NewStats: 3,265,193 , 8,185,965 topics. Date: Friday, 13 June 2025 at 07:52 PM 723i4y

sicase6359:
But you wanted to organise something else for those interested. There was even a Google form that we filled up.

Oh right! Of course! That's been placed on hold indefinitely, especially since the pandemic.

Sorry about your relationship.

sicase6359:
What happened to jollofroad trip you wanted to organise last year?
You made me break my relationship.

LOL. Jollof Road was 2019 na. Done and dusted. See jollofroad.com for the daily journal and videos.

This #NairaLife is a little strange. She earns enough to meet her needs. The only problem is, she’s dealing with some regrets, especially with her financial decisions in the past 10 years.



What’s your oldest memory of money?
In 1994, I got itted to secondary school. My dad took me on a tour of the school, and I liked it so much my heart was set on the place. Then one of my dad’s friends came to our house and said something like, “If you send this one to this school, what school will her siblings go to?” I have four siblings, and the tuition was ₦10k at the time. My dad looked at the long term implications and decided that he couldn’t afford the fees. I went to a government school instead.

What was that like for you?
I was just like, “What the hell?” It didn’t help that I didn’t like my new school very much. I transferred to a different school after three years — another government secondary school.

The difference between both schools, however, were the kind of people who went there. My new school was filled with wealthy people and the military governor’s kids. It was insane the amount of wealth I saw there. They went on summer vacations abroad and all of that stuff. I felt so close to wealth, but I felt far away from it. When they started talking about going to uni abroad, I also went to tell my parents that I’d like to go to the US for school. My dad didn’t shut me down. He said, “Take the SATs and A-Levels, but also take JAMB.” I was like, “If I’m going to America, why do I need JAMB?”

LMAO. What did your parents do for a living?
My dad worked in the civil service and retired as a director. I don’t know how much money he had, but I don’t think he wasn’t earning a lot. He told me years later that he did a lot of side jobs, mostly consultancy gigs. My mum was a managerial staff in an insurance company. They both carried the financial load of the family.

So, did you leave Nigeria for uni?
Not for my first degree. JAMB won. I was offered Law at a university in the southwest in 2001. My dad didn’t want me cooking or working, so he put me on a couple of allowances. There was an allowance for food and another one for my upkeep. Everything was up to ₦10k per month.

For the first three years, the money came on time. But sometime in my fourth year in 2006, there was a radical shift. The money started coming in late. Sometimes, I wouldn’t get anything for two months. I didn’t know what was happening. Thinking about it now, he must have been going through a rough patch. Also, he was close to retirement at the time, so maybe there were other priorities.

That was a change from what you were used to. What did that mean for you?
It wasn’t that bad. My mum picked up some of the slack and ed me. Also, I picked up a catering side gig and started cooking for my friends’ birthdays and other small events. This didn’t bring a lot of money — maybe ₦1k or ₦2k every once in a while. Although money from my dad became irregular, I didn’t really feel the heat.

After I finished uni, I went to law school. At the time, I was dating someone who worked in an oil and gas company. Whatever my parents couldn’t do, he did it. Money almost became an infinite resource to me. All it took was a phone call.

Continue: https://www.zikoko.com/money/naira-life/nairalife-the-project-manager-still-figuring-life-out-at-110000-per-year/

Have you ever wondered why and how some women become side chicks? If they regret it or how they felt when they found out? Well, these twelve Nigerian women share their experience as side chicks.

Amaka, 27
I was 21 and had just gotten out of University. I met him at my best friend’s party at a club. He was the friend of my other friend’s boyfriend. He was hitting on me the entire night, and we eventually left the club together. We decided to get a hotel room and on the way to the hotel right in the middle of the bridge at about 3:30am, he told me he was married. I was very Hot and it was late, but honestly even if he told me during the day I would have still gone ahead. The next morning, we said our goodbyes and I never planned on seeing him again, but he kept calling me and sending his friend to me. I eventually saw him again and we started a proper relationship where I was his girlfriend.

There were times his wife would call him and I’ll be riding him. I even a time he was on the phone with his father in law and we were having sex. We kept seeing each other even after his wife got back. I never disrespected her, and neither did he. I was just in my own corner, and I never wanted her husband to myself or anything. The sex was amazing, and that’s all I wanted from him. We never even talked about her. Sometimes, I even forget she exists. It wasn’t like we were sharing a man. It was one man for both of us. I never felt guilty.

Mary, 31
I was serving in Uyo at the time, but we started talking when I visited a friend in Lagos. He was good to me and the sex was amazing. When I had to choose between moving to Lagos or Abuja, I chose Lagos mainly because of him. When I moved, he casually mentioned he was seeing another woman and I was heartbroken. She was richer than me and they had been dating for about two years before me so I was not expecting him to dump her for me. While we were together, he would never let his phone ring and he never mentioned her. When we were together, I was the only girl. Eventually, she broke up with him by getting married to another man.

Patricia, 26
I did not know she was seeing someone else until the fourth date. While we were hanging out, she got a call and asked me to not speak. I found it weird because the first time we met was at her cousin’s house, so I knew she didn’t care about people knowing about me. After the call, I asked who it was and she said it was her girlfriend. I was obviously shocked cause I had no idea, but she quickly followed up with how she wanted a black girl she could hang with and could understand her. I knew I was not trying to get into a relationship so I just agreed and never asked about the girlfriend. Eventually, I found out it was actually her fiancé.

Linda, 21
I thought I had found the one, but apparently not. One day I went to visit him and she came and met me there. When I got home, I asked who the girl was and he said it was his girlfriend. He told me he thought I knew he had a girlfriend? How was I supposed to know? I was hurt when I found out, but it is in the past.

Continue: https://www.zikoko.com/her/12-nigerian-women-share-their-experience-as-side-chicks/

Horrible exes are the great common denominator. Most of us have them – people that we, at some point, thought or hoped would be the one but by the end of the relationship, we were like WTAF. As today is the day after Valentine’s Day, we got four Nigerian men to tell us about their absolute worst ex.

