Every week, Zikoko asks anonymous people to give us a window into their relationship with the Naira. Some will be struggle-ish, others will be bougie–but all the time, it’ll be revealing.

This episode was pulled off in partnership with ARM Life. They’re making it easy to get started with insurance. So make the first move and start here.

Today’s story is about a Septuagenarian. She’s done everything from secretarial work to hospitality, and trade. All of this with one goal; to give the best life possible for her kids. This conversation happened in Yoruba, and this is an attempt at translating it to English, all without losing the yorubaness.

Tell me about your first job.

I worked at the Health Department of the Lagos City Council. I started working there in 1969, and I was 20 at the time – that’s when I got married. My salary was £16 and we used to get a Danger Allowance, because of the department we worked in – another £2.

Ah, Pounds.

Yes, Nigeria still used the pounds back then, and it was the same value as the British pound. I worked there till 1971, and then I travelled to go and join my husband, who was in the UK at the time. In Britain, I got a secretarial job that I didn’t like very much. It kept me seated too much. So I took the City and Guilds Certificate, 1 and 2, in catering. A few years later, we returned to Nigeria in 1975, and it was a different country.

The Naira?

Yes. At this time, I already had three kids. Even the hand drive changed. I got a job as a Restaurant Supervisor at Eko Holiday Inn in 1975 – I was 26. You people now know it as Eko Hotel. I was expecting my 4th child at the time.

Interesting. 

Yes. It was a joint venture by the government and some Americans. But we mostly worked with the Americans. My first salary was ₦375. To be honest, Jakande didn’t really care about the hotel business. A lot of his attention was on education and housing. 

I had to be at Eko Hotel before 6 am. We were living on the Mainland but good thing was, in those days we had staff buses to pick us up and drop us off at our stops. 

One funny thing that happened a lot in those days is this. My husband worked somewhere not too far from me. And he always wanted to come to pick me up, but then, sometimes, he’d have come and I’d have left with the staff bus. Can you imagine all that frustration was because we didn’t have phones that everyone has now?

By the time I resigned in 1981, my last salary was a little over ₦700.

Why did you resign?

My child was born prematurely. And there was the fear that if there wasn’t enough care, the child won’t survive. My husband used to say “If this child dies, it’s on you.”

You know, when I was leaving, the personnel manager did everything to keep me. In fact, they came to the house officially asking that I return. I didn’t. 

But at the time, I’d already started doing some business on the side. I had a friend who travelled a lot, so she helped me buy things I could sell while I still worked at the Hotel restaurant. She had a shop at Tejuoso Market then, and she encouraged me to open one too. 

So I opened my shop in Tejuoso Market in 1981.

How much did a shop cost at the time?

It cost less than ₦5,000 to set up. About ₦120 per month. Restocking used to cost me about ₦2,000, and how did I restock? Only from buying from abroad.

Setting up wasn’t difficult at the time. I remember I even got a car loan while I was still at that job – ₦1700. Ah, Nigeria ti bàjẹ́.

Back then, when you get the car loan, you could buy a Volks. A Volks didn’t even cost up to ₦1,000. A Toyota Corolla cost under ₦2,000 – my husband bought this one. It was pretty and had so much room. 

I used my car loan to buy a pick-up truck. I was using it to carry canned drinks for supply. I’d go pick them up at Ota, and then deliver at Apongbon.

So you could even buy a car on your salary of two months?

Daada! Even all the gold we used to buy in those days, how much did they cost? Fashion wasn’t hard at the time. Gold bangles were going for ₦120.

What did you sell in your shop?

Baby wares. Children’s clothes. Those days, if you haven’t bought Mothercare products for your child, it’s like you haven’t given birth. There weren’t any diapers, only napkins. 

But around the time I started, there was one Igbo man in my neighbourhood. He used to go to Brazil to get car spare parts. He was the first person that made me start selling Johnson and Johnson diapers. He’d stock up his own container with my goods, and bring them to my shop. 

The blessing was that my children also wore good clothes – the boys wore suits, the girls wore the best dresses. My last child at the time would come to the shop, and once he saw a toy, he’d cry till he got it hahaha.

Business was really booming in those days.

What changed?

It started with a house fire in 1983. The things we lost, I can’t even begin to value. The shop was something I started to fill up the time while I was planning to start my catering business. Part of my profits from running the shop went into buying things I needed when I was ready. I didn’t have a warehouse, so things I couldn’t keep in my shop, I stored at the house. Cartons on cartons on cartons. 

They all got burnt. 

Wow. 

We moved into a new place, and that cost ₦250/month in rent. It was a three-bedroom flat. Towards the end of the year, someone wanted to help me get a ₦25,000 loan that same year. That money was going to cover the capital to set up my catering business and pay two years rent. I was going to use my father’s properties as collateral, but my mother didn’t think it was a good idea. So I didn’t take the loan.

The drought hit us proper in 1985. My husband also didn’t pick a better time to marry a second wife. Before then, our kids’ school fees were paid by whoever had money first. I paid, he paid. 

When the second wife came, everything thinned out. We barely saw him. Sometimes, we didn’t even see him for weeks. Before this period, work made him go away for months at a time, so I was already used to not having him around in a sense.

How did you cope?

Business never really went back to how it was before that fire, but we managed. That shop was literally how our family survived. My baby sister lived with me too at the time. We’d sell what we could sell, and buy food for the house for that day. The bulk shopping I used to do before became buy-as-you-have.

What was bulk shopping like in the good days?

I had another sister who was the Oga of bulk shopping, bless her soul. Once I gave her ₦200 in the early 80s, we were sorted. Do you know how many people were living with me? Three of my siblings and my own six children. My daily sales in those bulk shopping days used to be over ₦1000 on good days.
In fact, I used to be part of a club. You people only talk about Aṣo Ẹbí, but we used to buy a lot of Aso Egbe.

Squad goals.

Kini yen?

Nothing ma. So, back to Aso Egbe.

We called ourselves Club 8. We partied together and bought our clothes together. But by the mid to late 80s, I couldn’t keep up. I had kids to feed, and their suffering was too difficult for me to bear. My baby sister and first daughter got into tertiary school. You had to pay for their hostel rent, school fees, and you had to buy their hand-outs. 

Whenever my daughter and baby sister came home and there wasn’t money, they’d take a few things from the shop and go sell in school to lecturers. That was how they survived. It got to a point, by the late 80s, where I could no longer continue selling baby wares. I had friends travelling, who’d help me buy shoes for adults, male and female, and I started going from office to office, selling them. 

How did you pull off the school fees struggle?

At the biggest school fees stretch, I was paying the school fees of 7 people, my kids and my baby sister’s. When my last born came, I couldn’t afford private school for her, so she went to one of these under-the-tree schools in the neighbourhood. 

At some point, I could no longer afford private school for two of my older boys too, so I moved two of the kids out of private school, and took them to public school – Jakande made those free and that saved our lives. 

All you had to do was buy books, uniform, and give them attention. 

Where was he – your husband – all this while?

Oh, he said he was raised by his mother too. And so, I should raise my kids too. And it wasn’t just me. He did it to his second wife. If she wasn’t fortunate enough to be able to send her children abroad, she wouldn’t have survived. She faced the same struggles too. She was hustling to pay ₦150 school fees too. 

So, all he was doing was having children. What was he using his money for?

I dunno for him o. To be honest, there was a time he quit the safety of a job and tried to start a company, and that was a tough period for him. In fact, it’s in between all of this he married his second wife, and everything just crumbled for him. He sold his two vehicles, a bus and a car. 

Was this how they used to do, these men?

Most of them were like that. But there were some who were good homebuilders, despite being polygamous in some cases. They were present for their families. All the while, he blamed me for having all the kids. 

Why didn’t your husband use birth control?

I even used at some point, but I’m just unfortunate with birth control. I used the coil but somehow got pregnant. When my child was born, he was holding the coil in his hand. The doctors at that time said I was 1 out of 100, and I was like, why me? 

Why…why didn’t you leave?

The kids. I kept wanting them to be present in his life. And him in theirs. 

The times are changing though. 

Do women these days have time for nonsense? They would have flung the man away since. Nobody is waiting around for someone who won’t give them love and give the kids attention. 

Okay, back to work.

I kept trying out things to sell and make a living, and by 1988, I started travelling to Aba.

Ariara Market?

Haha. Ariyariya. I used to go and buy cut-and-sew. We walked the length and breadth of the market in those days. The roads were good, and. How much did it cost from Lagos to Aba by bus? ₦120. 

Hayyy

Bẹ̀ẹni! We didn’t have to worry about anything on the road. I used to travel with Emerald Motors at Jibowu. Then there was Young Shall Grow. Okechukwu. 

The Young Really Grew. 

Yes o. They didn’t have enough vehicles then. Emerald was the reigning one, but when the owner died, the business died too. Even Ojukwu had his own bus line then. 

Aba was really pleasant. When I wanted to start that business, I didn’t even have up to ₦10,000. 

Again, my husband was saying “Why are you risking your life and leaving these children at home.” As if we were even seeing him at home. Hahaha. 

He was giving you trouble at the time? 

You see, the way he switched when he married a second wife ehn? He just became bitter. So, I just focused on making sure that I could give the kids the best things possible. 

What was the most popular order in Eko Hotel?

Jollof Rice and Chicken Peri-Peri. A plate went for ₦180. There were different restaurants – Kuramo, Summit Restaurant at the rooftop. We moved from restaurant to restaurant, but I worked at Kuramo as a Supervisor.

How stressful must it have been? 

It was stressful, but it was good work. My health started to deteriorate shortly after I left. I started treating hypertension in 1983 at the age of 34. When I eventually got rushed to the hospital a few years later, the doctors said I was “very lucky”, because if I had delayed treatment, it would have killed me. 

Something else came in 1996. One of the kids fell ill, so we went to the hospital. I was just lying down on a bench, exhausted, when this doctor came in and asked if I was okay. He randomly observed me for a few minutes. Then he asked me if I was hypertensive. I told him I was.  

I think it was his instinct, but he asked to run some tests on me, and when it was done, he screamed.

What was it? 

Diabetes. The doctor said ‘ah! 400!’ I didn’t even know what diabetes meant: there wasn’t that much awareness about diabetes at the time.

I told the doctor that the child I brought, I hadn’t even paid money. Where was I going to get money to pay for mine? Hahaha.

Wow.

I was still travelling to Aba in all this time, while at the same time trying to arrange flight tickets for my son, who was going to the UK. I paid for all of it without his father. I think it was about ₦25,000 in the mid-90s. It could have been easier for us to arrange that travel because he was a British citizen. 

What made it hard? 

Abacha. There was some embargo on the Nigerian government, and British citizens could only fly from Ghana. That would have cost more money. 

All that travelling and stress must have taken its toll on your health. When did you eventually stop working?

I stopped going to Aba in 1998. Do you know what I loved about Aba? Many of them were kind. When you become a regular customer, you can show up with the money for 5k worth of goods, and they’d tell you to take 10k’s worth. Because they knew you’d come back, and pay up. That helped a lot.
I dunno if it’s still possible today, but I hope your generation eventually gets it easy.

I travelled in 2002. At this time, two of my children were now in the UK. I really just wanted to go take a break, and see my daughter – I hadn’t seen her in four years. I needed to see how comfortable she was. She was still a teenager when she left. That was also tough for her.

I spent almost a year there, and when I came back, I was still trying to buy and sell things and chasing debtors. 

Looks like debtors were stressful. 

Yes, they were. People in offices, for example, would take things on credit and pay at the end of the month. And I don’t blame them because they also couldn’t afford to pay till the end of the month, but my children had to eat. 

