Notice: Function _load_textdomain_just_in_time was called incorrectly. Translation loading for the wordpress-seo domain was triggered too early. This is usually an indicator for some code in the plugin or theme running too early. Translations should be loaded at the init action or later. Please see Debugging in WordPress for more information. (This message was added in version 6.7.0.) in /home/bcm/src/dev/www/wp-includes/functions.php on line 6121 Women | Page 3 of 5 | Zikoko!Women | Page 3 of 5 | Zikoko!
The culture of invalidating women and shutting down their experiences because people are uncomfortable with the conversation needs to die. The idea of tagging women-centred conversations as an agenda is a shallow and unfair attempt at creating a distraction. To counter this, we have compiled a list of things Nigerian women do not need a time-table to discuss:
1.Femicide
With the rise in femicide in Nigeria lately, it is an important conversation that needs to keep happening without being shut down.
2.Pregnancy, fertility and childbirth
The habit of keeping things secret amongst Nigerians has led to a lot of unshared information about pregnancy, childbirth and fertility. When women share their experiences, do not silence them. People who are incessant about silencing women should please read this.
3.Harassment
From home to school to protest grounds and anywhere else people gather, women have suffered harassment. From infancy to adulthood, no woman is safe. Although this is not uncommon for women alone, it is more common for women to get shut down during conversation about harassment. There is no scheduled time for these discussions, every time is a perfect time to talk about it.
4.Rape
UNICEF reported in 2015 that one in four girls in Nigeria has experienced sexual violence before the age of 18. More data retrieved from WARIF about the prevalence of rape and rape culture further increases the need for conversations around the unsafety and abuse of women. Until rape ceases to exist, women should always be able to talk about it.
5.Female genital mutilation
According to Wikipedia, nationally, 27% of Nigerian women between the ages of 15 and 49 were victims of FGM, as of 2012. Nigeria, due to its large population, has the highest absolute number of female genital mutilation (FGM) worldwide, accounting for about one-quarter of the estimated 115–130 million circumcised women in the world.
Issues that plague women should not be used as content for banter. This includes FGM.
Please remember that every time is a good time to discuss the injustices that women live through each day.
This week’s What She Said is a 35-year-old Igbo woman. She talks about compartmentalising herself so people would treat her humanely as a traditionalist, and things she does to combat the stigma attached to traditional worshippers.
Tell me about growing up.
I grew up in Asaba and it was so much fun. We would climb trees at my grandmother’s house, play catcher and race with tyres.
I asked a lot of questions and was always indulged by my parents. You can say I grew up spoiled. I didn’t have a lot of restrictions. I could do anything I wanted as long as I had a good reason to. My dad was a lawyer with an extensive library that I was in charge of. I decided who to loan out books to and my judgment was never really questioned. So while I was spoilt, I was also responsible.
How did having a childhood like this affect you as an adult?
I became my own person on time. I knew it was okay to have an opinion and believe in the things I believed in solely. I grew up with a lot of powerful women, and I learnt by shadowing them. They taught me early that my voice mattered.
But as I got older, I started to compartmentalise myself.
Why?
We are traditionalists in my family, and I’ve realised this affects how people relate with me.
I’ve been making waist beads commercially for about six years. I’ve worn waist beads all my life. I started making them to help women pause and look at their bodies. I believed if they continued to do this, they would realise how beautiful their bodies were.
I also have a beads line for spirituality. I have bracelets that are tailored to the day you are born — like a Zodiac bracelet but using the Igbo days of the week. I only tell people this on a need-to-know basis.
As a traditionalist, I keep my business separate from my religion because I don’t want Nigerians to say I’m selling juju and collecting people’s destinies with beads.
When did you realise you had to make this distinction?
As early as I could talk. I went to a Catholic primary school, and when I was in Primary 1, I was used as an example of what an idol worshipper was and why people shouldn’t eat from me. My mum had a proper blow out and asked them why they thought it was okay to teach that to children.
Outside my house, I learnt people like me were demonic, bad people who hypnotised others to make them do what they want. With the rise of Pentecostalism in the 90s, the hate became worse. Catholicism tried to convert us with love, Pentecostalism taught people to demonise us — we wanted them dead because they worshipped differently.
So when I was outside, I learnt to censor myself.
That’s painful. Has anything changed in recent times?
A bit. People now want to know their roots, how their ancestors worshipped. When I’m not making beads, I’m writing programmes that teach people how to infuse spirituality in their lives, just the same way they do yoga and such.
People have this perception that if you’re a traditional worshipper, you have to look a certain way. So I am deliberate about the way I dress and everything. My life mission is to show people that they can “worship idols” and be baby girls and boys while doing it. I think this helps with how people see me — they may still want to bind and cast me, but it helps.
For more stories like this, check out our #WhatSheSaid and for more women like content, click here
Hi there! While you are here do you want to take a minute to sign up for HER’S weekly newsletter? There’ll be inside gist from this series and other fun stuff. It’ll only take 15 seconds. Yes I timed it.
The HER newsletter is a weekly Zikoko newsletter that comes out every Saturday by 2 p.m. Since we just got to 2k subscribers, we decided to explain the six types of HER Newsletter readers.
1) The early bird
They read at exactly 2 p.m. every Saturday. They have no time to waste. The only thing is after reading, they spend the rest of the week waiting for the next issue.
2) The feedback queens
They always have a story to tell or a recommendation to make. Writing the newsletter is more fun because of them, and they can easily become anyone’s favourite newsletter readers.
3) Non subscribers
They always see the subscribe link and jump and pass. They read every single issue, and probably on time, but they can’t be bothered to subscribe. Every time they see the subscribe link they ask themselves “to subscribe or not to subscribe?” They always choose not to.
4) The forwarders
They love their friends and what them to partake of good things like the HER newsletter. That is why they always forward new issues to their friends.
5) The clickers
There is no single link added to the newsletter they will not check out. They trust you will not tell them nonsense so they want to see what the link is about.
The subject of today’s What She Said is a Nigerian woman in her 50s. She talks about her difficult experience living with extended family, her relationship with her father and managing her mother’s mental health until she died.
What’s the earliest memory of your childhood?
It’s of my father. He had me on his lap in a gathering. I don’t know if it’s a real memory or it’s based on a photo I used to have. I’ve lost it now. I was maybe three or four, and I had the look of shock on my face. Someone joked that I was supposed to be a boy, the way I was glued to my dad. That’s all I remember.
What was it like growing up?
There were good days and bad days. I grew up in Lagos. Both my parents were tailors, so they made me lots of nice clothes. That was one thing I was very proud of as a child. I had a lot of fashionable clothes, and it went on to inform my fashion sense.
I was an only child for the longest time. My mother tried to have more children and that didn’t happen. Before she gave birth to me, she had a son, but he died after a few months when they made a trip to our village. The narrative I heard was that evil people on my father’s side of the family killed him.
My father, after being pressured, slept with two other people at different times and they had a boy and a girl, respectively.
He didn’t marry them?
No. He was very much in love with my mother. At least, that’s the reason I think he didn’t marry them. For him, it was just to have more children. My mother was very accommodating with them. In fact, my sister and I are close till today and it’s mostly because my mother made us see each other not as step sisters, but as sisters.
What about your brother?
We didn’t grow up together, and I haven’t heard anything about him till date. I just know I have a brother. Whether he’s alive or not, I don’t know. My sister and I have tried to find him on Facebook, but that didn’t work out.
It was my extended family’s fault — my father’s siblings. My father was a bit well-off. He had lands and buildings around Lagos. His siblings were not that well-off. They lived with us — with their families o. For some reason, we lived in the boy’s quarters, while they lived in the main building. They were wicked to my mother and made all kinds of demands from my father. My father was a kind man — too kind, maybe. So he often bent under their whims, although he did try his best to stand up for us. It was because of his siblings, my uncle and aunt, that he had two children out of wedlock.
They believed it wasn’t right to have just one child. They said that my mother’s womb had spoiled because she could only have one child for him. When when my step brother was born, they had issues with his mother and so didn’t accept him. That’s why I think we never grew up together.
Wow. I guess what they say about your father’s side is true.
Hmm. Well, in my case, it was. I do have family members on my father’s side who I’m very close with. Like my father’s cousin’s children. But his siblings and their children were terrible. They tried to sow discord between my sister and I, saying we weren’t really sisters because we didn’t share the same mother.
How did your mother cope with all of these?
It was a lot for her and she eventually became mentally ill. Back then, we all believed that my father’s siblings had done something to twist her mind. This was the 80s. A lot of people recommended churches to go to for deliverance — pentecostal churches were becoming popular then. Now, I believe that it was psychological. The stigma associated with mental health issues didn’t allow us to seek the help she needed, although a few doctors suggested this. It wasn’t like she was parading the street naked. That was what a lot of us believed was mental illness.
I can’t really describe the kind of behavior she exhibited, but one thing I’m sure of is that she started believing everybody was against her, even me. She would talk endlessly to herself, often in a loud voice, about how bad everyone was. This affected my relationship with her.
Wow. What was your relationship with her before this?
We were not very close. She was always very reserved and quiet. I was closer to my father. He was the one who taught me to drive, taught me to fix my car, made all my clothes. In primary school, he was the one who picked me and dropped me off. When it was time to decide what next to do with my life after secondary school, he was there to help me out. When I started work, he drove me to work and advised me. We were that close. Then a few months after I started work, he fell sick. No one knows what illness it was. After a few weeks, he died. I was devastated.
I’m so sorry
Thank you. When he died, after the burial and everything, my first instinct was: leave home. But I couldn’t leave my mother with those people. I got an apartment on Lagos Island, but my mother wouldn’t come live with me. She insisted her husband’s house was her house and she had no reason to leave. My sister was still living there, so my mind was at peace, a bit. But that’s when properly wahala came up. My father’s siblings were claiming rights to his properties. I didn’t really care about any of it, but another faction of my family wanted me to fight for the building where my mother and my father’s siblings lived. That went on for years. Even when I went back to celebrate my 25th birthday, they were still fighting for it. When I got married, I just told myself I was done. Lucky for me, I started having children almost immediately after I got married, so my mother came to live with me.
That’s good.
It was good. But, my mother didn’t accept my husband. She thought he was evil. My husband was very understanding. He understood what my mother was going through and didn’t let anything she said affect him. She lived with me until she died. She died in my house. It was very challenging to take care of her, especially since I didn’t exactly know what was wrong. There were moments where she was great, but there were other times where it was bad. Luckily my mother had sisters who were great women. They loved each other and took care of each other. I remember once, her sisters came to my house to see her and they all slept on the same bed and gisted about everything. Even though I was close to my sister, I didn’t really have that with anyone until I got married and had children.
When my mother died, I was sad for many reasons. I felt she had gone to rest but was sad because it felt like I hadn’t taken care of her to the best of my capacity. I couldn’t take her on trips because she was suspicious of them. I couldn’t buy her things for the same reason. In fact, she continued to make her own clothes and cook her own food into her late 70s because she was so antsy about everything and everyone.
She loved my children and was there for them even when I couldn’t be.
Nice. Now that you have your own family, what’s that like?
It’s great, thank God. I should add that the relationship with members of my dad’s family affected me too because I’m very wary about family members. I protect my children, maybe a bit too much. I often say that they’re my siblings, my friends and it’s true. While I had friends that were helpful during the bad periods in my life, friends that have become family, I’m also very happy about my own children.
What are some things that helped you cope?
Food. When I eat, I’m happy, I temporarily forget everything. This started back when I was younger and lived in my father’s house. There was a bakery just by the house. They sold all kinds of bread. I went there nearly every day to get bread and peanut butter. Place a bowl of ikokore in front of me and I’m fine for like an hour.
God also helped. I grew Anglican. In my 20s when it felt like the world was collapsing on my head — the period when I was supposed to be enjoying life — I wasn’t a Christian in the born again sense. I was going to church seriously then and cramming the bible but had no real understanding of it. God was always good to me. Till today, he helps me cope. He’s my peace. After going through all that, I know there’s nothing life throws at me that I can’t handle with the help of God.
For more stories like this, check out our #WhatSheSaid and for more women like content, click here
Some men are going to read the title of the article and lose their shit, we are sorry, or maybe not. We’ve read in a couple of articles that sex toys are supposed to support men and not compete with them but this is not one of those articles.
Here are a few reasons why you should replace men with sex toys.
1. A sex toy would not cheat on you.
The toy would probably be too tired to cheat on you. One thing you can count on from excessive use is extreme loyalty and even when you choose to share it, you share it on your own terms. I can’t say the same for men. This should be enough reason to replace men with sex toys.
2. Your sex toy can never have a bad back.
No ‘’my back hurts’’ every 30 mins. I won’t ask Nigerian men what they do with their backs, all I know is that my toy doesn’t have a back that can hurt and it can go on for hours.
3. Guaranteed orgasms.
No one trusts men to give anyone orgasms, but your sex toy will make your toes curls and your eyes roll to the back of your head. Even if a man does that, he can’t do it as often as your toy would.
4. A toy answers when you call.
Unlike men, your toy answers when you call. Your toy won’t just answer when you call, it will pleasure you until you say stop.
5. Toys are non-judgmental.
Your toy doesn’t care how many toys or men have come before it, it delivers when it gets to its turn.
6. A toy listens to what your body says.
Your toy would never use you to learn DJ work when it’s time for it to pleasure you. It knows your pleasure points and does the job it was made for perfectly.
7. A sex toy would put you to sleep without snoring in your ears.
Your quality of life is going to increase, aside from frequent orgasms, you get noiseless sleep. As opposed to sleeping beside someone who sounds like small gen.
P.S it’s all banter, if you want men that’s fine. I personally advise you to have three sex toys and one man, you need the three sources of joy.
What does it mean to be a man? Surely, it’s not one thing. It’s a series of little moments that add up.
“Man Like” is a weekly Zikoko series documenting these moments to see how it adds up. It’s a series for men by men, talking about men’s issues. We try to understand what it means to “be a man” from the perspective of the subject of the week.
The subject for today’s “Man Like” is Rilwan. He’s a lawyer and premium baby boy. He tells us about the responsibility that comes with living alone, finding it easier to form deeper connections with women than with men and how Amala is life.
You know the drill.
Lmao. The first time I had my “man like” moment was at the beginning of 2018 when I moved out of my parent’s house. Moving out was significant because I was suddenly responsible for myself and a lot of choices. Up until then, I’d been fortunate enough to have the support of both of my parents.
What were some of the challenges you faced?
A lot of it was tied to being responsible. I was suddenly living alone with no one monitoring my entry and exit time. I was also now responsible for the choices I made and the company I kept. The question became: “What do I do with my newfound liberties?”
As someone who has always felt a deeper sense of responsibility, especially when compared to my peers, I had to constantly check myself. I had to ensure that I was as responsible as possible. Although I still had reckless interludes. Lmao.
I was expecting you to talk about curtains and furnishing challenges. Are you rich or something?
Lmaoooo. I’m not rich oh. I moved in with a responsible housemate, so that made furnishing the apartment a lot easier.
I remember that one “annoying” challenge I faced from moving out was having to fuel my car myself. When I was living at home, my parents used to fuel my car sometimes and that made things soft for me. After moving out, I was notorious for always driving my car on E — my girlfriend at the time constantly dragged me for this.
Till today, I’m amazed when I see people who drive around with full tanks for no reason — I keep wondering why.
Lmaoooo.
I also had a challenge trying to keep track of all my expenses. I haven’t gotten the hang of it, but I keep trying regardless. I guess it’s part of trying to be more intentional with where I put my money.
Interesting. Tell me about some things moving out made easier for you.
Firstly, it reduced my commute time because I was closer to my office. Living alone also removed the burden of mum and dad calling me if I was running late from work. Not having to answer to anyone to a larger extent was one of the things I valued the most. It was also when I moved out that I started thinking about marriage in a deeper sense. In fact, I thought I’d be married by next year.
I —
Lmao. I had everything figured out and a plan. If I could trace the source of the conviction, I’d say that in addition to other factors, moving out played a big role. It was just like check, I’ve done this. I’ve done that. So I can do this next.
Energy. When are we wearing this aso-ebi?
It’s a long story, but there were fundamental circumstances around the relationship that couldn’t be resolved, so we ended things.
Issues like?
It’s a long story…
We have some time.
It’s a long story.
Oh.
Yeah.
…
In between trying to figure out where my life is headed and trying to show up, I have a lot less incentive for marriage right now.
Interesting. Why did you think you were ready then?
I was sure I had found the right person. I believe a major reason people say they don’t believe in marriage is that they haven’t found the person that’ll make them lock up. At the time I was sure I had found my person, but hey, life happened!
Does your experience influence how you navigate romantic relationships these days?
Sigh.
It does a whole lot. It’s different when you lose something because you didn’t value it and you realise the value in retrospect. But when you understand the value of what you had and lost it to circumstances beyond you, it hits differently. It’s no longer a case of you didn’t know what you had. It then becomes a situation where you helplessly watch as something of value painfully slips away from you.
What this experience does is that it sets expectations for you. You’re always going into romantic relationships using that experience as a benchmark. If nothing else matches it or is better than it, you’re a lot more hesitant to commit.
I’m not sure if it’s a problematic thing, but I just feel that we settle so much as Nigerians and marriage and the person we love is something we shouldn’t settle on.
I’m jotting.
Lmao. I always joke that if I continue with this mindset, I’ll spend the rest of my life alone.
My unpopular opinion is that the choice of who you end up with is a lot less about love and more about compatibility — does the relationship fit into your family and spirituality goals? Are they team stay or team jaapa? I’m not saying love isn’t important, I just think there are so many considerations to navigate.
