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Sex Life is an anonymous Zikoko weekly series that explores the pleasures, frustrations and excitement of sex in the lives of Nigerians.
The subject of this week’s Sex Life is a 29-year-old gay man whose sexual addiction ruined his three-year relationship. He talks about how the end of his relationship made him realise he has a problem and what fuels his addiction.
When did you have sex for the first time?
I think the first time I had sex was in SS3. I met a guy where I went to write my WAEC and after the paper, we went to his apartment. I didn’t know what sexual tension was at the time, but we had that. He kissed me and the rest just happened naturally. It wasn’t wow or anything like that, but it was good enough for me to want to do it again.
Did you?
Oh yes. We hooked up again after that. Then I relocated to Lagos for uni, and my sexual awakening happened.
Oh?
It’s also when I had my first “boyfriend”.
Why is the boyfriend in quotes?
He hated the word “boyfriend” because he thought it was so gay, so even though I think we were dating, I don’t know if I can say we were.
Fair enough. What about the sexual awakening?
Before I got to uni, I had slept with one person. By the end of my first year, I slept with close to thirty people.
AH.
Yup. Just so I’m not exaggerating, let’s say above 20 but less than thirty. I was kind of known for being an ashawo amongst the gays in my school then.
Do you know why you went from a body count of 1 to a body count of almost 30 so quickly?
I think it was a desirability thing. I did it to feel desirable. There was a thrill that came with someone wanting you and your body and of course, your penis.
LMAO. You mentioned being branded an ashawo back then. Were you slut-shamed often?
Oh yeah. People also undermined me because I was sleeping around and assumed I wasn’t smart. They would be rude to me, say snarky things in my back and my front. Nigerian uni is actually what American shows paint their high schools to be like.
I agree!
That was how I met the first “boyfriend”. He was a hookup who didn’t know he was a hookup and so kept calling and texting me. We dated for a few months then he cheated on me.
Oh wow.
With a friend of mine.
WOW.
I was heartbroken but kind of relieved because I was already bored of the relationship. Most of why I was heartbroken is I felt he cheated on me because I wasn’t good-looking enough.
Desirability seems to be a major theme in your sex life.
It is actually. I recently realised the main reason I have sex is that I feel like at least someone wants me. And that’s like drugs to me, so it pushes me to search and look for it. As you can imagine, that makes me do things I shouldn’t do.
Like what?
I have made so many bad decisions because of this thing. You know how someone slept with my “boyfriend”? I did the same thing to a different friend of mine later on.
Damn.
His boyfriend started texting me on Instagram, saying suggestive things then started sending me selfies. I knew where it was going, did I stop it? No. It progressed to him sending nudes and one day, he asked me to come over. We didn’t agree on sex, but I knew what was going to happen. And it did.
Did you tell your friend?
Nah. It would’ve just caused drama.
Where do you think that need for feeling desirable comes from?
I was a fat kid and people were mean about it. In my late teens, puberty helped me get rid of a lot of the weight. Also when I was in uni, I started working out and that helped. But I still don’t feel good-looking, so I search for that feeling. I realised sex was like a way to get that hit, and it became my drug of choice.
That’s tough. Moving on from uni, how was your sex life in the “real world”?
I dated a lot, I had a lot more sex. I think I was searching for something that I didn’t even know. Then I met the love of my life.
Tell me about him.
I met him through a friend when I was trying to change my “whore” ways. He had a great job, was bald and good looking. What else could a boy want?
Nothing, my dear. So how was the relationship?
It was fucking good in the beginning. Good sex, healthy and good communication. We started playing with the idea of maybe going to the United States so we could get married or at least live as partners. Then, I fucked up.
How so?
I cheated on him several times.
Several times?
Yeah. And with several people. We were together for three years. The first year, I was faithful. But from the second year? I was bored. I just wanted the thrill of casual sex with someone other than him.
Did you ever consider an open relationship with him?
He is monogamous, and honestly, so am I. If he had sex with someone, I would die.
But…
Yeah, I know.
Okay, did he find out that you were stepping outside your relationship?
Yeah. He did because the gossip flew back to him. He confronted me about it. We talked about it and decided to still try.
What happened next?
