need plenty money to pay people to get things in place. 

Tell me how you spend money in a month

The rest of the money goes into restocking the business.

No black tax?

Not every month. My mum works and has her own money. It’s only if she needs emergency money she calls me. 

And your dad?

He passed away years ago. 

What’s one thing you want but can’t afford right now?

Hmmm. A car. Yes, a car. Running around doing all this work without a car is stressful. I carry cables and jump buses and bikes. I definitely want a car. 

On a scale of 1-10, how happy are you?

I don’t want to put a number to it. Let’s just say I’m content.

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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.

Need to send or receive money fast? Let’s help you send and receive money internationally on the go. Use Afriex

The content writer on this week’s NairaLife made ₦65k monthly at her first job in 2020. Two jobs later, she’s on $2,500. How? She has a solid network and knows how to use it.

What’s your earliest memory of money?

Nothing stands out as a memory until my dad started battling prostate cancer. Before that, we were comfortable. Not rich, just comfortable. If I told my dad I wanted an iPad, I’d have to wait months before I got it, but I’d still get it. 

I just know we were okay until I turned 13 in 2014. 

That’s when cancer showed up?

Yes. My dad was diagnosed, and we had to spend money to take care of him. Some of his tests cost around ₦500k, and my mum had to cover it all.  The first time I saw him at the hospital, I cried.  

It got to a point where we couldn’t even afford to hospitalise him so we brought him home. My older brother would bathe him then change his clothes and the pipe he used to ease himself. 

The first time his illness would’ve affected my life was in my first semester in uni. I met my mum about pausing my education so my siblings could finish theirs. 

Ah, so you’re the first born 

No, I’m the fourth born and I have a younger brother. 

So why…

My older siblings were either in their final or penultimate years, so it made sense for them to finish before I started. 

My mum didn’t agree sha. Whatever she and my older siblings did for us to survive during that period, I don’t know till today, but I appreciate it. 

Even after he died in 2019, we still had to spend money to transport ourselves and his body down to our hometown for the funeral. Crazy times. 

I’m so sorry for your loss

Thank you. My mum struggled to pay my school fees and buy books. Thankfully, my dad’s friend helped us through the first few years after he died. Whenever school resumed, he’d send me ₦100k, then I got ₦50k on a monthly basis during the semester. He even got me my first laptop.

Later that year, I met a friend who wouldn’t stop trying to get me into tech. He’s a programmer, so at first, he tried to make me learn coding, but I just wasn’t getting it no matter how hard I tried.

Did you stop trying?

Yes o. Sometime in 2019, I attended an event he was speaking at, and a tech founder I’d always admired from afar was there. I introduced myself to him afterwards. Over time, we built a mentor-mentee relationship. He saved me from the illusion that being in tech means you have to know how to code. 

How?

He explained to me that there are a lot of jobs in tech that don’t involve writing code. An example was content writing, and that’s what I decided to do.

Were you already a writer?

Not professionally, no. But I knew I could be because I used to write random essays in secondary school. To add to that, my mentor showed me a few online courses on content writing to sharpen my technical skills.

In early 2020, I saw a link on my friend’s WhatsApp status. It was a job vacancy for a content writer at some US-Nigerian startup. At first, I didn’t want to apply, but that friend put pressure on me. I got the job. 

Let me guess, plenty dollars?

Haha, nope. ₦65k. 

But it was good money for a broke student. I was elated. 

Let me give you some context. In my university, the government owes lecturers money so some of them make us buy textbooks and “course materials” as part of our coursework. Even if you pass your tests and exams, if you don’t buy their textbooks or materials, they’ll fail you. So the extra money was useful to pay for those things and just basically survive. 

After almost a year, the company crashed, or in their own words, “couldn’t afford to pay us anymore”, so they let us all go. Just like that, I was in the streets again. 

For how long?

Almost a year. Thankfully, things were beginning to stabilise for my mum, so she could comfortably provide for my little brother and me. 

In August 2021, I applied for a tech company’s ambassador programme hiring people to intern for a month. I got in and worked there for that month. It was a content writer role. The pay was ₦50k. 

After that, I was on the streets of unemployment once again, but not for long. 

New job?

Yep. I’d made acquaintances with founders through my network of friends in the tech space, so I reached out to one of them asking for a job. I still had to go through the interview process with HR, but I got a three-month contract as a content writer. The pay? ₦200k per month. 

Baller

LMAO. For the first time, I could pay for books, save and still go out with my friends. I was definitely a baller. Apart from the money though, it turned out to be a valuable experience because it was at that company I first wrote about crypto, which would turn out to be important for my next job. 

How did you get it? 

Remember my mentor friend? Well, I’d made friends with his friend who organised an event I was at and knew that I was good at content writing. When I told him I was back on the streets in January 2022, he kept sending me job links. At first, none of them worked out, but one day, I got an email from the co-founder of my current company saying they saw my profile and would like to see if I was a good fit for their company. 

After the interviews came weeks of silence. I even started applying for other jobs. Eventually, they reached out and asked how much I wanted to be paid. 

How much did you say?

₦850k. Their response was that I should come back with a “round figure”. 

I was so confused. I went to meet the person who referred me to explain what that meant. And all he said was that I should aim higher. Before I could even do that, they sent me an offer. Do you know how much it was?

How much? 

$2,500. For a content writer role. And they were like, “Would that be cool?”