I’m curious about your red flags for relationships.
I don’t do “crazy” people. Some people might find it exciting, but I’m not cut out for the stress that comes with it.
I also can’t be with someone who can’t hold a conversation, isn’t genuine and doesn’t have some measure of consistency. I understand that people have different versions of themselves, but I want to be able to know that the version of you I’ll see today will be the same to a large extent as the version I’ll see tomorrow.
Naira to dollar exchange rate, I hope you’re listening?
Lol.
Does anything scare you?
I generally struggle with feelings of inadequacy and I’m constantly asking myself if I’m good enough. It’s a battle of constantly checking myself and reminding myself of my capabilities. This feeling of “not enough” always leaves me fearful that growth opportunities might pass me by. It’s something that I’ll keep working on.
Then there’s also the question of purpose: “What am I here for?” “What’s my end game?” “Where do I see myself in 20 years?” There’s also the part of navigating societal expectations where I find myself asking: do I want to be a father? And what kind of father will I be?
It’s a lot to think about and I’m thankful for friendships where we’re not shy to talk about our struggles.
Tell me about these friendships.
They’re mostly with women. Right from primary school, some of my closest friends have been women. I remember that people used to mock me for this, but the truth is I found it easier to form deeper connections with women. With men, I found it difficult to have conversations about the things that were on my mind in quiet moments. Beyond all the jazz and noise, I wasn’t sure I was having real conversations with my male friends.
So you don’t have male friends you have deep conversations with?
I do. In the past year, I’ve been intentional about nurturing deeper relationships with men. I’m very pro-deeper friendships.
What’s that experience like?
It’s not been easy.
In my experience, women are a lot more open and honest about their struggles. With men, there’s a whole lot of intentional effort that goes into getting your guy to talk. You have to ask how they are three times before they talk about their issues. These days, as young men who are all struggling to find our place in the world and are facing many challenges, we definitely need to talk.
My friends are slowly accepting that someone asking how you really are slaps differently, especially as Nigerian men. As a man in Nigeria or even as a Nigerian, you’re always going through something traumatic.
My brother.
Have you experienced any pushbacks from trying to form deeper relationships with men?
For sure. But I’ll never give up. Mostly because I’ve seen what happens when you don’t talk to your friends or just leave them be.
Oh.
I had a friend from Uni who took her life a couple of years ago. The rumour [whether wrong or right] was that she was struggling with figuring out her place in the world and there was not enough support for her to talk about it.
That incident made me feel like I didn’t pay enough attention. It also made me realize how similar we all are at the end of the day. I realise that regardless of any push back I need to always reach out.
Because of books and websites where I get to read about the experience of others, I don’t find it discouraging to reach out. Consuming other people’s stories makes me realize that I’m not alone [and no one should be], and there’s no shame in being open about struggles.
I feel you.
You mentioned something about a lot of your friends being female, I’m curious about that.
It’s a lot of dealing with people either calling you a woman wrapper or [wrongly] assuming you’re sleeping with your female friends. At some point, I used to be bothered but I’ve learnt that one thing I owe myself is to live an authentic life. It’s easier to live with myself because I don’t depend on the validation of others. In fact, I sleep better at night.
I’m not going to throw away deep, meaningful friendships with my female friends because of what people will or won’t say.
How do you balance your female friendships with a romantic relationship? Do they clash?
They do. My best friend in the entire world [even though we don’t do labels] is a woman. What this means is that whenever I’m in a relationship, the dynamics of our relationship changes.
It’s not like I cut her off or anything. It’s just making adjustments and respecting my partner enough that I don’t create the wrong impression or find myself in situations beyond my control. This means prioritising my partner at the time and always placing her first.
Wahala for who is not your number one woman.
Smh.
How do you define your masculinity?
Masculinity is not something I really care about or think about often. However, if you placed a gun to my head asking for a definition, I’d say masculinity involves self-restraint. It’s lowering your ego and accepting responsibility. Being accountable too. Ultimately, it’s a continuous process of learning and unlearning until we’re comfortable enough to make authentic decisions that allow us to sleep better at night.
Love it.
Random question: what do you think are some things necessary to live a happy life?
Jollof rice.
Party Jollof in the morning and amala with abula in the afternoon. Very key.
A life without amala is not a life worth living —Rilwan 2021.
On a more serious note, I think that to live a “happy” life you need to surround yourself with people who love and care about you unconditionally. People who always want the best for you even when you can’t see it.
I see. Do you think you’re surrounded by people who love you unconditionally?
Yes, I think so.
My chest. So sweet.
Check back every Sunday by 12 pm for new stories in the “Man Like” series. If you’d like to be featured or you know anyone that would be perfect for this, kindly send an email.
Periods are very uncomfortable, unnecessary and uncalled for, a factory error if you ask us, but we digress. Every woman who menstruates can attest to how cranky the experience makes them. All this to say, the last thing you want to do is add to your girlfriend’s annoyance.
Here are a few easy ways to make your girlfriend feel better when she is on her period.
1. Don’t call your girlfriend by her government name
Period or no period, why are you calling her by her government name? Babe, baby, boo or preferably ‘’your royal highness’’ is how you should address her. Calling her by her government name can trigger unpleasant memories of work and the last thing you want is your girlfriend bawling her eyes out because you pronounced her name how her boss pronounces it.
2. Buy her snacks regardless of the time
You are a snack, yes, just not the snack she needs. If she wants snacks by 3:13 a.m, you have to find them. We don’t care how you do it, just do it.
3. Give your girlfriend belly rubs during her period
Read it again, we said belly rubs, not booty rubs. If you like touch her yansh, whatever you see, just take it like that. If your period coincides with your girlfriend’s period, we advise you to rub your bellies together, teamwork makes the dream work.
4. If she says jump, you ask, “How high?”
You can turn it up a notch and carry weight sef.
If she says jump, better ask how high. The jumping jacks will work as a good exercise for you, anything to put your girlfriend in a good mood feels like a win-win to us.
5. Avoid doing anything that may turn her on
Except you guys are into that kind of freaky freaky vampire type stuff, we advise you don’t turn her on. Read this article and avoid doing all the things on that list while she’s on her period.
6. If you are a vampire, you can have sex with her
If all other plans fail, you can settle for orgasms. Consensual orgasms always bring joy, and research has proven that period sex isn’t even that bad.
It’s International Women’s Day, and we’ve made this quiz to celebrate Nigerian women in our own way. Pick your faves from each group and we’ll guess your best quality.
The subject of this week’s What She Said is a 55-year-old Nigerian woman who is a Christian and a feminist. She talks about how discriminatory experiences as a female worker in church made her change churches and how she became a feminist.
When did you first notice life was harder for women?
I think I must have been 15. I grew up with five sisters and a brother. My brother is the last born, while I’m the oldest. Before my mother had our brother, much to the disappointment of my father, she kept having baby girls. So, my sisters and I grew up knowing that it was important to have a brother.
I was 15 when he was eventually born, and from that moment everything changed. Before he was born, my father treated us like queens. I remember they used to call him “daddy girls”, but once my brother was born, they replaced “girls” with my brother’s name. We all lived to serve him. In one instance when he was about four or five years old, we were supposed to eat something for dinner and my brother said he wasn’t eating that. He wanted rice, which is what we ate for breakfast and lunch. My father ordered us to make rice instead. Or was it the time that my father was going through a hard time financially, and I and my immediate younger sister had to stop going to school so he could enrol my brother in a private school?
I didn’t really notice it was a boy versus girl problem. I noticed that my parents had favourites and we girls were not their favourite. It made sense because my brother is the last born and they always treat last borns like they’re fresh agege bread and hot beans.
Haha. So did it affect you in any way?
If it did, I can’t really say. It was normal to us back then. As I grew older and started to see more of the world, I saw that that was the way the world was. When I was 18/19, I was with someone whose mother used to lay his bed and do his laundry. This was when he was on campus. She would come every week to pick his dirty clothes and arrange his things. It was somehow to me, but I didn’t think it was because he was a boy. Me, I was an adult even before I even started school — maybe the last thing my mother did for me was to breastfeed me. Being the first girl, I had a lot of responsibility.
At what moment did you realise that this was not normal?
I should start from when it actually registered that it was a man’s world. This was after university, when I decided that I wanted to pursue my calling to be in ministry.
I went to a bible school my church organised and was refused admission because I am a woman. What the person in charge of admissions initially told me was that there was no space that session. Then later he asked what did a woman even want from the programme? He didn’t know that I knew some higher-ups. I eventually got in.
I was indeed the only woman in the programme. My husband wasn’t a pastor or even a minister. Till today, he’s not. So I got a lot of comments from even my friends asking why I was doing the programme. I told them God called me, but they were not comfortable with that information. That was how I went through the programme, finished, graduated and started working in the church.
What was the experience like?
Very political and biased against women. People had opinions that I didn’t have the right to be teaching bible classes or leading the evangelism team. They didn’t always say it to me. But because I was more religious than my husband, they said that “I was wearing the trousers in the family.”
When women led things like charity events and children’s events, they expected me to be there. But those things weren’t for me.
A lot of times, I felt like quitting, but I knew I wasn’t doing it for men. And my husband kept reminding me about this. There was a time a guest minister gave me reasons why my role in church as a teacher wasn’t for me. He showed me bible scripture even. My husband was a bit radical. He wasn’t religious, but he told me to be a change in the system.
Did you?
I tried, but I soon realised that I was part of the problem.
How?
I was generally harsher to women. On the other hand, I gave easier passes to men and forgave their excesses. On one occasion, we found out that one of our members, a young unmarried woman, had gotten pregnant for another church member. The church member was a young man who worked as a mechanic. The young unmarried woman was the sister to one of the pastors, who was also a really wealthy businessman. I think that this pastor made some threats about dealing with the young man when he found out about it. Before the next Sunday, the young man had committed suicide. Before he committed suicide, I remember blaming the young woman and saying she must have lured him, asking what did she go and do in his house — I didn’t even know whether they slept together in his house. But I was quite critical of women.
Then after he committed suicide, the narrative became that the young woman had destroyed the man’s life. Back then, I completely agreed.
It didn’t take long before I started realising my own flaws. I thought to myself, but this isn’t normal. For years, when I counselled couples about to get married, I would ask the woman if she knew how to cook. I didn’t even ask the man if he was making money or had a good job. After I realised what a problem this was, I stopped doing it and started asking the men if they could cook.
How old were you then?
In my 30s.
Did realising that there was a problem help you start fixing it?
No. My energy did not carry it. I eventually left the church and joined a church where there seemed to be more women leaders, even though they were pastor’s wives. They were given the freedom to minister and that was good. This was the 90s, by the way.
I didn’t stay there for long too because I started to notice that there seemed to be a lot of pressure on women to be married. And if you were single or divorced, or your husband didn’t attend church with you, you’d be discriminated against. And they’ll be feeling sorry for you as they’re discriminating against you. I can’t explain it. A few people there thought I was a prostitute. Imagine me going to church with my two children and my own car and someone walking on the road with their husband and child was shaking their head at me. Under hot sun o.
Lmao.
I eventually went back to my old church after the pastor and his wife came to talk to me about it. They were very persuasive, telling me about how the units I led were not growing. When I returned and tried to introduce some new things to the church, I was met with a lot of resistance.
What kind of new things?
Dressing was the main point for me. In the church I left, women dressed really well and colourfully. In this church, the women wore really dull colours. Especially the workers. There were a lot of rules on what they could wear for service or to their own events — like weddings. I wanted to change that. There were rules about no jewellery, no synthetic hair, no trousers. I used to be conservative, but when I left, I dropped all of that and started dressing differently. With the resistance, I just decided to leave again and this time, like the song says, “No turning back, no turning back.”
Haha. So what happened next?
My husband and I moved countries, and we started going to a baptist church. I wasn’t a worker. It was good to be away from the politics. There didn’t seem to be a lot of wahala in the Baptist church. You know Oyinbo people don’t have wahala.
Distancing myself helped me start and pray about ways I could actually serve God. So I started teaching women on my own.
That sounds interesting.
It is. Then very recently, we moved back and my son got married. You know how you children are. Before the wedding, the bride, my daughter-in-law said she didn’t want some things at the traditional wedding. For example, she said she wasn’t going to go on her knees. She told the alaga that they shouldn’t say or sing anything that made her feel like property. And that they shouldn’t ask her to sing the same thing.
I told her, but this is the way things are done. There was a lot of back and forth. One of my sisters jokingly said, “She’s in a feminist na. That’s how they do.” I didn’t think too much about it. We all compromised on a few things and moved on. I think it was a few months after the wedding that I was talking to her — my daughter-in-law — and she got talking about her values as a feminist. She would often say, “This life no balance for women. You self, check am.” She asked me, “Do you like the way you’re treated like a second-hand citizen?” And since then, she’s been teaching me about feminism.
So would you say that you’re a feminist?
Last year when my daughter-in-law told me about what the feminist coalition did in Nigeria, I was proud and honoured to call myself a Nigerian woman. I took it one step further and called myself a feminist.
Haha. How do you marry your Christian values with your feminist values?
They’re not conflicting. Jesus said we should love everyone. Not men more, not women less. And that’s what he did. So it’s about treating everyone the same way, no matter who they are.
I had no idea how big the problems women face are and how much of it is done by people in the name of the God of whatever religion they’re from. That’s not good. We should treat women better.
Right?
As I’m teaching the word of God, na so I’m preaching that we should treat everyone equally. This life must balance by force.
For more stories like this, check out our #WhatSheSaid and for more women like content, click here
The subject of this week’s What She Said is Ijeoma Ogwuegbu, a Nigerian woman who was diagnosed with Fibromyalgia, a condition that causes widespread pain all over the body. She talks about how difficult it was to get a diagnosis, coping with it while raising three children and how music helps her escape.
When did you first notice something was wrong?
I first noticed two years ago, in the first week of January, 2019. I was going through a lot emotionally — my marriage had just ended and I was attempting to move forward. That week, I felt a stabbing pain in my back and couldn’t move my right arm. It was really odd. This wasn’t something that had never happened to me.
That weekend, my sister and kids were in the living room, so I sent my sister a text to come to the room. Seeing my face, she knew something was wrong. She tried to move my arm, and it was hell. She called our other sister who lived nearby to come and drive me to the hospital. When we got there, the doctor looked through my records and said, “You complained about something like this about this time last year.” I didn’t even remember that. He gave me muscle relaxers and said to go home and rest.
What happened next?
The next Monday, I felt an electric shock going from the top of my head down. From then on, I was always in constant pain.
Oh wow. When did you eventually find out what was wrong?
Almost a year later. So, for about a year, I didn’t actually know the problem. I did different scans and tests, but they couldn’t identify the problem. My test results always came back fine.
To determine that it was in fact fibromyalgia, they had to do an elimination process where they ticked every other thing before coming to the conclusion. And up until this diagnosis, the pain kept getting worse. It got so bad that I couldn’t move my body.
Did they tell you what caused it?
Generally, there are two known causes of fibromyalgia: psychological trauma and physical trauma. I know I didn’t have physical trauma before this time. However, I had some psychological trauma from getting separated. So when I got the diagnosis, I knew it wasn’t completely out of the blue. The thing is, If you keep pushing emotional stress down and thinking it has gone, you’re wrong. It’s inside your body, and fibromyalgia will basically tell you: “Guy, you can’t keep stuffing these things here, your body will break.”
When you don’t deal with physical and psychological trauma at the time they happen, your body stores them up. Then the pain receptors in your body will break down and stop functioning properly. Your brain will begin to interpret every single thing as pain. You won’t be able sleep properly, you’ll be tired all the time. In fact, you’ll constantly be in pain.
Wow. I’m so sorry. Is there a part of your body that suffers more than the rest?
My limbs. I now walk with a walking stick, but I’m looking forward to getting an electric wheelchair.
I’m curious about the journey to getting diagnosed. What was your experience with doctors like?
I went from hospital to hospital between January and March but couldn’t get any help. Then I went to LUTH. In the first meeting I had in LUTH, I tried to explain the electric shocks I was experiencing anytime I put my foot down, but the doctor didn’t get it.
Eventually she said that what I was experiencing could be due to family issues I was having at the time and recommended that I needed to relax. She also prescribed antidepressants. I was a bit disturbed by this initially, but honestly, I needed them at that time. I had previously been diagnosed with depression and anxiety but had never done anything about it.
Using the antidepressants made me feel better. I didn’t feel as much pain on one hand. And on the other hand, I was seeing the world differently and was quite shocked. My brain is usually switched on and constantly evaluating my actions and everyone else’s. But with antidepressants, I realised that wasn’t the way the world was. It was a big ah-ha moment for me.
Did the antidepressants stop working to treat the pain?
Yes, it did. After about a month or two, the pain was back. However, because the use of the antidepressants gave me clarity, I was able to advocate better for myself. I knew that the antidepressants were not the solution to the pain. So I did more tests and eventually got diagnosed.
After being diagnosed, what kind of support did you receive from your family?
Even before I was diagnosed, they were there for me. I come from a really large, loud and boisterous family. I have five sisters and three brothers. My parents are alive. They were there for me all step of the way. My mother and sister moved in with me. My entire family treated the condition as a thing that happened to all of us. I never had to worry about my kids.
That’s good. How do you cope with the pain?
I’m not religious, but I’m a spiritual person. The way I experience spirituality involves a lot of physicality. I listen to music and can feel my body responding to it.
Because I’m constantly in excruciating pain and can’t move — fibromyalgia doesn’t want you to move, exercise or maintain a peaceful existence — I had to utilise music and sound in some way. Music generally opens up a folder of memories. So when I listen to music, I revisit the parts of my life that were positive and meaningful in some way and bring them to my present. I love Abba. When I listen to Abba, I remember all the joyful and blissful moments I spent with my siblings as kids. So these days, I listen to Abba with my children and all the pleasant memories come to my mind.