The food sellers in our neighbourhood were really understanding. They let the kids come and buy food and kept a tab open for me. So I paid when I had money. 

That year, we moved into our own house. My husband had been building one. By the time we were moving out of the house we lived in, it cost ₦5,500 per month. A lot of it was still incomplete. 

Do you want to know how much we bought the land? ₦25,000 in 1992. I contributed ₦8000. 

With all of what you know and have experienced now, what would you do if you could travel back in time? 

Hahaha. Let’s just be glad I survived. You know, when things happen, it’s impossible to tell outcomes. If I died, my children’s lives would have still continued somehow. They were courageous. 

I’m really grateful.

How is old age? 

Boring. I’m grateful that I have children who send me money for my welfare. I never have to worry about medicine. But the hardest part about being old for me is that all the places I could go, You can’t move around as much because your body is weak. Some of the things you did with ease when you were younger, now need an extra hand.

I’m treating Diabetes, hypertension, and osteoporosis. My meds are taken care of by my kids. I have no pension. No insurance.

Investments?

My kids hahaha. They’re my pension and my insurance.

They send money, but, even that no longer feels enough. I’d love to talk to them. And my grandchildren. I can’t always do that now, and those times when I can’t hear from anyone, I feel lonely. It used to make me very bitter – the loneliness – but not anymore.

Their father talks about it now, about how much of a lucky man he is. And despite the fact that they remember everything, the children don’t hate him. 

Are you happy now?

I used to be bitter a lot. All that suffering alone. Now I’m just thankful, the kids are doing fine.

Thank you for making me remember all of this. It’s so easy to forget.

When life throws things at us, the greatest help we need in those times is a strong safety net, like insurance. Whether it’s a fire or a school fees, the right insurance policy will make life easy to face.
Find out how to get started here.

Check back every Monday at 9 am (WAT) for a peek into the Naira Life of everyday people.
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Every story in this series can be found here.

The post This 70-year-old Woman Sacrificed Every Kobo For One Goal appeared first on Zikoko!.

Welcome. What you’re about to read is a light-hearted look at what happened this past weekend in the English Premier League, as told by one ardent fan. It won’t help you find the best ‘over 2.5’ odds to bet on but we promise you’ll love it.

Any Chelsea fans here? Remember when we all wanted Maurizio Sarri, our club’s chainsmoking former manager, to leave just because we lost two games in a row? Haq haq haq. Who woulda thunk that it could get worse? Who knew, for the love of God, that months later, we’d be watching that same team run around like blindfolded toddlers? The new Premier League season is here guys, and as I type this, there are blue tears inna mi eyes.

380 matches. 38 weeks. 20 teams. One winner. Whether you watch football or nah, it’s really hard to escape the English Premier League. It’s what bae really wants to watch when he tells you he’s too sick to come out for drinks on Saturday afternoon. It’s the real reason your gambling addict/Maths teacher flogged differently on Mondays. Basically, it’s a part of your life.

I became a fan of Chelsea, one of England’s greatest clubs in 2005, at the ripe old age of 11. You know Chelsea: Terry, Lampard, Drogba, the human Duracell battery known as N’golo Kante. Since then, I’ve seen great moments and cried a few thug tears (Fuck you, 2011 Fernando Torres and 2018 Morata). For me, and most EPL fans for that matter, the new season promises a lot of twists.

So how did the Boys in Blue perform on the opening week?

Like a bunch of drunk Boy Scouts in an Oshodi street fight.

But let’s backtrack a little.

Chelsea has a (bad) reputation for changing managers with alarming frequency. So, not many people were surprised when Maurizio Sarri packed his bags after just one year and moved to Turin, home to Cristiano Ronaldo & Juventus in May.

Up stepped Chelsea legend, Frank Lampard. See, we all knew Frank was green as a field of grass. Sure, he’s Chelsea record goalscorer. But he took the job with only one year of experience as a manager at a lower division club, Derby. For context, it’s almost the same as asking Burna Boy to become the Minister of Culture because he made a great album. (On second thought, this wouldn’t be such a… nvm)

So why were we surprised when on the first game of the season, Chelsea got assaulted by Manchester United and a trio of kids?

Kurt Zouma is an MMA fighter moonlighting at my club, and I want him out.

A bit of backstory. Chelsea was banned from recruiting any players this season, thanks to a stupid decision to sign underage players a while ago. Plus Real Madrid tapped our best player, Eden Hazard. To make up for our loss, we turned to an army of talented youngsters who had spent the last few seasons cutting their teeth at smaller clubs. What they didn’t tell us was that some of them, like the rigid sack of bricks known as Kurt Zouma, had picked up other professions. Mixed Martial Arts, to be specific.

If I was worried about the prospect of staring the season against United, my heart fell into my stomach when Zouma got the ball barely 6 minutes in. The man looked around, covered it in gift wrap and passed to an opponent. Thankfully, that danger was averted. But Zouma had other plans. 

Minutes later, he channelled his inner Israel Adesanya and hacked down Marcus Rashford, giving away a penalty that resulted in United’s first goal. And so he continued, using his legs like a chainsaw, passing to some mystery woman in the stands and being as useful as a cardboard cut-out until voila, 4-0.

I wish I could blame Zouma alone but I can’t.

Too many people played a role in hurting me this Sunday. There’s Tammy “Don’t pass to me if you want me to pass back” Abraham and Ross “Where’s everybody?” Barkley. Simply put, the entire Chelsea team was a bleeping mess. I had to go watch Hassan Minhaj’s show on Netflix to remind myself that more serious problems exist in the world. Father, be a magician and fix these boys.

I heart you, David Luiz. Come back home, plis.

What most Chelsea fans were thinking after the 2nd goal went in.

Elsewhere, Liverpool and Manchester City have started again.

Some context. Last time out, Liverpool and City were in a race to the wire for the title. Both have great players like Mo Salah & Raheem Sterling and great coaches too, in Jurgen Klopp and Pep Guardiola respectively.

You know what they say about elephants fighting and grass suffering? Long story short, both teams were beating opponents by obscene margins like 7-1 as either team tried to keep the pressure on the other. City eventually won the title, but if you thought that was a one-off scenario, you obviously dunno what’s going on here. Just look below.

Elsewhere, former big club, Arsenal managed a win against Newcastle. There were wins too for Spurs, one of the best teams to watch & home to the most English human being alive, Harry Kane, and Brighton.

Where do we go from here?

The league continues next week with another round of matches. Frankly, I don’t know if I can take such heartache so early on. I have friends who support Arsenal; I know how these things begin. Cassh me here next Monday to know if I’ve severed ties with Chelsea. Also, you should share this with all your football-loving friends. Maybe we’l get one of them, preferably a Liverpool fan, to send in their thoughts soon.

See y’all in a week.

Did you enjoy this? You should sign up for our weekly pop culture newsletter, Poppin’. You’ll get to know what we’re up to before anyone else + insider gist, reviews, freebies and more. If it sounds like your deal, sign up here.

The post Blue Tears Inna Mi Eyes appeared first on Zikoko!.

There’s so much music out there that it’s hard for even the most loyal fans to stay up with their favourite artists or what’s new and hot right now. That’s why we’ve created #BumpThis – a daily series that features the one song you need to listen to, every day. Don’t say we never did anything for you.

It’s hard to pin Ezi Emela or her music down. The sultry singer has a habit for showing up with infrequent releases, only to withdraw from the public eye just as quickly. Hers is not an unusual case. Emerging artists often have to balance their efforts, visibility and expectations in a space where talent, or a great brand, isn’t enough to assure success. But the singer is relatively well-known, even if you can’t help but think she should be a lot bigger than she is.

On her newest release, “Tables Turn”, Ezi Emela addresses the empty promises and disloyalty that may have affected her pace and led many to see her as a hobbyist in the last few years. Against the backdrop of trap drums and a light piano riff, the singer holds little back and calls out everyone who’s selling her dreams and wasting her time. She doesn’t go as far as calling names but as usual, the singer’s in diva mode. The sensuality that runs through all her music combines with a level of aggression that forces you or anyone who’s called her gift into question to see her in a new light.

“You gon’ learn that the tables turn”, the most recurring line on the song, sounds like a warning. We can’t wait to see how she plans to prove her point.

The post #BumpThis: Ezi Emela’s “Tables Turn” appeared first on Zikoko!.

No one can deny that the introduction of USSD tech into the banking system has made things easier. To prove that, we asked four people to tell us about the times their bank’s USSD feature got them out of sticky situations.

“That one time I went on a date with a girl (with just cash) to an expensive restaurant and she ordered more than I anticipated so the bill ended up being more than the cash I had on me.“

– Kunle

“When my date asked why I was suddenly sweating buckets, I lied that the AC wasn’t cold enough. At one point, I took the waiter to the side and asked if the restaurant had an account I could transfer money to. They did.“

“And that was how I avoided having to wash plate to pay my debt.“

“That one time I took a cab from V.I to Isolo and mistakenly clicked on “cash” instead of “card” forgetting that I, in fact, had no cash. “

– Joe

“The driver thought I had planned to ride and run away when I tried to explain my problem to him and became agitated. But I was able to calm him down enough to consider my request to transfer the money to his account. He was glad when he saw how fast he received the money.”

“My DStv subscription ran out in the middle of the world cup finals viewing party I was throwing.”

– Obinna

“Do you know what happens when you turn off the TV showing soccer in a room full of 40 passionate soccer fans? A riot, that’s what. And it was on a Sunday too, so if not for my bank’s USSD feature, I’m pretty sure they would have wrecked my house.”

“I ran out of data during a Skype video call with potential employers.”

– Juliet

“I had jumped through so many hoops to get this job interview. Things were going smoothly. I was even cracking jokes with them and they were responding positively. I was about to drop a punchline when everything just went dark. I was already freaking out and crying when I remembered I could purchase the data with the USSD feature. As I bought data from my bank, I was chanting, ‘Hay God! Hay God!’

“Luckily, they were understanding because I came back online quickly.”

USSD banking was created so that banking transactions would no longer be stressful or dependent on time and location. This is what First City Monument Bank(FCMB) wanted for its customers when it launched its own USSD service. All any account holder with FCMB needs to do is dial *329#to register (on any phone type) and they’re all set to bank on the go!

The post 4 Times USSD Saved People From Embarrassment appeared first on Zikoko!.

Even though the Nigerian government has its many, many, many downsides — what with rife corruption, nepotism and the faintest smidge of a dictatorship on the horizon ⁠— we’ll always have it to thank for powering the shove that followed the push, to birth some of the most innovative ideas that directly benefit the lives of Nigerians.

From start-ups tackling maternal mortality, to another granting credit to agricultural institutions, Nigerian founders, fed up with the government’s ineffectiveness, took their “fine, I’ll fix it” moments to the #NextLevel , setting up companies to handle Nigeria’s most difficulty-riddled sectors.

In no particular order, here are some of our favourite founders, with highlights of the great work their individual companies are carrying out:

Temie-Giwa Tubosun.

With a population of 180 million, Nigeria requires at least 1.8m units of blood annually to better handle emergency cases and to build a sustainable blood bank. At just 500,000 pints yearly, the country faces a shortfall of at least 75%.

Thanks to Temi-Giwa Tubosun, the founder of LifeBank “a medical distribution company that uses data and technology to help health workers discover essential medical products like blood and oxygen”, this deficit is being corrected.

To understand the magnitude of the task she and her team at LifeBank are taking on, as of 2016, no fewer than 26,000 women lost their lives annually to blood shortages. 20,000 children under the age of five lost their lives due to lack of blood, all in a country where the rate of voluntary blood donations is at an abysmal 10%.