Emmanuel, Straight, 27.
In my third year at university, I was dating this babe that was in her second year and I was spending all the money I didn’t have on her. My parents paid for my rent and gave me a ten thousand Naira allowance every week and sometimes, my mum would send something in between. I also had a small gig doing graphics. So I was balling on campus back then or would have if I did not decide to die on this woman’s matter. A few months into the relationship, I realized that all she did was come to my house to eat my food and watch TV. She had a habit of missing classes too. All she did when she wasn’t eating my hard-earned food was ask for money. Man, I was stressed. Anyways, I discovered she was sleeping with a guy in her year that lived in my compound. Sometimes, I would return to my compound and see her seated at the guy’s pavement waiting for me. I thought it was just because she knew him as they were in the same year. One day, I came back and saw her coming out trying to set her wig straight and the guy was wearing loose boxers and I just clocked it. I cried like a child they stole his sweet that day but we move.

Ayomide, Gay, 23.
I dated this guy back in 2018. He seemed cool. It was fun, he was charming, sex was great, my feelings for him were growing strong. Basically, all of those things that happen in relationships. And then I fell sick. I was itted to the hospital. I informed this guy via text because I couldn’t talk. I didn’t get a reply. I eventually mustered up the strength to call him several times. He didn’t pick. Eventually, texts stopped going, calls stopped going. I had been blocked and ghosted. Anyways, it hit me like a Big Mac truck and I was sad as hell. I also cried a lot. I could barely eat because of one stupid man. Eventually, I got over him. And then after a few months, I saw this guy at a place I went to get food with a work colleague. I avoided him but this man came over to say ‘hi’ pretending nothing happened. He even offered to buy me food. I would have lost it and broken something on his head if I wasn’t over him already.

Seun, Straight, 32.
In 2017, I dated this babe who came from a very affluent family. Her family, however, did not like me. The babe also had some issues – she told me she had had bad relationship experiences in the past and I eventually clocked that all of that had left her very insecure and needy. Man, she was beautiful but the stress? Jesus. Anyways, her uncle helped me get a job because of her. I didn’t know it but she had figured out my phone’s and read texts between someone else and I and saw that I was being flirty. She got so enraged and was talking about how she should have figured out I was like the rest of her exes. She left the house that night. She blocked my number. Two days later, I got a sack letter and they said it was ‘due to performance’. I just took it and left.

Continue: https://www.zikoko.com/man/4-nigerian-men-worst-ex/

Today’s Abroad Life talks to us about moving to the UK when he was 13 and being sent to a detention centre once he needed a visa to continue staying in the country.

When did you move to the UK?
I was 13 when my parents sent me down to live with my aunt. Their aim was to give me a better life.

Soon after, the UK became my home. I was planning to go to university when it dawned on me that I needed a visa. I was 18.

So you were talking about trying to get a visa?
That’s how my battle with immigration began. I sent in an application to the home office, and they denied it over and over again. One time they said, “Oh, you know, you’ve been here for so long. You’re older than 18. You can look after yourself. You can take whatever it is that you’ve learned here to your home and started a new life.”

But the UK was my home. I didn’t have any ties in the country they wanted to send me to. At that time, I wasn’t really even in touch with my parents.

I showed proof that I wasn’t lying. My school records showed how long I had been there. We went back and forth until they told me to report. If you don’t have the right status, papers or the visa to stay, you have to go to a centre to show them you haven’t absconded, then they mark you present. That’s what reporting was. My appointment was once in two weeks, and I did this for over a year.

Then what happened?
I was taken. I went to do my report and was detained.

The lady reporting me told me, “Oh, you have an interview today.” And as soon as she said that, I knew that there was something wrong. They took me into another room, took off everything I had on me and told me to wait. I sat down for a while and an immigration officer came and went, “We’re ready for you.” He took me into another room, and she started asking some questions. After a while, she said, “Unfortunately, we’re not going to be letting you go today.” I just started crying. It felt like my spirit left my body. I thought that was the end for me.

I was taken into a van. I didn’t know where we were going or what was going on. They don’t tell you anything. We were driven for about an hour. Then we stopped somewhere that looked like a prison. They took our fingerprints then put us in a cell. It was at about 1 a.m.

I called my aunt once I knew I was at a detention centre. She knew something had happened because I left home at 3 p.m. the day before, but she couldn’t get in touch with me because my phone had been taken. I used the centre’s phone to tell them about the situation I was in.

I’d never committed a crime, I’d never been to prison in my life, but there I was. After two weeks, they transferred me to a different centre, where I spent about two months and some weeks. I was in detention for about three months.

During all of this, did they explain why they were doing this?
No. I had a few solicitors representing me. But the Home Office kept telling them that I had no rights to be in the UK. I had no legal documentation, so they were processing my deportation.

My solicitors said, “Okay, he doesn’t have these papers, but it’s not that he doesn’t have the right documentation. He’s tried.”

Continue: https://www.zikoko.com/citizen/i-was-in-detention-for-three-months-abroad-life/

Being a sugar baby — generally being a sex worker — involves a lot of stress, but for this article, we’re going to focus on one of the highlights of the trade: getting expensive gifts.

We asked six sugar babies what the most expensive gift they’ve ever received from a client is.

Ben, Gay.
So in 2019, I was seeing this man. I met him on Tinder, then I discovered he had a wife and, more importantly, had money. One day, I told him my old laptop packed up, and I was broke. It was a half-lie — I was broke, but my laptop was fine. I just thought, at most, he would give me part of the money to get a laptop. Next time we saw, he gave me a brand new Macbook Air. I screamed.

Anna, Straight.
Okay so it wasn’t one gift, but I was dating this guy when I moved to Abuja. He told me he wanted to come over, but I told him I couldn’t host people because I didn’t have furniture yet. He said that was my business and came over. The next week, oga took me to a furniture showroom and told me to pick what I wanted. That’s how I got a whole furnished apartment.

