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.

Today’s #NairaLife subject got tired of the slow income increase at the law firm where she’d worked for four years and decided to leave in 2020 at ₦386k/month. Two years later, she’s at ₦2m and hoping to increase her earnings even further.

Let’s start with your earliest memory of money. 

I was 9, and my dad used to give my siblings and me ₦20 every day to school in addition to the lunch we took in our food flasks. In 2000, ₦20 was enough to get a drink and some snacks, so we always brought our lunch back home untouched, and my grandma who lived with us didn’t like that, so she complained to our parents, and they reduced our pocket money to ₦10. It hurt like hell because I now had to manage half of what I used to, and I didn’t have any money saved. 

Did you start saving after that?  

I didn’t start saving until secondary school. This time, my allowance had gone up to ₦200 a week. My dad would give me money on Monday and ask for a report on how I’d spent it by the end of the week. If I didn’t have any money saved, I got scolded. I lived on allowances until I decided to try out business for the first time. 

When was this?

2010. I was 19 and in university, and I saw that Valentine’s was a big thing, so whenever my sister and I went to the UK, I would buy cheap perfumes and other tiny gifts university students could afford and sell them during Valentine’s period. My goal was to double whatever my capital was so it didn’t feel like I was wasting my efforts. if I spent £500, I’d make £1000 back. I did this until I left university in 2013. 

Before I started NYSC in 2013, I went to the UK again and bought white shirts, white shorts and white shoes for people who didn’t want to go to the market. This time, I broke even — I didn’t make any profits or losses. That was the last time I ever did business. 

Why?

I realised that business wasn’t for me. I wasn’t doing it to make money, I was doing it just because I saw an opportunity and a market. It didn’t really excite me. Immediately after NYSC, I went to the UK for my master’s. 

How did that go?

It was very stress-free. My fees and accommodation were paid for and I lived on campus, very close to my classes. The savings culture I’d developed in secondary school was already a big part of my life. My dad gave me £800 every month, and I got a job that paid £600. Sometimes, my uncle in the UK gave me money when I went to visit him, and other times, my mum just randomly sent me money. I bought foodstuff and cooked, and only really spent money when I occasionally went to visit my boyfriend in Manchester. 

When did you return to Nigeria?

Immediately after my master’s in 2015. I had about £8,000 saved, but I started looking for jobs immediately. When I found one, it was at a top law firm in Lagos.  Because it was my first job, I expected to be offered between ₦100k and ₦120k, so you can imagine my shock when I got the offer letter and saw ₦210k. 

Sweet.

The money wasn’t going to change my life significantly, I was just shocked I was getting that much. I wasn’t spending so much money. My dad had gotten me a car that I drove to work and I stayed with my sister, so I was only spending money on fuel and saving the rest. 

My salary didn’t increase until 2017 when the company reviewed salaries and increased my pay to ₦251k. It was also in 2017 I got married to my Manchester boyfriend, got pregnant, and by January 2018, I had pregnancy complications that kept me out of work for 10 months. In May 2018, I travelled to the US and had my baby there in June, and by August, I was back in Nigeria, and I resumed work in October. 

I’m curious, was your salary paid for the months you were away?

I was paid for the first two months, and then I requested that they stop because I knew I wasn’t returning to work soon. When I had my baby and officially got on maternity leave, they started paying again. 

Do you remember how much it cost to have your baby in the US?

If we’re talking about flight costs, accommodation, hospital bills and buying things for the baby, we spent roughly $35,000. A lot of it came from my savings and my husband’s money, but we also got $10,000 from my parents. 

That’s a lot of money.

Yes, it was, but we didn’t have to spend much money going forward because we already bought clothes, diapers and all of that. My total savings when we got back to Nigeria was ₦1 million and about £5,000.

What was happening on the work end of things? 