Since 2016, LifeBank has moved 15,709 units of blood across hospitals and screening centers. Mark Zuckerberg, the founder of Facebook, described the project saying: “If everyone had the opportunity to build something like this, then the world would be a better place.” And he couldn’t be more on the mark.

In addition to providing these services to hospitals, LifeBank also has an amazing goal to raise ₦ 100 million to provide the underprivileged with access to blood and oxygen at no cost. Make sure to donate here.

Uka Eje.

Despite agriculture being a key sector in the country’s economy, providing employment opportunities for about 30% of the nation’s population, the sector is riddled with difficulties. About 15-40% of the post-harvest output is lost to poor processing, inadequate transport systems and inefficient storage systems. These are due largely to poor education and financing.

That’s where ThriveAgric comes in. Its founder, Uka Eje, recognising that funding was a large part of the factors hindering best agricultural practices, set up a company allowing members of the public to fund farms to increase the chances of increased output.

With ThriveAgric, farmers are provided with the funds to farm as well as access to a premium market. The members of the public investing, are guaranteed returns at the end of each farming cycle. Everybody wins! We so much love it.

You can start the process and adopt your own farm, here.

Abolade Lawal, Abayomi Johnson, Maxwell Ogunfuyi.

In case you didn’t know, you are looking into the faces of the very best friends of Nigerian students.

Using their Scholars platform, Lawal, Johnson and Ogunfuyi are connecting Nigerian students, home and abroad to scholarship opportunities.

Realising the very uneven playing field caused by the high cost of earning degrees, the app grants Nigerian students access to credible scholarship information, giving them all the details necessary to finding and securing the right scholarship. Since its launch, ScholarX has assisted over 10,000 Nigerian students gain access to scholarship opportunities. It has also raised over ₦ 6.5million for its Village by ScholarX project, where the tuition and school fees of Nigerian students are crowdfunded via the app.

Adeloye Olanrewaju.

Nigeria is the second largest contributor to under-five and infant mortality rates in the world, with about 2,300 under-five-year-olds and 145 women of childbearing age dying every.single.day.

Recognising the need to overcome this crisis, Adeloye Olanrewaju founded SaferMom, a platform to educate and support expectant and nursing mothers on the physical, psychological and social tolls of motherhood. Using an SMS platform, it broadens the reach to women without access to internet facilities, allowing them to share and connect with other experienced mothers and verified doctors, monitor and track their health, vaccination & medication reminders as well as symptoms and nutrition guides.

SaferMom uses a community of health workers, together with mobile technology to follow up on the health of mother and baby, immunization schedules and behavioural routines. The service is available in English, Hausa, Yoruba, and pidgin.

How great are these companies doing? With founders like these, who even needs an overseeing government? Joking, but not really. If you can’t wait till their long term goals are realised, say aye. What other founders are doing great work around you? Let us know in the comments.

The post Nigerian Start-Up Founders We Can’t Help But Stan. appeared first on Zikoko!.

Presented without commentary, seven of the most photographed places in Lagos would like to vent.

These are their words.

1) Lekki Conservation Centre:

“They won’t say anything because they’re nice but people are sick and tired of hearing about how you almost died of fright on the canopy walkway. Also, me, you, and Jesus know that you never learned how to play chess. So you’re fooling absolutely no one by posing with the giant chess pieces with a pensive look on your face, you fucking fraud.”

“That being said, y’all’s patronage keeps me open so feel free to mosey on down whenever you feel like deceiving people on Facebook into believing that you have an active social life.”

2) Lekki-Ikoyi Link Bridge:

“I don’t have the stats to back this up (because I’m a bridge) but I’m pretty sure Kim Kardashian has nothing on me when it comes to being photographed. At first, I loved all the attention I was getting. I’m pretty much a discount Golden Gate bridge rip-off so it makes sense that literally every photographer wanna-be with a cheap camera would want a picture of me at sunset or some shit like that. But now, the other bridges are beefing me (Third mainland bridge hasn’t spoken to me in years). It’ll be great if y’all just chill with the pictures for a little while so the other basic bridges can stop feeling bad.”

“Also, to all those people who run across me, pretending to exercise while they cruise for sex, I’m judging the hell out of you.”

3) Nike Art Gallery:

“You might pretend like you’re here to admire the over 7000 pieces of art in me but the truth is you couldn’t care less about art. You’re only here to take the 30 pictures you’ll upload to Instagram over the next 15 weeks. And you know what?

That’s perfectly fine.

Be sure to show up with frizzy hair, dressed in a tie & dye shirt, fanny pack made out of beads, and rusted nose ring so that when you upload four of the pictures to Twitter with some incredibly cliche caption like, “Art is Life,” you’ll blend in perfectly with the woke crowd.”

4) The Tea Room:

“Some of you make me wish my interior wasn’t so pretty. My price list isn’t even insane like some of these other restaurants engaging in highway robbery on a daily but you people just come in, get the cheapest thing on the menu and dive into the flowers to start photoshoots. You disgust me.”

5) Hardrock Cafe:

“If all you do when you come here is take pictures with the sign outside, who’s going to eat my wildly overpriced burgers, huh? WHO’S GOING TO EAT THEM?!”

6) Nok by Alara:

“You know what? I’m not even offended. If someplace tried to sell me three pieces of gentrified puff puff (insanely spelt as pof pof ) for ₦800, I’d only go there to take pictures too.”

7) The Cathedral Church Of Christ:

“All y’all sinners need to take your china phones with 5-megapixel cameras and get the hell out of me! GET OUT! GO! So help me, I will call on lightning to strike…”

The post 7 Of The Most Photographed Places In Lagos Would Like A Word With You appeared first on Zikoko!.

We want to know how young people become adults. The question we ask is “What’s your coming of age story?” Every Thursday, we’ll bring you the story one young Nigerian’s journey to adulthood and how it shaped them.

I grew up in Mile 12. It’s most known for the sprawling food market – the place where other markets come to shop. I remember it for noise, drama, fights and crowded apartments. There was no better example of Mile 12’s rowdy mix than our compound – it had no gates, two beer parlours, a barbershop, a church and 40+ occupants.

There, my parents managed the enviable task of raising me and later, my two younger siblings, on their terms. We were the only children there who had a private school education. While they couldn’t give us life beyond that environment, they showed it to us, first in newspapers and later, bootlegged cable television. 

I can’t tell if it was this exposure or an unwarranted ‘child prodigy’ tag that set us apart, but we were always treated like an exotic species. Even at school, when I was 8 and my school got into fights with the neighbouring primary school, my friends would ask me to look out rather than get involved. Once, I forced myself into the situation and got my uniform ripped. A friend begged until I agreed to swap shirts. We knew the implications, but he would rather catch a beating than let me stain my white.

Adults were barely different. I remember our landlord, a man in his early 40s, coming to our door to ask me what ‘moving stairs’ are called. “Escalators”, I said. I had no idea how I knew the answer. At that point, I was already tired of being treated differently. I wanted to fight on the street like my friends. When half of my friends didn’t make the jump to secondary school, I wanted to be like them too. 

It wasn’t meant to be. I learned to punch above my weight from my father who moved to Lagos from Ibadan in the 1980s, with a letter of referral to the Nigerian Defence Academy and some change. He didn’t get to the army as he’d hoped, so he turned his attention to other, more pressing matters like surviving, and later, raising kids and giving them the life he never had. 

Adulthood to me was what my father did – waking up before your kids and returning after they’ve gone to bed, providing for multiple extended family members, with little to show for your work.

A younger me would never admit how I admired him. I’m like an updated version of the man, one who never combs his hair and is more given to excesses than he was.

The other people I looked up to were too distant from my reality to offer any true lessons, like Anakin Skywalker, Frodo or Nas. Those who were close were too defective to be worthy of emulation, like Uncle Solomon, my childhood best friend who got addicted to cocaine and ripped a bass drum open with his head.

In 2008, I left home to study Law at a university in Ekiti. It had come as fast as everyone expected. Tertiary education is considered a luxury where I come from so it felt like the entire neighbourhood was sending me off. I like to say I never returned home after that.

Ado-Ekiti was a different world from the one I grew up in. I was a 15-year-old with pressure to deliver on years of promise, but I found myself in a place with no electricity, lethargic lecturers and all-powerful students. 

Maybe it was the freedom or a need to treated like just every other person. But a few gang fights, some police trouble and many spontaneous inter-state trips later, four years had passed. 

My first semester in university had been a parent’s dream. I’d skipped most of my lectures and managed to score in the top 5% of the class. When I graduated at 21, I was in the bottom 30%.

Somewhere in those six years, I lost every inkling of who I was. People have blamed my parents for sending me off so young; others say it was being forced to study a course I had no love for. I only blamed myself. I’d let too many people down. I had to regain their trust and belief. That was what my year in law school and the few months I spent in practice were about; showing I was worth it.

In 2016, the year I was supposed to go for NYSC, I moved to Benin for what was supposed to be a year of personal discovery. There, at the end of several cannabis joints and old Majek Fashek songs, I found something. Even when I feign disinterest as I often do, I’ve always felt like I had a point to prove.

People often say I have a saviour complex. And it’s true. It shows up in my obsession with emerging artists, and how I like to commit to more work than I can reasonably handle. But I wouldn’t have it any other way. Somewhere beneath the reckless exterior, a part of me believes I have a duty to everyone who looked out for me, from the guy who gave me his uniform to the Head of Department who let me graduate on the promise that I’d make something of my self.

It’s why years after my family moved, I got an apartment with my girlfriend a few minutes from the place I grew up in. No-one from Mile 12 knows that I live here. They don’t need to. I’ll go when I have something to offer them.

I’ve spent the last four years cutting my teeth as a storyteller. I have an intense passion for music and diverse perspectives. It’s come with its own wins, but my biggest accomplishment is providing for my family. Overachieving for so long has caught up with my father, and while he insists he’s capable, I’ve taken on his role as provider, albeit from afar. I’m not the child of their dreams, the one neighbours would come to ask questions, anymore. Now, people are warier than anything when they look at me. But I like being misunderstood; it’s more exciting than being pampered.

As proud as I am of hewing my path, life often reminds me of my backstory. A few years ago, I missed out an important job because “I’d never been outside the country and thus lacked the requisite exposure to tell stories on a wider scale”.

Adulting to me is making sure no one will offer such an excuse to any of my kids. It’s making sure that my baby sister can attend her convocation, even if it means I have to take a loan for it. Adulting is making sure that I deliver on every promise that I made by being the kid who never fit in, even if it means disappointing the people around me by constantly lifting more than I can carry.

It’s why I decided early that there can be no room for regrets. My journey could only have brought me here. Sometimes it feels too far from my destination but the excitement of not knowing if I’ll ever be fully capable of what’s expected of me is enough.

There’s too much to prove; too little to time to slow down and take stock.

The post I’m Good Enough For Mile 12 appeared first on Zikoko!.

It’s 2019. Zlatan Ibile, a green-haired lyricist from the slums of Agege, is the hottest rapper in Nigeria. He’s everything you didn’t know you needed. Like if someone found a way to make amala and catfish pepper-soup work as a combo.

Zlatan is a certified pop star now. There’s no arguing that. To be honest, no-one can say how and why he came this far, so quickly. He’s not the first Nigerian rapper to bring the music of the streets to the mainstream. He’s not the first to have such frequent brushes with controversy either.

One moment, he was one of thousands in the dark underbelly of Nigerian music, where Naijaloaded holds sway, and the next moment we were shouting ‘kapaichumarimarichupaco’ and doing the Zanku into 2019.