What about medication?
Very few medications work. You can’t use opioids for long because of dependency issues. So you have to figure out how to live your life with that amount of pain. That’s why music and movement are important to me. When I move, I immediately start to feel light — I’m not thinking about how I look or how someone else will perceive what I’m doing. My muscles will scream at me to stop, but if I keep going, then my body will loosen up and I’ll feel peaceful. I do this for about 15 minutes. And for the next hour or two, I feel lighter, like a weight has been lifted.
I’m not a fan of suffering, that’s why this is escaping through music and movement are important. There’s no place where they wrote my name next to “sufferhead.” I have fibromyalgia and that’s enough stress for 25 people and three lifetimes. No need to add anymore suffering on top.
Haha.
In fact, this is what I was thinking of when I created this thread. Two people, a man and a woman, came together and had children. One person has already used all her body and mind to have the babies. Yet, you who were involved in it, feel it’s okay to go on and live your life, leaving the children with her. People think that the mother and father are equal — 50: 50 — when raising children, but it’s not true.
The woman is already deficit because she’s spent nine months carrying the child. Her body is broken. The first three months after I had my child, I was just like, what the fuck is this shit? It is the absolute ghetto. Let’s not even talk about what happens to the woman’s body when she’s pregnant or what happens when you step out of the hospital with your child. You don’t love the child yet, because that child has crashed and burned your body to come out. It’s only normal if the first thing you think is “I don’t know what I feel about you right now.” You just know there’s something between you and your child.
There’s literally nothing to compare the pain of pregnancy to. Unfortunately, women don’t get the time to acknowledge and process what happened. You’re not even allowed to contemplate it in any serious way. You’re expected to bounce into motherhood. Then you start breastfeeding which is another torture.
But we’re supposed to experience all the stages of pregnancy and childbirth in pure and unbridled ecstasy. This idea of just moving on to the next thing forces us to drink so much trauma. We have normalised it so much that you’re the odd one if you question it.
With all of these in mind and the fact that you’re divorced and living with fibromyalgia, what’s it like raising your children?
I simply don’t have the time to do a lot of things. In a day, I might get just one hour to be active. All of this has forced me to be so conscious about even the smallest interactions and how it contributes to my wellbeing and my children’s well being. I hardly fly off the handle because I’ll probably say something that’ll hurt them even though I don’t intend to. At that moment, I’m not myself. So when I am annoyed with them, I ask them to leave, so I can process what happened, think of my reaction and then react.
We play music in the evening after their classes and sometimes, spend an entire day doing that, since mummy cannot jump up and down. Fibromyalgia forces me to consider my needs, their needs and how to make both work, rather than dwelling too much on could haves or would haves.
How has it affected working?
This is the hardest part. I’ve always been a writer. Because of how crippling the condition is, it is difficult to do any kind of sustained work. Fibro fog is an aspect of fibromyalgia that affects your memory. Short term memory isn’t saved as well as it should. You forget names, conversations, meetings and other details you should know. So I can’t write and even if I try, joint and muscle pain in my hands is another challenge.
A while ago, I started gardening because I was depressed. I also had a gardening group. I can’t garden or manage the group because of fibromyalgia.
On the other hand, fibromyalgia has forced me to focus and ask myself, if I can’t do what I used to do, what can I do? That’s how I became a painter. There’s a sense of freedom I get when I’m painting. I might never have discovered painting if this didn’t happen. Once I start doing something, I will become So immersed in it until I know everything about it.
— Vaginal Horoscope Agba feminist🏳️🌈🌈 (@IjeomaOgood) December 16, 2020
Currently, I’m script editor on Tinsel. They’ve given me a lot of concessions to be honest. We definitely need companies to start to think of their people beyond being a bottom line feeder.
What are the peculiar ways in which fibromyalgia affects women?
Women are more likely to have fibromyalgia than men. And I feel it’s because of all the ways in which we internalise trauma and are okay with it. That’s why so many women have fibromyalgia. It’s basically your body saying it’s enough — o ti to. In hindsight, I realise all the times when my body was trying to get my attention. We women end up treating our bodies in ways it’s not built to handle. Your body is not built to be constantly traumatised.
Then there’s the fact that the things we go through in Nigeria are not normal. We are so used to it that we have dehumanised ourselves. We don’t deal with the anger and the rage, but it’s still somewhere, either inside of us or we’ve transferred it to someone else to deal with.
Living with fibromyalgia has made me realise that I just want to have positive energy around me and transfer that positive energy to other people and by doing this, somehow improve the world. Even if it’s just for one person. I don’t have energy.
One important thing I learned from my mother is that valuing yourself. My mother was very clear that she deserved to be happy. She valued herself. Women need to know that we don’t need the trauma. We have value just by being here. Eyan nla ni e. We don’t need to break ourselves and our bodies to be anything.
For more stories like this, check out our #WhatSheSaid and for more women like content, click here
“A Week In The Life” is a weekly Zikoko series that explores the working-class struggles of Nigerians. It captures the very spirit of what it means to hustle in Nigeria and puts you in the shoes of the subject for a week.
The subject of today’s “A Week In The Life,” is an interstate driver. He tells us about the risk involved in his job, his love for his wife and kids, and how he manages his girlfriends alongside his loving family.
MONDAY:
I don’t have a fixed time to wake up because my job is flexible. In the past, when I was a driver for Taxify, I’d wake up early so as to make a profit. However, since I stopped doing Taxify, I don’t have to wake up that early. I now do strictly calling. People who need my services call me for what they want and I help them out. I do anything transport — I drive people from one state to another, I help them drive their car for delivery from one state to another, and sometimes, I even help people buy cars. All na hustle.
I’m lucky that I have a good customer relationship and that’s why I have clients who always need me to help them do one thing or the other. And the funny thing is that I developed these relationships while I was still a driver on Taxify.
I tell people about the importance of honesty and human relationship because it has helped me. No be say na me holy pass, but I dey try. For the past three months, I’ve driven only one person, and we met on that same Taxify. One day in 2017, he ordered a ride and we were flowing. The next day, he called me to pick him up. We just clicked. From there, he became a plus in my life. Even though he’s based abroad, anytime he’s in Nigeria, I’m his driver. I leave all my other clients to strictly drive him for the duration of his stay. I can’t lie, he has been wonderful in my life. Even when he sends me message from abroad, I accomplish it. Always on point. In fact, today, we’re preparing to travel to his village. I need to put one or two things in place to prepare for the journey.
TUESDAY:
It’s very rare to see a faithful man. I don’t want to know how bad or ugly he is, as long as he moves around, he must have one or two babes to pass time with. That one is certain. It’s even worse for people like me who drive around all the states. I don’t have active babes in all the 36 states, but I have enough. Any state I enter, I must observe the ground and find at least one babe. Once I arrange the babe, anytime I visit that state, I holler at her. To make sure that she responds, I make our first meeting memorable for the girl. I will burst her head and flex her. And when we’re done enjoying, I will even dash her money. After that, many of them will be thanking me like fifty times. Me, I like honesty, so I tell them before we do anything that I’m married. I love my home. And this one is just both of us enjoying each other.
My parole is tight, and I talk in a way that they can’t say no. Again, with me, no dull moment. Haha.
WEDNESDAY:
Today, I’m thinking about how I don’t deserve my wife. I’m just opportuned to have this wonderful woman. It’s God that said she’ll be my own and love me for who I am. She’s my number one, and it’s because of that love that I don’t let her see any clue of my girlfriends. If any of my girlfriends calls my wife, I cut her off immediately because I don’t want anything to ruin my home.
I guard my home well because growing up, I saw my parents fight. And I don’t want my home to be like that. I love my two boys and one girl, and I cherish their mother. I can’t afford to send my kids to a big school, but the little I can afford, I give to them. I didn’t go to university even though I did all I could to make it work out. That’s why I made a vow that I’ll do whatever it takes for my kids to go to school. So far so good, I’m on track. My daughter is in JSS1 while the boys are still in primary school. I’m sending them to school, not because education guarantees success but because it’s vital — it’ll always set them apart.
People have asked me how come I have a wife, three kids and still have space for girlfriends. The truth is that I dey hustle well. Sometimes I may not make one naira in a week, but the next week, I’ll make ₦200k. I have clients that pay ₦20 – ₦30k here and there, and I join everything together. It’s God that’s helping me because the little money I get, I shuffle it. All departments must chop inside. It must sha go round.
THURSDAY:
Interstate driving is risky. I remember my accident on Christmas day of 2019 at Benin Bypass. I was going with this same friend that stays abroad when our car tumbled. I wasn’t the one driving, so I was in the back seat. The funny thing is that I was on the phone talking to my wife when it happened. One minute I was on the call, the next, I’m upside down inside bush. Fear catch me die. I was upside down looking at my phone still on, fuel was leaking out of the car, and I was strapped to the chair with the seat belt. I had to calm myself down to get out of the car. Then I also told my guy not to panic while I loosened his seat belt. Thank God for motorists who helped us out of the whole situation. With their help, we turned the car back straight and then Road Safety came to tow the vehicle. Even after that incident, I didn’t stop driving. I can’t stop driving. It’s a part of me. Anytime I touch a car, I’m at peace.
If I have my way, I’ll invest in a transport business because I know there’s money in here. This is the field where I’ve spent all my life. This is all I know and this is where my talent lies.
FRIDAY:
I love my kids so much. No matter how bad my day is, once I see them, I just brighten up. My work doesn’t give me enough time for my kids. When I’m in Lagos, I make sure I spend time with them. Sometimes I won’t travel for two months and other times, I wouldn’t be in Lagos for three weeks straight. There’s just that fatherly love that they bring out in me.
Even when I’m with any of my girlfriends, I must still speak to my kids. I’ll call to hear their voice: I’ll ask them about their studies, if they’ve eaten, and how their day went. I’m never far away from them.
I honestly don’t know how they’ll feel if they know I have girlfriends. All I know is that I won’t bring any drama near my house. Even if I’m a killer outside, I want to be a saint in my own home. I may not have a lot of money but home matters to me. I’ve been married for twelve years, and I don’t know if I can keep on living if anything happens to my family.
To be honest, I’m even changing. I’m not bad like that. If I count my girlfriends, I have only five consistent ones. I’ve removed the inconsistent ones from my list because no time. I’m also thankful that God take libido bless me to be able to keep everyone satisfied. It’s grace. I be pure Igbo guy, I strong die.
Check back every Tuesday by 9 am for more “A Week In The Life ” goodness, and if you would like to be featured or you know anyone who fits the profile, fill this form.
This year, we documented a wide range of experiences from women of all backgrounds. In today’s What She Said, we highlight some of these stories. From the divorcee dating again to the first-class law graduate, these are stories of women living life on their own terms — our 2020 must-reads!
In this story, we asked women from different parts of Africa about their marriage experiences. The answers form a wide range of experiences — from the woman who hates sharing a room with her husband to the woman who doesn’t want to have kids.
If you don’t know who Amaarae is, you should do better. In this conversation, she talks about her recent album, her relationship with her mum and the world and why success for her is “when women in Africa are given the tools to be great and I can use my platform to enable that type of growth within our community.”
For many women around the world, ageing is a curse. The older an unmarried woman gets, the harder it is to feel wanted by society. The 36-year-old woman in this story talks not wanting to get married or have kids, and why she loves getting older.
More on living life on your terms, the woman in this story is a recent divorcee who gives us the gist on what it’s like dating again; she also has some advice for us.
Chioma lost a leg in an accident at 19, and as said in the title, that didn’t stop her. She talks about adapting to the change, difficulties that come up and getting a first-class degree in law school.
Choosing to marry a 61-year-old man who already had three wives when she was 27 was an easy decision for this woman. She’s 29 now and walks us through the unique dynamics of her married life.
The history of women across the world is unique and similar at once. In most societies, women were (and still are) relegated to kitchen duties, to caring for kids to spaces where their voices couldn’t be heard.
But history has also shown that this hardly stops women from speaking up. Thankfully, things are changing. There’s a huge difference between the experiences of women in the 1950s and in the 2010s. Today, we have more platforms geared towards amplifying the voices of Nigerian women.
2020 alone gave us Feminist Coalition, women at the forefront of protests against sexual assault and SARS. If anything, 2020 showed us our unity in diversity. We might be from different tribes and backgrounds, but a lot of our experiences dissect.
What She Said, a Zikoko series that was launched to highlight some of these experiences, has documented a wide range of experiences from women of all backgrounds. In today’s What She Said, we explore some of the biggest stories in the series and why they are widely read. You want to read till the end.
I was under the impression that I was coming to further my studies. I had heard stories about people leaving home to come to Lagos to get jobs or further their education, so I was hopeful, as well as scared. I didn’t think of marriage at all.
In October 14, 2020, we published this story as part of our documentation of the End SARS movement. In this story, we had one major quest: if police officers and SARS oppress Nigerian citizens especially the young people who they are supposed to protect, what are they like in their homes and to their families? The woman in this story shares her own far from pleasant experience.
When women are proposed to in public, there’s usually an unfair amount of pressure on them to say “yes”. Generally speaking, there’s an unfair amount of pressure on women to get married. What kind of woman doesn’t get married? What kind of woman says no to a public proposal? Read this story to find out.
No one gets married at 21 these days, and no one should. When my daughter turned 21, I remember having a conversation with her. I told her to take her time looking for a husband. Marrying a useless man will derail your life in unprecedented ways. So be very picky. It doesn’t matter if you get married at 25, 30 or even 35, the most important thing is that it’s to a very good man.
Most people seem to think all the women in older generations of Nigerian women do not care about feminism. The woman in this story proves that this is not necessarily true.
What comes to mind when you think of a woman in her 30s? What comes to to mind when you think of a sugar mummy? There are a lot of stereotypes around what it means to be these two things, but the woman in this story is defying all of them.
Getting married to the love of your life is the ultimate ‘happy ever after’. Most especially here, where till death do us part is taken quite literally. Divorce is never the answer, but for this 29 year old woman it was. Published in April, 2019, over 8000 people returned to read it this year. Isn’t that more reason why you should read it?
He’s still well off and living his life. He wanted us to talk about it in the beginning. He wanted me to come back. I told him I’m not a dog, I don’t eat my vomit.
In this story, we meet a 61-year-old woman who left her family behind a few years ago to start a new life in Europe. She talks about why she left, the backlash she received and why she doesn’t regret it.
This is one story that had a lot of readers saying “omo”. For the woman in this week’s What She Said, choosing to marry a 61-year-old man who already had three wives when she was 27, was a much easier decision for her than many people would think. She’s 29 now and walks us through the unique dynamics of her married life, her lack of regrets and life in general.
When this story was first published in July 2019, only a little over 1000 people read it. Perhaps this has something to do with the fact that Nigerians are conservative and pretend not to care about sex. However, with more people talking about their sex lives, over 10k people read it this year. Here’s to more conversations about the sexual lives and health of Nigerian women.
I hate that no one acknowledges how hard it is. Not even my husband because he comes home to a clean house, clean children and food in the kitchen. The last time I brought up the fact that I needed to go back to school he asked me why I couldn’t find fulfillment in raising my children. I didn’t speak to or cook for him for one month. He had to call my mum to beg me.
Over 33,000 people read this story. Every housewife knows that being a housewife is a full-time job. Whether or not you opt-in for the role, it can be exhausting and overwhelming. But what happens when you don’t opt-in and all you can think of is opting out. Published in May 2020, what pulled a lot of people in this story was the unexpected ending. You definitely want to read it.
Bonus stories:
This year, we also had our very first set of non-anonymous What She Said stories and will try to explore more of this next year. Read a few of them:
We are gathered here because some human said black people will be able to activate superpowers on the 21st of December. The jokes online are just hilarious and outrageous. So, we’ve decided to compile a list of superpowers black women will finally have from December 21st.
1. Stop all periods
No more periods with cramps and mood swings from hell. With superpowers comes the need to end unnecessary suffering. Black women will finally be able to stop their periods without getting pregnant or having weird side effects.
2. Activate natural birth control
With superpowers, black women will finally be able to activate a birth control means that have no side effects whatsoever. So, the days of bloating, headaches, hormonal imbalance, partial blindness, all because we’re trying to avoid pregnancy, will end.
3. Take long evening walks… ALONE
If you ever take a stroll at night and see an unescorted black woman, chances are she is a witch or a mythical creature because most black women can’t take walks, runs, jogs, strolls without fearing for their lives. Having superpowers would give women the confidence they need to do simple things like this without fearing for their safety.
4. Eradicate breast cancer
Breast cancer is the second leading cause of cancer in women after lung cancer and breast cancer death rates are 40% higher among black women than white women. Imagine a world where women don’t have to suffer the pains of treating breast cancer. They can just snap their fingers like Thanos, self-heal and move on with their lives. Having superpowers would be a game-changer for black women.
5. Open Jars and zippers by themselves
What most women won’t tell you is that they got married so they can have someone to open their jars and unzip their dress for them. To be fair, jars are extremely difficult to open. Most jars are designed as if only bricklayers and people who do hard labour can open them, that’s where the men come in. However, superpowers mean that women don’t need men any more for stuff like this. We good here.
6. Eradicate all pain attached to pregnancy
You will not believe the shit women have to go through to have babies. Some women lose their teeth, others lose their sight or sense of hearing. Most women even have postpartum depression. Why? Just so we can have babies. Well, December 21st will bring a new dawn. NO MORE PAIN. Black women will now be able to procreate without all the hazards of procreating.