How much is that in naira?

It depends on the monthly rates, but the lowest it’s ever been is ₦1.5m. When I sent my mum the offer letter, she called and started singing and dancing.

You’re killing me. Congrats!

Thanks! I’ve been here for three months, and see, having that much money is overwhelming. I can buy whatever. I’ve bought a Mac and an iPhone 13 Pro. 

What are your finances currently like?

I’m learning to save and invest a lot. So I currently have a total of ₦2m in naira savings, and ₦4m in crypto. I earn in USDT, which is crypto, so I just save there. Even though I can afford it from my salary, I’m also currently saving towards renting my own apartment. It’ll cost ₦2m and I’ve saved ₦1.2m so far.

So what do you spend your money on monthly?

I just leave the rest in crypto where I get paid. 

Why do you spend so much on transportation?

Cabs. I work from workstations or cafes every day because if I work from home, I’d just sleep or gist with my brother all day. I live far from everywhere else and there’s almost always traffic, so cabs are bloody expensive. 

Is there something you want right now but can’t afford?

I’m currently saving up for a trip to South Korea and a BTS concert. I’m the biggest K-pop and BTS fan you’ll ever meet. BTS released an album this month, and I spent about ₦70k on a preorder of the standard and compact set. I also bought for five of my friends. Yes, I’m that big a fan. 

How would you rate your happiness? The scale is 1-10

Please give me a 10. I can literally afford anything I want.

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25-year-old Douglas Kendyson has been running Selar since 2016 as founder/CEO. Selar is a store builder that helps you monetise your knowledge via digital products. By the end of 2021, Selar paid > ₦1BN to African creators, and keeps working to grow Africa’s creator economy.

This Friday, Douglas will be speaking alongside other cool people on TechCabal Live about how African creators can earn more.

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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.

No Cash? No wahala! With FCMB FastCash, you can get an instant loan of up to N200,000 without collateral or paperwork. All you need to do is dial *329*11# or log in to our New Mobile App. To learn more, please visit here.

Between 2017 and 2020, today’s subject on #NairaLife worked at his friend’s startup and earned a total of ₦60k. Now, he’s taking his filmmaking career into his own hands, and although it’s challenging, he’s hopeful.

What’s your earliest memory of money?

When I moved to Benin Republic for university in 2012, I was collecting ₦10k a month. Before then, there was the regular ₦20 or ₦50 a day for school, but that was it. Once in a while, a visitor would give me ₦1k, but my aunt would collect it to keep it for me and the money would vanish. Apart from that, I had nothing to spend money on and nobody to ask for money even if I needed it.

How come?

I grew up with my mum’s sister. My mum died when I was one and my dad was never in the picture. Nobody told me I wasn’t the child of the people I was living with until I was eight and a family friend visited. She came with her son, who was about six at the time, and while we were playing, he said to me, “You know you’re not their son, right?”

Of course, I didn’t believe him, so we started arguing. First, he asked me why I used a different surname from them. At that time, I used to write both my surname and theirs on my school books, so his argument was invalid. When the discussion was getting too long, he took me around the house to show me all the family pictures and said, “Where are you in all these pictures?”

Omo.

It was like glass shattered in my head. Everything suddenly made sense — the different surname, the fact that I was much younger than my siblings, the beating, the unending errands, the harsh words. And I began to perceive things differently, too. Now, whenever my aunt or any of my siblings said something like, “You’re so ungrateful”, or beat me terribly for the slightest mistake, I understood why. 

After some time, I challenged my aunt about the information I’d received, and she replied in the most dismissive manner. “Yes, I’m your aunt. Your mum died when you were a kid. Let’s move on.”

It must have been difficult to wrap your head around everything.

I became extremely quiet and reserved. I didn’t go out to play anymore and I didn’t eat if nobody served me. I didn’t go into the freezer to take anything that they didn’t give to me, and that’s why I couldn’t ask anyone for money. I don’t know if it was all in my head, but things around the house felt different after I found out. Like they knew I knew they were doing me a favour and didn’t want to hide it anymore. 

I moved to another aunt’s house about two years later to start secondary school. Things were slightly better there, but I still respected myself and mostly stayed quiet. In my free time, I enjoyed drawing, taking pictures with whatever phone I could find and turning them into movies on the house computer. I also enjoyed watching movies and writing stories. 

When it was time for senior secondary school, they made me go to science class against my wishes, but by SS 2 second term, the school told them I wasn’t doing well in the sciences and had to move to art class. 

What was that like?

It was what I wanted, so it was fun. I failed my first WAEC exam, and my second wasn’t great, so my aunties advised me to go to university in Benin Republic. The WAEC requirements to study there weren’t as stringent, and I already had a cousin in the school I was going to, so it just made sense. 

What did you study? 

Mass communication. It was a popular thing for students in art class to do. I also knew they’d touch on media — writing, scripting, cameras — which I was interested in.

How did you survive on ₦10k monthly in another country?

The naira was superior to the CFA back then, so my ₦10k was CFA 30k. All I did with the money was buy food to survive. 

In 2013, during my second year holiday, I was in Nigeria and followed one of my cousins to a film set. She was a makeup artist. After waiting for about four hours, the program manager walked up to me and asked what I was doing there. When I told her, she asked me to follow her to her office to do some typing work for her. From typing, I started editing some scripts they already had and dropping some ideas to make scenes better. She liked my work, so she told me to come whenever. 