A few months later, the next year, I slept with someone who was the boyfriend of someone he knows. I think that was the worst thing I have ever done in my entire life. I saw his face when he confronted me about it, crying. He begged me that it shouldn’t be true.
I had never hated myself more than I did then. I think he broke then, and I hate that I was the one that did that to someone I loved who loved me.
What happened next?
He left the house, his house. I later found out he went to a friend’s place because the friend and his boyfriend came over to the house. He hasn’t talked to me since then. He didn’t even look at me when he came back. He didn’t block me on social media either; he just acts like I don’t exist. It’s been a year now.
Damn. Did this experience change how you approach sex now?
I think the guilt of what I did has changed me as a person. I don’t feel that rush I used to feel with sex anymore; I just feel guilt. When I try having sex, I stop halfway. I feel disgusted with my body now.
Have you thought of perhaps seeing a therapist?
I’m in therapy now. We’re working through my sex addiction.
How would you rate your sex life?
0. I am no longer having sex at the moment and all I feel when it comes to sex is disgust, anger and regret.
When the subject of this story reached out to me — ‘I have a story, but I don’t want to write it myself. I have never told anyone because I have been in denial about it, and it’s time I unburdened myself’— I wondered what their story would be.
How does it feel to lose a parent to addiction? Or worse, to find out that the family members are working overtime to make grieving difficult for you?
What do you do when you find your father’s body posted on Facebook by someone who is not a member of your family?
This person’s experience gives you a glimpse of everything that could possibly happen.
For five years now, I have tried denying the fact that someone posted pictures of my dad’s body in his casket on Facebook, and he captioned it: “Vanity upon vanity.” This person isn’t a family member, but he felt it was okay to take these photos and share them on Facebook for everyone to see.
***
My father was a very responsible man. He had a successful military career and a great stint as a two-time special adviser, but he battled with one thing: alcohol addiction. Often, our loved ones go through difficult things we have no idea about. Usually, these things hide in plain sight. Sometimes, we love them so much that we see it, and other times, that same love blinds us, keeping us blissfully unaware of their struggles.
With my father, I think it was a mix of both: love that helped us see him, and love that blurred our vision. We were uninformed about the addiction; we loved him so much that we could not address it. And to be fair, we never had to address it. Though he drank a lot, he never lost his cool, and the drinking was a part of his life that he kept separate. But you can only keep an addiction a secret for so long.
The first time I became aware that my father had a problem was the day I found, in his library, books about addiction and how to fight them. That day, I saw that he had acknowledged the problem and was willing to fight it.
***
One night, my dad and mom went out. When they returned, he was in physical pain. He was vomiting and could barely walk, he had to be carried to the hospital. After days of testing and treatment, it was confirmed that my dad had Type 2 Diabetes. Everyone thought it was hereditary because my grandfather had that same illness. But those who were close to my father knew it had to have been the alcohol.
And yet, despite how much my father struggled to quit, he always failed. He drank until his diabetes led to a heart problem and then liver failure. I and my mom didn’t think he would die because money for treatment was never the issue. But one day, inside the intensive care unit of LUTH, my dad had a heart attack. And just like that, he was gone.
***
Grieving him was the next stage for me and my siblings. I was the closest to my dad and even though I was hurt, I spent a lot of days in pure denial. I was happy, bubbly, and people that came to console us were confused about this level of ‘normalcy.’ That was the only sane period we had before my father’s family came around and scattered everything.
My father’s family members are proper assholes. Planning his funeral showed me that. As soon as my father’s death was announced, I launched into alert mode. I was 16, and I remember hiding my mom’s wedding certificates, the land documents and other receipts because family will always be family. And they stayed true to character. The moment they arrived, they let us know they were broke. They didn’t stop at that. They made inquiries about my father’s properties, and even though I had gained admission to study Law by then, one of them asked me if I could consider working as a house help.
The military handled the funeral cost and we had to bury him at home because we didn’t want to fight about the property with his siblings. My father was buried in front of the house. We tried to convince them to bury him in the backyard, but apparently, it’s against Yoruba customs to do that. My mom’s room faces the part where his grave is. She no longer opens the curtains in that area. It hurts a lot to see your father buried in a place you used to call home with him. But what hurts, even more, is seeing people treat that part of the house as a taboo. I have a complicated relationship with the gravesite. Sometimes, I don’t want to go home because it is the first thing I see. And sometimes when I am alone in the house, I go there to sit and just talk to him. Doing that brings me peace.