If you are a woman with long nails, then you should probably relate to a few things on this list.
1) Typing
Typing becomes so ridiculously stressful. You get so many typos, and when typing with your laptop, you look like this.
2) Unhooking a bra
If you live alone, this is actually double trouble because there is nobody to help you. Unhooking your bra can take five minutes.
Hi there! The HER weekly newsletter launches on the 6th of March, 2021. A new newsletter will go out every week on Saturday by 2pm. If you have already subscribed please tell a friend. If you haven’t, you can by clicking this button. It will only take fifteen seconds. Trust me, I timed it!
This week’s What She Said is Olusayo Ajet, an artist, academic, engineer, biochemist and researcher. She talks about how art was her tool of escape, her relationship with her family and how she experiences the world one day at a time.
Tell me about how you started making art.
I don’t necessarily have a moment when I realised I could draw. But when I was young, I used to just doodle, paint, mess around and copy magazine pictures and storybooks. I never thought it would become something like this. I was kind of a loner; I would read books and play on my own, so drawing was a good activity because I could focus only on what my hands were doing — I didn’t have to think too much.
Was there pushback from your parents or in school?
Not quite. I was a big nerd, so I was good at school and my teachers couldn’t complain. Science, maths and drawing were fun to me. When drawing became more meaningful to me, I became secretive about it because then taking it away would hurt. Initially, it wasn’t a big deal.
Your parents didn’t know at all? For how long?
I would say from JSS 2 to after university. At first, I was just a child interested in drawing like other children. When I was in secondary school, I was a few years younger than my mates in class. My mum owned a primary school that I would go to in the evenings. There, I did chalk drawings on the board in random classrooms — it was like a mini-graffiti big secret.
I came out of the creative closet in my NYSC year. That’s about seven years of hiding.
Wow. Are you a deadbeat dad?
Lol. When I kept it a secret, it was to protect my interests. I didn’t want feedback, I wanted to do my own thing, and I did for a long time. Now I’m grateful for this history because it’s helped me have a clear creative vision. I know what I like without external influences. I don’t do art to be liked, though it helps on the business side of things. I have a clear idea of what I’m into, so I go for my niche.
I’m happy for you. Tell me about your difficulties relating with people.
This is a bit heavy. I’ve suffered from mental illnesses since I was a young child. I didn’t know that was what it was; I just knew that I didn’t feel right and things didn’t feel right. I gravitated towards solo activities; reading, writing, drawing, stuff I was comfortable because I struggled to interact with others. I didn’t have a word for it then, but now I can tell that it was anxiety and depression. Talking to people and trying to make friends was extremely uncomfortable. It also didn’t help that my parents were extremely protective. We weren’t allowed to go out; we got picked up after school, so we couldn’t walk home with friends — now that I think about it, that was a really comfortable life and maybe being sheltered wasn’t so bad. But I could have used some of the social skills.
We also weren’t allowed to watch cable TV, and when my friends were in class talking about the shows they watched, I hadn’t the slightest clue what they were on about. My parents said watching TV, cartoons would make you fail — they didn’t care about social skills or life skills. Just read and pass. But cartoons were all kids talked about, and what they did after school. I was not around for any of that and was not cool enough to put myself in the conversations. I ended up in my head a lot. What else was there to do?
Why do you think your parents were so strict?
I can’t speak for them, but I think that in their time, education was the ticket out of poverty. Today, it doesn’t really matter what degree you have, what does is who you know.
Ah.
Also, I was born and raised in Port Harcourt. It’s a huge melting pot where all the south-south ethnic groups mix together and speak their languages.
Do you think this affected you socially?
Not really. What affected me was the insecurity issue in PH, which was what made my parents overprotective.
Are you still in Port Harcourt?
I’m in Lagos for a residency now. I’ve moved around a lot in my life — with my family and by myself. My dad always travelled for work to all kinds of places and that’s something I wanted to do as well. As soon as I finished uni, I moved to Plateau state for NYSC, then London for my Masters. I came back to Nigeria by request of my parents — I didn’t want to, but I didn’t have a mind of my own, so I let them make the decisions for me.
Hot tears.
I went back to Port Harcourt, but then because they had made this decision for me and things did not go the way they expected it, I realised I should have done what I wanted. I decided to start figuring life for myself — who I am and what I really wanted — so I could make decisions for myself. My parents are just people like me: they don’t have all the info. I couldn’t keep waiting for them to tell me what to do.
My dad had an apartment in Sapele, Delta, and I moved there and got a pet. When my parents tried to get me back to Port Harcourt, I said, okay, I’m going to move farther.
I came to Lagos for nine months. Technically, I ran away from home. There was a lot of friction between me and my parents at that time, and I was like, “Look, you have your ideas and I have mine. And I am going to do what I want to do. If it doesn’t work out, at least it was my decision.”
They thought I was being foolish and making a mistake. I thought they should have had some more faith in me.
Lagos wasn’t helping; it was tough on me. Plateau had been rough: there was no access to running water and I was living a humbler life than I was used to, and London was quite lonely. But none of that prepared me for Lagos. After four months in Lagos, I had decided I would leave, but I had work and projects tying me down. I started strategising, and once things I needed fell into place, I moved to Ibadan. I chose Ibadan because right after secondary school, I’d lived in Ibadan with my aunt. I think of that time as one of the best of my life, so It made sense to move there.
I spent a year and a half in Ibadan before moving back to Lagos for my research fellowship. It wasn’t all happy, but I needed the fresh air and the space to sort myself out — go inwards and figure out my issue. And I feel so much happier for it.
I’m glad. How is your relationship with your parents now?
Experiencing life — paying rent, bills, taking care of myself — helped me appreciate my parents a lot more. I matured augmentally. Everything brought me to a place of clarity — I can see them for who they are and appreciate them as flawed humans just like me. They aren’t mini-gods who can do no wrong or have no flaws. Now that I see them for who they are, I can love them as they are and not as I’d like them to be. And I think they feel the same way about me. I’m no longer an extension of them that will live out their dreams. They have come to understand that I’m an independent individual.
Our relationship hasn’t gone back to the way it used to be, I don’t think it ever will and I don’t want it to.
Does this clarity extend to your siblings?
I love my siblings very much and I do all I can to support them. They understand me the most. And I’m just so stoked to be in their life. They are the light of my life.
There’s a lot of things I used to take for granted and now I’m like, “Wow, this is so precious.” I think my family is one of those things. As rough as my relationship with my parents was, I think my parents did their best. My family — both nuclear and extended — is quite fantastic. The things I hear about other people’s family issues makes me realise I’m very lucky.
This is so wholesome. Does it extend to people outside your family?
Oh yes definitely. For me, it’s about coming to a place of wholesomeness and taking the time to release myself. It’s all intentional. I’ve been intentional about being loving and kind. I practice with my family to figure out the best way to be a good person to other people because I think if I mess up with my family, they will forgive me. They are the ones who would be most honest and give me feedback like, “Omo this thing you did e no make sha.”
I want a situation where I can take a genuine interest in the people in my life rather than project my ideas on them, and just experience them as they are. That’s the key to having good relationships.
As someone who’s been alone for a long time, I’ve obsessed over what makes good relationships and friendships. It sounds kind of sad to hear, but I think that process of being deliberate has helped my relationships.
What’s it like being an academic, scientist, artist etc.?
People are expected to fit into boxes and they are afraid to be too many “conflicting” things. It’s annoying because sometimes people try to categorise me. I tend to feel awkward when people ask me “Oh what did you do in school?” Because the next question is usually, “So why are you doing this?”
It’s so many things I’ve done that are seemingly unrelated, and I don’t mind. I just tell people I’m an artist even though I’m also an engineer, a researcher, a biochemist, and I have been good at all these things.
For artists and people who are interested in adventures, get as much as you can out of life and do not be afraid to reinvent yourself and become as many different things as you can be. Nobody is just one label, and that’s how I live. You can be one thing today, and something else the day after. When it comes down to it, what matters is that I’m a woman living her life on her own terms.
What does it mean to be a man? Surely, it’s not one thing. It’s a series of little moments that add up.
“Man Like” is a weekly Zikoko series documenting these moments to see how it adds up. It’s a series for men by men, talking about men’s issues. We try to understand what it means to “be a man” from the perspective of the subject of the week.
The subject of today’s “Man Like” is Justin UG, a content creator. He talks about unlocking his creativity in America, being shy to talk to women and pursuing an unconventional career in a Nigerian household.
When did you realise you were grown grown?
I’m still realising every day. When you grow up in a Nigerian house, your parents have that “don’t you know I’m still your mother/father” thing even up till when you’re 25. I remember that primary and secondary school was from home to lesson to school. It wasn’t until I left Nigeria for college in the U.S that I found myself in a situation where I could actually do something different. That’s when I told myself that it’s now time to chop life because this life is one.
Lmao. Give me this tea.
It was nice to be able to go out without asking anyone for permission. This freedom gave me the chance to touch base with my creative side. Even though I had been doing creative stuff before I moved, seeing different types of creatives in the U.S gingered me. When I now saw free internet on top, the ginger became crazy. I was like let’s do something!
Whisper to me: what did you do?
So, my creative side is odd. It all started when MJ died — his death was all over the news so I fell in love with his dancing skills. My uncle would also come to the house to teach me some of MJ’s moves.
Lmao. Justin, are you okay? Are you okay?
Lol. My first performance was in the church, and people sprayed me money — I was like there’s money involved in this thing oh. So I started posting videos on Facebook. That time, there was nothing like content creator, so I was just dancing and posting. Then I moved to Vine and nobody gave a fuck.
Ouch.
After that, I switched to taking photos, and I even got a job as a photographer in Nigeria. But I ran away after two months. When I got to America, I was like I can dance and I know how to use a camera, so I started making dance videos and posting on Youtube. At some point, I also shot music videos.
Ahan. Most talented. Most gifted.
Lmao. It didn’t end there because I went back to photography. I was the photographer on campus who’d take graduation pictures and whatnot.
The issue now was that I was running photography alongside my Youtube channel, so people would always recognise me and ask for pictures. I thought about it that I wouldn’t be able to take any pictures if people kept stopping me to take pictures with me. So I dropped photography to focus on my Youtube channel.
I kept on posting dance content, until one day, I posted one skit and it did well. I thought, people actually like this? So I started exploring the skit side. I did one Wizkid skit that went crazy. I did another Davido skit and that one took me from 28,000 followers to 40,000 followers. I said Jesus! When I started doing high school skits, which brought in a lot of people, I knew that I had become a content creator.
Bro!
It’s wild that I’ve been doing this for 10 years because I’ve tried everything.
How come you had all this time? Weren’t you pursuing girls like the rest of us?
I went to an all-boys Catholic school, so there was no time for girls. I can count the number of female teachers we had. And during vacation, I’d come home and do home lessons because my mum didn’t want me to fail. If I wanted to have fun, I’d just go to the movies with my guys. All these made it hard to interact with women, and it even affects the way I am now.
If I’m in a room filled with girls, it’s over. I’m not saying a word. I’m just going to be there looking at all of you. Most of my relationships have started virtually because I can’t walk up to a babe and say how far. I’ll die.
When I’m comfortable talking to you online, we can now meet up physically. Everyone I’ve dated, we met online. If I see you physically and like you, I won’t say anything. I’ll just find your social media handle and message you. I don’t know if I’m the only one from my secondary school that experiences not being able to talk to girls, but I know it’s something that has affected my relationship with the opposite sex.
Interesting. Tell me about a time this played out.
A lot of people think I’m a snob.
One time I went to get ice cream and a bunch of girls recognised me. I could see the look of recognition on their faces, but I kept facing front and using one side of my eye to look at them. After I was done, I left. The next day, I saw a tweet saying I was proud. I was like these people won’t understand. How many people do I want to explain to?
It’s not like if they came to meet me, I wouldn’t have responded — I’ll participate as long as you’re the one talking. If it’s for me to start the conversation, you’re on a long thing because my mouth just stops working.
Omo. What was your first relationship like?
It was a situation where I didn’t know what to do. I didn’t know if I was saying or doing the right thing. I knew you had to say sweet words and buy ice cream. But I didn’t know what to do if a woman was pissed at me. I also didn’t know the signs because she’d be moody, and I’d ask what’s wrong and she’d say nothing. Me too I’d be like, okay.
It was tough, but I learned from my mistakes. Till today I still do some things that aren’t okay. At the end of the day, we are all still learning.
I feel you. Does any incident stand out from that relationship?
There’s one that was wild. It was Valentine’s day, and I didn’t do anything because I wasn’t aware that we were supposed to extend the hand of love to our partners. I thought Valentine was only meant for my mum. I’ll never forget all the questions I got that day. Ever since then, if I’m in a relationship and it’s Valentine’s day, I got you.
Love it.
What gives you joy?
Creating. I feel like if I wasn’t a creative, I’d probably be very depressed. I try to think about my life without an audience, and I for don knock because most of my skits are done when I’m not in the best of moods. I’m always happy anytime I finish making a skit. And when I now put it out and a lot of people are happy, that also rubs off on me. When people are happy because I made them happy, it makes me happy.
I’m curious: Do your parents know what you do?
Omo. I hid it from them for about eight years.
Sorry, what?
For the longest time, the only thing my parents knew was that I used to dance in church. One day my dad sent me a link to one of my videos — apparently, a video I made about Igbo mothers had been going across WhatsApp groups, and it landed in theirs — and he told me that I had to stop making videos so I could focus on school.
I was like I’ve been doing this for eight years; I didn’t start today. After that, any mistake I made was blamed on the content work, but as time passed, they came around. One time my mum went out and someone recognised her and was talking a lot about me. That incident gingered her. I’ve watched my parents move from “don’t make skits” to “finish school and we’ll focus on what you want as long as you have a plan.”
Does this feel like pressure?
Let me tell you what’s pressure: my parents follow me on Twitter and IG, so there are things I can’t tweet or post. Once I posted a photo, and my mum called me to say I was disgracing them. I had to apologise and delete the picture.
Block them.
My parents will know if I block them. My mum goes on my page every night, and if she can’t find it she’ll know something has happened. Regardless, I’m at peace because my parents are aware of what I do and aren’t against it.
Well… How much of your identity is defined by what you do?
Just a little percentage. My content creation isn’t who I am as a person. First of all, I’m an introvert. A lot of people think my social media persona is how I am offline. I tell them that if you sit down and study people, you’ll see that social media is a bunch of lies. My content creation shows only the funny aspect of my life. People don’t know how I am with women or with my guys or what I’ll do if I go out alone.
My lord, may I know you?
Loool.
I’m curious: who makes the funny guy laugh when he’s feeling sad?
I tell people that comedians or people on the funny side go through a lot offline. I’ve watched my colleagues making people online laugh while they were going through a rough patch offline.
When I’m going through stuff, I don’t like telling people because I feel like I’m the one supposed to be lighting people’s worlds up, and I’m not able to do that. I also don’t want people to see me in that state. When I’m sad, I tend to go through everything myself. I come back acting normal when I’m good.
Mahn. I’m sorry.
Before I go, I want to know if you plan on sending your kids to a same-sex school.
In his words: “Secondary school was crazy and it was a bittersweet experience. I’m trying to document those experiences with my new project, so that someone will be able to relate to it. And one day, they’ll be able to tell their kids about how school was back in their days.”
Check back every Sunday by 12 pm for new stories in the “Man Like” series. If you’d like to be featured or you know anyone that would be perfect for this, kindly send an email.
Being a woman is already hard enough. We have to deal with harassment, unrealistic societal expectations, fear of getting raped and murdered for rejecting romantic advance, and the list goes on. Now, reports are, women are getting denied entry to certain spaces without a male chaperon because they are perceived as prostitutes. I spoke to some women about their personal experience and this is what they had to say.
1. Rose
I went to deliver a cake to a client at Stone Cafe in Ibadan. They refused me entry so I thought it had something to do with my shorts, T-shirt, and slippers. I tried to reason with them that the celebrant asked me to come in with the cake (that I was holding) but they ignored me. That was how I called the celebrant to come outside. She tried to beg them that the cake was too heavy for her and she didn’t want to have to carry it. When they refused, she stepped out to get the cake and when she tried to get in, they refused her entry. They asked her to call the man she came with before they let her in again. Omo.
2. Jewel
I went to rooftop bar at Eko hotel with my best friend. As we were walking to the elevator, one of their employees blocked us and asked us where we were going. When we told him, he asked who we were going to meet there, we said we just wanted to get drinks. He then inquired if we were staying at the hotel. The interrogation was getting confusing until we saw a man walking past us without getting blocked then we got the memo. The employee let us go eventually but we were too disgusted so we just left.
3. Oyin
Last December, a group of friends and I went to Switch Lounge in Ibadan for some drinks. We got barred because they do not let women into their establishment without at least one man with them. We were shocked because we had come there a couple of times without issues but what we didn’t realise was that we were only granted access in previous times because we came in with men. They excused their policy saying prostitutes frequent there as a means of getting clients and they wanted to curb it. I haven’t been there since then.
Hi there! The HER weekly newsletter launches on the 6th of March, 2021. A new newsletter will go out every week on Saturday by 2pm. If you have already subscribed please tell a friend. If you haven’t, you can by clicking this button. It will only take fifteen seconds. Trust me, I timed it!
In 2019, I went to moist beach and the bouncers prevented us from going in because we had no male company. He asked if we came alone and we said “yes” and he told us that he had to been instructed to not let women in without a male companion. It was so embarrassing because I kept thinking is it not my money I am coming to spend? What does this have to do with a man? Luckily, I saw a male friend there who confronted them before they let us in.