Between then and 2015, whenever I was in Nigeria, I went there to work. She paid me ₦5k or ₦10k from her pocket when she could. I also acted as an extra in three movies. Each of those paid ₦10k. One other time, I said one line in a movie and made ₦20k. Those were the extras I was adding to my monthly allowance to survive because things were getting difficult at home. 

How?

By my third year, my allowance was reduced to ₦5k for some months. My aunties also couldn’t afford to pay my school fees, so I owed the school. It took extreme sneakiness for me to keep writing exams until I graduated. In my school, the only way to get into the building for exams was to show your school fees receipt at the door. Because I didn’t have a receipt, I made sure I left home early and got into the building by 6 a.m., so that when the search started outside, I was safe inside. On days when the building was locked by 6 a.m., I had to find a solution like helping a lecturer carry their bag and following them through the checkpoint. Nobody will stop the person carrying the lecturer’s bag and start questioning them. 

LMAO. Smart.

I also had to survive on ₦200 food every day. Bread and beans, every single day. 

By my fourth year, things got even worse. 

I’d stayed with my cousin up until my second year and then moved in and split rent with a few friends after. When I couldn’t afford rent anymore, I had to find somewhere to stay for free. Everyone I asked said they didn’t have space for me. Benin Republic landlords are very strict with the number of people staying in a house. After a few weeks of perching up and down and making people inconvenient, I finally decided to stay in the classrooms. I told a friend to let me come to their house to shower every morning and they agreed, so that’s what I did. 

Damn.

It was terrible. There were mosquitoes, sleeping on chairs and on the floor was uncomfortable, and I had to make sure the security men that patrolled by 2 a.m. didn’t find me. After almost three months of sleeping in classrooms and lying to my friends that I was staying with other friends, one of them finally insisted on following me home and that’s when I had to tell her I was staying in the classrooms. That day, I moved in with her. That’s where I stayed until I graduated in 2016. 

Did you ever pay your school fees? 

Sometime in 2017, yes. That’s when the school released my transcript and certificate. The day my aunt called me to tell me she was sending the money to pay for my school fees, I almost cried. It was about ₦500k. 

What did you do after university?

I moved in with a friend who owned a startup. I could have stayed at home, but I wanted to start hustling immediately. It was a startup that connected handymen to people who needed them ASAP and I was the social media manager and customer relations manager. The job paid ₦20k. After about three months, I saw that the company wasn’t profitable so I offered to stop collecting money. As long as we had food and internet at home, I was fine. 

The handyman business wasn’t doing well, so we switched to a laundry service from his house. My role was customer relations too but whenever the drycleaners we hired weren’t around — which was a lot — I did the pickups, washing, ironing and delivery. Still, I was being paid nothing. 

At this time, what was the plan for your career?

During the period where I was working with my friend, I opened a YouTube channel and made videos talking about football, and I did film edits and gaming edits. Nothing spectacular, just me improving my video skills.

After about a year again, we switched to a carwash business. This one did much better than the others, but I still wasn’t paid. 

For how long were you working with this friend?

From 2017 to 2020. I only got paid for those first three months. Towards the end, I began to think about my life and I was wasting my time working for and believing in someone that didn’t rate me. He treated me poorly, didn’t pay me, spoke to me terribly and gaslit me whenever I tried to bring up pay. He’d say things like, “If you want to leave, leave. Someone else will replace you.” And I was afraid because I didn’t want to lose a stressful job that wasn’t paying me.

In January 2020, I reached out to the woman who gave me my first job years earlier and told her I wanted to come over and say hi. When I got to her house, she wasn’t around but I met her husband. I told him I wanted some screenwriting jobs if they had any for me and he said he’d reach out if they found something. 

Did you have any experience?

In late 2019, I volunteered to help someone write a script for free. It didn’t go well because the director cut it short, but I counted it as experience. 

Nice. So you left your guy in 2020.

Yep. A friend reached out to ask how I was doing and I told him my situation. He advised me to leave and move in with his family. Shortly after, the lockdown happened.

COVID was the perfect period for me to rest. I’d been doing high-pressure work without pay after suffering in university and I just needed to take my foot off the pedals. In my friend’s house, I had food, electricity, WiFi, my own room, peace, everything. After a few months of rest, I decided to take my film career seriously. 

My friend’s brother had a professional camera he wasn’t using, so I collected it and started filming TikToks and short YouTube videos. Some of them did well, some of them didn’t. As I was gaining confidence in my filmmaking abilities, the woman’s husband who I spoke with reached out with a screenwriting job. It was a full movie script. I charged ₦50k. I knew I was terribly undercharging, but this was the first time I was going to make money in years and I didn’t want them to run away because I charged too much. 

By the end of 2020, I’d done three film scripts where I charged ₦50k and gotten much better using a camera. 

And 2021?

Early 2021, I found a $500 course online on filmmaking. I couldn’t afford it, so I reached out to an aunt abroad to pay for me. This was a huge step for me because I wasn’t used to asking anyone for money. She didn’t even ask too many questions — she paid immediately. 

So I had access to endless filmmaking material, I could write better and I had a camera. I spent the early part of 2021 using everything I learned to get better. As the year went by, friends started referring me for tiny shoots here and there. Between 2021 and now, I’ve made about ₦600k from shooting at small events and writing scripts. ₦70k here, ₦120k there. It’s not a lot and it doesn’t come too often, but at least I’m making small money now. 