Zlatan kicked off the year in 2018, ironically. Like watch-night services and prayer sessions in the years before the economy swallowed our faith in God, “Killin Dem” was the song that ushered many Nigerians into the new year. Since then, Zlatan has refused to let go of our necks.

He’s managed to achieve all his success without losing what makes him distinct: his energy. The defining feature of Zlatan and his work is its capacity to move you, even when he’s trying to be serious. It comes from an energy that’s contagious. It’s peer pressure at its finest. And by god, it’s beautiful to listen to and watch in action.

Think about “Am I A Yahoo Boy” for instance. It’s supposed to address claims that the two are internet fraudsters. On any day, that’s a serious allegation. But as soon as the beat comes on, your home training evaporates and your legs start to fight for freedom. Like it or not, you soon find yourself dancing to a song that packs 30 years of counterculture into three minutes.

If you’ve (refused to succumb to your problems and) partied in 2019, you’ll know what happens when a Zlatan Ibile song comes on the speakers. It’s like someone sprinkled hard drugs in the air. Only this time, it’s a rare form of cocaine that compels people to jump and stab their feet in the air.

The only other person who has this capacity is his friend, Naira Marley. Unlike him, Zlatan can combine his energy and affinity for street culture with being a rare likeability. He’s like the neighbourhood delinquent who worms his way into your family until he earns the right to show up for Sunday dinner unannounced.

The best example is probably not any of his songs, even though each one sounds like a war chant and a celebration of unexpected dollars rolled into one. It’s those videos of him laying his adlibs over newly recorded tracks. Even without an accompanying beat, they sound like you’re expected to do something. You get the same feeling as when your father opens the door to your room and stands at the entrance, silently staring into your eyes. You don’t know what you’ve done wrong but you just want to fix up your life and make up for your mistakes.

It’s that energy, coupled with Rexxie’s beats that has made certain DJs build their entire club mix around his music. It’s why Tekno returned from an unfortunate hiatus and had to tap Zlatan for a low-budget Zanku ripoff titled “Agege”. Because when you’ve copied a person’s sound and featured him on the song, naming it after their neighbourhood is a small ask. It’s why Zlatan’s music is what gets the party moving; whether it’s the first or penultimate song on your tracklist.

It’s why I think we should go further and make it an informal rule at least; it should be illegal to party without Zlatan’s music.

I know this sounds like a joke. In a sense, that’s what it started as, but since I started writing this, I’ve gotten more reasons why this is necessary.

The Morality prefect inside you is probably asking, “Segun, wazz all this?” Get over yourself and your Sunday school lessons. This is bigger than us all. This is about love, a shared identity and most importantly, social equality. This is about passion.

You see, Zlatan is a kind of cross-cultural, inter-class mixologist. Think of him as a member of Major Lazer. Only, instead of generic Carribean vibes, his forte is making music that forces you to lose your self-control, whether you’re a 12-year-old selling gala in traffic or a billionaire looking to reconnect with the simpler days of his youth. Zlatan’s voice attacks the legs, which makes sense because the Zanku is also known as ‘legwork’.

Anyone with the ability to get people dancing across generations and social classes has to use his ability for something more than Eko Hotel shows and Instagram likes. That’s why we need to weaponize his music to do what Buhari, 30+ years of NYSC and Jollof rice have struggled to achieve.

It’s difficult to harbour resentment towards anyone for being richer than you when you’ve danced “Zanku” together at an owambe, with bottles of beer raised to the high heavens as a sign of togetherness.

Making Zlatan’s music a compulsory part of our lives will bridge tribal & social prejudice. The broke Yoruba transporter from Oshodi will see his wealthy Igbo brother from Port Harcourt and as they both ‘gbe body’ to Shotan, they’ll find that they have so much more in common than they know.

It’s only a short distance from there to world peace.

The post Partying Without Zlatan Ibile’s Music Should Be Illegal appeared first on Zikoko!.

I was scrolling down my Twitter timeline the other day when I came across a tweet about an old 80s Saturday morning cartoon named, Turbo Teen. Because I’m a sucker for obscure pieces of pop culture (hitting people with pop culture trivia I know they don’t know makes me feel powerful), I went a-googling and scarred myself for life.

So now I have to scar you too. Let’s get to scarring.

The very first line of the show’s Wikipedia entry made my head spin:

“Turbo-Teen is an animated series about a teenager with the ability to transform into a sports car.”

I get it. There was a weird obsession with teenagers in most cartoons and movies in the 80s. There was The Breakfast Club, St Elmo’s Fire, and TMNT (they were teens so don’t @ me). The trend even made it into the 90s with shows like Power Rangers and Captain Planet. Another thing people were obsessed with at the time was Cars (thanks to Knight Rider), and this led to some psychopath coming up with the “bright” idea to merge these two things in an attempt to come up with a popular show.

They were too occupied with if they could, they didn’t stop to think if they should.

Turbo Teen is about a teenager named Brett Matthews who, while driving his red sports car on a stormy night, accidentally swerves off the road and crashes into (what’s supposed to be) a top-secret government laboratory. In the laboratory, Brett’s car stops in the pathway of the beams emanating from a machine called the Molecular Transfer Ray, and this fuses Brett and his car on a molecular level.

As a result of this fusion, Brett gets the worst superpower since Rogue (from the X-Men). He gains the ability to transform into his fucking sportscar…when exposed to extreme heat and can only return to his human form when exposed to extreme cold. Along with his girlfriend (a journalist), his best friend (a mechanic), and his dog, Brett uses his newfound “superpowers” to fight crime and solve mysteries.

As bizarre as the show’s premise is, what will fuck you up, even more than anything David Cronenberg has thought up, are the unintentionally hella grotesque and horrifying human-to-car transformation sequences which the show’s makers forced viewers to witness in EVERY EPISODE. Check out a video of one of such transformations below:

Everything about this show leaves me with so many questions. Like:

• How was this greenlit?
• Was this someone’s fetish?
• When Brett gets hurt, who does he go to? A doctor or a mechanic. Is that why the writers made his best friend a mechanic?? OH GOD.
• Aren’t secret government labs supposed to be hella secure? Have you ever heard of people accidentally swerving into Area 51?
• How much crack had the creator(s) of this show eaten when they got this idea?
• Does he go everywhere with a flame thrower and freeze gun? (How else would he achieve extreme heat and cold?)
• How many times do you think Brett has destroyed his house because he made his bathwater too hot and accidentally turned into the car indoors?
• HOW PAINFUL IS THAT FUCKING TRANSFORMATION?! THAT SHIT LOOK LIKE IT HURT!! OH MY GOD!!!

I’m going to end this with a GIF of the part of his transformation that will haunt your dreams.

All we have to do now is pray to God that no one decides to make a live-action version. I’m talking to you, Michael Bay.

The post Turbo Teen: An 80’s Morning Cartoon That Caused Nightmares appeared first on Zikoko!.

Hi.

Welcome to the first episode of the weekly series named Grandpabbychuck’s Recipes. In this first (and probably last) episode, I’ll be teaching you about the ingredients you need to make Yoruba tomato stew, even though I’m equal parts Igbo, Benin, and 1/16 Hausa. (Don’t think too much about it.)

Let’s get a-cooking.

1) Pepper

A constant.

2) Tomato

Because your stew absolutely has to have tomatoes in it. To do otherwise would be insane, right?

RIGHT?!

3) Onions

For flavour. If you don’t cook with onions, your food is trash. And that’s that on that.

4) Pepper

5) Any dead animal of your choice.

Chicken, turkey, rabbit, horse, etc.

6) Pepper

7) Curry & Thyme

I’ve come to the conclusion that no one knows what these things do in food but we use them anyway because they make us feel fancy.

8) PEPPER

9) EVEN MORE:

The post 9 Ingredients You Need To Make Yoruba Stew appeared first on Zikoko!.

If there’s anything I’ve learned house hunting in Lagos, it’s that house agents are from hell. They’re a cross between MMM representatives and campus cult recruiters. The best of them will have you believing you’ve signed up for a slice of heaven until that nice 2-bedroom in a spacious compound you found on RentAHouseQuickQuick.com.ng turns out to be the Boys Quarter of the NURTW office in Oshodi.

If you’ve ever ended up in a bad neighbourhood, you can tell the signs as soon as you walk into one. They include, but are not restricted to, people staring so hard you have to peel their eyes off your shirt and return it to them. But things can get worse.

Luckily, I come bearing experience from a place where every middle-aged man is either an alcoholic or an alcoholic. I haven’t quite hacked it yet, but here are a few things I plan to try soon. Let me know how they work for you, yes?

• Colour Blocking

Wearing certain colours too often is one of the surest ways to get into trouble. So why don’t you just confuse tf out of the cultists on your street and do some colour blocking? Channel your inner 2016 K-Cee and keep it as close to a watercolour tray as possible. The more, the merrier.

• Employ A Cell of Child Spies

You should borrow a leaf from Pablo Escobar as seen in the Netflix series, Narcos. People tend to overlook the actions of the tiny crackheads also known as kids, meaning they’re perfect lookouts. Start by finding the most badly-behaved children on the street. Pay them in Zlatan and Naira Marley mixtapes to snitch on their older brothers who’ve been eyeing you for months. Everybody wins, not least of all Naira Marley.

• Go Crazy

Hear me out here. Everyone thinks they’re crazy until they meet someone who’s even more crazy, like an actual mad man. So dress, look and act the part. Cover yourself in temporary tattoos and dress up like what wold happen if the Joker and an actual clown had a baby. Basically, this guy.

• Offer Yourself Up As Tribute

This is my attempt at reverse psychology. Basically, make it super-easy to be robbed. The catch is that things will be completely within your control; you can decide what gets taken from you. So, pocket that dead ass Tecno phone + 1500 naira and a pack of cigarettes, and walk into the darkest corner of your street. You could even score some cool points. Next thing you know; you’re getting text message alerts telling you in advance before your compound gets robbed. A little heads-up never hurt anybody.

• Just Move Out

You can’t say you didn’t see this coming.

Did you enjoy this? You should sign up for our weekly pop culture newsletter, Poppin’. You’ll get to know what we’re up to before anyone else + insider gist, reviews, freebies and more. If it sounds like your deal, sign up here.

The post How To Survive In A Bad Neighbourhood appeared first on Zikoko!.

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

This week’s story is about a 22-year-old student who would have been out and alone in the world if his friends didn’t change his life forever.

What is the first thing you ever did for money?

I taught A-levels. I’d just finished A-levels from a school, so I went back the next year to teach for 10k a month.

This was in 2013 – I was 17. I taught in the 2013/2014 session. I was trying to get a scholarship to go abroad, but that didn’t work out. 

My dad was just like, go to a uni in Nigeria. And that’s where I went. So I got into University with my A-levels. 2014/2015 session.

What was your first semester away from home like?

Let me give you some context: I’m the firstborn, and something weird used to happen when I was in secondary school; Teachers often chased me out of class and I never knew why. My mum would say, “Don’t worry, we’ll talk about it.”

When I turned 14, she eventually told me.

What did she say? 

That’s when I knew my parents didn’t have money – they were struggling to pay my school fees. 

I actually got a scholarship to be at the school where I did my A-Levels. 

So when I entered uni, things became rougher and I couldn’t… When I started school, my dad used to give me 3k per month. He thought they fed people in school, because back when he was in school, people were fed for free.

I didn’t want to spoil it for him, so I just ‘ohhh’d’ it. 

I just managed. 

How?

₦200 per meal, once daily. Buy ₦70 bread, ₦50 beans, and one bottle of orobo Pepsi, you’re set for the day. Lucky for me, I made good friends, and that supplemented a lot. I did that for the first semester – about the first half the year.

Then I started thinking about my life, because mehn, I had to make money somehow. 