***
But let’s go back to his funeral and how his family members put on the greatest drama since Fuji’s House of Commotion. During that funeral, my dad’s youngest sibling had a fainting spell that was easily cured with a can of Malt. One of his younger sisters fought because of party packs and Jollof rice, and yet these people didn’t drop a dime.
I should let you know that my dad’s siblings are educated. And I mean Masters level education, so to see them act like this was beyond all of us. At some point, my dad’s sister asked us (again), about my dad’s properties and said my siblings and I should send our account numbers. That was the end of it. To date, I haven’t seen any of them, and that’s fine with me.
A few weeks after the burial, we found out that someone carted away all my dad’s wristwatches, about twenty-something designer pieces, and perfumes. His designer shoes and shirts, all of them gone. Even his car battery.
***
After the funeral, tensions cooled down. It was then that my siblings and I came to accept the truth that we were now fatherless. Our lives would definitely have to change. One day, I was bored and I remembered how much my dad loved Facebook. While he was alive, we blocked him, but now that he was late, I wanted to see what he used to post about.
I couldn’t find his account, so I ran a general name search. The first thing that showed up was my dad’s body in his casket with the caption, “This world is vanity upon vanity.”
At first, I was shocked. There was my father’s body, laid bare for the Internet, a world of strangers, to see. Why would someone do that to him? Why show him at his most vulnerable? I closed the page and I never returned to Facebook.
Later, I found out who posted it: one of the guys that used to perform with the live band my family used at our events. I never mentioned this to anyone. Not even my brothers.
***
Forget all they say about Igbos and their burial rites, Yoruba culture isn’t any better.
My mother couldn’t leave the house for 42 days. She wasn’t supposed to watch TV for that 42 days too. We, her kids, were told not to sleep on the same bed or on the same couch with her because it would affect our luck. She was only fed ogi (pap) and eko for a long time, and she had to use different plates and cups, not the general plates at home.
She was supposed to wear black for one year. No makeup or partying for the whole year, and she had to seek express permission from her in-laws to stop wearing black, or dark clothing after one year, and then the clothes she wore were burnt.
As her children, we were also not allowed to see our friends off because, according to the family, it would bring bad luck.
My father’s family held on to these ‘customs’ so much. Once, I asked them if a man whose wife died would be put through the same thing. They said no, a man was to mourn for just 3 months because he’s a provider or something like that.
***
The military never paid my father’s pension. In fact, some members of the pension board issued a death threat to my mother when she tried to push the issue.
***
I no longer communicate my emotions properly. I hate pity, and at that point in my life when I lost my father, pity was the only thing everyone wanted to give me.
I remember now, how a close family friend called us immediately after my dad’s funeral.
“You all should remain close to each other now,” he said.
“Yes, sir.”
“And, please, be vigilant oh. You know how your father’s siblings can be.”
“Yes, sir.”
And then he called me to one side and said, “Take it upon yourself to ensure that your siblings stay away from alcohol, you hear?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Always talk to them oh.”
“Yes, sir. Thank you, sir.”
This man had good intentions, but the entire conversation was poorly timed. And yes, I was so scared of alcohol but life works in mysterious ways.
A few weeks ago, I put up a link to my Outspoken chatbox when I was looking for men to anonymously interview for this story. A few days later, a woman sent a message via Outspoken telling me that she has a story that she thinks I’ll be interested in. She was right. And the story below is one of the wildest I have ever heard.
In 2017, I decided I was going to be an influencer. I had all the things I thought I needed to get the career started so, of course, I went for it. By 2018, I had more than twenty-five thousand followers on my Instagram alone. The opportunities were coming, but they weren’t as financially lucrative as I expected. They just made me look rich, while I wasn’t in real life. I started looking for ways to make more money and leverage the audience I had. Then my friend gave me the advice that changed my life: get a sugar daddy.
As a hyper-visible woman, thanks to my influencer career, people make passes at me every day on social media. There’s this appeal of someone visible and, in a way, unattainable. My friend advised me to make use of that and pick a sugar daddy. So I started going through my DMs regularly, especially the DM requests, until I found one that caught my eye. He had like four or five photos on his Instagram, and you could tell he didn’t update it that much, but he looked clean as fuck and, more importantly, rich. I had found my sugar daddy.