Irene, Straight.
My best gift was from this guy who was heavily into being dominated. We used to do extreme stuff all day. He’d stand while I was on my laptop and would only move when I told him to. He got me an apartment on the Island — really great and expensive space. But the absolute best gift was the camera and lenses he bought me to kickstart my photography career.

Onyinye, Straight.
Does rent count? My London rent and Lagos rent combined is about N20 million and he pays for it. £2,000 per month for 11 months in London excluding the upkeep he gives me. Then my Lagos rent is N10 milion. But upkeep do usually enter voicemail as I’m in Lagos and he’s not pressing breast anymore.

Continue: https://www.zikoko.com/life/sugar-babies-most-expensive-gift/

Bullying is one of those things that seem to define the secondary school experience in Nigeria. If you went to a Nigerian secondary school, chances are high you’ve been bullied, bullied someone or witnessed someone being bullied.

We spoke to seven Nigerians about their experiences being bullied in secondary school.

Charles.
When I was younger, I was fat. Like not just chubby, I was fat in the sense that if I step into a room all my classmates or church friends or even adults would stare. I don’t think I went a day without being reminded I was fat. It was awful. Adults oh, children oh. Same thing. But the worst was in school. I would be on my own and people would push me to the ground and they’ll laugh. I would be like what did I ever do to you? And the worst part was that even the teachers seemed to all just dislike me so I found it hard to ever report to them. I think the worst was this thing that happened in JS3. I went to the toilet. My school had a row of toilets that was kind of disconnected but still close to the block of classrooms so sometimes you could smell if someone was using it. I went to use it. I had barely entered when a group descended on me. They said I was the reason the toilets were smelling. More people ed the group and they were laughing at me. I peed on myself. This was around 1 pm and my school closed by 3:15 pm. I had to wear those shorts till school closed. That thing did something to my mind. I don’t think I can ever truly get over it.

Nini.
I was bullied the first day I gained ission to secondary school. I was excited to gain ission at a young age. My mom packed me a big lunch box, my uniform was like a maternity gown and I was wearing this heavy ‘koko’ shoe. When I got to school, the assembly was in session so I just walked in and sat down. All of a sudden, a couple of seniors beside me started laughing and pointing. One of them said, “see this ugly girl, what is she wearing?” It got to the point that everyone caught on and all the seniors started laughing at me. It was horrible because it continued for days. I stopped taking food to school after the first week.

There are countless experiences like this too. I was called all sorts of names for no reason and it was horrible. One day, I went to school with a hoodie and the cap was on, to cover my bad haircut. In the middle of a t class, someone yanked the hoodie off. Everyone started laughing and they hit my head. I was in tears but no one cared. Even the teacher burst into laughter. My head was red from the hitting and I felt so awful.

Eddie.
I was in a boarding school in Calabar. I had the senior students and my peers refer to me as a “gay”. They said I walked and talked like a girl and some senior boys said they would soon “beat it out of me”. I used to be asked to walk from one end of the hostel to the other while they watched and if I didn’t “walk like a man”, I would get a hard slap on each side of my face. I got slapped several times every afternoon. Sometimes so bad that I would cry bitterly afterwards. I started hiding out in the classroom buildings after school hours, afraid to go to the hostels for afternoon siesta because I knew one of them would come and find me for their “exercise”. When siesta would be over and everyone came back out for afternoon prep, I would sneak back into the hostel and change my clothes and then head back out. This was a regular occurrence for months. I finally got beat up badly one day by a senior student that one side of my butt swelled up like a pumpkin. A teacher saw it and reported the case. After that, my parents moved me to a different boarding school.

Continue: https://www.zikoko.com/life/nigerians-talk-about-being-bullied-in-secondary-school/

Motherhood is a plethora of experiences including listening to your kids say the darndest things. In this article, 5 Nigerian mums tell us the most interesting things their child has ever said to them.

Adesuwa, 27
My daughter is three years old. One morning, someone in the house asked how was her night after she woke up. She turned to me and said, “Mummy I didn’t sleep throughout the night.” When I asked why, she said, “I was busy thinking of how to make money for you.”

I think this says a lot about me.

Tomi, 34
Children are undefeated. One day, my kids — a ten-year-old and an eight-year-old — wanted me to share my internet with them. I said no. They asked why, because I always have data on my phone. I said because I am not broke like them. Then the ten-year-old said, “If you are not broke, we wouldn’t be sharing a compound with other people.”

Sola, 32
My son is three years old, and he has limited speech for his age. So most of the time I struggle to interpret what he’s saying. One night he entered our room, saw me faffing on the bed and said, “Get up from there.” He was very clear. I asked my partner to be double sure and he confirmed. I hold on to it on days when I’m worried if or when he’ll speak.

Continue: https://www.zikoko.com/her/5-nigerian-mums-share-the-most-memorable-thing-their-child-has-said-to-them/

For Nigerian women who want to get married, there are certain expectations of how their proposal should go. For some, it should be an intimate experience to connect with their partner and for others, they don’t mind fanfare. In this article, we asked five Nigerian women what they really thought about their proposals.

Omoye, 27
Mine happened in June 2020. It was an unusual proposal because it was during the pandemic, and he wasn’t in Nigeria at the time. I have always pictured how my proposal would be. I even had a set of rules. He had to have asked for my father’s blessing before going down on one knee. I wanted to be outside Nigeria. I also wanted to make sure my nails and hair were done. It went nothing like I imagined. It was really private. I got to pick my ring. The initial plan was I would fly out to his city but thanks to corona, we couldn’t do either.

So one day he told me he sent a package home and he needed me to help him pick it up from UPS. Inside the package was a love letter and a lot of gifts — shoes, bags, clothes, skincare products, perfumes and more. I video-called him immediately, and he was playing my favourite love song in the background and reciting what he wrote in the love letter. When he asked the big question, I was already with the ring. My answer was yes, obviously. I love that I got to pick out my ring myself. I think it’s perfect that I knew it was going to happen but I didn’t expect it to happen the way it did.