What did you come up with?

My guy was into programming, so I too wanted to become a programmer.

Ah, that. 

It’s actually what I wanted to travel abroad to study anyway, but I just settled for one course here, because there were no dedicated software engineering courses. 

Next thing was to get a laptop. My dad couldn’t get me one, so I started looking for a means to get a new laptop. 

I heard of a scholarship, and that time, luckily for me, my G.P.A. was still kind of high – over 4.0 – so I roughed it somehow, and I got the scholarship. In fact, I applied on the deadline day. 

Wild.

Do you know what’s wilder? I wrote the application essay on my phone, while I was at the movies. I got the scholarship. That money came at the end of 2015 – ₦200k. Immediately I got that money, I went to buy a laptop, and I started learning how to write code. 

Ah, rough year, that year. 

How did you survive that year though, minus the bread and beans?

My friends. I had this girlfriend, very understanding. She used to buy me food all the time. She never asked for anything; she just bought me food endlessly.

Morning, night, afternoon: “Are you hungry?”, “Are you okay?” I didn’t even have to disturb my parents for anything. 

They’d occasionally reach out like, “Can I send you this small ₦1k or ₦2k?” But I’d just tell them not to worry, because my younger sibling also got into another university and needed it more than I did.

Also, I didn’t have a place to stay, so I was more of a floater. A floater is different from a squatter – you’re on another level of squatting. Do you understand? 

Explain abeg.

I made myself very flexible. I had one small bag in school at that time. I knew that if I went home, there’d be no light or internet. 

But in school, I had light and internet. So I floated around my friends’ rooms. If I see that one of my guys was getting a little uncomfortable, I’d just move to another guy’s hostel, stay there for like two weeks or one month, then move to another place. 

There was this friend I had, his dad was a member of staff – super chilled man. My friend had access to his dad’s office, so we used to go there. It had fast Internet, so that’s where I spent a lot of nights. 

What were you doing?

Learning how to code. I watched tutorial, after tutorial, after tutorial. I remember the first thing I built – a GP calculator. To be honest, I didn’t finish building it, but I did what I could anyway. I couldn’t find that many structured courses that were free, so I just rough am. This was 2017; I now had my laptop at this time. 

What else happened that year?

4th year, time for Industrial Attachment. I got accepted at an oil company, great place! The money was like 30k with free food and transport. This was the highest money I’d ever been offered at this point in my life, but I didn’t take the job at the oil company. 

Wollop. Why? 

I was worried it would distract me from what I really wanted to do – programming. The oil company wasn’t going to get me there fast. 

This is random, but do you want to hear something funny? 

What?

All this time, I didn’t have a phone. My mum used to call my friend whenever she wanted to reach me. And I kind of liked it that way, because whenever I got a call from home, it was always that something bad had happened. Or maybe when there’s no food, no light, or no DStv subscription. Always those kinds of things.

I feel you.

That was about to change though because, at the beginning of 2017, my scholarship funds came again – it was a yearly thing. And out of the 200k – I dunno what I was thinking – I carried 170k and went to buy a phone. 

Ehn?

Let’s just call it one of those stupid decisions, but the phone later worked in my favour. One of my friends had a client who needed to develop an app. So I just showed up with my nice phone and laptop.  

Lemme tell you how it went: 

Interviewer: So you’re coming for IT right? 

Me: Not really. I mean, I’m coming for IT, but not really as an IT student coming to learn, in a sense.  

Interviewer (smiles): Okay, we’ll offer you 50k. 

Me: Let me explain, I got IT offering in a place for 30k with free food. But I’m not coming as an IT student, I’m coming as a cheap web developer. 

Interviewer: So how much do you want? 

Me: 125k

Interviewer: Hahaha. You know what? Let’s do 100k. 

You know, I actually just rough am. The person was not an actual engineer. They brought a non-developer to interview me, so I just took that advantage. Immediately after that interview, I called my guy like ‘guyyyyyyyy.’ I called all my guys. All the people I’d been squatting – 

Floating

Hahaha. Yes, floating with. Let me tell you about these people. They were taking care of me, basically. I had a friend that used to buy me food, but he believed in me so much that he used to say, “Don’t worry, I’m not doing it for free. I’ll just be adding it to your tab.” He was so sure I was going to make money soon. 

Now, imagine he used to buy me food of say, ₦500. I owed him up to ₦32k. Now, imagine how many times he bought me food in that period. 

Wow. 

The others guys too, whenever they were going to get food, I’d want to stay back because I didn’t have money. They’d be like “guy, let’s go jor,” and buy me food. They let me stay in their room. 

So imagine me coming back to tell them. They were so excited. God, that ₦100k was like everything in the world for me. I was the highest-paid I.T. student. 

Omo, I now started adding weight. 

Hahaha.

Whenever people ask me, I’d say, “Omo, na God ooo.” What made it better was, I didn’t need to show up every time. I just had to get the work done. Two months into it, trouble started. 

What trouble? Office drama?

No. From home. I got a phone call from my dad. My mum had an accident. And he wasn’t as forthcoming with all the feedback I needed, like with the money part. He’s a proud man, you understand?

I totally get it.

I just told him not to worry, because I was coming home. I had saved up like 90k, because I wasn’t spending money on much. I withdrew 50k, and took it to the house. 

In the long run, it would have been tough to stay at the hospital at ₦2k per night. So we took her home, and I paid a doctor to come in to treat her at home. That cost ₦20k at once. 

For the next month, she was bed-ridden. I also couldn’t go home, because I had to make money. So I used to panic a lot.

Sorry about that man.

At this point, I just made sure that money stopped becoming a serious problem at the house. Paid for DStv so my mum could be distracted from the pain. I was burning through a lot of money that by the next month, I asked for a salary advance of half of my next salary. 

It ended in us having to do a surgery on one of her joints because it was broken. 

So imagine me, in 2017, at 20 years old, having to worry about all of this.

Sigh.

All my money was going there. I just wanted her to get better. And she did get better. But, something else came up. My parents had been avoiding mentioning it to me, but now that the accident had come up, they couldn’t keep it away from me anymore.

What happened?

Not only had the house rent expired, we were also owing a year’s rent. This was a house that they’d lived in for 20 years.

But the landlady wasn’t having any of that anymore. She’d already started sending native doctors to sprinkle jazz at our entrance, cutting off power to our house. Proper “come and be going” treatment. 

How much was the rent?

₦350k. I’d just collected an advance on my next salary. Where was I going to get that kind of money? We tried something else – a lawyer that I gave like ₦20k to help us get some more time to get our shit together. 

Anyway, by December 2017, I was supposed to be finishing I.T.. My boss understood how badly I needed the money, so he let me stay. In fact, he was willing to let me say until I finished school. 

Anyway, one thing led to ten things, and I had to leave at some point.

What happened?

They hired a senior developer who started to shit on everybody’s parade. He also managed to convince the CEO to make me go back to school. 

I was close to tears at the office. At this point, my old laptop already went bad with age, so I was surviving on the company’s laptop. Meanwhile, someone had hooked me up with a gig on the side. 

How much? 

₦250k. I couldn’t finish the job. I was back to square one and didn’t know what to do. I was still the funny, lively person, but my friend was worried. If you’re close to me, you won’t even know what was going on. Do you understand?

Totally.

My mum was just recovering, she needed money. I needed money too. I couldn’t eat. I barely saved anything from that time I was earning. I didn’t think I was going to leave, so I didn’t even plan to buy a new laptop. Huge mistake. I’d already sold my phone, and now I had no laptop. 

Woah.

2018 now, and I couldn’t really squat with my friends anymore. They didn’t mind, but I didn’t want to feel like a burden. 

I used to sleep at that office. The alternative was to sleep under the stars with the mosquitoes. See ehn, the way I’m now resistant to mosquitoes ehn. Jesus!

Mad.

I used to be hungry a lot. But again, my guys came through when they could, as much as they could. 

I knew that the way out of all of this was for me to get a laptop, so I started the laptop hustle. And one of my guys, right there in school, loaned me money for a new laptop. 

How much?

₦300k, in March 2018. If you want to enjoy coding, get a good laptop or go and sleep. It was one of those types of loans that you never really had a return date to pay back. But I insisted on paying back in 6 months. It took me over a year. I spent a lot of time at that my friend’s dad’s office. I felt average as a developer. So I knew that if I wanted to earn more, I needed to make more money. I already felt like I’d lost time because there were periods where I wasn’t working or improving. I felt like I had to be really good because it’d need extra convincing to hire a student. 

What about classes? Like actual school?

I tried to attend classes, but it was pointless to me at this point. An F here and there. I lost my scholarship too because my G.P.A. dropped. Thank God for my friend’s dad. He managed to – I don’t know how – convince his wife to make food for me whenever she was making for the kids. 

Bruh, that food was my hope. See, I don’t know how to explain it, but it helped a lot. The man used to be around three days a week. So food came only on those days. I literally built that free food into my time table. I just knew Monday, Wednesday, and Friday – 

Sorted.

You get. I was lean again. Even my friend’s younger sibling helped a lot. I think I’ve been extremely lucky with the people I’ve had in my life. Close to the middle of 2018, I started applying for jobs again. I googled all the things people were looking for in developers and started to learn what I could and threw them into my CV. 

I got an interview and they gave me five days to submit a code test. Do you know when I submitted?

When?

A day and a half after. I didn’t really know all the things in the test sef, but the way I studied ehn. One of my friends just gave me his internet for that period. In fact, one of my friends gave me transport money to go for the interview. It took a while, but I eventually got contacted. HR was like “I’ll give you 170k.” They asked me when I wanted to resume, I told them I was ready. And you see, it was at the end of the month that the real money became clear in my eyes. 

Net vs Gross?

A little over ₦140k was what entered my account. HR said the rest went to health insurance and pensions. I just felt like a lucky bastard at this point, so I didn’t really care. Also, there were experienced developers there, and I really wanted to learn from them. I told one of them to just pass on all the grunt work to me. 

Remember that 250k work I didn’t finish? He asked me to come and continue. So I asked for ₦400k, and the guy agreed. I added ₦150k to the money and gave the money to my dad for rent. 

Man.

You know, he used to have money. Like, proper wealthy. Then life happened. Anyway, I gave my mum another ₦100k. Just for her to stay sharp. 

Anyway, back to work. I was getting better, and needing more money. When I was getting hired, I was told I’d get a raise in six months. Oya now, give me a raise. Na story I dey hear. The only way to get a raise was to get an offer from somewhere else. 

By January 2019, I started looking for a new job. This time, I knew the difference between net and gross. I had almost two years of experience working on actual things. I got an interview that went smoothly. How? Youtube – I watched a lot of how-tos for interviews. When they asked me how much I wanted, I just spat out 400k net. 

That’s bold.

Yes. In the end, my net was ₦300k – a little over double of my last net. So that’s where I’m currently at now. The old people took their laptop back, and the new guys gave me a new one straight. But that’s not even all. I got a client – the biggest yet. It involved managing a small team for a project. Sha, my cut was like ₦1 million, you know, make I use pick teeth. 

Hahaha. 

This was shortly after I started at my new job. I didn’t really loud it, but I took care of the outstanding bills. A grandparent was ill. Family debts, my younger siblings’ school fees. 

How much did all of that take? 

About ₦700k, so I just had ₦300k left for myself. Thing is, as my money grew longer, my throat grew longer. Sometimes I’ll just be like, let me just go and take pepper soup, just because. 

It looks like you have multiple income streams now. What does that look like on a monthly basis? 

So far so good, I earn an average of 500k a month – ₦350k on a bad month. That ₦1 million is not a regular something. There’s someone who pays me 50k for a retainer. Just so he can call me to quickly fix something when he needs to. 