5. Queen
I and my girl planned a night outing and our first stop was Velvett Lounge VI but they denied us access. Apparently, you have to either reserve a table before time, come with a man, or be a regular customer (but how am I supposed to be a regular in a club please?). We left Velvett and went to Sip (Zenbar), where we were still denied access that we can’t enter without a man. We finally just went home cause we couldn’t deal.
6. Thema
I made a reservation at the Office Bar in Sheraton February this year to celebrate my birthday. I invited my girlfriends but when I got there, I was denied access by the security for about 20 minutes until the manager came and confirmed my reservation. When I asked why, the manager said most times, girls come and take up seats, not pay for drinks and harass their male customers. How come men harass women in public spaces all the time yet are never denied access to these spaces? I never set foot there again.
7. Amaka
When Velvett used to be a restaurant, my friends and I would go there to wait out the traffic. When they became a club, a few friends and I decided to go there one night and we were denied access. It really pained me cause I used to spend my money there at least 3 times a week and now, they are acting brand new.
Hi there! The HER weekly newsletter launches on the 6th of March, 2021. A new newsletter will go out every week on Saturday by 2pm. If you have already subscribed please tell a friend. If you haven’t, you can by clicking this button. It will only take fifteen seconds. Trust me, I timed it!
Love Lifeis a Zikoko weekly series about love, relationships, situationships, entanglements and everything in between.
Audio: Love Life – We Hate Having To Hide Our Love
*Dorcas, 22, and *Lara, 18, have been dating for 9 months now. For today’s Love Life, they talk about hiding their long-distance relationship from their religious families, all while trying to plan a future together.
What’s your earliest memory of your partner?
Dorcas: Swiping right on Tinder. She didn’t even have a profile picture, but I thought her name was interesting. We matched. . She wasn’t very active on Tinder, so we took things to WhatsApp. Then she asked me out.
Lara: Funny thing is, I remember her asking me out with a song. I think the song is “Suited” by Shekinah.
Dorcas: I told her that I was done dating for the year and just wanted to have fun, but she kept shooting her shot. After a month of chatting, I realised that I actually loved her.
What do you love the most about her?
Dorcas: Her smile. I had no idea that people with gap-tooth could be so beautiful when they smiled. Every single time she smiles, I’m like, ‘Oh my God. She is so beautiful’.
Lara: Dorcas gives the best advice. I cannot make a decision without letting her know. She knows what to say at any given situation and she is so supportive.
Speaking of support, how is your family handling your relationship?
Lara: They are not aware. My parents are conservative and religious. They do not accept our kind of relationship, so, right now, only my close friends know.
Dorcas: Right now, only my brother is aware. He found out because he kept probing, but he is super cool about it. I can’t tell my mum because I don’t think she’s ready. I have been dropping hints about not bringing home a husband. I’m always like, “Don’t be too disappointed if I don’t get married”.
So, marriage is not in the plan?
Dorcas: It is, but marriage isn’t an endpoint. Tags are not my thing, but I want us to always be together in a committed relationship. If that ends up being a marriage, then sure.
Lara: Dorcas and I have spoken about it and yes, it’s something we’d like to do. My biggest worry about marriage is disappointing my family, but I can’t help it. I am not going to live an unhappy life to make them feel better. If things get to a point where they cut me off, then I’ll learn to accept it.
Dorcas: I grew up in a very religious family. I think my mum might die if she finds out. She’s slowly accepting the fact that I don’t have or want a boyfriend, but she made me promise not to join the ‘LGBT+ clique’. She said it like it was a cult or something. I have sha been preparing her for the worst.
Speaking of which, do you plan to have kids?
Lara: YES. I want children, so we are definitely having kids.
Dorcas: I am not really a baby person. They are cute and I love my nieces and nephews, but I am not freaked out by the baby thing Larawants them though, so, yes, we are having them.
Nice. Do you feel heterosexual relationships are different in any way from what you share?
Lara: I haven’t been in a heterosexual relationship so I’m not sure how it works, but I’ll say that in a lesbian relationship, both parties are getting more pleasure from the sex because they understand their bodies.
Dorcas: Yes. The sex is definitely longer and more thrilling. There are no defined roles, no head-neck thing here, just two women loving each other. Although, she tends to take the lead during sex, showing me what she wants me to do and I just follow through. She’s actually my first.
Awww, so cute. Asides homophobes and the Nigerian government, what has been the biggest threat to your relationship?
Dorcas: Like most relationships, we have misunderstandings. For me, it’s that Laradoesn’t like to step out of her comfort zone. I find myself making most of the moves to see her and I want her to do more. Another thing is having to hide.
My love language is spending quality time, and I hate the fact that I can’t love her openly and freely. The other day, she came to see me and everyone kept calling her my friend. I introduced her as my baby and they said they know, but I don’t think they do.
Lara: It’s the distance for me — we hardly get to see each other. We once had this fight about this online couple contest. We were supposed to send our pictures in for the contest.
I agreed at first but after asking a few questions, I wasn’t comfortable with it anymore. It caused a disagreement because Dorcas had already sent in the pictures and wasn’t sure how to tell them we weren’t participating anymore. Plus, Dorcas can get really mean, haha.
One thing you both have in common is coming from a religious family. How do you reconcile your faith with your sexuality?
Dorcas: At first, I used to be very churchy. My relationship with God involved a lot of praying for answers about who I am, but I soon realised that God doesn’t make mistakes. I am a masterpiece.
I know that God loves me and that’s enough for me. For people who like to threaten gay people with bible quotes, I’ll say this: there was a time when the bible was used to endorse slavery. Now, times have changed and a lot of things have to be revised.
Lara: It’s really difficult, but I still have to hold on to God. My parents are super religious and they carry all of us along so I’d say my faith is pretty strong. Although, I have found myself wondering what would happen if I wasn’t a lesbian. I didn’t choose to be like this. I like this life. I like loving my woman.
*Names have been changed for anonymity.
Check back every Thursday by 9 AM for new Love Life stories here. The stories will also be a part of the Ships newsletter, so sign up here.
If you want to share your own Love Life story, fill this form.
When I asked Nigerian women on Twitter to inbox me with stories of the exact moment they knew they had to leave a relationship, I didn’t expect some of the replies I got. Here are 30 stories of the exact moment these women knew they had to leave their relationship.
1. Denisia
We were lying down together and I was talking about how I miss my mum. I noticed he was quiet, so I asked what was wrong. Baba said he felt like strangling me but listening to me talk about my mom softened him up. WTF?
2. Zee
When I found myself sharing my relationship problems with a Facebook group so they could help me. I had a “Dear Joro” moment and just knew I had to japa.
3. Lola
We had a fight, and he demanded for the money he had loaned me when it wasn’t yet the agreed time to pay up. He later confessed that he did it to spite me. Imagine getting married to someone like that.
4. Ore
I confronted him about some messages I found on his phone. He was talking marriage with a colleague and it sounded serious. The way he denied the whole thing and just summed it up as “office wife” bants made me realise that the relationship wasn’t worth my peace of mind.
5. Ada
I was 20 years old and he was 11 years older than me. He got about £500 from me for his “business” and refused to pay back. He blackmailed and insulted me on top my own money. Almost got kicked out of the hostel cause that was my rent.
6. Ana
I wanted an iPad and he was like, “You already have a computer and a phone, why would you want an iPad? Don’t you know Apple is an exploitative company?” He had 2 Macbooks. The last straw was when I wanted to go to TFC for lunch and he insisted he knew better. I mentally checked out.
He was a very nice guy, but on our last date, just before he was to travel for a long trip, I realised that I didn’t love him and he deserved better. I broke up with him a month after.
8. Sarah
We had been on and off, but I would always find my way back to him because I thought he was the one. Then my father died and I called to inform him. He asked me who was on the phone. Omo.
9. Temitope
So we’d been dating for a while and things were going on fine, till we went for one of his friend’s parties together. He was holding my hand, but the moment he saw his friends, he dropped my hand. They didn’t approve of a plus-size girl and he was ashamed to be seen with me. Broke up with him that night.
10. Dami
He said to me, “It’s not everything I say that you must respond to.” I said, “Then don’t fucking talk to me” and cut off the phone. That was one of the last conversations we ever had.
11. Bola
He could justify fornication and alcohol consumption, but he drew the line at me smoking weed once in 3 months. He also, in an argument about contraceptives, equated a vasectomy to a hysterectomy. When everyone knows that women have several contraceptive options while men are limited to condoms and vasectomy. Bonus: he is also pro-life. Bottom line: He was an “audio progressive man”.
12. Uwana
I had my appendix taken out and he didn’t show up. Mind you, a month after this operation would have been our introduction. Nobody from his family called me.
13. Mercy
I knew I had to leave the relationship when he was always invalidating my dreams, making them look small and talking down on my spirituality. I take that part of me seriously, and I would have loved him to respect that side of me. As soon as I left the relationship, I got a really good job. I guess his subtle negativity was holding me back.
14. Rukayah
I knew I had to leave a relationship when six months in, my ex told me he was not capable of loving me because he had suffered a heartbreak when his girlfriend of 7 years left him.
15. Niyola
The very first day I went to his house, I got drenched by rain on my way, so all I wanted was warm clothes and food. I was open to having sex with him, but I wanted to at least get warm and eat first. He wanted sex immediately.
While I was trying to explain, he slapped me multiple times and raped me. I almost lost sight in an eye because of the experience. I didn’t report because the first time I tried to report a rape case, they told me I didn’t look like someone they could rape.
16. Susan
He kept cheating. One day, he swore on his mother’s life that he didn’t sleep with a girl. Turns out he slept with her that same night. If he could lie with his mother life, I knew had to flee.
17. Aisha
When he hit me a second time in our 4th year of marriage, dragged me on the floor and out of his house. He always called it his house. I regretted not leaving the first time he hit me. I knew I did not want any more regrets.
18. Amaka
I wore something that didn’t even expose any part of my flesh but because it was bum short, people were talking and he followed them to embarrass me in public. Something in me shifted that day. I sha cheated on him ( I don’t regret it). I told him I cheated, he forgave me, I cheated some more then I broke up with him.
19. Lizzy
He was my first boyfriend. I told him I didn’t like when he grabbed my butt in public and he started sulking and saying I was his babe and he can grab my ass at any point. The moment I checked out was when he mocked me for typing in full with comma, paragraphs and all of that. He said he doesn’t like it. What in the illiterate-waste-of-space was I dating? Omo, I left oh.
20. Gloria
He was the sweetest person ever. The whole relationship was great but the moment we had sex. It felt like I was having sex with my brother. It was just extremely weird for me. I didn’t know how to tell him. I eventually did after two years. I lied I was poly and left.
21. Ella
After helping him apply for several jobs, he told me he got a job in the UK and was leaving for training the following week. I was so happy for him. Before he left my place, he said he had a confession.
Oga then tells me that he didn’t have any job, that he was just testing me to see if I had his best interest at heart. What in the Telemundo is going on and how do I unsubscribe? Took me months, but I finally left our 8-year relationship.
22. Fortune
He kept comparing me to his ex. Any small thing “Oby used to…” I had to leave. He should go and be with Oby.
23. Hadiza
He had a Jamaican stripper fetish. He was always asking for nudes. I kept sending them because he would guilt trip me. He continued till I just rolled my mat and ended my prayers. He ended up breaking up with me because according to him, “I didn’t understand him” but no, the reason was I wasn’t consistent with the teasing.
24. Chi
We went out for a drink and for some reason I couldn’t stand the sight of him, the sound of his voice, nothing, until I had a drink and was a little buzzed. Got home and asked myself why I needed to be tipsy to tolerate him. That was when I knew.
25. Ene
His wife DM’ed me under the guise of providing a service & a whole drama ensued which led to me being subbed every 3 months on Twitter.
26. Oyin
He would insult me at any giving opportunity or the slightest mistake. One night, he punched my face so hard and strangled me till I almost died. Woke up alive and just then I knew I had to leave this man (father of my two kids) if I still want to live.
27. Abigail
I would sometimes post bikini pictures or turn around in videos and he told me I was a slut. He told me that all I could offer anyone was my body and because of the kind of pictures I post, he thinks I lied about getting assaulted. This man also gave me six rules of things I must do and not do, saying that we are tied for life. We dated for two years.
28. Joy
The exact moment I knew I had to leave was when I went to see him and he demanded I block every guy who has ever moved to me, started reading my chats and when he saw that I didn’t block them, he stopped talking to me.
29. Queen
There were many times I should’ve left. I never should’ve been with him, in fact. He was immature, superficial and stuck in a toxic cycle with his ex. He clearly had no real idea who tf I was. Then he got more attached, more dependent, more entitled.
The final trigger came when he mentioned marriage and had the nerve to suggest “you aren’t getting any younger” Me? Pressured? Into marriage? To you? On the basis of age? We were together three years, the first two in which he couldn’t have been clearer about not wanting to be with me yet he gaslighted me into staying because it was the economically smart thing for him to do while remaining conveniently irresponsible.
When I broke up with him, he left me a message saying I “had a (commitment) problem and probably just can’t be with anyone longer than a year”
30. Peace
I found out he had impregnated his ex and had her move in with him — we lived in different cities. He was the one always visiting me in the city where I lived and worked but this one time, I flew to his city one afternoon after talking as though I was home.
I paid him a surprise visit and his jaw literally dropped to the floor when he saw me. She told me that they’d been trying for a kid for the past three years and after three miscarriages, this one would not keep them apart. I looked at him and his face was bent low in shame and that’s when I knew it was all over. This man had gone to see my family for my hand in marriage.
Breast cancer is the second leading cause of cancer in women after lung cancer. It not only affects the patient but their families as well. I spoke to some women who know people who have survived breast cancer and some who have lost people to breast cancer and this is their story.
Zara
When I was two years old, my aunt found a benign lump in her breast. The doctors advised her to take things easy so she stopped driving. About 7-8 years later, she was diagnosed with cancer. She only told me after she got a mastectomy All my years of watching Medical TV shows did not prepare me for how real the whole thing felt. With chemotherapy and treatment, my aunt got better.
Lola
My aunt, a retired nurse, found a lump in her breast and didn’t tell anyone. Someone took her to a traditional home where she was told it was a spiritual attack. When things got out of hand, she reached out to my mother, who took her for a mammogram. She moved in with us so mum could take care of her. I remember her losing all her hair and a lot of weight. Her skin, palms, and sole became very dark. She was in so much pain. My mother had to give her an injection from time to time to keep her blood count up. Unfortunately, she died 10 days after her surgery due to negligence. Her dressing wasn’t done properly and there were maggots too.
Nike
My mom wasn’t literate and none of us lived with her, so when she had breast cancer, she didn’t tell anyone. According to her, she felt pain in her breast, she went to a general hospital and they referred her to a teaching hospital. The staff wanted her to come with her kids, at this point, she ran away and didn’t tell us. She endured the pain until 2004 when it became unbearable. When she told us, we took her to a doctor, by then, it was a stage 4 metastatic cancer. She went through chemo hoping they would do surgery but they were just managing her pain. In November, the doctors finally told her no surgery was being planned. From there, she seemed to shut down her own system and moved to an end-stage. She died in the second week of December 2004. Her body ravaged by cancer.
Annie
Two women in my family have had it. My aunt who managed it for 15 years, she’s passed on now and my grandmother who’s currently battling it. My grandmother found a lump while having a shower in 2008. Hers started out as axillary lymphadenopathy – which essentially is enlarged lymph nodes on the armpit. We’re literally in the car on the way to her 8th chemo cycle. I’ve been at this for such a long time, that her oncologist asked me to come and intern with him.
Wunmi
December 2019, my mom found a lump in her breast. She was diagnosed with cancer in April 2020. She was puzzled because 10 years ago, she had a mastectomy and thought it was gone for good. After having a back and forth with the LUTH oncology department about her files, she was able to get a consultation session with a private oncologist who charged three times as much. They put her on chemotherapy and she is expected to do four cycles before she is eligible for surgery. Before and during chemotherapy, she had terrible skin reactions but now, she is doing better and living more intentionally.
Gift
My aunt who is an unemployed single mother of one was diagnosed with cancer. She has been very secretive and gets defensive when asked about it. After convincing her to see a doctor, she refused to tell anyone about her diagnosis, taking agbo – local medicine – instead and saying this is how God probably wants her to die. I had to speak to the doctor who advised she removes the whole breast to avoid the cancer spreading. She has refused to do this. Recently, she said she found a hospital willing to do 6 months of Chemo for 180k but I don’t believe her.
Shola
March 2019, a few months before my mother turned 52, she found a lump in her breast while dressing up for work. My mum went to the hospital where she was examined and scheduled for a lumpectomy. The results showed a malignant tumour in her breast which was spreading fast. She was diagnosed with stage 3 breast cancer and was told she needed an urgent mastectomy so she could begin chemotherapy.
Thing is, after her mastectomy, another examination was conducted on the breast removed and there were no traces of a malignant tumour. We had several tests done and the results were the same. By now, my mum has already done two rounds of chemo. The doctors advised she continue treatment so they don’t any chances. By August 2019, my mom had undergone 6 rounds of chemo. But this year August, she has been declared cancer-free.
For updates on all things HER, kindly subscribe to our HER newsletter.
“A Week In The Life” is a weekly Zikoko series that explores the working-class struggles of Nigerians. It captures the very spirit of what it means to hustle in Nigeria and puts you in the shoes of the subject for a week.
The subject of today’s “A Week In the Life” is Jumoke, and she’s a midwife. She talks about challenges women face with contraception, why women need more people in power speaking for them, and the best part of her job.