Tomi, 34
I don’t think I was proposed to. You decide. The first time I met him, he said, “I don’t like the way your hair is not covered as my future wife.”. We didn’t talk about marriage after that, the parents just kinda took over and I found myself selecting blind colours. We got married three months after that.

We were together for 10 years, but we’re not anymore. I was indifferent about the proposal. If I were to try marriage again though, I don’t think I would want a formal proposal. It seems performative to me. I will like to be asked in bed like, “What are your thoughts on us getting married?”

Christiana, 29
He had already come with his dad to see my dad about “plucking a flower”, so I told him he didn’t need to propose — just give me the darn ring and get it over with.

He ignored me. We were on a weekend getaway and in the middle of an argument we were having at around 11 pm, he tossed the ring box at me. I bawled out my eyes. I didn’t hear the actual proposal. He was on one knee and all that. I was just giddy. After everything, he was like let’s watch a movie and I’m like, yeah sure, shining my teeth anyhow. The television comes on and it’s videos of my family, friends and my colleagues saying congratulations- to us. Let’s just say I emptied out my tear ducts that night.

Continue: https://www.zikoko.com/her/5-nigerian-women-talk-about-their-proposals/

The subject of today’s “A Week In The Life” is a medical practitioner who has been taking care of a sick parent since last year August. He tells us about the frustrations of the healthcare system, the mind-blowing financial costs and the emotional tolls an illness exerts on a person.

MONDAY:
My days are so similar that they’ve become a blur — it starts at 6 a.m. and ends at 9 p.m. From the minute I wake up and take my bath, I’m running errands: get X tests done here, buy Y drugs at another place, run to Z place to get blood. I’m always on the move because there’s usually a lot happening with a sick person. My first errand today is buying antibiotics outside the hospital for my dad. I start my waka by making a few calls to pharmacies to compare the prices of the medicine. After securing a decent price, I make arrangements for pickup and delivery.

It’s 4 p.m the next time I look at a clock. Between running around to pick up medicines and calling my mum for updates about my dad, I wonder where my day went. I also don’t if I’ve eaten today. But I don’t have time to ponder over this because I have to take over from my mum in the ward — we alternate the cleaning and feeding of my dad — while she goes home. Depending on my dad’s mood when I’m done feeding him, we either have a conversation or he asks to sleep. He’s in the mood for a conversation today, so I time with him while waiting for the doctors to start their evening rounds. I can’t wait to leave the ward, get food and sleep because the cycle begins again tomorrow.

TUESDAY:
When the doctor told me that my dad’s condition was multiple myeloma, I cried because I had no one to vent to. Multiple Myeloma is a cancer of plasma cells, and one of the symptoms is brittle bones. The damage to my dad was so bad that his hip removed from its t. I’ll never forget the days leading up to his ission at the hospital. We were always home alone [Mumsi had to go to work]. One morning, I broke his hand while trying to move him from the bed to a chair. One minute I was trying to move him and the next, I heard a loud kpa sound. I was so scared because I had never seen so much shock and pain on my dad’s face before. For his sake, I had to compose myself and reassure him that it’d be okay. I called his physiotherapist immediately I left his room, shouting, “My daddy’s hand has broken. It has broken.” Even though the physiotherapist gave me first aid tips, my mind was still not at rest. I experienced flashbacks where I’d relive the memory of the bone breaking throughout that week. In the middle of a task, I’d hear the kpa breaking sound and become sad all over again. This memory is why I can’t complain about the hospital stress because I know whatever pain I’m going through, my dad is going through times ten of it.

It’s sad to say this but I’d been shielded from reality as a medical practitioner before this. Being on the other side has shown me what patients and their relatives through. My mum and I had to rent a hotel outside the hospital because the “living area” allocated for patients’ relatives is jam-packed because we’re in the middle of a pandemic, and the general building design is not old people friendly.

One time my dad needed blood and I kept following up with the blood bank for three days without show. It wasn’t until the fourth day when I went to the blood bank with a friend, who was a medical practitioner in the hospital, that they finally attended to my dad’s case. I was livid and people had to hold me from losing my shit. It’s crazy that I had to know someone to get blood. Since that day, I started wearing my scrubs to the blood bank and the ward since we’re all mad.

WEDNESDAY:
My dad got itted at the hospital on a Thursday, and I thinking to myself: “The health care system is bleeped.” My first introduction to the anyhowness of the system was when I had to carry my dad on a wheelchair to the last floor twice. Apparently, there was light but the elevator wasn’t working. I know I paid at least nine people ₦500 here and there to either help me lift my dad or fast track his settling in. That first week was also difficult because we didn’t have access to my dad except during visiting hours, and he required constant attention. In retrospect that first week wasn’t bad. At least compared to the weeks that followed. We still had peace, and he was still responding to chemotherapy. If only we had known that the coming weeks would show us pepper.

Continue: https://www.zikoko.com/money/hustle/were-all-one-sickness-away-from-poverty-a-week-in-the-life-of-a-caregiver/

This week’s What She Said is a 26-year-old woman. She talks about losing her mum, feeling alienated by her sisters because they just didn’t understand her, and how being the last child made her dad’s drinking problem her responsibility.

Let’s start from the beginning.
I have strong memories from when I was two till when I was seven (my mum died when I was seven). Seven was my perfect number. With her alive, we were seven — my four siblings, my parents and I — and when she died, we became six.

I had three older sisters and one brother, who was the second child. In primary school, I was close to Bisola, who was the fourth child, because we went to the same school. She was one year older than me, while the others were far older. My sister after Bisola was in secondary school — let’s call her Amina — and the eldest was in university.

People used to think Bisola and I were twins, but we fought the most. She always tried to be domineering and would ask me to do this and that. I would be like, “Why?” We fought so much that my dad started using cane to separate us.

Area!
LOL. When Bisola was in Primary 4, she got a double promotion to Primary 6. And once she graduated to JSS 1, my dad yanked me out of primary school to her.