So what are your finances like now?

Not so great. I don’t have any savings because the jobs don’t come every month, and I have to survive. I’m joining groups of creatives online so I can find more job opportunities and make more money. 

What do you spend money on every month?

Most times, it’s vibes, but here’s a breakdown. 

Is there something you want but can’t afford?

Of course. A camera, a laptop and a phone. The laptop I’ve been using for the past few months is borrowed, LMAO. 

What are your plans for the future?

My immediate goal is to shoot at four small events every month. If I charge at least ₦70k per event, I’ll make ₦280k monthly. That’s fantastic. When I get a new camera, the quality of my videos will improve and I’ll start doing short films and cinematic weddings. 

But honestly, all these videos I’m making are just so I can make money for a few years. The real thing I want to do is act. That’s my main passion.

What’s your financial happiness on a scale of 1-10?

4. Things are moving a bit too slow for me. I’m 27 and still struggling to make a living. This isn’t how I thought my life would play out. But I’m hopeful the next few years will be much better. 

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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.

In 2020, today’s subject on #NairaLife left his job as a social media manager to sell spare parts in Gabon. Now he can afford almost anything he wants and he has no regard for money.

Let’s start with your earliest memory of money.

For a long time in my life, I felt a strong sense of inadequacy whenever money was concerned. It started when I was a kid. My parents had money, but my mates at school just seemed to have it better than me. They went on holidays to London and the US, but the only holidays I had were to Gabon, Angola and Cote D’Ivoire. 

Why those countries?

My dad is the typical Igbo businessman that sells spare parts. He also has land, apartments and halls for rent. His business is spread across Nigeria and those other countries. It was only when I went on holiday to these countries and got a CFA 100k shopping allowance that I had money to spend on clothes, shoes and phones. 

It didn’t bother me too much that I didn’t have money though. As long as I bought all the essentials during my holiday, I was satisfied. 

The first time I ever tried to make money by myself was in 2006 when I was 18. I’d just finished secondary school and I saw that unlike the kids on Lagos Island, the kids in my area didn’t have a party to celebrate the end of secondary school. A friend and I organised a party and I made about ₦50k from tickets. 

A businessman. 

The feeling of inadequacy returned again in university when I was getting a ₦20k monthly allowance when my friends were getting ₦50k and above. But I tried not to focus on it too much. I could actually survive on ₦20k, so there was no need to be dissatisfied. 

After university, I went to Bayelsa for service in January 2012. My parents gave me ₦270k to survive the year, NYSC paid ₦19k monthly and my PPA paid ₦5k. By May, my ₦270k had finished. I had to survive on ₦24k, feeding myself. 

Wait, what job was paying you ₦5k?

I worked at a real estate company. Throughout the year, we didn’t have one client. For some months, they didn’t even pay me. My major tasks there were to clean my boss’ shoes, fetch water and wash plates in the office. 

Sometime in the middle of NYSC, The Avengers came out. There was no cinema in Bayelsa, so my friends and I took a road trip to Port Harcourt to see the movie. Because the trip was fun, the girl I was talking to and I planned to take another interstate trip. This time, to Abuja. She wanted to attend a law conference in October. 

At that time, flights to Abuja cost about ₦15k, so if I was going to pay for the both of us, pay for hotels and small enjoyment, I would need about ₦60k. Where would I find ₦60k in the next few months?

Yes, where?

The CDS I was in was called the Editorial Board. We spoke on the radio once a month, and because I talk a lot, one of the women at the radio station started putting me on her own show. I knew I was good at stuff like that. So I wrote a proposal with two shows — one music show and one game show — and took it to the station. My plan was to make some money from sponsors or ads or whatever. They accepted the music show, and I did it for three months. Guess how much I made?

₦200k?

₦0. The babe went to Abuja on her own. You win some, you lose some. 

I returned to Lagos in December 2012 and just went to chill in Ivory Coast and Angola. By March, I got back and started looking for a job. Although I studied economics, working in media just seemed like the natural thing for me. I found a job at an entertainment company doing social media and digital PR. It paid ₦40k monthly. Again, I started feeling inadequate. My mates and friends were earning ₦150k. 

I couldn’t do anything with ₦40k. If I tried to spend that money on fuelling my Benz alone, it wouldn’t be enough. 

You had a Benz?

My mum gave me her Benz when I finished university. Imagine driving a Benz and earning ₦40k while your bosses are driving Corollas. On the days when I didn’t have any money, I jumped buses sha. 

After about a year and a half, my salary increased to ₦100k, and that’s what it was until 2015 when I left the company. 

Why did you leave? 

I decided to freelance. The company started owing salaries, and my bosses made it a point of note that we needed to bring business to the company for us to be profitable. I found a big restaurant in Lagos, made a cold call to them and pitched for us to become their social media and PR managers. They accepted, and I was the one handling their pages. A few months later, I left the company and they left with me. That’s how I started freelancing. 

How much did freelancing pay? 

With just the restaurant, I was making ₦300k monthly. From time to time, I got other side gigs as well. After freelancing for about a year, I applied for and got a social media job with a media production company. It paid ₦250k. It was in 2016 when I started making money from two jobs that the feeling of inadequacy left for the first time. My monthly income was over ₦500k. This continued until 2017 when I left freelancing because I was tired from overworking, and it was showing in the quality of my work.