MONDAY:
I wake up at 5 a.m. every day and depending on my mood, I either work out or do yoga. However, there’s none of that today because I’m tired and can’t wait for my day to be over. I go through the motions — brush my teeth, have my bath, wear my cloth, and my day begins.
At work, patients are waiting for me, and I don’t get to drop my bag before I start attending to them. The complaints are usually almost the same after women adopt a contraceptive method. It’s either they haven’t seen their period or they’re experiencing unusual bleeding.
Because menstruation is seen as a sign of fertility, women panic when it doesn’t come. Sometimes, you’ll hear their partners say things like: “it’s not good for a man to have sex with a woman that hasn’t seen her period.” Other times, [some] women are worried because of their religion. For Muslim women, excessive bleeding affects their prayer cycles — you can’t pray during your menstrual cycle — which in turn affects them psychologically.
One part of my job involves helping these women find a solution so they can go home happy. The other part is counselling and calming them while we try to find the solution.
My dilemma today is counselling the Muslim couple in front of me. The wife recently converted to Islam, and her husband thinks that she’s using excessive bleeding as an excuse not to pray. My job is to explain how contraceptives work to him and convince him to be patient with her. I’m just wondering about the best place to start my shalaye.
I can tell that today is going to be a long day.
TUESDAY:
Young people aren’t given proper sex education, so we’re having a lot of issues. I hear a lot of women say that they use Postinor or Post-pill to prevent pregnancy, and it makes me sad. These pills are meant for emergency cases and they fail. If women knew where to get contraceptives, they’d be better informed and wouldn’t have to marry people because of pregnancy.
I don’t blame anyone because of how this country is set up. Many times, the only places to learn about contraceptives is where there are old women or pregnant women. You shouldn’t have to wait until you’re young and pregnant before getting access to this information. That’s why I’m thankful that sites like Planned Parenthood,Marie Stopes,Honey and Banana, Reprolife and Sid initiative are making things easier.
When I’m not working at my 9-5, I run a social enterprise focused on young women. I provide contraception services to women who don’t have time or can’t afford to go to the hospital. Today, I’m meeting up with a client to advise her on a method that’ll make her life easier. Nothing excites me more than helping a woman live her best life.
WEDNESDAY:
It’s either people don’t listen to women or they are not patient enough to listen to women issues. I’ve seen people offer to do a maternity app or USSD, and their target is Makoko community. But in Makoko, new wives or mothers are not allowed to use phones because the men think it encourages promiscuity. So, who’s getting the information? If they took the time to ask what women need, they’ll know that it’s not these things.
Women need things like education and access to financing. Education influences the use of contraceptives, and finance ensures the uptake. Some women can’t afford to pay the bulk fee that government hospitals usually want to collect at once, while some don’t even know what to do. And not a lot of health workers offer contraceptive services. I keep wondering why there are no services that fill this gap instead. That’s why I think no one is listening. One hill I’m willing to die on is that women need more people in power talking for them so that money can be pumped into women’s issues.
Until I get to a position where I can do anything, I’m going to be content with helping women live their best lives. Anytime I start to think too much, I remember the babies that come for immunisation and how they’re gaining weight. This gives me joy and lifts my mood.
THURSDAY:
Whether they are having sex regularly, once in a while or not at all, I tell women to never be ashamed of their libido. The most important thing is for them to be conscious of what they need. Women younger than thirty need vaccinations against sexually transmitted infections like hep B and cervical cancer. I also advise sexually active people who don’t plan on having a baby to adopt a contraceptive method. Confidence in your sexuality allows you to be conscious of what you need so nobody can ride you or make you feel ashamed. Once you’re past that, everything falls into place and the confidence reflects in every area of your life. Nobody can come and use nonsense to stain your white.
Today, I’m thinking about how much I enjoy my job.
My best days are when a woman comes to me anxious, and at the end of the day, she leaves better. I think my purpose in life is to tell women: “Oya come, bring your headache and give it to me.” Helping women makes me so happy.
Check back every Tuesday by 9 am for more “A Week In The Life ” goodness, and if you would like to be featured or you know anyone who fits the profile, fill this form.
Women have been said to be at the forefront of this protest. Although some people say women should not join the protest, they did anyway. We asked six Nigerian women why they joined the #EndSARS protests.
Linda, 21
Every day I spend on the road, is for the women and the queers. Police brutality affects those two groups strongly, and people
Elizabeth, 25
My brother has been extorted by SARS. I don’t consider it centering men, I consider it fighting for family. It’s a family thing now.
Chika, 27
Women. That’s it. Women are raped, assaulted, and STILL extorted by SARS officers. They’re the reason I protest.
Folorunsho, 26
I’ve been a victim of SARS. They’ve taken some money from me before, and I’m honestly done with the institution. This protest is for me. For what they’ve taken from me.
Adaeze, 19
I want a new Nigeria. A safer one for all of us irrespective of their gender and sexual orientation. If by going to the streets every day will get me that, then so be it.
Dimso, 35
I do not want to be on the wrong side of history. I want to be able to tell my children that I stood for something as great as this.
For more women do focused content, please click here
Have you ever gotten a message so weird you did not know how to process it? Well, these seven women to tell us the weirdest messages they have received.
Jane, 32
A picture of his penis. No introduction, no nothing. Just a picture of his phallus.
Amaka, 19
A man once told me he wants me to rape his ass. He told me he was willing to pay even. I just blocked him, because why?
Kike, 25
A picture of her ass. One day I get a message request and when I open it, it is a picture of this woman in her underwear. I do not know how these weird people find me, but they should not find me anymore.
Clara, 23
A guy once messaged me on Twitter, talking about how sexy I looked. When I checked the profile, I found out it was my cousin. I do not blame him at the time, because I did not have any picture of my face in my media. Just my body.
Janet, 19
A guy offered to pay me money for feet pictures. I was really broke, so I considered it, but then he mentioned video calls and I was immediately put off. He never told me anything about him. Just “willing to pay, send feet pics.”
Eseosa, 21
This one was probably using me to test some stupid pick-up lines. He told me that the love arrows on my face are not complete, and he is the one remaining. He said he wants to be the missing arrow that leads to my heart. What does that even mean?
Bimpe, 33
Some guy on Facebook messaged me once, that he was my cousin and he asked me to transfer him money to get a cab. When I offered to order one for him, he blocked me.
For more content about women and women’s lives, click here
Navigating life as a woman in the world today is incredibly difficult. From Nigeria to Timbuktu, it’ll amaze you how similar all our experiences are. Every Wednesday, women the world over will share their takes on everything from sex to politics right here.
Today’s What She Said is not anonymous. Last week, a 22-year-old Ghanaian, Dzifa @MakyDebbie_ shared an experience from her childhood that had to do with being accused of witchcraft.
We were curious about this experience, so we decided to talk to her about it. She tells us about how when she lived in Nigeria with her family, her father’s friend told him her mother and sisters were witches. He made them endure several deliverance sessions, amongst other rituals, in different churches to get rid of this so-called witchcraft.
Let’s start from the beginning. Why did you and your Ghanian family live in Nigeria?
My parents are Ghanaians. I don’t have any Nigerian bloodline, but I grew up in Nigeria. My parents moved to Nigeria when I was three years old.
My mother married my dad in Nigeria. He was already there hustling.. Things were really hard in Nigeria, so they came back to Ghana, where they gave birth to me. And when things got bad in Ghana, we relocated to Nigeria.
So how did the witchcraft accusations begin?
It began when my father made a Ghanaian friend in Nigeria. The friend called himself a prophet of God even though he didn’t have any church. I was about seven years old when it started. My mother tells me this story every time: he got into the house and said, Spirits are living in this house.
My father was sold. He told my father that my mother was a witch and all the girls — my sisters and I — were witches.
Do you have any brother?
Yes. He wasn’t accused of witchcraft. Although my father’s friend told him that my brother would soon be initiated by us. So while we were going for prayer sessions and deliverances, my brother never went with us. My brother was already an adult though, and he didn’t believe in all these things. He was also working, so he didn’t depend on my parents.
It seemed the witchcraft accusation was what my father wanted to hear because it meant he was a hero among witches. “These people are witches and yet nothing bad has happened to me.” When my father lost his job, it reinforced that we were witches trying to bring him down, and that was when the whole thing started.
What started?
Every pastor said it was witches that made my father lose his job. At a point, he didn’t have any money, but he still sent us for deliverances so we would release his job for him.
I grew up at Jakande Estate, Isolo. One day we trekked from Isolo to Ikotun. My father gave us money to go there and told us he had given money to the pastor to give us to come back. He had not. The pastor didn’t help, and we couldn’t sleep at the church. I can never forget that day. My mum, sisters and I cried on our way back. My mother is plus-sized, so it was too much for her. We gave her massages for days.
Isolo to Ikotun Roundabout
We started with the Mountain of Fire camp at Ibadan expressway. I did three days of fasting. If you had seen me and asked, “Dzifa, what are you doing?” I would have told you I’m fasting because I need deliverance from witchcraft. I didn’t know what witchcraft was. It’s not like I was seeing things in the night.
From Mountain of Fire, we went to Chosen. We would go for night vigils, no sleep. Immediately after school, “Go and baff, we are going to church.”
I can’t count how many churches we went to. There was a time they said we were all delivered except my sister, so they took her to another church at Ikotun. The church was built at a dumpsite — I cry every time I remember this story — because this man cut my sister’s hair with scissors and was washing her head from witchcraft. Which witchcraft?
Wow. I’m so sorry.
We drank anointing oil like it was water. If you had cut our skin, it would be anointing not blood that would come out. They also gave us soaps and salts. My father set a table in our room with salt and stones on it. He called it an altar, so that in the night when we want to “fly”, the altar of God would stop us.
There was a time he wouldn’t let us sleep with lights off for the same reason.
This is a lot. For how long did this continue?
It started when I was seven and continued till I left Nigeria — it’s just less now. My father still doesn’t have a job. I came to Ghana with my parents when I finished secondary school — at 15. I visited my brother a year later in Nigeria, and after a conversation we had, I was done with it all. When I went back to Ghana, I was done.
He cannot disturb me because I’m independent now. He tried to fight me, he even started a church. But right now, he doesn’t disturb me. I don’t go to church anymore; I’m not religious anymore.
Your dad started a church?
Well, somebody started a church then had to travel. He left my dad in control, but they had a fall out later and my dad left. Everyone just assumed my father was the owner of the church.
Mind blown. How was your mum throughout this period?
My mum endures everything. I told you she trekked from Isolo to Ikotun. And still, tomorrow, If my father says go here, she would go. I hated her for always agreeing because if she said no, we wouldn’t have to go to any church. But she always agreed.
But now I know that she was unemployed and totally reliant on my dad. She had a little catering business, but that wasn’t enough to take care of us. She couldn’t afford to be rebellious, else things would’ve gone south. These days, she says she did it for us and I think it’s true. If my dad had neglected us, I don’t know how we would have coped. Right now that we, her children, take good care of her, she doesn’t go to any church anymore. We talk a lot and she tells me the things my dad says. I tell her, ma, we are not going to any church.
How did this witchcraft obsession affect your family’s relationship?
It affected our relationship with my father grossly. These days he tries to mend a very broken relationship. Right now I am the only child living with my parents. The others are in Nigeria, and I can tell you their relationship with him is sour. My father complains my brother doesn’t respond to his messages, but once I text my brother, he replies immediately. It makes my father feel bad.
One time he asked if he had ever wronged me, and I looked at him and said nothing. If I start talking about how he messed me up, made me feel unloved, made me hate myself for being a witch and question my existence, I would start crying.
How did it affect you?
When my dad stopped working, we couldn’t go to school. They would chase us because we had not paid our fees. And because I was a witch holding my father’s job, this was my fault.
I hated myself for causing extreme suffering. I thought, “Why did they give birth to me if it was to make my parents suffer? Why am I making them cry every day?” My mother suffered domestic violence because of witchcraft. Till today, when she argues with my father, he brings up witchcraft.
I hated men of God. If you say I’m a witch, why can’t you deliver me? Why did my father never get a new job? It was when I became older that I realised, bruh, these people were lying. If I was a witch, I think I’d know.
Do you believe witches exist?
Well, no one has come to meet me and said, “Hi, I’m a witch, this is what I went through” or “Dzifa, I’m a witch, I’m coming to torment your life.” I only see it on TV.
I’ve experienced what it’s like to be falsely accused of witchcraft. When a witch comes to tell me of their witchery, then I’ll believe. For now, it all ends at Harry Potter witchcraft.
Nigerians have come a long way from how they perceive mental health. The youths are more mindful and self-aware and are in turn educating the older populace about mental awareness. Today, I spoke to 6 strong Nigerian women about their mental health journey and because this is a story of how they conquered, I will be adding their superpowers.
Sophie, 21,
Superpower: Resilient and self-aware
In 2019, my mother was diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia. It came as a shock to me because she is my everything, she is the parent that stayed so to see her become so ill broke me. At the time, I was already dealing with overthinking and anxiety so it was tough for me to accept this new reality. I’d be at school or work and start worrying that something must have happened to her in my absence.
A part of me is still ridden with guilt that somehow this is my fault. It’s ridiculous, I know but I cannot help but feel like I should have seen the signs or been more attentive.
Over time, I took on more responsibilities and I could feel myself getting drained. As she got better, I became worse. Food, sleep, hanging out became a distant memory for me. Whenever I went out, I’d find myself crying in the uber. This was when I decided to get help. E-counselling has really helped me. I now know to keep my mind and personal space clean. Trying not to clutter my life with negative people and so far, things have gotten better. I am mentally in a better place.
Anna, 25
Superpower: Speaks 4 languages and knows over 60 countries national anthem
I started learning national anthems as a way to beat depression and social anxiety. When I was 6, my twin brother died. When I turned 8, my mom died as well. It was just me and my dad and he wasn’t really the “fatherly” figure one would expect. He remarried and that was when my life truly became hell. My stepmother tortured me for days. She’d lock me up in a room for an extended period whenever my dad was away. It got so bad that I refused to come home for mid-term breaks and I’d be the last to leave school on long holidays.
When I got into university, this woman would pay boys to beat and harass me. At some point, I became friends with the guys she used to send. We would end up using the money she paid them to hang out.
Whenever I complained to my father, he would tell me everything would be okay. It took this woman almost setting me on fire for my father to send me to my aunt’s place. When I moved in with my aunt in Lagos, I began to seek help. I would stay indoors for days without eating or moving. So my aunt made me see a therapist and I got diagnosed with clinical depression.
In December 2018, I wrote a suicide note, had a bottle of sniper near me that day. Funny enough, a call from my Dad saved me.
He just called and said he loves me. That was the first time my dad ever uttered those words to me.
So I’ve been battling a lot of anxiety and sadness all my life. Even now that I’m older and more independent, I still have a lot of anxiety.
Sometimes I feel like my heart is about to fall out of my chest. I have unnecessary panic attacks. I almost feel like I’m broken. This past week, I haven’t been able to sleep at night. I’m mostly awake overwhelmed by my own thoughts. As much as I am thankful for life, I do not feel like I have a purpose.
Dami, 22
Superpower: Very Logical and empathetic
I have battled with mental health issues all my life but the incident that stood out for me was the year 2018 when I was in school. When it happened I just knew I had to get help. Just before I had my exams, I had a breakdown. Stayed in bed for a month, couldn’t function or eat. It ended with me in the hospital getting diagnosed with depression. It was so bad that I had to take a year off school. My parents wanted to make sure I wasn’t getting stressed over schooling while recovering. I think it hit them hard when they found out that I was cutting myself.
For me, I would say my triggers were a function of the uncertainty that hit me. All my life, I have maintained good grades, done what I was told to do and now I have to figure things out myself and the nagging question of “what next, what now?” hit me harder than I anticipated. I cut myself every few days during the hardest point of my depression. The only reason I’m alive is that I kept thinking about how my death would wreck my family and the religious implications as well.
I am very grateful for modern medicine and therapy. Although, being on anti-depressants makes me numb. I don’t feel sad or ecstatic about anything but it is better than feeling a pang of overwhelming sadness. I’d advise that people on anti-depressant always speak to a doctor before going off them cause suddenly stopping medication can lead to a deeper depression. I know this cause I have lived it.
Akpevweoghene, 20
Superpower: Unique thought process, open-minded
I haven’t been diagnosed yet but I have shown symptoms of anxiety. It is easy for me to breakdown during an argument, especially with a loved one. There was a day I broke down and tried to harm myself. It was terrible. I cried my eyes out, used my body to hit the floors. It was scary and confusing plus I had no idea what was happening. I felt insane. It got worse, I entered the kitchen, picked up a lighter and started burning my hands. A loved one had to intervene. After the incident, I started reevaluating myself. I wondered why I couldn’t feel the burning pain until I stopped hurting myself. It made me realise that I may have a mental health issue. ‘
Seeing that I cannot afford therapy, I have been getting help from mentally aware. Some days the breakdowns are subtle like the rains and other days it could be as harsh as a storm. To cope, I have distanced myself from my toxic family and their expectations. Writing also helps.
I believe everyone has their share of mental health issues but how they handle is what truly matters. The world may vilify people who have been open and expressive about mental health but I want those that aren’t speaking up to know that it is not their fault in any way and they shouldn’t let stigma stop them from speaking up.
Having a mental health issue actually saved me from a bad relationship. thing is, I left a bad relationship to a worse one. When I tried to leave again, the guy would come with a face full of remorse and a mouth full of apologies. I knew the relationship wasn’t what I wanted cause of the amount of stress the guy put me through. Imagine being in a relationship where your partner enjoys having quarrels. He was an overthinker and if I agreed too quickly on something with him, it would stir up an argument. I gave 80% of my life to him, we were always together because he’d insist on it.