Why do you think he did that?
It was money. After my mum died, he was depressed. We didn’t know this until five years later. He’d come home with drinks. He was also not getting as many contracts — he was a water engineer. My mum’s death made him lose a lot of opportunities because it was difficult for him to process it.

All through secondary school, Bisola and I did everything together, but we still fought.

Why?
Because she and my other sisters teased me a lot, especially about my ears. I had a small head and really wide ears. They called me satellite dish, elephant ears, MKO Abiola and all sorts of names. They would laugh about it, but it was painful and always made me cry. Then they’d give me food to make me shut up — I liked food, so you know how that went.

They also called me Yoyo, which was someone that was sluggish. I didn’t process things fast, couldn’t tell the time, or my left from right. And because I was so close in age with Bisola, I was constantly compared to her. Bisola was the popular fashionista — she wanted to even be a model but decided to become a fashion designer instead. It was so bad, people outside would not my name but call me Bisola. It was fucking annoying.

Continue: https://www.zikoko.com/her/what-she-said-at-16-my-dads-alcoholism-became-my-problem/

Is it possible to regret something that you have been taught should be the “best decision of your life”? Yes, and these five Nigerian women share why they regret getting married.

Anita, 27
He lied about everything. About his extended family, his job, his entire life was basically a lie. I only found out after getting married to him. He told me he was a UX writer, but it turns out he is an Electrician. That would not have been a problem, so why did he feel the need to lie about it? He told me his parents were dead and he was not close to his extended family. Another lie. One day, his Uncle reached out to me on Instagram. Turns out both his parents are very much alive.

When we were getting married, he told me he wanted a small wedding. I did not think too much about it because I genuinely loved him and just wanted to be married to him. Apparently, he wanted a small wedding because he had other wives and kids. Plural. I feel like I am carrying him through the marriage. They say “men are babies” and it sounds cool until you realise that it is not metaphoric, but literal. I never knew there could be such emotionally, underdeveloped, men. Right now, I do not know what is a lie and what is not.

Amaka
I was 33 when I got married and honestly, I do not think marriage benefits women in the long run. Whatever people consider a benefit, does not equal all the things marriage makes you lose. I think marriage hindered me from doing certain things because there is a huge constraint on your time and energy. You are meant to be building the family, but then things you are building does not necessarily benefit you. A men can be working to build his family, while building his career at the same time. He gains both the benefits of being married to you such as free labour, but women can’t say the same thing. The nine years I spent building my family, I could have built my career. The only solution was to not be married anymore so I did that, and my life has been happier and healthier.

Chisom, 27
Marrying my husband was the biggest mistake of my life. Even with all the red flags I saw, I still went ahead and got married to him. He is a serial cheat and a totally unrepentant one. While we were dating he would apologise when he got caught, but now that we are married he has such a nonchalant attitude about it. As if he feels like I cannot do anything about it. He hides the fact that he is married from anyone and if I tell his girls, he gets angry and keeps malice with me. He says we are not a good match and we have nothing in common. How do you not figure out we have nothing in common for the six years we dated? SIX! Now I am pregnant and want to end the marriage but he is threatening to take the child away from me.

Continue: https://www.zikoko.com/her/5-nigerian-women-share-why-they-regret-getting-married/

As told to Zikoko

My grandmother always wanted a son, but she had four daughters. When I came along, my mum thought I could be the son her mother had always wanted, so she shipped me off to live with her. I was just one at the time.

At four years old, I started hawking fried fish on the streets of Ibadan for my grandmother. If I didn’t make enough money in a day, she would send me back out to make more. Sometimes, she locked me out of the house and made me sleep outside. I don’t much from that time, but I know that because I was always out on the streets, I was running errands for the boys in the neighbourhood, getting them packs of cigarettes or wraps of weed.

I returned to my mum when I was seven. I started smoking cigarettes when I was 10. By the time I turned 15, I was experimenting with weed and drugs. It was about that time that I decided that I’d had enough of school. Not that we had enough money, anyway. Things were tougher than ever at home because my dad had died, so I dropped out of school and went to live with a cousin who sold phone accessories. The plan was to learn the business from him and go out on my own, but he wasn’t exactly the model teacher.

He would buy fake phone accessories at cheap prices and sell them at a ridiculously high rate. He was also the first person that introduced me to girls and clubs. In fact, he facilitated my first sexual experience. I was 16.

***

I left my cousin when I was 20 or 21 and went to work at a hotel as a housekeeper. One night in 2018, this group of guys came to party and lodge at the hotel. I was immediately drawn to them. They were all the things I wanted to be: rich and lavish. I knew what not having enough money meant, and I wanted what they had.

I served them until it was time for me to go off-duty. One of them asked me to sit with them for a while, and I agreed. Let’s call him B — he will come up in this story again. We partied together all night and when they were leaving, they gave me ₦15k, promising to come back.

They did come back. The more I talked to B, the more I wanted to be one of them. A part of me knew that they belonged to a cult, but they had what I wanted — wealth or some semblance of it. I was disappointed when B told me that they were leaving town in a few days, but I quickly got over it and asked if I could come with them. He said I could, but I had to be ready to leave in three days. I was ready to leave anytime. The way I saw it, if I was with them, I’d never lack.

***

We left Ibadan on a Saturday and travelled to Abeokuta. They were students in a school somewhere in Ogun State. The first thing they did was throw a big party to welcome me. That felt very nice. Around 1 am, they said it was time to meet other of the gang, and we left the house. I was going to my initiation.

Continue: https://www.zikoko.com/life/i-ed-a-cult-and-this-is-how-it-went/

The subject of today’s Sex Life is a 20-year-old bisexual woman who makes money selling pictures and videos of her feet online. She talks about the initial stress of starting the side hustle and how it has affected her sex life.



What was your first sexual experience?
I think my earliest sexual experience was with Harlequin novels. I was around eight or so, but I used to devour those books. I started having less-than-PG feelings when I was 12, but I didn’t try to masturbate to them until I was 17.