I was due for a promotion, but the time away from work delayed it. In 2019 however, I got my promotion, and my pay went up to ₦386k. A few weeks after I got the promotion, I stumbled on my first ever Zikoko Naira Life story, and that’s when my view on money changed completely. Before, I used to think you had to work hard for a long time before you could make the type of money you wanted. The more I read Naira Life, the more I realised that I needed to have more ambitious goals for my finances. I saw stories of people who had crazy salary jumps and thought, “Why can’t this be me?”

Instead of feeling happy about the raise, I felt even more dissatisfied because I thought, after working for the firm for four years, I deserved more than ₦386k. I decided I was going to leave, and after that decision, I started seeing things I didn’t see before. For example,  it was only then I realised that out of the 13 people that were hired at the same time as me, I was the only one still working at the firm. I also looked at the top people at the firm whose positions I aimed to get to one day — senior associates and partners — and realised they weren’t happy. They were just people that were stuck at the job doing the same thing for years. I didn’t want to end up unfulfilled with my job like that. 

Did you leave immediately? 

Nope. Because I fell pregnant. A month after I got the promotion, I found out I was pregnant again. I didn’t want to start a new job while pregnant or soon after I had a baby, so I stayed at the firm, learning and putting myself on more projects and deals so I could increase my value. The US denied my visa application to have my second baby there, so I had my second child in the UK in January 2020. I stayed there until April because of the pandemic lock down, but when I got back, I started actively searching for jobs. 

I found one that was going to pay ₦500k monthly, but I felt like I deserved more, and they didn’t offer more. When I considered that the law firm I was leaving paid bonuses at the end of every year that could be as high as ₦1.2 million, it meant my average monthly salary was ₦486k, and ₦500k wasn’t a big jump. 

What happened next?

I finally answered a friend that had been trying to poach me for months. He wanted me as head legal counsel at his tech start-up. For some reason, I just didn’t consider interviewing for the role. He first texted me when I was in the UK to have my baby, but I told him I wasn’t interested. From time to time, he’d text me stuff like, “So when are you coming to work for us?”

So why did you finally answer?

One day, I was praying about getting a new job and God told me to consider the person that had been disturbing me for months. I spoke with my husband, and he agreed that I should give it a shot, so I did. 

I asked for ₦1.2m monthly based on what I heard the market was paying for that position, but we ended up negotiating ₦650k and I took the job. 

That’s almost half of what you asked for.

You know how these tech people can sell you dreams about huge salary increases when funding comes. As the head of my department, I’d also get the opportunity to make my own decisions and mistakes. Immediately I joined, my first major task was to be the legal personnel in charge of closing out the funding deal we were chasing. It was exciting because I got to be in meetings negotiating huge sums of money with people I could only dream of meeting. 

Did you eventually close the deal?

We closed it in December 2021, and it was finally time to do a salary re-negotiation. 

Should I drum roll?

Haha. We started at ₦1.5 million, but I wasn’t accepting that, so after some back and forth, we ended at ₦2 million monthly. 

A baller. Let’s break down your current monthly expenses. 

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

A new car. The car I currently drive is the one my dad got for me in 2015 and I would like to get a new one, but my total life savings is currently at $3,000. 

How did that happen?

My family needed a new house because we’re getting bigger, so my husband and I sold our former house and got a new one last year. 

Tell me about the finances of this deal.

Shortly before we got married in 2017, we bought a house for ₦30 million. My husband paid most of the money. I only contributed a little. We decided to sell the house last year to get a bigger one, so we sold it for ₦50 million and because my husband is a real estate broker, we found a good one for ₦77 million. Buying the house and furnishing it took a huge toll on our finances, but it was for an important cause, and money always comes back. 

How will your new pay change the way you approach money?

I’ve decided that apart from my tithe, I’m going to keep living on ₦650k monthly. I’m also going to continue my habit of giving money to people and to God a lot. People have told me that the church abuses the money people give to them, but I don’t care. I’m giving the money to God, and it’s been working for me so far. The rest of the money is going into investments and savings. 

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

9, because there’s always room for more. My friend recently told me that with my skills and experience, I should be earning about $100k yearly. That’s my next financial goal.

Every week, we ask anonymous people to give us a window into their relationship with the Naira.