I could feel myself hitting rock bottom in the relationship but I stayed. Until I started crying in my sleep. I’d wake up with tears and the nagging memories of a nightmare. I knew I had had enough when I woke up to voices in my head screaming hateful things at me. It was terrifying because it felt so real. I could hear the voices saying “I hate myself, I hate you.”
Thing is, I would never think these words to myself on a normal day so why are these voices yelling this at me? The voices were throwing a tantrum and I just stayed there crying. I didn’t want to link it with mental health because I felt I was strong and these things were beneath me. Eventually, I ended the relationship and left all social platforms for about 6 months. I didn’t go for therapy but I took on meditation, yoga and exercise to cope. Life is meant to be enjoyed and I’m glad I found what works for me.
Kevwe 26
Superpower: Selfless with a big heart that has nothing to do with cardiomegaly.
When I was in school in 2014, my father died. I had bouts of depression. Back then, I wasn’t quite sure what the emotions I was going through were but now I know that it’s a miracle I was able to pass my exams that year. Since then, I have dealt with anxiety in different forms. I have researched painless ways to die.
In my search for an optimal suicide option, found an injection that could let me go away painlessly but it’s wasn’t sold in Nigeria. The other options were drowning in the 3rd mainland bridge or by hanging. I searched for anything that would make me go and ensure I didn’t survive cause it would be worse than the depression. I didn’t want to deal with the guilt or get arrested cause apparently, suicide is a criminal offence in Nigeria.
The funny thing is, my organisation provides resources for therapy and such but I just want to wallow. I don’t think there is anything to be happy about. Right now, I can’t even tell my partner cause he is going through his own problems. In times like this, I miss being able to pray and just take things to Jesus. It was easier. I don’t want to bewoke anymore, I want to sleep. I’m tired.
In anticipation of Bisexuality Awareness Week which takes place every September 16 – 23, I decided to speak to a bisexual woman about her experiences being out in Nigeria. The 29-year-old woman in this story talks about her decision to come out to her very religious parents while still living with them and the aftermath of coming out.
When did you first realise you were bisexual?
Unlike most people, I can’t pinpoint one moment and say this was the defining moment. I guess the same way straight people don’t wake up one day and realise, “oh hey, I’m heterosexual.” I do remember that when I was in secondary school, I had a crush on a girl, but that wasn’t my first crush. The girl had a boyfriend. When I realised she didn’t swing both ways, my crush died a harrowing death. Soon, I realised I had a crush on her boyfriend. Interesting how that worked out and we dated for years. I guess that’s my first memory of being attracted to a member of the opposite sex and same sex within the same time frame.
How did you deal with that, living a deeply religious society?
It was definitely not easy. Add to the fact that my parents are very religious. They go to one of the biggest Pentecostal churches and are pastors there, so they don’t tolerate nonsense. Just talking to boys was a problem, now imagine coming out as being attracted to women… that would have meant more trouble as a teen. I remember once my older brother read my messages where my then boyfriend wrote “goodnight dear” at the end of a text to me. He showed the text to my dad who was so aggravated by the use of the word “dear”, he started asking if I was still a virgin and what not. Right now, I cannot fathom why it was such a big deal.
My mum was no different. As soon as I was old enough — 16 ish — I made up my mind to not tell my parents about major life decisions: who I was dating, my job, etc. My plan was to simply disappear once I had the money to. I knew it was the only way to go if I wanted to live my best life.
I’m guessing that didn’t happen.
Nope.
The older I grew, the better my relationship with my mum got. By the time I was done with university, she was no longer an unbearable, religious woman. We used to gist, hang out and shop together.
For context, where my dad was the loud, obnoxious one, my mum had always been more subtle. With a straight and calm face, she could tell you that there was something wrong with your entire life — something she’s said to me one too many times.
She changed in a very remarkable way and I couldn’t lock her out.
I can see how this relationship dynamic makes it hard to disappear on her.
Fam. At this point, I’d dated just one guy and three different women, none of whom she’d met. It felt like I was sinning or doing something bad. When I was dating a colleague from work, I brought her home and first introduced her as a friend. I was living under their roof. So calling her a friend was only wise — she could sleep over when she wanted, and they wouldn’t suspect a thing.
My parents took an interest in her. They really liked her. My dad would ask her about her boyfriend, she would smile politely and we would smile at each other knowingly. Lmao. I did like that there was no pressure from her to come out to my parents because the thought of doing that gave me serious anxiety.
That my mum was cool with me didn’t mean she was no longer a pastor in church or that her definition of morality wasn’t still very high and different. We once started to watch a movie with queer characters together and she said “I feel like vomiting. What has this world become?”
When did you finally muster the courage to come out to her?
Almost a year after my colleague and I broke up. In fact, I was dating a guy when I told my parents about it. I asked my siblings to come home, so they could help hold my parents just in case one of them decided to kill me.
How did it go?
Let’s just say, not very well. My father was raging and fuming and shouting “no child of mine”. There was a table just by his side, and he flung it against the wall.
And my mum was just staring. I tried to touch her to explain, but she brushed me off. She said, “Are you doing this on purpose? Are you trying to hurt me? Where did I go wrong?” We had to rush her to the hospital later because her blood pressure skyrocketed. I doubt that the two event are unrelated.
Oh wow.
A few weeks later when things had settled down, my mum and I talked about it. She said she wanted to understand what exactly being bisexual meant for me. I told her. She asked if I wanted to pray about it. I said no. After a while, she just said, I can’t live your life for you, I can’t choose for you and a long ass speech which wasn’t exactly an approval, but it was peace.
What made you decide you were ready to come out?
I was tired of feeling as though I was living a double life. I really yearned for my parent’s approval — especially my mum’s in everything I did. I felt like if I spoke to her, she’d understand. It wasn’t one thing that triggered it. I was just tired of sneaking around and lying and pretending. I really just wanted peace and I’ve gotten that to an extent.
That’s reasonable. How prepared were you for this coming out experience?
I was prepared for the worst. I was prepared to be disowned and for like heaven to fall down. My mum’s reaction didn’t surprise me. I mean the high blood pressure bit was scary but every other thing was how I imagined it’d play out. I imagined my dad would be a lot worse though. It almost get there sha.
How?
He outed me to some ministers in his church, and they wanted to perform conversion therapy on me. Luckily, my mum gave me the heads-up and that didn’t happen.
Whenever I mention a friend, he sort of gets alert, perhaps trying to figure out if I’m talking about a woman or not.
The plot twist is that I’m currently in a relationship that might end up in marriage.
In a relationship with a man?
Yup. I’m not doing it out of pressure to conform or to please my parents. I’m actually in love. In fact, I’m doing it more for the safety net that marriage as an institution confers on women than to please anyone. He knows I’m queer, and we’re both polyamorous. So we’ll be extending this to our marriage if and when we do get married.
Nice. What was the hardest part of coming out to your parents?
Coming out itself. I can’t take for granted the fact that coming out wasn’t as drawn out as I expected it to be. I am lucky in some ways. I know some people who can’t dream of mentioning it to their relatives. But I can’t deny that coming out severed something in my relationship with my mum and dad. Especially with my mum. And I really want it to be back to normal. If ever. I pray it does come back. But importantly, I feel at peace in my heart. It doesn’t feel like I’m sinning. That’s important to me.
If you’d like to share your experience as a Nigerian or African woman across a range of different issues that affect women, send me an email.
Masturbation is actually good for you. For men, it helps protect you against prostate cancer. For everybody else, it’s a great way to improve your mood and help you sleep better. Unfortunately, the African society doesn’t seem to take too kindly to this hobby.
For something people do so much, we find the wildest euphemisms for masturbation to allow us discuss it openly. I’m not sure why, but people would rather not call it what it is. I made a list of all the hilarious ways people refer to their favourite past time.
We’ll start with the common ones
1. Fapping
We don’t know where this came from, but I’m guessing its from some secondary school somewhere.
2. Wanking
I’m not even going to try to decipher what this means
3. Beating your meat
Thoughts and prayers to your meat as we go into the weekend
4. Rolling dice
Obviously because of the hand motion men make when they nead to relax from Nigerian women’s stress.
5. Turning on the sprinklers
Sprinkling what????
6. Polishing the bannister
Omo.
7. Downstairs DJ
This one is for the women who partake in this famed extra curricular activity.
8. Choking the chicken
What did the chicken ever do to deserve this?
Ines Vuckovic
9. Tapping into your potential
Now when next your pastor says this, it won’t be the same.
10. Engaging in safe sex
What sex is safer than the one you’re having with only yourself?
Pretty much every man has been in the clutches of Igbo women at some point. They’re renowned worldwide for their wickedness and cold-heartedness. If you haven’t been hurt by Igbo women before, this article is for you. I’m trying to save you before it ends in premium tears.
If an Igbo woman is catching your eye, in the words of the great Fela, “my brother, run oh.”
Read on for the reasons why you should avoid the Nigerian women who put the fear of God in the devil.
1. They will break your heart
An Igbo woman breaking your heart is a rite of passage for every Nigerian.
Turn and look at your Igbo girlfriend. Look at her very well. She’s cheating on you. That’s all I have to say.
3. They will make you drop them off at their “cousin’s” house
Hint: It’s her second boyfriend.
4. They’re heartless
After breaking your heart, they’ll ask, “Is it because of this small cheating you’re crying?
5. After they cheat on you, you’ll still beg them
Seriously need to know who is doing their jazz for them.
6. They’ll give you sleepless nights
After not replying for 15 hours, she will say she “fell asleep” meanwhile she was meeting her cheating quota for the week. Don’t fall for this gimmick, kings. Stay woke.
7. They will leave you for Emeka Spare Parts
After several years of dating, she will drop off her wedding invitation at your office. Fear Igbo women.
We asked 9 Nigerian woman to tell us the worst pick up lines men have used on them. Here’s what they had to say:
Mary/23.
There was a tweet asking about the weirdest smell you like. So, I posted on my Instagram story and I was like “you guys don’t want to know.” Then a guy sent a message asking about the smell. I told him that I love the smell of balls fresh out of the shower, and he said he just pictured his in my mouth. And it looked like a perfect match. I was like wtf. It was so weird.
Som/26.
Someone I didn’t know on Twitter texted me saying: “Good morning my thick thigh pharmacist! how things dey go?” Like we’ve barely said a word to each other oh.
Tayo/25.
Someone told me the classic “You look familiar.” It still irritates me till today.
Anu/26.
For pharmacists, we have a saying: “As men of honour, we join hands.” Someone tried to move to me using that line. He moved to me with “as men of honour” so I just unlooked.
M./24.
My sister and I were standing together at a party and he goes “Is this your mother? because you sure look like her daughter.” In my mind, I was like this is boring.
Moji/25.
Your leg beads say you’re available. Single women like you are telling men like me that you want some xxxx”
Yinka/26.
Someone actually walked up to me and said: “This one you’re looking like this, I can make you happy.” In my head, I was like who’s this one? Does he want to be unfortunate?
Dayo/27.
One time, one guy said “your name is Dayo, my name is Ayo. This means that we are destined for each other.” At that point, I knew I was never going to date any Ayo again. Another time, I heard “here’s my card, call me.” So lame.
Dolapo/24.
One guy was like “do you like money because I have a lot to spare.” I’m not one to broke shame but it turned out that he was a broke-ass nigga. The ego and pocket no balance.
Editor’s note: Names and ages have been changed.
Hello Zikoko fam, something is coming soon. A series for men by men about men.
If you have ever used a hygiene product marketed towards women, then you definitely understand the pain
1) Scent
It is either the scent is fruits or flowers, no range whatsoever. Give us something else to work with please.
2) Price
A lot of times, when the product is something that has a male version like perfume, deodorant, even shaving sticks, the women’s are usually more expensive. It is pink. Is pink a more expensive colour than blue? Or is vanilla more expensive than the smell of an ocean sea breeze? We need answers.
3) Adverts
Their adverts are so fake. Nobody feels like taking over the world on the first day of their period. PEOPLE ARE IN PAIN. Show someone in pain and barely being able to get through their day, not Secondary school students dancing or are there drugs in your products?
4) Unnecessary Fragrance
Why? Not everything must smell like “divine feminine”. Why do products like pads have fragrance? Especially since they tend to hurt more than actually help.
5) Sexist
It is sometimes so subtle you forget it is there. The way they project women in their ads, the branding and all of that. Makes you wonder if they do not have women on their marketing team, or if they see women as simply one dimensional characters.
6) Product quality
Once you use a product that was bought in a foreign country, you realise the huge difference. It makes you wonder if the Nigerian brands just do not care. They can afford to make good accessible products, they just choose not to. Profit over people?
For more stories about women and all the little and big things that affect them, click here
The average woman working in Nigeria has a story or two to share about being assaulted in her workspace. The most common type of which is sexual assault. Today, we have a woman who speaks out on the physical and verbal assault she had to endure in her former workplace.
How did you get the job?
I was into freelance work and then I lost a few gigs so I was desperately in need for a consistent source of Income. In January, a friend saw a job opportunity for an administrative assistant and encouraged me to apply for the role. I did and I got it.
Boss lady. So, When did things start to go wrong?
My contract had defined roles but as time went on, I found myself doing things that didn’t concern me at all. They were giving me work that had nothing to do with the agreement in my contract. I became HR, started doing some accounting, it became outrageous when my boss brought his kids to work and asked me to babysit them.
Say what now?
He just presented them to me and said “Here are my kids, watch them. You’re young, you should be able to put them through life.” and all I could think was what the fuck does this even mean? On top of all that, I was working Saturdays and closing by 8:00 pm.
Were you getting paid for overtime?
Haha. people that were paying me 60k per month for normal salary where will I see overtime?
I hate slavery. Did you try to discuss this with your boss?
My boss would always find something that would keep me in the office. He would delay my work so I’d have to stay. I kept working even though there were no health benefits, no incentive for working, nothing. It was when my boss told me I should try and come in on a Sunday that I started plotting how to leave.
Whoa. Your boss sounds like a dick.
You have no idea. He made the workspace so toxic. Initially, it was just the fits of rage. He’d shout, then it’ll be gone. His moods were always random, he’d be light-hearted and the next second insulting someone. He was verbally and physically abusive.
Ah. Did he ever hit you?
No. But I got yelled at a lot. In fact, the first time I saw him hit someone, I didn’t even see it happen. I just heard the slap from the staffroom. It was one of the drivers and it was over something trivial.
Were you not aware of his abusive streak when you joined the team?
There was no one to tell me anything, most of the staff had either left or had been fired. I saw someone lose her job over a cold she had. From as little as the working days to things like closing times, it was all vibes. I had to discover things by myself. The one that broke me was when he threw a stone at someone and it hit his eyes. We had to take the guy to the hospital. He was just shouting the whole time, calling us names. I just carried my bag and left. Life is for the living.
I am so sorry. Has anyone taken any legal action so far?
No. They know that they’d end up spending money on legal fees and nothing will happen. Is it not Nigeria again?
Anything else you’d like to add?
Nigerians have normalised anyhowness in the workspace to the point where we take anything from our superiors. Please, if the stress is too much for you, leave. And yes, God will punish that man wherever he is now.
Every woman knows the pain of selecting an outfit for the day and having that outfit backstab them in one way or another. Here are 6 pieces of clothes that consistently betray women.
Bras
seven bras on clothesline isolated on white
For clothes that were made to support women, bras have turned to the dark side by acting as a constriction device. The sigh of relief when you take off your bra after a day of pretending to be okay is a sure sign that bras cross the thin line between upholding a woman’s breast and squeezing it until they cannot breathe properly. See a Nigerian man for more details on this.
Bodycon Dresses
It’s date night and you’re all glammed up looking like a peng thing in your bodycon dress then you make the mistake of exhaling the small air you were holding in. Now, you look like you’re 6 months pregnant and you haven’t even had dinner yet. Bodycon dresses were designed to portray women as peng things with a pouch. They point out the fact that you only did sit-up for 5 minutes before checking for abs.
Jeans
I didn’t want to do this but it has to be done. Ladies, what’s up with our jeans looking all fit and trimmed and perfect at the start of the day and then 2 hours out, they become like Semo, without form and purpose. They look like they age at the rate of avocados. Why?
Off-Shoulder Outfit
Asides the fact that this outfit choice is very offensive to our A-cup sisters, the technical design is flawed. You can’t raise your hands with confidence, you can’t twerk with your shoulders. Basically, the outfit doesn’t allow you to become your true self. Your body has to be kept a certain way else you’d have to keep adjusting and re-adjusting. Stress.
Heels
There is something about wearing heels that makes you feel powerful. You are on top of the world. You tower over your enemies, you are a goddess gracing lesser beings with your presence all until you have to walk on grass or the streets of Nigeria. Heels are for women who drive because jumping danfo with that 5-inch stiletto is going to kill you. Asides from being discriminatory against women with no funds, heels will have your ankles acting out when you’re older which is weird because you don’t see men shoes trying to kill them.
Thongs
I have never seen a piece of clothing that desperately tries to eat ass as hard as thongs. One moment you’re good, the next you’re trying to remove a thick string from your ass crack. Like bro, buy me dinner first. Know this, as sure as a compass needle finds the north, a thong will find a way to eat your ass.
The other day, Nigerian women spoke about the hardest part of dating Nigerian men. This was in response to a post about Nigerian men being scared to raise up issues in their relationships. It seems like there’s a huge disconnect between men and women. To address this, I gathered a few men who said they have questions for women that they need to be clarified. The aim is to bridge the communication gap and ultimately, lead to more wholesome experiences for both parties.