I replied to his DM and tried keeping it light. Let’s call him Ben. Ben was nice, in his late thirties, a rich guy that came from money and still made his own money on top. He made it clear from the get-go that he had money to spend.. He was uber nice. I did not ask him for money, but he kind of knew what I was there for, and he was sending me money regularly. The lowest he ever sent was N50,000. About a month later, he invited me over to his house. Paid for the flight and sent over tickets. I was ready to eat his money proper.
I was to spend two weeks with Ben. We went out, ate and, of course, had sex. The sex was so much better than I expected. When I say he came through, he did. On the fourth day, he told me his friend had a party and we should go. The party was slightly crowded, but he took me to a small parlour that felt like a VIP section in the house. They were drinking and smoking, and I am not a drinker, but I smoke socially, so that’s what I did. Then they passed something around and he took it. I didn’t clock it because I assumed it was weed, which we were doing at the time. His friends suggested going to a different thing that was happening, so we went to get the cars.
The ‘thing’ was just Ben and a bunch of his friends hanging at a hotel room that belonged to one of them, which was cool. Then they started passing something and I clocked what it was. They were doing cocaine like it was Lucozade Boost. Most of them were injecting it. Then Ben came up to me and asked if I had ever done it before, and I told him no. He told me if I can take weed, I can do this because cocaine is just the elder brother. The biggest mistake I’ve ever made in my life was to believe that lie. He very carefully showed me how to snort a bump off his key and yo, it was something. I felt hot, I felt nauseous but Jesus, the jolt of pure pleasure was amazing. Someone, I’m not sure who, got us a room in the hotel. He might have had a room there already, I don’t know. But we went there and although I have given up cocaine now, cocaine sex is just wow. It was just utterly euphoric.
The bad thing? The comedown from cocaine is just as wow as the high. Very horrible. I didn’t realise it, but this was Ben’s goal. He wanted someone to be having drug sex with and after the first two times, I was hooked. Sex with him was very good normally because he doesn’t hold back, but sex with him when cocaine was involved? Father in heaven. I can not even begin to tell you. I couldn’t have sex with anyone else because no one else had or wanted to do it with cocaine. I came back to Lagos and relatively continued my life but, deep down, I was only really happy when I was doing cocaine. I became hyper dependent. It’s like you’re living a normal life then someone takes you to heaven for an hour and then brings you back to your normal life. Suddenly, that normal life just doesn’t feel enough. Even things you liked before are now dull and tasteless. That’s what it felt like. I went to Abuja at least twice every month for the duration of our relationship, which lasted for six months. There was good sex and money and drugs, I thought I was living the life. My best friend eventually had to tell me to calm down because it felt like Ben and cocaine were the only things that I cared about. I cut off my best friend and blocked her.
I am ashamed to admit it, but do you want to know how I broke it off and started down the road of recovery? I discovered he was partnered off with someone and I was someone he was using to play out his fantasies with, which I would have been okay with if I knew all the details upfront. The girlfriend of a friend of his that I had met maybe once or twice told me to come over for lunch one day, and she casually asked if Ben sees his fiancee often. I was confused then she told me. The shock was frankly the only reason I listened to her talk, to be honest. Me, I didn’t know why I was shocked because na sugar daddy im be, no be boyfriend. In the long run, I did the math and understood what my purpose was in the relationship and it was up to me to decide if I wanted to continue. I did not. I sha did the cocaine small one more time before I left Abuja that time. Once I came back to Lagos, I began looking into how to get over the addiction. I want to say thank God for my best friend because I wouldn’t have been able to get through it. I lapsed and I struggled, but I did it. Last time I had cocaine was in late 2019. I still occasionally smoke but I make sure I cut it out every now and then so I know it doesn’t have any power over me. I’m in a better place, I am genuinely happy and I even got a new job sef. The moral of the story if there is one? If you are going to do something, especially a ‘vice’, make sure it’s for you and it is what you want.
Every week, Zikoko seeks to understand how people move the Naira in and out of their lives. Some stories will be struggle-ish, others will be bougie. All the time, it’ll be revealing.