In this story, the woman talks about her choices, like not getting a job and choosing to raise her kid.

Age: 25

Tell me about the first time you made money

The first time I probably made money for myself was after school. It was a small newspaper and they only paid my first month. It was something I was doing to pass time while I waited for NYSC.

Bear in mind that this was a 15k job, and they still owe me 2 months till this day.

By February 2013–

–NYSC?

Yes. NYSC. Back to that job thing–my parents didn’t want us to work at all, so we won’t get “distracted from school work”.

Back to that NYSC part. I got posted to Bayelsa, and I remember crying so much. But you see, my NYSC was the most interesting of all NYSCs. I got posted to a riverine community in Bayelsa that can only be reached by boat.

We got free pots, kerosene, accommodation, mattresses, mosquito nets, and if you’re a super cool teacher, your students will bring you fish and periwinkles. There was also a community generator that meant power was out for only 6 hours every 3 days. We had a Common Room, so all we did was watch Game of Thrones and stuff.

Basically, all I had to bring was rice and myself. Jonathan was President at the time, so whenever the First Lady came to town, they still shared money. Corpers would get like 5k.

I was earning like 29,800 in allowances from NYSC, the state government, and even from the school where I was teaching. So 19,800 from NYSC, and 10k from all the other village hustle.

I barely spent any money. In fact, I only spent money on Suya and meat for when I was tired of fish. So by the time NYSC finished, I’d saved up 450k in the bank and another 20k in cash.

The first thing I did was buy a laptop–it still works. Then I bought a phone. Then I told my parents, “come, lemme pay part of the next rent.”

I was going on 21, and I’d never seen that type of money in my life, so I was just spending fala-folo.

So, post-NYSC?

Aaahhh, that’s when my struggle started. I worked at a newspaper. They started with me at 40k, then it increased to 60k by the 3rd month because I started writing tech and religion. Buttttt, I never really got that 60k–they started owing again.

I was passionate about working for a newspaper, but I needed money. They still owe me 4 months salary by the way. I then hopped to another paper that was just getting off the ground, but never really took off.

Then in September 2014, I got a ₦60k gig. That’s where I was till March 2015 when I got another gig.

See this latest one? My parents were so proud because it was the first time I had a job with a welfare package–HMO and a pension plan. It was huge.

At first, my dad was like, let’s see how this goes. The first month, they paid. And the second. And the third. And so on. I got started at ₦70k net. 6 months later, I got a raise to ₦120k, because of my performance.

I had some dissatisfaction with the company at the time, especially with regards to some aspects of my personal growth, but I needed that consistent money.

Ah, that struggle.

Ah, let me tell you about this 2016 job interview experience–a TV station. I knew I wasn’t going to take that job for two reasons. First, they delayed me for two hours. Then the interviewer was using me to watch comedy on Youtube, while I was sitting there. When he starts asking questions, he goes “are you a moderate Muslim or an extremist Muslim?”

Like, seriously?

I told my dad when I got home, and the vibe I got from him was like, “why you dey vex, small play.”

My job at the time paid ₦120k net and the TV station was offering ₦150k. I didn’t take it, because it didn’t seem like they cared about my welfare.

My own workplace, on the other hand, I remember asking for a raise and someone in management saying, “oh the company doesn’t really have money. You know you don’t have that many needs. You still live with your parents blah blah.”

She was actually right in that I wasn’t spending money on anything but transport. Pretty much all my needs were met. So I just stuck with that plot.

Still, I was a dunce sha.

January 2017, I left. I’d saved like ₦600k at the time.

What came next?

With my savings, I was like “Oh, now’s the time to be an Entrepreneur. The spirit is calling me!”

Huhuhuhu.

I started selling stuff online, and that is when my wahala started. Ah, Nigerians are wicked. There are people still owing me till this day, and I suck at disturbing debtors.

I think I was a horrible businesswoman. I trusted people too easily and they just kept owing and telling stories. The stress was so much, I was struggling to sleep. My mum even said I was sleep talking about money.

I shut down that business.