Did you enjoy it?
Not at all. Masturbation was nothing like they described it in the books. The first time I tried it, I didn’t feel anything memorable. So, I did some research, and it got better after some time. Still, it only feels good, not great.

I’m yet to have my first orgasm.

Like, ever or just from masturbating?
Ever.

Oh damn. Have you been intimate with other people?
My first sexual experience with another person was after secondary school. I met this older guy who wanted me to send nudes and call him daddy, but I wasn’t really comfortable sending nudes. So, we just sexted instead.

I wasn’t really into it, but I enjoyed the attention. I went along with it until I got bored.

What happened after you got bored?
I tried to explore my sexuality. I had a huge crush on my best friend, but I didn’t tell her because she’s straight, and I didn’t want to make her uncomfortable. I decided to try dating women, but I couldn’t find anyone I connected with.

I met this really sweet girl on Tinder, but there was no attraction from either of us, so we’re just friends now. I met another daddy, and I don’t know if it was his voice or something, but I actually enjoyed sexting with him.

Do you generally enjoy sexting?
It depends on a few factors. When I’m in control of the situation, sexting is like a 7/10 for me. When the other person is in control, it’s like a 4.6/10. When we’re both just vibing, it’s like a 5.5/10.

I[b]nteresting. What about sex?[/b]
I’ve never had intercourse, but I don’t know if I would be classified as a virgin.

Why do you think so?
Well, it’s a social construct for starters, but I’m also not sure if never having a penis inside me — even though I masturbate, sext and make porn — still counts as “virginity”. When I’m asked, I just say I’m not a virgin. It’s easier.

You make porn? What kind?
I sell pictures of my feet on the internet.

Oh wow. How did you discover that was a thing?
So, I’ve always been aware of foot fetishes because of the media and books. When the lockdown started, things were tight, and I didn’t know what to do. I used to bake for extra cash, but no one was splurging on pastries at the time.

I googled how to make money online, but everything I saw was either a scam or slavery. Then I saw a website that suggested selling foot pictures and the thought was planted in my head. I decided to dig deeper.

One day, I sat down, opened my camera and took pictures of my feet in socks. I don’t know if it’s just me, but society deems feet gross, so I was insecure about photographing them bare. I created an Instagram and shared my first post.

What was the response like?
I used relevant hashtags, so I got some likes — 13 or so. The likes were from real people, but the comments were from bots run by Yahoo boys promising to “spoil me silly”. I didn’t get any comments from real people.

Continue: https://www.zikoko.com/life/sexlife/sex-life-i-sell-pictures-of-my-feet-for-money/

For most men, dating people who are younger than them age is the only way to go. However, its 2021 and the script is being flipped and more men are willing to explore dating older people. So we asked four men who exclusively date older people about their experiences.

Fidel, Gay.
I was sexually active at a very young age and again I had this fetish for hairy people which turns out to be only on older guys. So eventually that became my thing. The ones I’ve been with, there’s this certainty that comes with dating someone older. They don’t feel the need to be shady because they feel they might have something to lose, and they have financial stability as well.

The worst part of dating older queer men in Nigeria is that their ‘ageism’ jumps out every now and then. The age gap breeds a conflict of ideas, And a lot of times what you have with them isn’t long term because sooner than later they have to start their family as society dictates, and I have no future with a married man.

Tunde, Straight.
I don’t deliberately seek to date older women. It just happens really. We get talking, and boom, we find out about the age difference. I’ve dated a younger lady once. Man, I couldn’t keep up. I had to think for two. I’d advise people to date whoever they love, and find comfort in. Age is secondary. Seek stability, warmth and respect. Amongst other things for sure.

I guess because I’m most times the youngest in a group.
The best part of dating older women is that cues are easily taken, vibrations are higher and the worst part is that it can be too intense

Continue: https://www.zikoko.com/man/5-nigerian-men-talk-about-dating-older-people/

Today’s subject on Abroad Life moved to Benin Republic in 2012. He talks about how the exchange rates and money problems with his family back at home affected his four-year stay there.

When did you move to Benin republic?
I had to go to Benin Republic in 2012. It was the only option for my family financially. My JAMB scores weren’t good enough for Nigerian public school cut off marks, and we didn’t have enough money for a private school. I’d heard a lot about Houdegbe North American University and how it was a good school so I decided to go there. I had cousins in Benin Republic, so it was an opportunity to bond with them, learn a new language and experience a different culture. I like to see things from a cup-half-full perspective; that helped me quickly move past mental barriers.

How was settling in?
Communication was difficult at first. I had to learn French on my feet, especially for quick everyday conversations with bike men, market women and people who provided essential services. The number of Nigerians you’ll find in Benin Republic will blow your mind. In my time there, I encountered more Nigerians than Beninese, and if someone told me that the Nigerian population is higher than the local population, I’d believe without thinking twice. At some point, my landlord was Nigerian and even my lecturers were Nigerians.

So apart from communicating with providers of essential services, I was mainly communicating with Nigerians, and that made things easier for me.

I stayed with my cousins for a year and a half, and then we split. We didn’t have any problems or anything, we just found new people we wanted to move in with.

Did that turn out well?
At first, it did. It was super exciting. I had adult responsibilities for the first time: getting an apartment with my friends, getting some furniture, speaking with landlords. I felt powerful. I knew If I’d stayed in Nigeria and gone somewhere like UNILAG, I’d probably stay in a hostel or come from home. Co-owning an apartment in Benin Republic made me feel powerful.

Nice. Why did you say “at first”?
Finances started waning. The exchange rates were super bleeped. I was getting an allowance of ₦10,000 a month and that was about 30,000 CFA. Things are much more expensive in Benin Republic than in Nigeria, so it got difficult to live from day to day. When I look at the exchange rates now and see that one naira is just 1.38 CFA, my heart breaks for Nigeria.

Did the finances get better?
Rent started getting expensive too. Most landlords were cashing in on the fact that school hostels were more expensive than apartments, so they increased prices so that apartments would still be cheaper than school hostels but only slightly.