By then, I had enough money to buy my own car for ₦1.7m and to rent an apartment on the island for ₦600k. I’d technically become a Lagos big boy. I could buy clothes, shoes and spend money on women. By 2018, my salary increased to ₦350k

It was also during this period I discovered the joy of giving people money. 

Tell me about it. 

When I was a child, my uncle visited one time and gave me ₦3k. I couldn’t contain my excitement. When I started making money, I just always found someone in need to give money to. If I can better the experience of someone  I meet, I do it. When I hear or see people need help in my immediate environment or on Twitter, I help in any way I can. Sometimes, it’s waiters that I give ₦5k tips for no reason or CFA 10k if I’m in Gabon. 

Are you still at your production company job?

Nope, I live in Gabon now. My dad has been looking for someone to take over the family business as he and my uncle get older. They tried to do the regular Igbo apprenticeship thing, but the people they hired just saw it as an opportunity to come, enrich themselves and leave. They didn’t want to stay in the long run.

 In 2017, my dad told me that he needed me to take over the family business. At first, I resisted, because I have my entire life ahead of me. But as time went on, I became more open to the idea. 

From August to December 2018, I came to stay in Gabon for three months to sort a few things out. I didn’t leave the job though. I worked remotely. In January 2019, I did three weeks in Angola. And then in June, I spent some time in Gabon again. 

June 2019 was the first time I had a problem with my boss because my absence made me unable to deliver on some tasks. That was when I knew I had to leave and focus on the family business. In January 2020, I left the company and moved to Gabon. 

How’s that been?

Not bad. I don’t have a salary, but I take home about ₦1m monthly for myself. In 2020, I did some freelance work that paid me about ₦2m for a few months. I bought a PlayStation 4 and sent the rest to people who needed it in Nigeria. COVID was outside and people in Nigeria needed money more than I did. 

Nowadays, whenever somebody gives me money in naira, I give the money out. It doesn’t make sense to keep naira in my Nigerian bank accounts, and there’s always someone who needs money. 

What does this mean for your finances?

When I convert my CFA savings to naira, it’s about ₦4m. I know I should be saving more, but I don’t know how to. I can afford almost anything I want. My spending habits also probably come from the fact that I know where my next paycheck is coming from. People are always going to need spare parts and real estate. 

I’m now at a point in my life where I have no regard or value for money. Money is placed on too high a pedestal in society, and it’s the cause of a lot of man’s problems. So, I don’t acknowledge it too much or try to hold on to it. 

Let’s break down your monthly expenses. 

Is there something you want, but can’t afford right now?

Trips. If I had to travel, I’d have to budget for a few months. For example, I want to come to Lagos for four weeks this year. I’d need about ₦3m for hotels, gifts for people, drinks, etc. 

What’s your financial happiness on a scale of 1-10?

7. I’m pretty satisfied. The three points I took off the score are just because I know I should be handling money better. Maybe I’ll go on a philanthropy break soon, who knows?

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.

Until 2016, this 25-year-old #NairaLife subject’s financial plan was, “My dad’s wealth will bankroll me forever.” You know what made her start hustling for herself? The sudden fear of poverty. 

Let’s start with your earliest memory of money.

My earliest memory of money is tied to my parent’s divorce when I was five. My mum was a twenty-something-year-old university student and couldn’t take care of us so we moved with my dad to Southern Nigeria. When they were together, we lived in our own house in Abuja and had a maid, so I guess things were okay. Till today, I don’t know what happened to the house. When we moved, things became a bit difficult. 

We first had to live with my dad’s brother for almost a year before we got our apartment. In that period, I remember my dad going out in the mornings and coming back looking defeated. Then, I didn’t know what he was doing, but now I know he was going to look for work. 

What did he do for a living?

He’s a civil engineer. He was going out presenting his portfolio to people and looking for contracts. He didn’t let his reality affect us though. When he came home, he cooked and played with us like nothing was happening. 

Shortly after we moved to our apartment, he rented another building on our street and called it his office. There, he hired people and looked busier than I’d ever seen him. As the years went by, things got much better for our family. First, we started flying to other Nigerian states to see family members. By the time I was 8, we were travelling abroad for holidays. One year, we’d go to multiple states in the US, another year, we’d tour Europe. 

I also noticed I got way more pocket money than my mates in school. I was enjoying my dad’s new wealth, but money was having a bad effect on me. 

How?

I got greedy. Even though I took more pocket money to school than my mates, I spent it all and wanted more. After school, when I was waiting for either my nanny or my dad’s police escort to pick me up, I walked up to shops, picked up whatever I wanted and started eating it before the seller noticed. I didn’t have any money to pay, so whoever came to pick me up would pay. It became a habit. I don’t even know when or how I stopped. 

I also got super proud. In addition to his engineering business doing well, my dad’s brother became a new big name in politics in that town, so my dad was getting favours and contracts. What this meant for me was that my surname was popular. Nobody — not even teachers — could speak to me. 

The way I thought about money was that my dad would have it and take care of me forever. I thought I’d never have to work a day in my life. 

When did that change?

In my final year of university. Throughout university, I got a ₦50k monthly allowance and flew business class to the state where my school was located, so I didn’t have a reason to think things would change. 