Meanwhile, I met my husband while I’d started my hustle. And somehow, I told myself I wasn’t sure I wanted to live with hypertension over money, or work and not get paid. So I made up my mind that I was going to marry someone who’d earn for me and the kids.

So in November 2017, it was bye-bye entrepreneurship.

What was the weirdest reaction to you not wanting to take a job again?

Ah, my dad wasn’t having any of it. “Oh, after all the money I’ve spent,” he’d say, “how are you going to marry without having Dr. in front of your name?”

Then he’d send me articles of women pilots and high flyers, to ginger me, but to me, those were different. Those were foreign women in better societies.

I had a friend who used to work in the U.K. She was having the time of her life, and not only was her pay good, but she also got a lot of respect. 

Not only am I likely to get underpaid or owed here, but you also go to work and still get snide comments like “you can’t hear me properly because your hijab is blocking your ears” and all that ridiculous stuff.

I used to be like “Ohh, you can be a superwoman.” But my stress levels are currently at “I can’t kill myself.” Since I left Lagos, moved to Abuja in 2018 and I had our baby, I haven’t entered a market since–that’s my husband’s job now.

I really don’t understand how women are expected to go to work and still come back to take care of a child. I’ve picked my own struggle, and it’s raising my child. Half the time, I’m already exhausted sef.

I respect people who are doing all of it, but it can’t be me.

Hypothetically, will you work if the conditions were better?

To be honest, my husband has good money. So unless he can no longer take care of all the responsibilities, I’m not working. Maybe my answer will be different when I’m faced with an actual scenario.

Let’s create a perfect scenario; what will make you become an entrepreneur again?

See ehn, I don’t even know if I want the money. The stress is just too much. I get frustrated easily, my BP rises over the littlest things, my asthma escalates. It’s not for me. I was suicidal when I was running a business, so I don’t understand why people glorify entrepreneurship. I think about those times and cry.

So, no income?

Well, I get allowances. There’s the ₦100k every month, and another specific ₦100k in savings every other month. That savings money is supposed to be an emergency fund. Just in case.

How much do you have saved up?

I have about 1.2 million saved up. Also, that money could go into my baby brother’s foreign degree. I tend to dip into the savings to help people and stuff. Can’t help it.

To be honest, I actually don’t need a lot of money. The 100k I get for allowance is to get a thing or two for myself or my baby.

Between 2012 and now, what has changed about your perspective about money?

‘Savings’ is hype. Nigerians talk about “oh save this and that.” You save for something and by the end of the savings cycle, you can’t afford the things you saved for. There’s inflation and all those things to worry about.

I think Nigerians like to save, but we don’t know how it works. It irks me a lot. We can’t save our way out of poverty, Now I’m more interested in using my money for experiences and intellectual capital.

Investing, on the other hand, I wanted to do that in my friends’ businesses, but they tend to reject it. I think many Nigerians treat investments like debt, and so they refuse it.  

What’s chopping your money these days?

I’m addicted to weird things; like stickers, and pretty journals from AliExpress. Sometimes, it’s Alloy Cars. Or iPhone cases. Or water bottles. Ali Express and Amazon are my number one problem.

Argh, I need a support group.

Everyone thinks it’s an expensive habit, but these things are really cheap.. An iPhone case will go for as low as 0.98 cents.

There are also books–I have 364 of those. I know this because I counted yesterday.

A book I used to have but wish I still did? The Curious Incident Of The Dog In The Nighttime. It’s about this boy who was forming investigative journalist over who killed his neighbour’s dog.

Uhm, what else? I try to use as little single-use plastic as possible, so I buy reusable stuff. Also, being a hermit means I have few expenses and few friends.

Let’s talk about future plans.

My mum asked me this question and I’ll tell you what I told her;

“I don’t have one.”

I’d say travel and all that, but it’s hard to make travel plans when you have kids. So I really just want to read more books and learn new languages.

At my language peak, I could speak English, Spanish, Arabic, Bahasa, Hausa, a little French, and Yoruba.