My rent expired just as I was about to begin my final year. I called friends and tried to organise a system where we would all live together and pay rent, but nobody was interested. I didn’t have enough money to rent on my own and I couldn’t talk to my mum about it because she was struggling with my fees– I was even owing school fees.

I had to talk to some classmates to let me keep my stuff in their apartment. In the mornings, I would go to their houses, freshen up and get out of their hair. Whenever they asked where I was sleeping, I’d just laugh and brush it off. The truth is that I was sleeping in the classrooms. I’d wait for everyone to go home — sometimes I’d leave with them — before coming back to settle in one of the classrooms. It was very lowkey.

Were there any dangers of living in the classrooms?
Apart from the mosquitoes and the fact that it was uncomfortable as hell, I had to stay alert every night so that the patrolling security men wouldn’t find me. My body clock knew that by 2 a.m., they would do their regular checks and I would get in trouble if they caught me so I had to hide, and sometimes move around while they were doing their searches. Terrible stuff.

Continue: https://www.zikoko.com/citizen/i-was-homeless-in-benin-republic-abroad-life/

As told to Zikoko
*******************************************************************
In 2017, I decided I was going to be an influencer. I had all the things I thought I needed to get the career started so, of course, I went for it. By 2018, I had more than twenty-five thousand followers on my Instagram alone. The opportunities were coming, but they weren’t as financially lucrative as I expected. They just made me look rich, while I wasn’t in real life. I started looking for ways to make more money and leverage the audience I had. Then my friend gave me the advice that changed my life: get a sugar daddy.

As a hyper-visible woman, thanks to my influencer career, people make es at me every day on social media. There’s this appeal of someone visible and, in a way, unattainable. My friend advised me to make use of that and pick a sugar daddy. So I started going through my DMs regularly, especially the DM requests, until I found one that caught my eye. He had like four or five photos on his Instagram, and you could tell he didn’t update it that much, but he looked clean as Bleep and, more importantly, rich. I had found my sugar daddy.

I replied to his DM and tried keeping it light. Let’s call him Ben. Ben was nice, in his late thirties, a rich guy that came from money and still made his own money on top. He made it clear from the get-go that he had money to spend.. He was uber nice. I did not ask him for money, but he kind of knew what I was there for, and he was sending me money regularly. The lowest he ever sent was N50,000. About a month later, he invited me over to his house. Paid for the flight and sent over tickets. I was ready to eat his money proper.

I was to spend two weeks with Ben. We went out, ate and, of course, had sex. The sex was so much better than I expected. When I say he came through, he did. On the fourth day, he told me his friend had a party and we should go. The party was slightly crowded, but he took me to a small parlour that felt like a VIP section in the house. They were drinking and smoking, and I am not a drinker, but I smoke socially, so that’s what I did. Then they ed something around and he took it. I didn’t clock it because I assumed it was weed, which we were doing at the time. His friends suggested going to a different thing that was happening, so we went to get the cars.

The ‘thing’ was just Ben and a bunch of his friends hanging at a hotel room that belonged to one of them, which was cool. Then they started ing something and I clocked what it was. They were doing cocaine like it was Lucozade Boost. Most of them were injecting it. Then Ben came up to me and asked if I had ever done it before, and I told him no. He told me if I can take weed, I can do this because cocaine is just the elder brother. The biggest mistake I’ve ever made in my life was to believe that lie. He very carefully showed me how to snort a bump off his key and yo, it was something. I felt hot, I felt nauseous but Jesus, the jolt of pure pleasure was amazing. Someone, I’m not sure who, got us a room in the hotel. He might have had a room there already, I don’t know. But we went there and although I have given up cocaine now, cocaine sex is just wow. It was just utterly euphoric.

Continue: https://www.zikoko.com/life/my-sugar-daddy-got-me-addicted-to-cocaine/

As told to Zikoko

*James, 29, and his girlfriend, *Dami, 27, had lived in Nigeria for most of their lives before relocating to Rwanda for work in 2019. While there, they decided to spice up their relationship by finding a Rwandan woman for a party. James thinks that decision almost ended in his girlfriend being trafficked.

********************************************************************************
East Africa has some of the most beautiful women in the world. Rwandan women, in particular, are the cream of the crop. My girlfriend feels the exact same way, and that’s why we came up with the idea to try a party when we had settled in Rwanda.

The first thing we needed to do was find someone we both liked, so we went straight to Tinder because the people there know exactly what they want. We decided to use her picture because I doubt there are many women who would be interested in hearing a party proposition from a random guy on a dating app. After we set everything up, we started swiping for potential candidates.

This was actually how I found out that Rwanda has a thriving lesbian community; well, gay and lesbian community. We were looking for a Rwandan woman who was nice, looked good, smelled good and was interesting. They also needed to be willing to take a bunch of STD tests before anything happened. We were able to find a few people who seemed to fit the bill.

For the first woman, Dami went to meet up with her, but she wasn’t feeling her — she didn’t smell very good and was a bit shallow. The second woman didn’t seem too eager to get tested. She also lacked the unmistakable Rwandan features we were both hoping for: ridiculously thick and stop-in-your-tracks stunning.

The last woman we picked was really nice at first, but then she quickly became very forward. I mean, it’s weird to say someone is too forward on Tinder, considering what the app is for, but she was a bit much. After Dami told her exactly what she was looking for, this babe proceeded to send her a bunch of unsolicited nudes.

At first, we were like, “This person is super excited,” but little red flags started popping up. For starters, the nudes she sent were of different people. The skin tone was pretty similar across pictures, and they were all taken from the torso down, but I could tell they weren’t taken by the same person.

Then she sent a raunchy video of two women handling each other in public, and when we asked if she was one of the people in the video, she said it was a friend, not her. In our heads, we were like, “Why are you sending us a video you’re not even in?” That was another red flag.

Still, Dami and I decided to meet her in a public place to decide if we wanted to go through with it. So, we set a time and a date. When we tried to call her to confirm the meeting, she didn’t answer the phone. She tried to call us back and was conveniently inaudible. She said her network was bad, so we just continued texting. That was another red flag.