But I need to save most of it because I have a lot of expenses lined up for the rest of the year. I need to finally get my place, get my own laptop, get my younger sibling a laptop. My budget for all of these is ₦1.2 million

Let’s breakdown your monthly spending. 

Ah, this one is hard. Sometimes, I just randomly want to buy shawarma, and I end up buying shawarma for everybody. 

Transport is a mood expense for me. Sometimes, I jump bus and if I jumped bus every day, that would cost me like 30k every month. But sometimes, I’ll just call a cab. And one trip will now be like 3k. So I think a mix of all the forms of transport I use will make it about 50k every month. Also, when I buy food, I tend to not buy for myself alone. So now, I’m like, “Have you eaten? Are you okay?”

I still stay with my guys. 

How much do you feel like you should be earning?

Deep down, 1.3 million, and this number is because I’ve reached a place where I can no longer think of my income with local rates. It’s why the next job I want is a remote job, working for foreign companies that will pay me in Forex. Convert 1.3 million to dollars, and it’s less than $4000. 

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

I want to get my mum a house. Like somewhere in America. Just take her there and just keep her there to just chill. That’s what I want. If my mum has peace, I’m okay. She has suffered too much in this life. She has suffered too much for us. Like all the things she has done, just to put food on the table. 

I just need to blow on time to be able to do things like this.

What do you feel like you should be better at?

I need to diversify my skills. Be a better writer, mess around with other things outside of my field. I don’t believe we came to this world to do only one thing. Like just be a software engineer and an actor or something. 

Also – and I wouldn’t call this empowering – but I’m actively working to groom people to acquire some of the technical skills I’ve acquired while trying to get better on my end of course.

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

4. I need to create structured multiple streams of income. I want to have an income stream that just goes to my family, for example. Another one for just my enjoyment. 

What did you realise changed over the past few years, minus your account balance of course?

When I was getting F’s in some exams, my classmates were celebrating that they were graduating. 

Some of my classmates came to apply for internships at my company – graduate intern roles – to come and work for me. These are people that finished before me – I still have about a year to clear my carry-overs. 

So now, I’m wondering whether my degree is going to be any good.

Someone would see me and be like this boy is supposed to be sad and he’s laughing. I’ll be like, no problem. Some of them might be excited earning 40k per month, and they’re saying “ahhh, big boy!”

Also all that time I spent working kind of created some gap between me and some of my friends. Good thing is, all my friends are doing really well. 

I used to know a lot of people, but I don’t even have the patience for making new friends now. I’d rather just stay at home and press my laptop. 

This was lit. Thank you for your time. 

Check back every Monday at 9 am (WAT) for a peek into the Naira Life of everyday people.
But, if you want to get the next story before everyone else, with extra sauce and ‘deleted scenes’, subscribe below. It only takes a minute.

Every story in this series can be found here.

The post The Student Who Went From ₦3k/month To ₦1 Million appeared first on Zikoko!.

Johnnie, Jazz & Whisky, the nation’s premier platform for live, truly sensational afro-jazz music experiences, is back in Lagos following a nationwide tour of Abuja, Port Harcourt and other Nigerian cities. 

Get ready for an exciting evening assortment of the finest cocktail serves, with unforgettable live performances by melodious Adekunle Gold, jazzy Lagbaja, and soulful Wande Coal on Saturday, August 24^th 2019.
 
Johnnie Walker, the world’s most desired Scotch whisky, will showcase “The Johnnie Walker Highball Cocktail Serve”, a new, vibrant and inspiring way to enjoy the smooth flavours of Johnnie Walker Black Label, specially curated for palates seeking to add spice to lifestyle.

To lovers of fine live music and finest whisky, stay connected to @johnniewalkerng to get the chance of an invite to JJW Lagos.

Join the conversation with #JJWLagos #JJWwithMTN #KeepWalkingNigeria.

18+. Drink Responsibly.

The post Countdown To JJW Lagos: Featuring Adekunle Gold, Lagbaja, & Wande Coal appeared first on Zikoko!.

If you had even the faintest glimmer of a 2G connection this weekend, then chances are, you caught wind of the attack on former Deputy Senate President, Ike Ekweremadu by purported members of the Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB) in Nuremberg, Germany.

In videos replicated on social media, one of which had 31.7k views at last count, we saw as the politician was pelted with eggs and dragged from all sides while he attempted to honour an invitation to give the keynote address commemorating the Second Annual Cultural Festival and Convention.

The question is:

What Would Make Nigerians Do A Thing Like That?

Look, we’ll be the first to admit that politicians aren’t in the top 10 or 10,000 of the average Nigerian’s faves. They’re overpaid, they skim off the top ⁠— even on video, they use godawful catchphrases during elections (#NextLevel?) which, coincidentally happens to be the time they tend to remember regular Nigerians exist.

But is that enough reason to beat them up in public and displace their hats?

Nope! The answer you’re looking for is definitely NO.

According to IPOB, their grouse with the former Senate leader lay in his alleged support of an institution that tagged their organisation a terrorist body i.e the Nigerian government. This, together with the charge that he dared visit Germany to celebrate a New Yam Festival, when his kinsmen were being attacked back home by alleged herdsmen.

Are these claims founded?

To the Indigenous People of Biafra, a secessionist group ⁠— absolutely.

While the emancipation of Biafra from Nigeria remains the bedrock of IPOB, the former Deputy Senate President has at many points called for a restructuring of the country. Restructuring aims at a strategy to bring government as close as is possible to its people.

The literal opposite of what IPOB hopes to achieve.

But, it’s understandable that a government official has a stance that is pro the unity of a country, as opposed to its piecing apart.

On the matter of his performative visit abroad while attacks run rampant back home, Nigerian farmlands, villages and communities have been the subjects of incessant attacks by groups alleged to be herdsmen. Igbo states like Enugu being no exception. Very recently, it suffered the loss of Reverend Father Paul Offu at the hands of assailants suspected to be Fulani herdsmen.

However, while anger at a politician making arguably unnecessary visits abroad, despite the safety of kinsmen back home is at stake is very understandable, it should never come to the point where physical attacks on his person are resorted to. It is beyond abhorrent behaviour.

How is Ekweremadu holding up?

Better than you would expect actually. While his ego and maybe even certain body parts have been considerably bruised, he isn’t letting the attack fuel a vengeful agenda.

In a press release on his Twitter profile, Ekweremadu had this to say:

“Much as I am disappointed in their conduct, especially as I am one of the persons who have spoken up on justice for Ndigbo, the Python Dance, judicial killings in Igbo land and elsewhere both on the floor of the Senate and in my written and personal engagements with the Presidency and the media as well as rallied the South-East Senate Caucus to secure Mazi Nnamdi Kanu’s release with Senator Enyinnaya Abaribe taking him on bail to douse tension in the South East, I, nevertheless, do not hold this to heart against them, for they know not what they do.”

Way to be the bigger man!

So is this the last we’ll hear of politicians being attacked abroad?

Well, going by a statement released by IPOB, that would be a no.

According to the organisation’s spokesman whose very real name is Emma Powerful —

• Governors David Umahi of Ebonyi, Ifeanyi Ugwuanyi of Enugu, Okezie Ikpeazu of Abia and Willie Obiano of Anambra state better stay in their domestic lanes and steer clear of foreign sojourns because IPOB members worldwide have been directed to attack them on sight.

Violence is never the answer, can somebody please page IPOB this news, before they do something unforgivably stupid?

The post Now, Why Would Nigerians Do A Thing Like Beat Ike Ekweremadu Up? appeared first on Zikoko!.

Depending on where/when you first heard his name, Obinwanne Okeke is many things: a celebrated young entrepreneur, an eloquent millionaire or most recently, a very daring internet fraudster.

Before Friday, Obinwanne Okeke was mostly known as the 30-something-year-old CEO/founder of the Invictus Group of Companies. Nigerians love a success story and Okeke took the media for a long ride.

We’re sure nobody pressed for a serious explanation of how he makes money, because while they praised his business acumen, Invictus was (allegedly) committing wire fraud.

As you’d expect, no-one is talking about how he achieved such an amazing feat, which is weird because, as you should know, Nigeria has earned a reputation for grooming daring internet fraudsters.

If you’re one of those people who has hung a photo of Convictus in their room, I’m breaking Obinwanne Okeke’s story into a 10-point timeline to show you how he pulled off this scam and got caught.

• Become An Internet Fraudster

I mean, it’s pretty obvious, right? What separates you from the guys sweating in the only surviving cybercafe in Surulere is that you’ll have to start big. Sending an email to the White House explaining how your father, Nigeria’s first petroleum minister, stashed 30 billion dollars and you need just 200,000 naira to ‘unlock’ it. No guts, no glory.

• Dress Like A Nigerian Millionaire

Have you gathered enough money? Then you deserve to look like the boss that you are. That doesn’t mean dressing like a tacky Gucci model with self-esteem issues. You, sir, are an entrepreneur who must now spend every waking moment dressed in the ‘Lagos Big-Boy’ starter pack – white shirts, no tie and a ring to put Don Corleone to shame. Or just show off long trad and leather slippers. Simple and effective, like a choir uniform.

• Get A Degree From A Foreign University

Every Nigerian, especially Salisu Buhari, knows that a university degree is the only way to answer questions about how you showed up from nowhere with plenty of money and ambition. Extra points if you can get one from the UK or Australia. Whatever you do, don’t use the University of Toronto. Houdegbe North American University does not count.

• Create A Conglomerate

Your money is obviously too dirty for Forbes at the moment, meaning some laundering is in order. There’s no better way than to create your own elaborate business. Know any absurd greek word that have nothing to do with anything? Then add ‘group of companies’ to it – voila, that’s your company name. All that’s left is to rent a building, create a website and find a graphic designer. When people ask what you do, tell them you have diverse portfolios. They’ll be too impressed to ask for details.

• Start An NGO for Children

Starting an NGO is like kissing children during a political rally; everyone assumes there’s some good in you, even if you’re just trying to steal money in peace.

• Never Speak In Dollars Again

I don’t need to explain this to you, do I? How do you expect people to believe your millionaire mindset when you can’t say “10 million dollar equity investment” with your full chest? Also, no-one may have told you this but your pronunciation of ‘Sonera’ reeks of poverty.

• Become A Public Intellectual

Are you really a successful Nigerian if you’ve not stood in front of thousands to tell them why they’re not as successful as you? Now that you have the money, the business and the story, you need to appear like a captain in your field by appearing on as many panels on business & wealth as possible. Take them as they come. Are you worried that you’ll be out of depth and not know what everyone’s talking about? When has that ever stopped anyone? Like Fela Durotoye, you can always acquire to perspire your desire so you can refire all that you require, my man!

• Get Yourself In The News

It’s time to get on the Forbes list. I know the smaller blogs will have begun writing about you at this stage, but you must kickstart your effort from home. Start by sending your story to every Nigerian media house with the headline “Millionaire Nigerian Entrepreneur Shares Tips To Make Your First Million Before 15”. Even if the audience doesn’t bite, the pressmen will be in a hurry to kiss your crack on their cover issue/frontpage in exchange for a token of your appreciation. Don’t be surprised when the email from Forbes comes in.

• Take As Many Photos As You Can

Now that you’re on Forbes and your Instagram is a motivational speaker’s wet dream, what more do you have to live for? More infamy? That’s what we were thinking too. That’s why we hope you’ve been as messy as possible. Did you host lavish champagne parties while you were supposedly finding your feet in university? Great. We need a few photos. Did you commit wire fraud with an IP tied to your personal email? Even better. Remember when we asked you to take photos when you travel for scams? Did that too? Wonderful. It’s one of the ways the FBI will find you.