I used to learn foreign languages on Livemocha–miss that thing so much. It was actual human interaction, instead of talking to some software.

Still on this future p, what about your old pension account?

I have about 700-and-something thousand naira sitting there. But if I’m going to cash out, I’m just going to calculate my actual money and leave their interest with them. Riba struggles.

Tell me something you want but can’t afford?

Huhuhuhu. A Tesla–self-driving. But I don’t even go anywhere. You know, the only time I prayed for a car was just so I could just race around with my friends. And I had a bike phase too where I just wanted to stunt on them. But I have a child now, huhuhu.

Let’s imagine being a stay-at-home was an actual job, how much will you charge?

250k. The money I’m collecting now is an “I love my husband” discount.

What do you do when you have free time?

I listen to a lot of podcasts. My favourite is Reply All. It’s made me superconscious. I don’t use Facebook or Whatsapp. I uninstall apps I’m not using. Can’t let anyone be playing with my data or security.

There’s this website you can go to check if your online accounts have compromised. I think Nigerians generally suck at Internet security.

There are other podcasts like This American Life, Serial, 99% Invisible. I like The Mad Mamluks, but they ramble a lot.

Do you have a healthcare plan?

Huhuhuhu. Am I too reliant on my husband? Medical bills are sorted. Look, I’m enjoying here. 

On a scale of 1-10, what’s happiness looking like for you?

Seven.  The remaining three is because I worry about illnesses where the money you earn is never going to be enough to sort it out. Also, I wish Abuja had more women-only places to just chill. That’s it.

Tell me something. Anything.

That breadwinner story, it terrifies me. I’ve never had people depend solely on me. I feel like if I ever become a breadwinner with all that burden, I’m just going to get depressed.

Also, when we started talking I was a little scared. Now, just thinking about it, I feel more confident about how I want to use money generally.

I feel a greater need to even begin to equip myself.

Update: Some parts of this story have been edited to further protect the identity of the subject. None of it removes from the core Naira Life story here.

Check back every Monday at 9 am (WAT) for a peek into the Naira Life of everyday people.

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Every week, we ask anonymous people to give us a window into their relationship with the Naira. This time, it’s a little different, because we have our first not-entirely-naira Naira Life story. 

The guy in this story started out bored and looking for action in University. Somehow, that action he found in programming flung him across the world.

This is a story about a guy who went from bored to Abroad.

Age: 25

Occupation: Programmer

Gross Income: €5000/month

Tell me everything that led to building your first app.

Imagine this. It’s the end of 2014 in Uni and I haven’t done any school reading the entire semester. Still, I’m really gingered to try something new. A friend of mine is already building apps at this time, and I go to him like “this guy, let me help you with something na,”

Next thing you know, I’m taking a course on Udacity, and that’s when I started making apps–stupid apps. 

Fast forward to 2015. I see a tweet; someone’s looking for someone who can do just about anything–mostly tech stuff. So I apply.

Bear in mind that I have no job experience at this point. I get hired anyway, as an intern. And you know what my first project was? To build an app for the company.

Thing is, that app was never released, that set me up for my entire career.

Lit. 

Yes, it was. The internship salary at the time was ₦60k, and it was the first time anyone paid me to build anything. Big deal. Super big deal.

Add to that, I go for NYSC the same year, and I’m pocketing an extra ₦19,800.

The best part? I served in a ridiculously low-cost-of-living town in the Southwest. So inexpensive that I paid only ₦20k per year for this massive mini-flat.

Majority of the Youth Corpers were hailing me like ‘Ah boss’, ‘chairman’ with my ₦80k. It’s crazy when I think about it now because many of them were still sending money home from their NYSC salary.

Mad ting.

Mid 2016, I left that startup and went to another place. This one was more company-ish and less startup-y.

I remember negotiating that salary and they initially offered me ₦120k, because that’s what most of the other people were earning. But I was like, I want ₦150k.

Their reaction was like that Soulja Boy meme.

Say no more.

Anyway, they gave me that money. ₦150k. But I wasn’t ready for what came after I got that job.