What’s your oldest memory of money?
I was 5, and my mum gave me money to buy a crate of eggs – ₦1 coin. My own introduction to money was with coins, and this was in 1990. There was the 50 kobo coin. My boxed-up uncle used to give me whenever he visited.
What could 50 kobo buy at the time?
Yoo. Think about what half the price of a crate of eggs can buy a kid now.
What was childhood like though?
We used to get money for school, and I saved a lot of it to buy toys. It was a middle-class living in a good neighbourhood. Full-on Buttie – only English. Whenever we went to the markets, people used to say “una done carry this una American pikin come.”
Hahaha.
We weren’t elite rich but we were comfor – bro I had a skateboard. So, a middle-class family in the 90s that Babangida destroyed? That was us.
What do you mean “Babangida destroyed”?
For context, he increased the price of fuel four times. Still, for most of my childhood, I always saved. And it wasn’t from a need to keep money, it was just from a resource control standpoint. Our parents always told us not to be wasteful, you must finish the food on your plate. If you’re not going to finish it, don’t ask for that much. If you don’t finish it, you’ll die and come back.
Buhaha what?
My dad was chilled, but my mum used a spatula on my head more than she used it for Eba.
Ah. Anyway, what was the consequence of the economic dip in your family?
First of all, the dip became telling close to the end of the 90s. My dad had bought land and started building a house, but he didn’t have money for decking. We got a quit notice, somehow, and so we moved into a boys quarters. A room and parlour, beds came out at night and went back in the morning. My parents slept on one, my two siblings slept on another, and I slept on a long single bed. My parents stopped buying me clothes, so I had to start going to Yaba myself. I had that one shoe that was one size small.
Over the next decade, my hustle mode turned on. I stopped getting money from home. I even started to do what you’d consider shady things.
What?
I was selling contrabands to boarding school students because they couldn’t go out. I’d buy at a price, and then add my own price on top of it. Look, my life was boring, and I needed some excitement. I was consuming a lot of Western culture, hip hop and all. It was a complete opposite to my life, and I wanted to experience some of that shit. But I just wanted to do everything. I was doing well at school and rolling with the geeks. Also, I was in the choir at church, but I was betting. I was also playing ball in the area and knew DMX and Famous Five.
I got into Uni in 2004, the real rude awakening for me. By this time, money no dey. My dad was dealing with health problems. I was trying – wait, just before Uni, I did one small hustle.
What?
I realised that whenever WAEC was pasting centre numbers, the lists were always fragmented and incomplete. So, I went to WAEC office, bought photocopies of the complete list for ₦150. Then I went to one school where I’d see people go to the noticeboard and look out for people frustrated about not finding their names. Then I’d approach them like, “it’s not there abi? I have it here o, it’s ₦200”
Ah.
I did the first day, made like ₦2k, the second day, I made a little over that, and on the third day, the gateman sent me away.
Why?
I learned my first lesson about making money: understanding your fucking climate. If I’d been sorting that guy for ₦200-₦300 per day, he’d have even guarded me. So, back to uni.
Back to uni.
I was just so free. I was smoking like one pack of cigarettes in two days, but I was broke and couldn’t afford accommodation. Now, I was staying in a single room with four other guys – only one person actually owned the room, and it wasn’t me.
The room owner had a babe, and whenever she’d come at night and they want to smash, we’d have to go and wait outside. Then we’d come inside whenever they were done.
Hahaha.
That’s how fucked up my life was. Then I started floating in school – I’d spend the day in class, crash overnight and go to the hostel to shower. I did that for like a month.
I imagine you didn’t just continue this way.
Yeah, I got a job at a cybercafe. I was lucky because as a teenager, my dad already got us a computer – a Compaq laptop in ‘94, bruh. So I already had a thing for computers. Anyway, by early 2004, I collected my first salary at my first job for ₦2,500.
Ah, first salary. What else were you doing in that period?
Sooo, one of my friends was getting into music at the time, and I was quite enthusiastic, so I became his manager. He even recorded an EP, but we weren’t making any money. We were broke and it was hard. I’d drop money to print CDs and stuff, push into the music scene at the time and all.
I was doing all kinds of things, and still managed to maintain a good GPA. My last GPA was about 3.76, then my life changed forever.
What happened?