See, if you’re one of those people who’s hung up a photo of Obinwanne Okeke in his room, or has been discussing why he’s not the real problem with Nigeria, here’s a quick reminder that internet fraud is a crime that has cost a country’s reputation, thousands of lives and billions of dollars.

Stay in the green, kids. It may take a minute but like Obinwanne Okeke, you’ll always get what’s coming.

The post How To Become A Forbes-Listed Fraudster appeared first on Zikoko!.

Recently, I was binge-watching the second season of Workin’ Moms, a Canadian television sitcom about a group of friends dealing with the challenges of being working mothers and being women generally. In one episode, Alice Carlson, played by Sadie Munroe got her period for the first time and was aghast by the reality that women got periods every month for a long time – well until menopause. This was pretty much the look on her face.

She was so shocked that she believed that being a girl sucks.

It can feel that way if you have to bleed every month and still deal with negative stereotypes, gender norms and sexual harassment. It’s crazy how, every period feels like a new one: the pain feels new, the cramps feel new, the emotions feel new. And every period, a woman is aghast that she has to go through it for several more months and years before it stops on it’s own, and tells herself that it sucks to be a woman.

This made me realise that while a lot of period experiences are unique, there are some things about periods women from all over can relate to in spite of age, class and race. I decided to put some of them together for you.

1. Does Everything or Every-freaking-thing hurt?

Periods often come with cramps — headaches, stomach aches, back aches, leg aches — all the aches, you name them. This can be particularly excruciating if you have to work, attend lectures or be at a place where you’re expected to be all smiles and civil — everywhere other than your bed.

Every time I remember that there are some women out there who don’t get any kind of pain, I ask myself who did I offend.

2. Not Knowing You’re On Your Period

One of the most annoying parts about getting your period is getting it when you absolutely did not expect it. There’s an embarrassing story about a woman getting her period while having sex here. Some women get PMS (Premenstrual Syndrome, which acts like a warning) when they’re about to get periods. Others don’t. Some women have regular periods that are easily trackable. Some don’t. So it can be really annoying — like the entire world hates you and has conspired against you — if you’ve made plans and it just shows up.

Imagine being in public transport or elsewhere and your Aunt Flo just pops up like, “Surprise, Surprise!” with little or no consideration for the fact that you don’t have a sanitary pad or tampon. That little bitch.

Or waking up to your bed — a crime scene. Better clean it up before your roommate calls the police.

3. The reaction when someone asks you how you feel:

OR

4. Every woman knows it’s that time of the month when her skincare routine doesn’t work anymore.

Any time my expensive skincare routine stops working all of a sudden, or I wake up and discover a huge-ass talking-pimple on my forehead, I just know that Aunt Flo is around the corner. Worst part about these kinds of pimples is that they’re always so huge and painful.

5. Being told to be calm during your period.

Men are constantly telling women that they’re overreacting. There have been several conversations on social media where people try to whittle down the pain a woman feels during her period, or equate it with “blue balls.” I’ve got four words for you:

6. There’s nothing sacred about the words PERIOD or MENSTRUATION.

It’s always so hilarious when people feel ashamed to say “period” or “menstruation.” Periods are a natural process experienced by half the world’s population; they are a sign of life. So, why is the subject and the word(s) cloaked in secrecy and shame?  Honey, it’s just a word…

7. When your period decides to play hide and seek

Because the first thing that comes to your mind is that you’re pregnant. Meanwhile, your boring-ass self hasn’t had sex in a long ass time. But when a hundred years later, your period comes just as you’re about to start getting comfortable with a period-less month, you’re torn between rejoicing and crying.

8. Not finding the right brand of tampons or sanitary pads you’ve used all your life.

This can be very frustrating, especially if it’s the same store where you always get them. It’s even worse when the store attendant tries to offer you a replacement.

9. Standing up and realising the map of Africa isn’t painted red at the back of your dress or jeans.

The rare occasion you celebrate during the excruciating five or a million days (because sometimes, it feels like it’ll never end) you get your period is likely when you’ve not gotten stained in a bit.

10. Surviving

Surviving has to be the best and most important part, because all through the period cycle, you’ll most likely feel like you’re going to die. But now that it’s over, you get to celebrate, YAY!

The post 10 Things Women On Their Periods Can Relate To appeared first on Zikoko!.

To get a better understanding of Nigerian life, we started a series called ‘Compatriots’, detailing the everyday life of the average Nigerian. As a weekly column, a new instalment will drop every Tuesday, exploring some other aspect of the Nigerian landscape.

This week, we’re telling the story of a young lady whose inability to get the answers to her burning questions about God, led to her shunning his existence entirely.

I’ll start the same way I used to start my days: with a word of prayer.

Thank you for seeking out knowledge, for learning the real rights and wrongs, for vesting accountability in no one but yourself and for actively seeking out the grace, to simply be.

In the past, my prayers would have been directed to an all-seeing, all-knowing messiah, whose existence both terrified and soothed me at my most trying moments. These days I keep things simple, directing all gratitude, supplications, and admonishments to a 5’5, chipped-tooth, second-hand clothes-wearing, indecision riddled human being ⁠— myself.

I grew up in one of Nigeria’s more conservative churches: popular for sermons which never deviate from salvation and godly living, its fame is eclipsed only by a set of rules, which even by Nigerian wholesome standards, call for some uncomfortable shifting in pews.

No television, no earrings, absolutely no unnatural extensions of any kind. ‘Sisters’ were encouraged to keep their hair covered in readiness for prayer, while women that chose to show off shapely calves in jeans were only highlighting body parts already simmering in the lake of fire. Attending church here was ostracising, judgment igniting and sometimes even laughter-inducing. But it was home and I loved it there.

Or at least I did until I turned 7. Which was right around the time I started losing teeth, a milestone that only left me determined to square up with a creator who reckoned my smile needed a big gap in the middle.

“Who is this God?” 

“Where did He come from?”

“What is the source of His power?”

These were some of the questions I burdened my Sunday school teachers with at the time. I remember being disappointed with generic responses like “He is the Alpha and Omega” and “we don’t question where He came from.” This explained nothing. What if we were rooting for the wrong guy? An assertion that didn’t seem too far fetched, especially after the Holy Spirit entered my Shit List for ‘revealing’ to a Sunday School teacher ⁠— in full view of everyone ⁠— that I dared to wear braids to the House of the Lord. Never mind that my braids (an allowance of my liberal parents) were peeking out of my scarf, clear as day for man and spirit alike to see. 

That is not to say it marked the start of my unbelief; that would come very shortly after. But from my tweens, right up until the very early stages of adolescence, I was a model, middling child of God. While I wasn’t crazy about observing weekday hours on weekends just to make it to church before 8 am, I did so with the unquestioning submission of a child still heavily reliant on her parents. I memorised Bible verses (all forgotten now), always completed a daily checklist of trinity prayers: upon waking, before eating and right before bed and I never once took the name of the Lord in vain. But something happened when I made the leap from shimis and a fresh face to training bras and an unbecoming pitch fuzz  — I made the realisation that I really, really, didn’t like attending church.

Look, I don’t know what it is about being a teenager that transforms parents from being your cool, employed best friends, to the very last people you’d want to be stuck on earth with, but my parents got this end of the stick, and my heavenly father was no exception.

While my earthly parents were stuck with a teenager prone to mouthing unrepeatable things under her breath, the Lord got one unwilling to visit, even in his own house! I became masterful in avoiding church services, plotting my escape days ahead — blaming everything from phantom period pains to untraceable headaches. It was during these periods that those truly unanswerable questions, once again reared their heads:

“Who is this God?”

“Where did He come from?”

“What is the source of His powers?”

While my family was away, singing hymns and praising at the House of God, I was home alone, spending an unaccountable amount of time staring at a mirror, trying to come to terms with the fact that my reflection was indeed myself, a person fearfully and wonderfully created by a mysterious God.

As I got older, these questions matured as I did. Growing from merely interrogating the origins of my God, to attempting to make sense of His end goal. Where childish exuberance marked my early ploys to avoid church, at 17, they were my crutch to stay sane. 

Post-adolescence was riddled with attempts to rationalise a God who would create a world of people, solely to worship Him. 
Who could orchestrate scenarios where safety was compromised, simply to guarantee your gratitude that He pulled you to protection. 
How could God create a world filled with multiple religions, each believing their tenets correct, but with such intricate devices of worship, only one could truly be correct? A God that fearfully and wonderfully created certain humans a special way, but opened them to damnation, per His book? 

Who punished deviants from His word with an eternity spent consumed by a lake of fire. And rewarded adherents with a whole lifetime spent praising Him? Forever and ever, worshipping? I couldn’t help but conclude that if God were a man, I wouldn’t like Him very much.

By 19, I understood the appeal of religion and a higher power interceding, where humans might have failed. Especially in a country like Nigeria where uncertainty in safety, sustenance, and security are the order of the day. Where the promise of finally being able to find rest, in a levitating mansion in heaven, is almost literally the thought keeping many underprivileged citizens alive. It just didn’t make much sense to me.

At that age, I made a decision that marked the start of the rest of my life ⁠—  a year without religion. One year where no one but I, took centre stage in my life. Where all the credit and blame for my grades went straight to me, and where only my hard work and intuition guaranteed me multiple streams of income in university. No divine grace or exceptions here.

From that year, I decided to wing this life thing. I’m finally done with asking questions with no definitive answers, I’ll just wait to maybe be proved wrong at the other side.

The post I’m Done Questioning God. I’ve Decided To Just Not Believe In Him. appeared first on Zikoko!.

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 at 9 am, women the world over will share their takes on everything from sex to politics right here.

In this week’s HER I had a conversation with a woman who works in a typically male-dominated field; she’s a software engineer, and in Nigeria there currently aren’t as many female coders as there are male coders. The tech ecosystem is pretty male-dominated, and this has adverse effects on the women who have broken glass ceilings and become product managers, software engineers, designers etc. There’s no stopping this woman though, it may be a male dominated field, but there’s no way in hell anyone is going to disrespect her, make her feel inferior, or tell her to slow down.

What do you do for a living?

I’m a software engineer and currently a front-end engineer.

How did you start coding?

I started coding professionally in 2017. Before that, I was a system administrator or technical support engineer. I studied computer engineering in university. I had always wanted to learn how to write code back in school, but I had no idea how to start, especially since I didn’t want to transfer to the computer science department to focus on it; I still loved engineering as a whole. 

Even though I watched a lot of tutorial videos in school and during my service year, I had no idea I had to get practical to make my theoretical knowledge of the sciences stick.

Then I had an epiphany after one year of being a technical support engineer. I attended a boot camp which made me understand the need to build actual software applications to learn and get better. This is where my journey into the world of coding began.

What was the journey like?

Initially, when I was learning in isolation, I was excited to explore the coding path and didn’t even think of past experiences where I was discriminated against. This was during my internship phase while in school. It was a subtle kind of discrimination, almost easy to miss. I knew then that being a working woman would always be difficult.

As soon as I started off professionally (at the boot camp, and afterwards, as a software engineer), the discrimination and stereotyping hit me very hard and I realised it was for very petty reasons:

• Certain people felt I was too attractive to be in this space and questioned if I was actually doing my work all by myself.
• They also hated the fact that I was leveling up at a fast pace given that before that, I hadn’t written any line of code. I discovered this reason recently and I was shocked because I didn’t even see my work when I started off as good enough. Imposter syndrome was my nemesis.

These perceptions broke me. I had to tell myself to shut out the noise and focus on my goal. It was a painful phase mostly because I couldn’t talk to anyone about it. People who knew what was going on told me to put in more effort to prove myself to the naysayers. 