Hit me.

I went from spending ₦300 every day on transport to ₦1200. My life didn’t get any better. I went from walking to work at 12pm, to having to wake up super early to get into traffic early and get to work at 9am.  It was more stress, more pressure, more office bureaucracy, and less freedom.

Also, I was in for a shock at the end of the month. Instead of receiving ₦150k, only ₦140k landed in my account. That moment was when I learned the difference between net income and gross income.

It hurt so bad, and this was when I realised I done played myself. HR didn’t tell me shit, and their job is to educate. Most of what you learn in other companies, you learn by asking other employees. The higi-haganess is just crazy.

You really have to live in a better environment to see how much suffering it is really. Lagos is a terrible place man. You have all of this struggle for next to nothing. Your employers are still going to treat you like shit. Agbero will insult you. Someone on the bus will still insult you. It’s just a struggle, and people are living that life. I dunno man.

Bruh.

Imagine that on ₦140k, you’re still living a basic life. Back when we were in school, if someone said they were going to pay ₦150k, you’d have jumped. Even at that, the majority of the people who knew how much I was earning were like, ‘man you dey ball’.

Anyway, by the end of 2016, I quit.

You know what’s insane? Most of the people I served with hadn’t gotten a job at this time. The ones that had were getting ₦30k jobs.

And then you start to ask, what exactly is the Nigerian dream?

I know I had privileges more than the average Nigerian, but it was still hard. Am I going off topic?

No, you’re not. You’re right on track.

This is random but, Andela was the most important company in the space. To me, they offered something bigger than Nigeria. Being in Nigeria is limiting, but Andela gives exposure. Also, they seemed to give a shit about their employees.

It’s why I applied to work there. I never got in though. 

There were so many things I normalised working for Nigerian companies, that just working for foreign companies showed me yo, this shit is not normal.

Crazy stuff.

Anyway, in January 2017, I joined another company. It was the best experience I’d had up until that moment. Interesting work, interesting people, and most importantly, a general sense of ownership of the work.

Let’s not forget that I joined because they offered me more money too. I asked for ₦300k. Net. Can’t be fooled twice.

And this is when adulting started to happen. All this time, I’d been living with my sister. And now it was time to move out. It was impossible to get a decent place at a decent price. Also, I was considering that my younger sisters were going to want to come and stay over. So I was looking for a 2-bed. Good thing was that my friend was also trying to get a place.

The Lagos Hack: Live with someone. Lagos is bloody expensive, rent-wise. So you need to share that responsibility with someone.

Still, I struggled. So I had to reach out to my privilege. My parents helped me raise part of my rent money. And it had me wondering what it’d look like for people who didn’t have that privilege.

Rent was supposed to be 800k. I thought that was all. We ended up paying ₦1.1 million. We were supposed to get our caution fee back. Oh shit, I just remembered that the landlord never gave us.

Imagine starting out adulting and the first thing you have to pay is ₦1.1 million. Even though I was splitting it, I don’t imagine a lot of people would have been able to afford that. How can a currency so disappointing be so out of reach?

Did I forget to add that we had to buy a generator? And a lot of other stuff too.

Okay, so back to work.

I spent all of 2017 at this company. All was good and amazing, till investors pulled out. And to stay alive, the company had to lay-off two-thirds of the company. So imagine about 400 people suddenly becoming unemployed. I was one of them. But one of the advantages of working with this company–one of the best in Nigeria at the time–you get a severance package. I got ₦800k.

Interesting.

But ₦800k is not a lot of money when you’re unemployed. If I was smart enough at the time, I would have left Lagos and gone to live in Ekiti to be eating Pounded Yam straight out of the mortar.

I told myself, ‘oh, I’m just going to stay at home and this money will last 6 months.’ But being unemployed is so terrible, that I dunno how that money finished in 3 months. Guy, e no even reach 3 months.

To be honest, I think my lifestyle at the time is to blame. I was confident I was going to get a job, except, I didn’t.

I had to leave Lagos.