Here are a few questions Nigerian men desperately needs answers to:
1) Why do women feel that men will call them naggers?
“My gf told me that the reason she doesn’t complain about stuff is so she doesn’t come off as nagging. Why does she feel this way?”
2) Why don’t women communicate how they feel?
“A Nigerian woman would rather die than tell you how she really feels about you. Why?”
3) Why do women forget so easily?
“You can do one million things for a babe and when she’s angry, it all goes out of the window. Next thing “do you love me?” Why don’t they remember things we did in the past?
4) Why do women like attention?
“Why?”
5) Is it a bad thing to not want to share my problems?
“I don’t like light and love, is it bad to not want to share a problem, especially if I know it’s love and light you’ll give me?”
6) Why do women pretend not to like something but complain once you stop?
“You’ll be toasting babe and blowing up her phone everyday. She’ll say she doesn’t like it. Enter relationship and stop that texting frenzy[because she said she hates it], next thing you’ll hear is that you don’t do the things you used to when you were chasing me again. But, madam, you said I was disturbing you. Ahan. Why?”
7) Why do women say men don’t listen?
“It’s funny women say we don’t hear word when I feel the exact same way. On one hand, It feels like women want to be loved in a particular kind of way. On the other hand, it also feels like women want men to be loved in a way they [women] dictate and not the way we [men] want. For example, I accept I should be happy on your birthday, but why is it compulsory to be happy on mine? [especially if it’s not my thing] Don’t I have a choice? So, why do they say men don’t listen? Or is it only when we don’t do what they want?”
8) Why do women always say men are selfish?
“I actually want to know why women say men only care about themselves. It’s unfair because men and women have different outlook on life, safety nets, and incentives. This means that men approach things differently. I think there’s a miscommunication somewhere when they label some form of self-preservation as selfishness.”
9) Why do women always drag 30+ men?
“It just seems like women don’t want to compromise. They want stability with a mixture of bad boy. Pls, why do they always drag we that enjoy routine and stability? Is it every time excitement?”
Men and women, share your thoughts with us. Let us know what you think.
Men, this is a safe space. I spoke to a couple of men in relationships and they revealed what they were wary of telling their partners.
Here are a few things they said:
1) Bade/28.
“I wish I could tell my babe that I need alone time. It’s not that I don’t like her or stuff, but sometimes, I just want breathing space. I need time with myself and my thoughts. She wants me to share my problems with her but I see how overwhelmed she gets by hers and I don’t want her to get burdened by mine. It’ll only make her sad and then I’ll be sad.
The last time I spoke to her about alone time, she asked if I wanted to break up. In my head, I was like wetin be dis? Since then, I just chest it and perform the motions because I don’t want wahala.“
2) Tony/25.
“God. I just want her to take the initiative from time to time. She’ll say she wants to go out but somehow, I’m supposed to look for a venue. She’ll say she wants romance but won’t suggest or tell me how she wants to be loved. Then, she’ll now get sad that she doesn’t know my love language because I never want to be ‘romanced.’
I keep telling her that if something matters to her, it’ll be helpful for her to take some initiative to raise both the problem and the solution. That’s helpful for both of us – a template guides us since we are both learning. On her question on how I want to be ‘romanced’, I want to tell her that my love language is autonomy. I need to be able to trust that she doesn’t depend on me to do all the lifting in the relationship. I obviously can’t tell her this because I don’t want to be single. Lol.”
3) Habib/23.
“Guy, my babe expects me to be passionate about the things she likes. Why? Is it a crime to simply not be interested? If she sends something and I reply that it’s nice, she’ll complain. She’ll say that I’m not excited about the things she cares about. I keep trying to explain that we are different people with different interests and excitement won’t match all the time. Now, anytime she sends me something, I just send her “nice one babe” with plenty smileys. At least she leaves me alone. I just wish it wasn’t a crime to not be interested in some things. It’s painful because I don’t expect same from her. Last last sha, na life.”
4) Ekene/28.
“One time my babe and I were going out and she asked me how she looked, I said she always looks beautiful in anything. That’s how she said am I saying she doesn’t look extra nice today? That can’t I see the effort she put. I was like “ah, no, I mean I love you regardless of anything because you are beautiful.” Apparently, that was the wrong thing to say.
I wish I could tell this woman that I love anything that she does. I’m too far gone. Even if she doesn’t bath in two days, she’ll still be so beautiful to me. I want her to do things for herself not because she thinks I want them. So that if I don’t give the required reaction, it doesn’t turn to fight. After the last incident, I’m afraid to raise it up. Next thing she’ll message me saying: ‘Do you even love me? Or like me as a person?’”
5) Victor/30.
“I don’t want to call and text throughout the day. I like for us to do brief good morning text [how was your night, did you have breakfast, have a wonderful day] then talk after work. All that texting through the day thing distracts me from work. It’s not that I don’t want to talk, but there should be a time for everything. If I bring it up, it’ll be that I love my work more than I love her. My job matters a lot because I plan to marry this woman, and that will happen faster if I get a promotion. The only way I can get promoted is by complete focus and doing good work. Whenever I explain, I’ll hear that am I saying if she has an emergency during the day, she can’t call me? I’m like ah. I reply intermittently to keep the peace, but it’s affecting my attention span and quality of work. I really don’t know what to do.”
A lot of men were first introduced to sex via pornography. Many of the depictions are either unreal or downright painful. And sometimes, a failure to achieve some of these “sexual feats” leaves many men feeling inadequate.
In a bid to make men’s sexual relationships more fulfilling, and by extension make sex enjoyable for their partners, I spoke to a couple of Nigerian women. Here are some of the things men copy from porn that women say are unrealistic/unnecessary:
1) Softly softly please.
“The acrobatics women do in porn are not feasible in reality. Please, don’t break my leg and neck. God no go shame us. One time, I had a muscle pull during sex and you know what? Never again. But for that one, after all the shouting, we still continued.”
2) Stop expecting moans.
“Moaning is not a default activity. Moan when it’s good. Those idiots in porn open the door and start moaning. No be so e take be. Moaning should be a communication tool, not a default something. Use it as feedback. Besides, not everyone is comfortable with making noises during sex.”
3) Do your best and leave the rest.
“Stop trying to make me squirt. It’s not everyone that has that ability. Besides, I found out that porn stars put a pipe down there that releases the stream. Pls and pls.”
4) PSA:
“One thing that is universal for every man, even one that has “mastered your body” is that they tend to change the rhythm (slamming and going faster) than they should because the partner seems to be enjoying it.
Friendly advice: Just maintain the pace.”
5) Please, jot this down.
“Men want the ass to clap and flap. It’s aesthetics. Just because female pornstars perform the ass clapping and waist whining while having sex, it doesn’t mean we can just do it too. Some man will just expect your waist to start whining in a doggy position forgetting that there’s work to be done by both parties.”
6) Extremely important.
“Except for women that enjoy rough sex, smacking the butt and yanking her head out will only cause her to use a strong painkiller.”
7) Oh. Wow.
“Porn because of how short it is skips foreplay. Also, the pornstars are on drugs. So, your partner just kisses neck and shoulders and bam off pant, and do the doggy. Whereas the woman needs a breast massage, kisses in a hundred places, fingering, oral stimulation before the actual penetration. Foreplay can be a whole 40mins.”
8) Have you heard?
“You can’t just bring out your dick in the middle of sex and want to try anal. No proper conversation, just trying to surprise me. Ahan.”
9) Real life is different from porn.
“Men assume all women love swallowing cum. From my perspective, I definitely do not. It’s salty and weird tasting and leaves a metallic taste in my mouth that I could do without. I’ve heard some other women say the same.”
10) Fellas, listen.
“Slow Circular motions on the clitoris, don’t flicker like its a light bulb switch.”
Yoruba demon = player in this context. One gender has bad PR for being a player so we decided to level the playing field. Kings, if you see any of these signs, it’s a red flag. Immediately nip it in the bud.
1) She communicates when there’s a problem.
It’s a distraction from the fact that she has six of you in her purse that she’s rotating. She can’t afford to waste time too much time on one person.
2) She says fine and actually means it’s fine.
She doesn’t love you enough hence she’s not fighting for it. You mean no small drama? No allowing you to do a bit of display? Hmmm.
3) She doesn’t eat out of your food.
Red flag. Nigerian women show love by eating out of your food. Especially after saying they weren’t interested.
4) Her gifts are not singlet and boxers.
Run!
5) She says “I love you.”
If a Nigerian woman loves you, she’ll say she hates you. You see, she’s cheating.
6) She doesn’t say “na so” when you compliment her.
She has been receiving training from her other men and that’s why she’s now used to compliments. If you were the only one on her case, she’d still be shy to compliments.
7) You’re not hearing words like “big head” and “ode.”
She’s calling you baby and you too you are happy? Sorry for you.
8) She’s always laughing.
Kings, ask yourself, are you that funny? or are you the joke? Focus, young king.
“A Week In The Life” is a weekly Zikoko series that explores the working-class struggles of Nigerians. It captures the very spirit of what it means to hustle in Nigeria and puts you in the shoes of the subject for a week.
The subject for today is Toyin, a 28-year-old proposition manager at a financial institution. She walks us through how her job allows her to empower women, empower herself, and what it’s like to run a demanding business in the middle of a pandemic.
MONDAY:
I wake up at 6 am today. In the past, I used to wake up at 4 am every morning and leave my house at 5 am because I had to join the staff bus. However, since the lockdown started, I’ve been working from home. This means I get to wake up by 6 am.
I like being an early riser because it gives me alone time before the whole frenzy of work and business begins. It helps me to set the tone for the day because I believe in praying and speaking into my day. If I don’t do that, I make a mess of the day.
I work in a financial institution as my 9-5, I also run a mask business on the side so it can be overwhelming. Since I started combining both, I have had an emotional breakdown. I’ve had times where I just wanted to leave everything or pull my hair out. The only good thing is that my business is a family business so I’ve been able to take breaks. It also helps that I have an understanding boss who communicates her expectations and timelines so that makes doing my job easier. I can plan my time and follow through on my tasks while still running my business.
The first thing I do most mornings is to ensure that business orders from the previous day are picked up for delivery. After that, I block Twitter and other social media channels so I can focus on work. I write out all I want to achieve for the day and I allocate time to each thing.
It has been a productive day, work-wise but frustrating on the business side. Today, a customer told me he wanted to get a mask but he didn’t want to pay for delivery. His excuse was that I didn’t tell him before that he was supposed to pay for delivery. I kept wondering what he was expecting to happen. I even tried to find a middle ground for both of us. but he was still being difficult. We sha did not find a solution after all the back and forth.
I am feeling stressed, so I play some episodes of Friends to relax and reset.
TUESDAY:
The thing about this mask business is that it was unplanned. My mum has been a fashion designer for over 30 years. My brother is also learning fashion designing at Yabatech and he’s into printing; he does that a lot. When COVID started, they made masks for all the neighbours.
Then, my mum made another set of masks and she was like the second batch was better than the one she did for the neighbours. My brother then suggested that we could print on it. So we went on Pinterest, saw designs and realized that we weren’t the first, but our design was unique. Then we started thinking of fun stuff to print on masks and made some. The first batch sold out so fast because people were like “wow, this is a mask that doesn’t remind you of COVID.” From then on, we started doing other designs and growing.
But it was challenging. Eh, it was challenging!
People and their expectations. It’s amazing how Nigerians forgive inferior things they buy abroad but expect so much from locally sourced materials here. Some people have compared my mask to Adidas. I have had to remind them that I’m a small business. We’ve even had to buy over 4 machines since we started – we bought a machine to make holes, we bought a machine to do the finishing. We just had to up our standards, but there’s no time to learn in this business, no incubation period.
Sometimes when I see people wearing the old masks we did before we got the machines, I want to apologise to them. We are sorry, but it is what it is. Nobody knew last year that masks were going to be a mega profitable business so no one learnt how to make masks. We had to learn on the go, but I’m glad that we are improving.
Today, for instance, we launched 7 new designs. and the responses have been amazing. Apart from the positive responses, I have also learned about the Nigerian market. I realized that people want what they can’t give you and you need to strike a balance between being rude and standing your ground. You need a lot of patience because of the bashing.
At one point, I had anxiety attacks because when people called I wasn’t sure if they wanted to complain about the mask or something else. I have learned to separate who I am as a person from the mask business. I’ve had to tell myself that when people are complaining about the masks. they are not complaining about me.
WEDNESDAY:
Even though I run a business, I love my job. I work as a proposition officer in the bank. My job is to think of ideas that can make accounts and loans more appealing to women and to implement those ideas.
What do women want? – This is a very hard question that no one has been able to answer.
My job is to cater to these needs using banking services. While it might not necessarily come as banking services, the end goal is to make more women become customers.
There was a time we found out based on our research that women actually have money but they don’t use the money in ways that secure their future. Many women give out money without tracking where the money is going, especially if their husband is well to do. Instead of trying to make the money work and investing in their future. A lot of women after working for years, look back and realize that they have nothing to their name. They had just been living day in, day out.
So we came up with financial literacy engagement classes where we went to teach women about money and how it could be used to secure their future. They were informal conversations where we talked about investments, mutual funds, etc. Then we directed them to the bank products that could help with these. The surprise on their faces when they realized what they could achieve was priceless.
For some, we even insisted that their husbands join the program because their wives being financially literate also makes their lives easier. So that if they are not there, everything doesn’t die with them.
During work today, one of the women who got a soft loan through one of our classes called me. She explained that before the loan, her business was doing fine, but she didn’t have the confidence to expand because of lack of funds to push a particular product line. However, after she got the loan and started to produce more items, this opened her up to the possibilities of applying for grants and fellowships.
She called to inform me that she applied for a US grant and was picked. She won it and it blew her mind. She kept on thanking me and calling all of us at the bank her friends. She kept on going on and on about how we helped her when she was at her lowest.
Hearing this made my day. Things like this are a reminder that this is not just a job, it’s a mission, and I’m helping people change their lives.
THURSDAY:
My work really helps me because it has shown me that I need to put myself on a pedestal where I am not sidelined because I’m a woman. If anything, I am as qualified as any other person in the room because I’ve done my work and I have everything that makes it easy for me to be picked for a job.
Before we started making masks, I was buying and selling accessories. I registered the business and made a business plan. This made it easy when we sent out proposals to companies for the mask business. They saw the work I had done, and it was easy for them to trust me to handle their work. I had even started designing a smart website for the accessory business but I had to let it go and focus on the money which is the mask business. Registering my business showed these companies that I was serious.
We’ve had companies tell us to supply 200 pieces, 500 pieces, 1000 pieces of masks. Today, as I am sorting out my duties at my 9 – 5, my family members are processing 2,000 pieces of masks due for delivery tomorrow. This is the highest number we have ever done and we are so so excited.
Once my day is over like this, I have to look for something interesting to eat. I don’t know what it is yet, but my spirit is telling me that there must sha be chicken involved.
FRIDAY:
Since we started this business, we all agree at home that the quality of life has improved. I know this because I’m the first child so the responsibility of someone wanting something has reduced. Now I look at my salary in surprise. Last month, they paid salary and I was like “oh, they’ve paid? I didn’t even know.” My mum was shocked to hear me say that.
Business is not always this sweet. In the past, I have also run into loss because I bought stock that didn’t move.
One thing I am thankful for in my family is contentment. Like any other family, we’ve had our struggles with finances and what not, but we have always been content. Even now as we are making money, you won’t see us living luxurious lifestyles. Our aim is to make products so affordable that people feel good without breaking their pocket. We’ve also given out masks for free because we are also about impact. We have given out masks to people on our streets, to the neighbours. My mum has also given the security men at our gate.
It’ll be foolish for us to think this mask boom will go on forever. We see this as a learning phase to prepare us for the launch of our retail ready to wear clothing line. We’re just systematically registering ourselves in the mind of people so that when we make other things they can trust us based on the quality of our masks.
Even with this learning period, life has improved. I won’t lie, having money when you need it is a huge relief.
SATURDAY:
Weekends are for sleeping until my eyes open on their own without the help of any alarm. Today, I plan to catch up on things I didn’t have time for during the week like books and movies. I’m currently reading my ‘Sister the Serial Killer’ but it hasn’t caught my attention yet. Or maybe, I’ll just call my boyfriend and gist. Or, maybe scroll through Twitter and IG. I don’t know my plans for today yet, but I know it doesn’t involve chatting. I feel like I have chatted so much in these past 4 months of lockdown and I am tired.
I need another round of sleep.
When I wake up, I’ll do whatever catches my attention.
SUNDAY:
Sundays used to be for attending church. I attend an Orthodox church where we don’t count time for the holy spirit. So, church used to last from 8 am to 5pm because of back to back meetings. Now, we are online. The church I attend online ends their service by 10 am, so I now have time to do other things.
Things like thinking about the future. Today, I’m looking forward to a time when we can mingle the way we used to. I really miss human interaction because these days, I don’t have any reason to go out unless I want to make deliveries.
I was telling someone that even though my house is far from the office, I’ll give anything to go back just so I can hug people. And I’m not even a hugger. I am just looking for things to go back to normal.
I also think that when things return to normal, my priorities will change. I’ll spend more time taking care of myself. During this stay at home, I’ve seen the difference between waking up very early every day and getting back home late. I plan to be better at time management, I just hope that Lagos traffic allows me to be great.
Glossary:
“Not counting time for the Holy Spirit” – Spending as much time as possible in church without rushing.
Check back every Tuesday by 9 am for more “A Week In The Life ” goodness, and if you would like to be featured or you know anyone who fits the profile, don’t hesitate to reach out.Reach out to me: hassan@bigcabal.com if you want to be featured on this series