I got kicked out of Uni in 2008, my final year. Long story short, I was at the wrong place at the wrong time. It does feel like karma.
Wooaaah.
My parents didn’t handle it as badly as I imagined they would. Funny thing is, my dad actually had to leave his first Uni because he had issues with a lecturer and he had to go finish up elsewhere.
Anyway, I was back in Lagos, and I had this artist who I was managing, pushing my man into the scene. In all this time, I was writing exams to gain admission into other universities, and nothing just clicked.
By 2009, I got a job at another cybercafe where I was getting ₦10k a month. The best part was that I had access to unlimited internet. Then I discovered blogging. I started putting up my guy’s music on my blog, then I started charging other people to put up their music for ₦8k per song. Then management companies came too, and I’d charge them over ₦20k. Since it wasn’t frequent, I was making about ₦18k. I was still at my Cyber Cafe job.
Then I met this guy, a senior executive at an advertising company that was also working with entertainment companies. I somehow managed to secure a meeting with him, shared a breakdown on some campaigns and talent they were working with, and how I think they’d be able to manage them better.
He was impressed.
Loud.
Then he asked me, what can you do for us? I told him I could help them with artists’ PR and management. Before I left that day, he gave me ₦5k. Oh boy. I first went to eat at one buka. I eventually started working with him, and was able to save up to buy a used laptop for about ₦50k by the end of 2010.
That year had its own struggles.
What else?
I was addicted to weed. People in the hood had heard I didn’t graduate, and I was mostly on it to cope. It was depressing. There was that period in that year too where I was a sidekick on the radio, and was getting the occasional ₦200 or ₦300.
How did you beat the addiction?
I woke up one day, tired of the addiction. I read a story about how Gandhi cured his love for women by going to bed with women and not having sex with them. So I decided to go to where we used to smoke and sit with smokers for one month, without actually smoking. I did it for one month, and that was it.
Mad o.
Yeah. Anyway, being in the entertainment scene meant that I met a lot of the interesting people at the time, like 2Face. One of my guys working in another advertising agency was leaving, and was looking to hire a replacement.
I got a meeting with the boss, and they said they were going to hire me at first as an account manager. Basically, I was tracking everyone else’s output, uploading and stuff.
He asked me, “how much do you want to get paid?”
I said, “how much do you want to pay me?”
“₦20k.”
“Let’s do it.”
This was early 2011, and I just needed the job and access to the internet. Remember the other ad exec, he decided to put me on payroll officially. He paid me ₦35k – ₦55k from two jobs.
What were you doing at the ₦35k gig?
Helping their talent hustle studio time, booking events, writing press releases. At my ₦20k job, I moved to copywriting: ads, press releases and all that. I was enjoying it more, and in 2012, I ditched the account management gig and focused on my job as a copywriter. My salary climbed to ₦50k. Then I started getting a commission off the sales that I made. I was also getting bonuses from profit sharing at the end of the year. The highest bonus I ever received was ₦200k.
When I left in 2014 though, my monthly salary was ₦80k.
How much did the next gig offer?
₦300k.
Mad o.
I’d already built a reputation, and you know what’s funny? I actually left for for ₦125k, but as I put word out that I was leaving, I got more offers. Two of them were offering me ₦400k. I tabled it to the ₦125k people and they bumped me up to ₦300k. I took the ₦300k offer, and I’m glad I did. It wasn’t just an agency doing the advertising side, they were also a full-blown digital agency. I joined as Head of Digital.
Two months later, I got another raise to ₦400k.
Ah, how?
Someone on my team was about to leave the company, and he asked for ₦300k as his condition to stay. They gave him the raise, but then they didn’t want him to earn the same as me, so they bumped me up to ₦400k.
Over the years as I garnered more experience, I started taking some consulting gigs on the side around digital strategy. I was doing well enough that I could afford to get a place – my first place as a working person. I also bought a car.
Suddenly, all the things you panicked about in 2008 disappeared?
Fuck all that shit. At this time, I could take care of my mum conveniently. One time, she wanted to celebrate her birthday and I just sent her ₦300k. The problem at the time was that even though I had money, there was no intention going into saving and investing. Then I started dating my wife.
What changed?