I studied architecture. In my final year, in 2016, we had a project that I thought I did really well. When it was time for reviews, the lecturer looked at my project and said, “Yeah, you did okay,” and moved on. Ah! I was in shock. I expected him to bring my project out in front of the class and laud it for its excellence and all I got was “It’s okay”. After crying, I started to think about my life and what I would do after university. If I wasn’t good at architecture, how would I make money? To add to my panic, I was hearing everywhere that there were no jobs and the economy was getting worse. 

So I decided to make a list. What were some of the things I thought I could do for a living? 

What did you come up with?

Four things. Importing a wide range of nude-coloured shoes for black women, selling hair, interior decoration and selling clothes.

Which of them did you do?

I first tried to sell hair. My dad gave me a ₦250k gift for finishing university, so I used ₦100k to buy hair for myself and ₦60k to import bundles of hair from China. Nobody bought the hair. While I was marketing the hair, I decided to sell chokers because everyone was crazy about them. This was 2016, and we’d moved to our own house in Abuja. I bought 30 chokers for ₦10k and sold them on Instagram for ₦1,500 each, That’s ₦45k in total. It was too easy to make that money. People were begging me to restock. 

By the time my new stock came, I had to go for NYSC in the south. Nobody wanted them there. I had to send them to someone to sell them off for me. Like that, business was done. 

What was your NYSC year like?

NYSC placed me at an oil company for work. They didn’t need an architect, but they accepted me and paid me ₦50k. I saved all my allwaee because I didn’t need it to survive. In my year there, I solved so many administrative problems that made them more efficient as a company, but I had to leave because they didn’t have a role for me. 

When I got back in 2018, I told my dad I wanted to apply for a master’s abroad and he said okay. By the time I got my admission, the fees were a total of $30,000. That was the first time in a long time my dad couldn’t pay for something. It was already too late to find a scholarship, so I just forfeited the admission and started looking for jobs. 

Were things bad for him too?

They were not as good as before. He was mainly surviving on investments he’d made over the years. 

After months of searching for jobs online, I finally found one at a big architectural firm. It was in Lagos, so I had to travel five times for the five interview stages. I spent my NYSC allawee on those flights. By the time they offered me a salary, it was ₦118k. My dad was furious. First of all, he didn’t want me to move states to work, and now I was going to earn peanuts. He eventually let me go sha, and when I was leaving, I got ₦250k from my family to settle. 

In Lagos, I lived with my aunt. It didn’t take me long to realise I hated the job. I hated the daily commute in danfos and I hated the pay. I felt like I was suffering. With our ₦118k salaries, they still told us to go out and have drinks every weekend so we’d meet clients. Still, I managed to save between ₦15k and ₦20k monthly.  

Shortly after I started too, an interior decor job I’d been applying for reached out to hire me. The pay was ₦75k. 

Did you take it?

I was conflicted. Was I to go for a job I really wanted with lesser pay or stay at a job I hated with better pay? I deliberated for a few weeks and chose the money. Six months later, I quit. I couldn’t take it anymore. 

I moved back to Abuja to stay at home. I first did nothing for some time, then tried to learn how to code because I was bored. I didn’t have any money, but I didn’t need money for anything. 

In late 2019, a friend got me an interior decor assistant gig. It paid ₦30k. I was there for almost a year and got promoted to a project manager with a ₦120k salary, but when COVID hit, they stopped paying, so I quit. 

What were your finances like in this period? 

When I was in my architecture job in Lagos, I invested ₦130k in an agrotech company. In late 2019, they paid me back with an interest of ₦44k, so I kept some of the money and invested the rest back. When I lost my interior decor gig, I survived on whatever savings I had and my monthly pocket money. 

Pocket money?

My dad started giving me money again in 2019 because I moved back home. I think he just feels responsible for me because I still live under his roof. Sometimes ₦15k, other times, ₦30k. These days, it goes as high as ₦50k. 

After I lost my job in 2020, I decided to stop looking for jobs and just start my own business. I started by helping a few friends design their apartments, and through referrals, I got extra gigs. My first paid gig paid was ₦400k for decorating a new office. After that, I made between ₦60k and ₦200k every three months from other gigs. 

By 2021, I picked up event management. I knew I was good at hosting friends, so it just seemed like a good second hustle to have.  At first, I wasn’t charging a fee, all I did was plan the events and charge for transportation. This year, I started a gift concierge business. My family gave me a $3,000 cash gift this year for my business, so I hired a social media manager, bought some interior decor equipment, some crypto, and invested $200 in a Nigerian startup. 

How much do these businesses make you in a month? 

Between ₦80k and ₦200k in total. It’s not terrible. My three-year goal is to be able to rent my apartment and have a driver. I don’t mind taking on a civil service job on the side to make more money. 

Why civil service?

I assume it’s flexible. With a civil service job, I can comfortably do my side jobs, and I’ll be free on weekends. Truth is, I’m 25 and if I can build these three businesses well in the next few years, I’ll make millions from them. People are always going to need all the services I offer. 

What are your finances like right now?

I have ₦400k in emergency funds that I never touch, $500 somewhere, ₦120k as my loose cash, $200 invested in a Nigerian startup, and $500 in crypto. 

And a breakdown of your monthly expenses?

Is there something you want but can’t afford?

A vacation outside Nigeria and a master’s in business abroad. I want to learn how to do business the right way so I scale up my businesses and make millions. 