I decided to do the reverse, which was proving to myself and myself alone that I was, and that I am good enough. I had to say to myself:

I am in a competition with no one but myself to get through this phase.

Was the discrimination and hate coming from men or women or both?

Yes, it was from both angles.

That sucks. When you started, were there women doing the same things that you did?

It really did suck then. But it wasn’t new to me. It felt familiar but it just wasn’t expected. Yes, there were women in the coding space but a very low percentage.

Tell me about one experience?

One experience I remember vividly was during my time as an intern. Everyone on the tech team didn’t like the CTO at the time. I was the only lady on the team and I did like his work ethic and his versatility. Because I was always willing to listen to him and work on tasks swiftly, he always wanted to give me tasks to work on and teach me something new. One of the team members resorted to telling others on the team that I was thirsting after the CTO, knowing fully well that the CTO was married. 

There was also a time when at this same company, I made a joke during a team meeting and the former CTO (who is now late) “playfully” slapped my head. I told him not to do that next time and he went ahead to call me “small girl.” His words were, “Who do you think you are to talk to me like that? Do you think I’m trying to toast you or something?”

He swore to report me to the Executive Director who unbeknownst to him was my godfather. If this wasn’t the case, the story he cooked up and reported me for would have gotten me fired for his stupidity, inability to take feedback and respect my space.

How was it like growing up with your dreams?

Growing up with my dreams was a bit fluid because my dad loved how technology savvy I was at age 6; I used to fix electronic devices around the house when they got bad. I had no training whatsoever, but I knew to put the red and black wires together and make things work. He got a computer for the house when I was in primary school and this was how I fell in love with computers.

I have 3 sisters and a brother (he is the last child). Before he was born my siblings and I were given a “military” kind of training which made us independent (mostly for me as the first child). My dad was also keen on us pursuing our careers in male-dominated industries. He never enforced this on us, but I already loved technology, so it wasn’t tough choosing this path myself. 

On the other hand, my mum was often concerned and would ask if I could keep up with being in science class during my secondary school year. Her concern was valid, because I was really young, most likely the youngest in my set. Sometimes, her concern got to me and made me question myself, but it didn’t drive me to change my mind on my set goals.

They have always supported my decision(s) to start and continue on this path.

Have you had to deal with being relegated to gender roles in professional settings?

Oh yes! At this firm I worked, there was no cleaner and the accountant (a married woman) assumed that role because she used to come before everyone else. She once delegated to me and I refused. Hell no. This is not what I came here for. 

Taking down meeting notes is another thing I often see delegated to women in a lot in tech teams. I like that my strong-head doesn’t allow me to agree to this and no one has tried suggesting this to me again. I will only take down notes for myself or when the meeting pertains to a product I’m working on or heading as a team lead.

Would you say it’s a man’s world?

Yes, it is indeed a man’s world. Many companies in recent times pose as organisations who are in support of inclusivity or diversity, but fail to create systems that truly support women or overhaul their internal process which can help women work better within these spaces. At the end of the day, most of these are fronts to convince investors that they look out for women. Not to rain on anyone’s parade, but it is what it is.

What would you advice young women coming after you?

My advice is to prepare for the unexpected. It will be rough, it will be brain-draining. On some days you will lose yourself, but the only thing that should keep you going is whatever it is that motivates you. Be it money, recognition, passion about learning and growth etc. 

One last question: Are you optimistic about the future of tech in Nigeria for women?

I am very optimistic about the future for myself and other women in the tech space in Nigeria. I see certain organisations who are invested in creating an environment that favours everyone, including women. For example, having pads and tampons in the women’s bathroom which might seem little, goes a long way in helping us when stranded. Another example is having a play area/crèche for kids which helps women with kids watch over them even while at work.

Also, a lot of training initiatives have helped create awareness for many brilliant women who lack opportunities. It will only get better from here.

A lot has changed and the stereotypical conservative, “t-shirts and jeans, no makeup” kind of women are not the only kind of women I see in tech these days. There is no rule for how one should be, to exist in this space as a woman and I’m glad a lot of beauty queens, dressed to kill and slay everyone are now existing in this space. We are continuously breaking glass ceilings. It is so beautiful to watch and I hope it only gets better from here.

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The post What She Said: It’s A Man’s World appeared first on Zikoko!.

I became a Big Brother Naija fan in 2017, avidly following the show and live tweeting my hot takes on all the drama. It was even more interesting to me because a lover and I were watching it as a sort of shared activity, something we could always discuss and watch “together” even when we were not in the same city. 

Last year, it formed an anchor in my life where all else seemed pretty shaky. This year, however, the show has failed to grab me even though I had been impatiently waiting for it to begin since last year. 

Here are my hot takes as to why this is:

1. Who do 2019 housemates remind you of from previous seasons?

The housemates this year seem to have been painstakingly selected to fit certain roles created by previous housemates of the last two seasons of the show. For instance, Omashola this year fills the slot of “real and down to earth” Season 2 winner, Efe.

We even have our token married man, Mike, representing Thin Tall Tony in 2017 and Dee One in 2018. Tacha seems to be the 2019 equivalent of the controversial CeCe from last year’s edition. 

I feel like if the right type of pressure is applied to these characters, the ensuing drama would generate even more publicity since the previous season was such a huge success. These similarities in personality are actually interesting resources that could work to the advantage of the viewer ratings, but alas

2. Fake evictions, surprise housemates…

An all too familiar script: The script seems too familiar, with Tacha and Seyi held in a separate room just like Bisola and Bally were fake evicted in 2017, and Khloe and Anto in 2018. “Surprise” additional housemates were brought in – Debie Rise and Bassey, Ese and Jon in 2017, and now Venita, Elozonam, Joe, Cindy and Enkay this season. What’s with the formula, guys? 

3. I don’t have a problem with recycling but…

The Friday night games seem to be poorly recycled versions of themselves. In the 2nd season of the show, the Friday night games used to be exciting, competitive and engaging to watch. In the 3rd season, the games didn’t seem as interesting, but if you generally enjoyed watching the show, you would find the challenges fairly interesting to watch. This season, the games seem to carry on for very long because they lack that extra edge of an adrenaline rush.

4. It’s a small world, but that doesn’t mean the house has to be.

The house is TINY (I may be exaggerating here, but bear with me) compared to the one in South Africa that was used in the last two seasons. Let’s just say that the beds are pretty much all touching, the arena door is BESIDE THE REFRIGERATOR, and the kitchen is a colourful narrow hallway with a sink at the end. 

5. I WANT MORE BROMANCE AND SOME HATERS

There do not seem to be as many organic relationship dynamics as there should be. 2017 gave us an instant gang formed by Efe, Bisola, Bally, Marvis and Thin Tall Tony as well as an interesting attraction between Miyonse and T-Boss. Last year, we were blessed with the incredibly sweet bromance between Miracle and Tobi, and the Alex-Cece rivalry. This year, none of the Khafi-Gedoni, Seyi-Nelson, Mercy-Ike connections are as remarkable as those of the past years.

6. All these Ads

The ad breaks are super long. Some of the ads also do not look like they belong on the show – more like a simple promotion on Instagram for two weeks would have sufficed. 

7. One last one…

The housemates are not being pushed as much. Where are the psychology and sociology experts? The creative writers who have studied reality TV shows from all over the world? They should be watching the show and coming up with scenarios that would stimulate the behaviours of these people trapped in the same house together.

These housemates seem to be relaxed with nothing new and different challenging them. 

Does that mean I’m gon’ stop watching it? Never

All that slander out of the way though, I love big brother; and I am still watching the show especially with Don Jazzy tweeting about it like an obsessed person. I find the idea of the show extremely interesting from a behavioural psychology angle.

Guest post by Joy Mamudu

The post 7 Hot Takes on Big Brother Naija 2019 appeared first on Zikoko!.

Depending on how old (or radical) you are, getting your first tattoo can feel like convincing yourself to commit a crime. I should know. I got my first tattoo in 2017, after four years of telling myself I wouldn’t regret it and repeatedly backing out at the last minute. It’s totally normal. Part of it is just pure home training: are your parents really Nigerian if they haven’t said that tattoos are a mark of the devil? There’s also the part where a tattoo is permanent, for better or worse.

I plan to get some more ink soon. And it’s not (just) because I’m badly-behaved. Tattoos are gradually losing their bad reputation, and more young people are getting their first. That doesn’t mean the decision is easier than before. If you’re planning on getting your first tattoo, here are all the stages you can expect to go through. You are not alone.

• Trying To Make Up Your Damn Mind

See, regardless of how much you want it, deciding to mark yourself with the opening words of your favourite poem for the rest of your life can take a while. Don’t rush it, even if it takes 8 weeks to 4 years.

• Watching Tattoo Videos

One of the first things that cross your mind once you decide to get inked is how to deal with the pain. It doesn’t help that movie characters tend to look like they’re being tortured when they’re getting theirs. Which is why you’ll probably spend a few months looking for one video where the person is smiling while getting tattooed. Finally, some hope.

• Getting Permission Or Nah?

The other thing that crossed your mind is permission. Depending on how close you are to your parents, you may want to get their permission, especially if you live with them. This is kinda tricky because they probably won’t sign off on it, meaning you may have to do it without their blessings. At least you tried.

• Picking The Right Tattoo & Placement

Everyone thinks they know what they’ll get for their first tattoo until it’s time to get one. All of a sudden, writing the words of “Africa My Africa” on your chest doesn’t seem like such a great idea. Here’s something to keep in mind: get something that means a lot to you in a part of your body that you can carry with confidence. You’ll likely have it for the rest of your life.

• Finding The Right Tattoo Parlour/Artist

One badly-spelt tattoo is all the proof you need that the artist is just as important as what you plan to get. Unfortunately, more people end up getting street-side tattoos at Ikeja Underbridge than you think. Just so you don’t end up with a tramp stamp, look at every tattoo shop, stalk their Instagram, check their hygiene, ask to see other work that they’ve done. Talking to tattoo artists about why they do it also helps you decide if you’ll trust them with your skin.

• Waiting, Just Waiting

Now that you’ve checked the boxes and you’ve picked a date or an appointment, all you need to do is wait calmly, right? Haq Haq Haq. You see all those doubts are about to return. Resist the temptation to tell everyone about it or change your tattoo idea. Whatever decision you make during this period will probably be very shitty, so just wait.

• Chickening Out

D-day is here, and you’re certain as hell that you don’t want to do this anymore. I’ve seen people back out after sitting on the chair, even though it took them months to decide. Whether or not you make it past this stage is solely up to you. Take your time to make a decision you won’t regret.

• Pain?

It’s time to get the deal done. You’ve considered guzzling energy drinks or alcohol to numb the pain, but the tattoo artist says it’s unnecessary. Then the pen hits your skin and you can feel why. It’s little more than a bee sting. Tattoos aren’t half as painful as most people think, and the vibrating pen makes it even better. Close your eyes and think happy thoughts.

• Show It Off

Their fadas. Now that you have your tattoo, it’s time to show everyone. For most guys, it means wearing sleeveless shirts until they catch a cold. Take photos of yourself and share them everywhere. When people come and ask to see it in person, make them wait. You worked for it and you got it.

• Planning A Second Tattoo

You know what’s better than one nice, super-lit tattoo? Two nice, super-lit tattoos. Or three. Or four. Next thing you know, you’re looking for space on your body. God safe us, because I’m in this stage too. While you’re at it, watch this video of Burna Boy breaking down his tattoos.

The post The 10 Stages Of Getting Your First Tattoo appeared first on Zikoko!.