My wife saved my life. She’s my anchor. She’s great with money, She made me take a course on Coursera where I learned about financial literacy. I do the hard hustling, and she does the planning of our lives.
That’s where I learned what you spend, save, invest. All the babes I was hanging out with it just wanted popcorn and cinema at the time, but she was the one for me. We’re married now. We moved. After our first kid, we moved again. My son was turning 1 and I needed him to grow up in a place that was safe enough for us to go on evening walks.
How much is your rent now?
First ₦300k. Then I started paying ₦600k. Now I’m paying ₦1.5 million. I panicked when I was about to move, but I quickly learned that I just had to save ₦125k per month.
Back to your salary.
I got a raise in 2018 that bumped me up to ₦581k. But I was entitled to bonuses that could bump me up to ₦1.2 million, but it never really came. In 2019, I started listening to offers again. One bank came with a solid offer to lead comms, but the amount of shirts and ties I had to wear ehn, I just cancelled.
I wanted more action, so I chose a role in a startup instead. This time, in Business Development.
How much did you join for?
₦1.8 million. My salary hasn’t grown since then, but I’ve gotten performance bonuses. The highest I’ve received at a time is about ₦600k.
What’s your current mindset with money?
You spend it, it comes back. Now, this is not on some careless shit, but I believe that the more I give, the more it comes back. I have ₦144k and someone came with an emergency and needed a ₦50k loan, I didn’t even think twice. Like, look at how far I’ve come and I didn’t die. Is it now a small inconvenience that will now kill me?
Looking at how far you’ve come, how much do you feel like you should be earning?
Double my current salary, for starters. I do a lot of work that I don’t get paid for, but I’m building my reputation.
What’s something you want right now but can’t afford?
I want to invest in companies with money that I can afford to lose – $5k here, $10k there.
What’s the last thing you bought that required serious planning?
I have three kids – two of them are adopted. I bought a Sienna so the driver can take them around conveniently. The family van cost ₦2.3 million.
When was the last time you felt really broke?
I always feel broke, bro. In fact, I never have enough money after I save all my money. I only always have like ₦200k in a month.
What do you wish you could get better at?
We run three small businesses, all these businesses were my wife’s ideas. My own ideas never dey commot money. I also spend a lot on education.
Tell me about that.
I’ve done some courses with a solid business school, and some other schools. I just finished a course in Project Management and am currently studying Product Management.
Do you have any financial regrets?
When I started earning well enough, I should have been saving more. But then, I’m glad it went that way because I won’t have experienced a lot of things. Money is good, guy. I still enjoyed it, but I wish I should have just saved more in dollars.
How would you rate your financial happiness, on a scale of 1-10?
5, considering where I’m coming from, haha. It’ll be 10 when I pay for life insurance and when I buy my house.
It’s been a wild couple of years.
I believe the universe is amoral, it doesn’t believe in good or bad, only happenstance. Being kicked out of school led me to all the choices that led me to where I am. At that point, it looked like my world had ended.
It is estimated that Nigerians smoke 40 billion cigarettes every year, with 11 million people lighting up 110 million sticks of cigarettes every day. These numbers are rightly alarming as approximately one out of every ten Nigerians smoke cigarettes.
Nicotine is a stimulant present in cigarettes. It’s also responsible for addiction to cigarettes. This chemical compound makes quitting very difficult, often presenting withdrawal symptoms in smokers trying to stop. Quitting any substance is a very real and constant battle for people who decide to. I spoke with five people who have made the brave decision to conquer this very deadly habit.
Jennifer, 36
I’m desperately trying to stop smoking. I started smoking in 1998 since an ex introduced it to me. I’ve been trying to quit for more than 20 years and I’m very worried about my health.
I had a health scare a year ago when I had to have major brain surgery to remove a tumour. I was convinced I was going to die. Luckily, it was benign. The tumour was quite large and I discovered I had had it for over ten years. Funny enough, my doctor never linked smoking to my cancer. He didn’t even ask until I told him. He also says I’ll probably have another surgery sometime in the future.
I’m currently on yet another effort to quit. While I’ve cut down the number of sticks I smoke, I’ve not been able to stop completely. I went from smoking about ten cigarettes a day to between three to five cigarettes. Progress.