What’s your financial happiness on a scale of 1-10?

I’d say it’s at an 8. I’m satisfied with what I have right now because I know there’s more coming. 

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.

When today’s subject on #NairaLife was 8 years old, he wanted to be a fraudster. Now, he’s managing projects for financial institutions and growing his career. But he’s not satisfied yet — not until he has four full-time jobs. 

Tell me about your earliest memory of money.

I’m the last of four children. When I was about 8 or 9, my eldest brother had friends who had much more money than they should have had. Here’s how I reached that conclusion — my dad was a banker, and he couldn’t afford all the things they were affording so easily. They lived flashy lives, had cars and bought pizza often, and they didn’t have jobs. As I got older, I started going to cybercafes that doubled as game centres to play FIFA. Whenever I went there, my brother and his friends were there. I also knew that they used to pay ₦250 to stay there for overnight bowsing. 

With time, I realised they were fraudsters who made a living by doing love scams. I wanted to be like them so bad. I started asking them to teach me and the answer I got was always, “When you get older.”

Did you ever learn?

Nope. I started hanging out with my immediate older brother who had converted from Islam to Christianity and was now playing the guitar in the choir. I only wanted to learn the guitar, but I ended up converting to Christianity as well. This was in 2007 and I was 14 and in SS 1.  Because I was hanging out with a different group of people and going to church where they preached against things like fraud, I lost interest. 

What did your family think about your conversion at such a young age?

For a brief period, my dad was against it. But because he was concerned about my eldest brother’s lifestyle and friend choices, and he saw that my other brother and I were well behaved, he left us alone. If changing religions meant we would turn out better, then he wasn’t against it. His family members slated him for it. They said he wasn’t man enough to take care of his children. 

And your mum?

She left Nigeria for the UK to find greener pastures for us when I was a kid — sometime in the 1990s. At some point, her papers expired and she couldn’t come back to Nigeria, so she just stayed there illegally. She sent money, games and clothes from time to time, and we spoke almost every day. I guess she was also okay with my conversion. 

So things were good at home then. 

My dad’s job at the bank meant we lived a modest life. It wasn’t as great as people in our community thought it was, but it wasn’t bad as well. My dad paid our school fees and gave us money to survive, and that was it. 

However, things changed in 2008 when the restructuring in the banking sector happened. He lost his job. He’d been working in the banking sector for over 25 years and was soon going to become a manager. 

Ouch. 

It was also during that period that I had to go to university. My older siblings had gone to private universities, but now that it was my turn, there was no money. My dad suggested a public university, but the suggestion didn’t fly with my mum, so we decided on a private university. 

It was difficult for my dad to cope with the payment of fees, but he managed. Sometimes, he had to sell an asset — a car, land — for us to survive. In addition to this, he was giving me ₦10k every month as allowance. My mum also gave me ₦10k most months. I didn’t think surviving on ₦20k a month in university was bad until I heard my mates were collecting ₦120k from their parents.

LMAO! Did your dad find work after?

Nope. He tried to do “business” by giving different people money to start their own businesses, but they either ran away or duped him. He hasn’t worked since he lost his job in 2008 till today. 

People can say, “Yeah, but he managed to give his children a good education. He has tried”. That’s valid, but you can also look at it from the angle that his not working means he became a financial responsibility for his children much earlier than he should have. And it’s not because he couldn’t avoid it. 

Did your mum return at any point?

She returned in 2012 when I was in my third year in university. She was deported. She came back with nothing. She’d been doing menial jobs in the UK, so she didn’t have the work experience to get jobs in the Nigerian market. 

Wow. 

I tried selling hair products briefly in university to make more money but stopped almost immediately. I bought a pack of 12 hair sprays for ₦300 each and sold them at ₦1,500 each. Good money, yes, but the stress of going to hostels to advertise was too much. I stopped after that one pack. 

I chose to study economics because I was good at economics in secondary school, but what I met in university was different. In secondary school, all I had to do was read my notes and that was it. In university, I had to do extremely complicated math, and I was terrible at math. I eventually managed to graduate with a 2:1, but my plan after uni was to drop economics and just do a graduate trainee program in an oil company. I heard oil companies paid a lot of money.

Is that what you did?

Yes, but I failed every exam I tried my hands at because they had math in them. After many failures, my dad linked me with his friend who had a company that sold discounted flight tickets. I worked as the man’s “PA” and got paid ₦10k monthly to run errands. After three months, I tried another exam and passed. This time, it was for an insurance company. My job role was deputy sales manager, and the pay was ₦45k. 

Five months into the job, I decided to do a cold call, so I walked into a company’s building and said I was there to see their “oga”. By the time I was done pitching to him, he said he was impressed with the way I convinced him to get insurance and purchased a year’s insurance worth ₦600k. Apparently, he hated the concept of insurance because, “How can someone be telling me to insure my life?” He was amazed that I was able to convince him.

One month later, the head office thought my branch wasn’t profitable, so they fired everyone and closed the branch. 

This one must’ve hit close to home.

LMAO, it did! I went back to the man I sold insurance to and told him I was out of a job, so if he needed me, I was available. Shortly after, his company reached out to me and said they needed a project manager. When they asked me how much I wanted, I told them it had to be more than my previous salary, and then lied that my previous salary was ₦90k. They couldn’t afford more than ₦70k, so they persuaded me to accept it, and I did. 