I really can’t wait till people move out of Lagos to places where the air is cleaner and everything is cheaper.

By this time, a lot of my friends were hunting and finding jobs abroad.

I tried and tried, but it was hard. So I just started looking for a Nigerian job, you know, something to sustain me while I look for my dream job abroad.

But there’s no way I would have survived that period without the safety net of my parents and friends. Nigeria will touch you–and maybe I was having the occasional rough two weeks–but I wasn’t suffering.

So just when that ₦800k was about to finish, I got an email. Foreign gig. Someone finally offered me a job. And so 5 months after I got laid off, I left the country and headed for Europe.

I even applied to Andela, but by the time they responded to my application, I was already gone.

I haven’t had much to do with the naira since then.

Do you send money home though?

In the time I was sending money home, the fluctuation has been around plus or minus ₦30. When I moved it was ₦420 to the Euro. Then it moved to 3-something. Now it’s at 4-something. And all of this was in months.

For like 4-5 months last year, I was sending about ₦200k home.

Gimme the figures.

I earn 5000 Euros. My net income is 3000 Euros. The cost of living is higher than Lagos, but you still earn more than you’d earn on the average in Lagos. Also, quality of life is better.

Rent?

850 euros gives me a two-room. In Nigeria, you’d call this a mini-flat–room and parlour–but here, two-rooms is two-room. And this one is expensive because it comes with some extra comfort, like a washing machine, oven, dishwasher, refrigerator, etc. It’s actually possible to pay 600-650 euros for a cheaper place.

Where do you think you’ll retire?

I’m retiring in Europe, even though I don’t share the same sentiment with a lot of my peers. When you retire, there are some things that will become important, like mental wellbeing and health. You currently can’t get the best of any of that in Nigeria. Healthcare is part of my tax right now, so it’s basically free. It feels free because the money never reaches me in the first place.

Will you be investing in Nigeria though?

Yes. Yes. Believe it or not, Nigeria still has immense potential. But not being on the ground makes it harder to track investments. I’ve considered investing in real estate, not real estate to enrich per se. It should be common knowledge by now, but highrise buildings are how to fix the problem of not having enough horizontal space. Lagos is crowded because everyone is trying to build their own small house.

It’s going to need a lot of capital, but I’m interested in affordable housing. A cheaper 1004.

I’m thinking about your Nigerian Dream question, and now I’m curious.

I’d really like to say that I know exactly what the Nigerian dream is. Or that the Nigerian dream is something worth aspiring to. Help me out here man…

…

The Nigerian dream is being able to survive with minimum casualties.  At my second job, I had to deal with dust on my morning commute, and it was miserable just dealing with the smoke coming out of exhausts.

It will eat away at your sanity. At your funds. At your life.

The Nigerian dream is minimising losses because there’s no win.

Sigh.

If you can actually survive Nigeria, I can say you’ve lived the Nigerian dream. Of course, the easiest way to survive all of that is to have a lot of money.

But then the alternative is to just leave Nigeria.

That escalated quickly. Tell me something else.

I sound like someone who’d never set foot in Nigeria, but that’s not the case. First of all, food. Nigerian food is better than anything else in this world.  There’s also the weather.

Then–this is weird–there are Nigerians. I dunno where we get our happiness from, but Nigerians will always be the happiest people you’ll ever meet.

You’ll enjoy being with happy Nigerians more than any other kind of happy people.

That means a lot.

Random question, how much will great Jollof rice cost you in your Abroad?

20 Euros with dodo and meat. That’s ₦8k. What the actual fuck? This good is just good enough to eat. I’ll take White House Jollof Rice over this any day. You can’t eat Nigerian dishes out, you’ll run down. Best thing is to buy African foodstuff, which is way more expensive than it should be.

What of Pounded Yam?

Just buy poundo. First, yam is even expensive. poundo yam is the closest and it’s expensive. And I dunno where they get it.

First thing I’m doing when I come back is to just eat. Boli and Fish. Amala Skye.

If you ask me what I miss the most about Nigeria, it’s the food. Period.

A little throwback before you go:

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