Mark, 33
I quit smoking on the 1st of January this year. I started smoking socially, like any curious young man, in 2013. It snowballed over the years until I started buying packs of cigarettes. I didn’t have health side effects but one thing that was constant was me always needing a fix. After every meeting, I’d be aching to go out for a smoke. I’d always come back smelling of cigarettes (perfumes can only do so much). I decided to quit because I didn’t like the control it had over me. Plus it’s not healthy, to begin with.
I decided to quit because of my partner. She knew I smoked socially but I don’t think she realised how bad it was. She works in healthcare so she’s always putting extra pressure on me to stop. I didn’t want to have to lie to her about the whole thing so that made me quit cold turkey.
I’m not going to lie, quitting is difficult. The first few days were hellish. I’m quite social so I was constantly exposed to the triggers: drinks, outdoors, other people smoking, etc. I thought the worst part was over then the rains began. God, it’s been a constant struggle. It doesn’t exactly get easier. The urges come and go, but knowing that I’m on a streak keeps me going. If I pick up a cigarette today, I might never quit again.
Dare, 29
I started smoking in secondary when I was 14. My dad was a smoker, so naturally, I became curious. It wasn’t a habit but I was smoking occasionally because I thought it was cool. I started smoking regularly in the university when I started to learn about my panic attacks, anxiety and depressive episodes. They were really stressful to deal with so I started to smoke to take the edge off.
From there, it became a full-blown habit. Anytime I felt my obsessive-compulsive disorder kicking in or I started to feel anxious, I’d start craving cigarettes. When I graduated from the university, I decided to cut down my smoking. I went from smoking a pack and half in uni to smoking seven sticks a day in 2017.
I’ve always been aware of the dangers of cigarettes but I never gave it much thought until a personal event occurred and I became pre-hypertensive. My heartbeat rose drastically during my panic attacks. This meant I had to make lifestyle changes so I decided to cut down so more.
I’ve also been trying to eat better, exercise and cut down even further. I’ve had several cold quits but I think the reason I haven’t quit is that I haven’t tried hard enough. I’ve gone several weeks without smoking a stick, so without doubt, I have the capacity to stop. I just need to be decisive about quitting because if I can cut down to 3-4 sticks a day, I can quit completely. I just need to put in the work.
Temi, 30
My first interaction with cigarettes started when I was about 9. My dad was a smoker and I was a very curious kid so one day I smoked a cigarette when he wasn’t around. It was not until secondary school when I started rolling with male friends that I started smoking habitually. I also smoked weed but it wasn’t until the university that I started smoking weed regularly.
I’ve always struggled with cigarettes. First of all, I’m asthmatic and know that I shouldn’t be smoking but something must kill a man. The first time I realised I had to stop smoking was when I discovered I was smoking one pack of cigarettes in two days, while I was serving in 2013. That day, I looked into my trash can full of cigarette butts and realised I needed help. Since then, I make a resolution every year to quit but I always fall by the wayside. Earlier this year, I took to the gym to help me quit but corona and other bad stuff started happening and I said “fuck this shit!” and started smoking again. I’ve tried to limit my smoking to one stick a day but that never works because I’d always say: “Okay, one more stick won’t hurt” and before I know it, I’m right back where I started.
Sometime last year, I tried limiting myself to smoking a maximum of 4 sticks per week, and only on the weekends. That worked for two months but I started smoking “just one more” till I fell off again. I’ve heard of nicotine patches but I haven’t made any efforts to get on it. I’ve also tried e-cigarettes but that was just a waste of money because I still ended up craving normal cigarettes.
Tayo, 27
If you’re a young legal practitioner working in Lagos, you might understand my plight. I’m a lawyer who works in entertainment and other businesses. I get very busy and that means perpetual stress. It started smoking in law school as a coping mechanism against anxiety and depression. Now, I buy only about two sticks a day, except I’m out with the boys and there’s plenty of people to smoke with.
I know the health hazards that come with this bad habit. I’m constantly wondering why cigarettes can be so good yet so harmful. I am constantly weighing the pros and cons, trying to find a balance. I am literally panicking right now, knowing that this thing is probably going to kill me. I need to light one now to calm my nerves.
One year ago, we left Nigeria for an 80-day adventure across West Africa. Something is coming. Unshared stories. New perspectives. Limited series. 10 episodes. Jollofroad.com