Me, I was happy I was earning that much, but my dad didn’t like it. He didn’t send me to an expensive school to be making peanuts. My mum, on the other hand, had moved to the US in 2015. She wanted to keep hustling and sending money home. She’s been there since then. 

What did the company do?

They were a private consulting firm that helped the government reach their revenue goals for different states by making sure companies paid taxes. Three months after I started working there, they started owing salaries. In fact, I worked there for almost two years and only got paid for about a year in total. In the middle of owing salaries, they even increased my salary to ₦80k, and still didn’t pay. 

Why did you stay?

Shortly after I started working there in 2016, a friend told me a bit more about project management and made me do an online course on it. From what I read online, I saw that if I stuck with it, I could make a lot of money. I also knew that I was terrible at getting jobs through exams, so my best bet was having job experience as a project manager on my CV. 

A strategic man. 

In 2018, my fiancée introduced me to a friend who linked me with a company that sold IT solutions to banks. With my CV showing I had both certification and job experience in project management, I aced the interview. When we got to pay, I lied once again that my former job paid ₦300k, and that if they wanted to poach me, they needed to pay more. We eventually agreed on ₦120k. 

From ₦300k to ₦120k?

They didn’t have ₦300k to throw at someone with my experience level. But there was an unwritten clause — after my three-month probation, we would renegotiate. ₦120k was a good raise. It was the first time I wasn’t flat broke at the end of every month. I didn’t tell my dad my pay this time, but I was much more comfortable. Because the job was far from home, I moved in with a cousin.

Two months into the job, I sent a message to someone on LinkedIn to mentor me and he accepted. He was a big shot project manager who had just moved to Canada. In that same month, he got me a project management teaching gig that paid ₦70k for seven classes four times a year. 

Sweet.

After three months at the job, I met my boss to discuss my confirmation and the raise. She was happy with the work I’d done and confirmed I was now a full staff. However, there was going to be no raise. 

Why?

According to her, the company wasn’t profitable in that period so there wasn’t any sense in giving me a raise. After some back and forth, she looked me in the eye and said, “You’re not getting a raise. If you don’t want to continue with us, you can leave.”

Ah!

I couldn’t believe my ears. Immediately she said that, I weighed my options. If I continued at the company after that, I’d lose every power I had to bargain for a new salary going forward. I’d also lose every sense of personal dignity I had working for someone who spoke to me like that. Right there and then, I quit. 

I didn’t have any savings, and I was going back to live in my father’s house, but it was better than working for someone who didn’t honour their word. 

What did you do after?

That experience changed me. I decided after that that I was going to go hard at making mad money. I hated that someone had treated me like crap because I was at their mercy. I went on LinkedIn and sent DMs to over 50 companies to hire me. They all said no. 

Thankfully, my mentor had a job offer at a bank that he couldn’t take, so he referred me. It was a project manager role too. I lied about how much I earned too, but they were only offering ₦245k, and then a ₦200k bonus at the end of every three months. The offer sounded good to me, so I took it. I resumed there exactly a month after I quit the ₦120k job. October 2018 to be precise. 

Lying seems to be working for you. 

LMAO. At this point, my satisfaction levels were low. My experience with my former boss taught me to look out for myself wherever I went. I also learnt, from job-hopping, that the best way to increase your salary quickly was to change jobs. Loyalty gets you nowhere. I wasn’t looking to stay anywhere for too long. 

In addition to my changed mental state, I got married in 2018, and my parents and siblings were also demanding more, so I absolutely needed to make more money. 

Less than a year later, another bank reached out on LinkedIn to poach me and I left. It paid ₦330k. In 2020, I got a job at yet another bank. It was an operations manager role, but I did project management functions. This one paid ₦500k. By 2021, they increased it to ₦550k.

See as your income is flying.

The money was decent. My wife also earns a living, so our family’s finances were strong. However, I decided not to look for Nigerian project management roles anymore. Because we went remote when COVID hit, I went on LinkedIn, We Work Remotely, Dynamite Jobs and started searching for project management jobs online. In August 2021, I got a full-time project management job at a US company that pays $3,500. 

Whoa. How do you manage both jobs?

My US job starts at 3 p.m. Nigerian time, so I’m able to do all my Nigerian work before then. I also make sure I don’t have any meetings after 3 p.m. so I can fully focus on my other job. 

How would you compare working for a Nigerian company and a foreign company?

In my experience, working for Nigerian companies is trash. You don’t get monetary or other kinds of value for the work you put in. My short term goal is to quit my bank job and secure about four remote jobs that pay $5,000 each. When I do that, I’ll hire someone to help me manage my time and tasks.

What are your finances like right now?

I don’t have any savings in cash. All my money is in USDT. It’s about ₦1.5 million. I want to start trading crypto soon. 

What happens if you have an emergency?

I have ₦100k that I never touch. 

Let’s look at a breakdown of your current monthly expenses.

Is there something you want but can’t afford right now?

Nothing. I live a relatively simple life, so I don’t want anything that I can’t afford. I have everything I need.

And your financial happiness on a scale of 1-10?

10. After saving and giving in a month, my loose money is over ₦800k. That’s pretty good. My quest for more money is just a natural human instinct. Maybe in a few months, I’ll get unsatisfied and want to buy a house, but I’m pretty sure when I start making $5,000 from four jobs, I’ll be able to do that in less than a year.