Continue: https://www.zikoko.com/life/sexlife/my-girlfriend-was-almost-sex-trafficked-in-rwanda/

Victor, 31, and Wendy, 29, have been married for three years, and they’ve been friends since they were kids. For today’s Love Life, they talk about finding their way back to each other amidst exes, distance and bad decisions.



What’s your earliest memory of your partner?
Victor: I think I was 11 in JSS 2, and she was in primary school. We had some t events, so I used to see her around. She was tiny, quiet and had big eyes. I thought she was cute.

Wendy: I saw him around the school too. I was in Primary 6, and his class was a floor above the primary school at the time.


Do you the first time you interacted?
Victor: I’m not sure when the first time was exactly, but I figure it was during one of the t events. I know I definitely saw her at one of the Christmas parties and we spoke, or at the very least, I spoke to her sister.

Wendy: LMAO. It was definitely through my sister. She used to come to pick me up, so she became friends with some of the guys in the secondary school. Victor was one of them, and that’s how I knew his name.


LMAO. Just friends?
Wendy: LMAO. Yeah, just friends. I think Victor had a crush on her, but she’s five years older than him. He was in JSS 2, and she had already finished secondary school. I think she just thought he was cute, and he really was.


How did things go after you started interacting?
Victor: The relationship was pretty much non-existent for the first few years. I used to smile and say hi whenever I saw her around, but we never really talked. I think we started properly talking when I was in university, and it was on Facebook.

Wendy: From Facebook, we moved to Twitter. Then I came back to Nigeria during my first year of university and we hung out for the first time in the cinema. He had a girlfriend then, and I was talking to someone, so we were just hanging out as friends.

That didn’t stop it from being weird when his girlfriend saw us together in the cinema. To be fair, he wasn’t answering her calls. He used to be very toxic, so I think he was tired of the relationship and was trying to get her to break up with him by frustrating her.

Victor: Wait. It’s not like I’m saying I wasn’t toxic then, but she’s definitely embellishing the story. I had originally tried to make plans with my girlfriend earlier in the day, and she had said she was unavailable.

I told her I’d make other plans, and I think she misread it as me being upset and then started overtalking the issue. It ended up pissing me off, so I went out with Wendy. I wasn’t even ignoring her; I was watching a movie and couldn’t answer her calls.

I tried to text her instead, but she kept trying to call me. It was annoying. Then she came to the cinema and tried to make it a big deal that I had gone with someone else. Anyway, that relationship had run its course, and I was just reluctant to end it.

Continue: https://www.zikoko.com/life/love-life/love-life-we-kept-finding-our-way-back-to-each-other/

A week ago Unilag students resumed school virtually after a year of ghosting, radio silence and of course ASSU’s ever-changing resumption date, which happened not once, not twice, but thousands.

I am a 400 level student in this great university studying mass communication and here’s what my first week of virtual learning was like.

Monday
After a whole year of chanting “The student in me died in march” I was up by 6 am and excited to resume, even though I was panicking that I couldn’t to the portal, or that I’d low-key forgotten my matric number. I put my notepads by my pillow (you can see that I was ready) and went on my group chat, only to find out that no one could . Nothing pleases a student like collective discomfort: as long as it’s not just me, all is well.

I was finally able to but then the site crashed. Wahala for who wan be serious student, or maybe I’m the one with bad luck. Classes were cancelled for the day and Unilag was trending on Twitter but as the devil will have it, one lecturer still managed in the midst of it all to give us an assignment. I had to double-check to see if I was offering that course and the answer was an annoying yes. I considered dropping it and generally dropping out in two seconds but decided against it in case my father could read my mind somehow. All in all, not a terrible first day.



It was a terrible day.

Tuesday
The ginger I had the first day had died. I was up by 8, but for once I didn’t check Twitter first. I went on my class group chat and saw that my course advisor had sent out a message by 6 am. Classes had been cancelled for the week, all we had to do was familiarise ourselves with the site. God bless God.

People who could sent materials from the site and then the creation of group chats for different courses began. God save us. Turns out that I ed for 8 courses. In a whole 400 level.

One lecturer even started to hint at asking us to buy textbooks and do group assignments? Then someone stated that we had to the materials from the site on our own because it counts as attendance. For 21 years, my life has been one big attendance , make it stop.

There was still no class thankfully and yes I know it’s supposed to be a lecture-free week but you don’t know my lecturers.

Wednesday
This day showed so much promise of laziness and then like a thief in the night — except it was 2 pm — one lecturer gave us a group assignment to be submitted the same day. I was going to ghost them but then I saw the kind of people that were in my group: they won’t add my matric number if I didn’t do anything. So, I waited for a bit and when no one did anything, I created a group chat and added all eight of them. Still, no one said anything, so I posted the assignment. All we had to do was summarize what we had learnt from the five topics we’d been taught before the “pakurumo”.

I went offline and by the time I came back these scammers had appeared from nowhere and paired up in two’s for three topics, graciously leaving the longest two for me and one other unfortunate person. This is why I hate group projects. We sha got it done before 6 when we had to submit it. Not going to lie, it felt nice to learn something and even nicer to understand what I was summarizing — my school fees hadn’t wasted after all but I was also upset because ffs, allow me to be unserious.

Continue: https://www.zikoko.com/aluta-and-chill/a-chaotic-week-in-the-life-of-a-virtual-unilag-student/

Here's what the men had to say about theirs: https://www.zikoko.com/man/9-nigerian-men-reveal-their-definition-of-cheating-in-a-relationship/

Different women have different definitions of cheating. For some, it is more emotional than physical. These eight Nigerian women define cheating for us.

Zainab, 19
I don’t think I have a definition of cheating. Physical activities are physical, and I cannot stop you from hanging out with someone even if they like you or you like them. If you have sex with someone else that’s fine because I will too. It’s the lying I have a problem with. Just don’t lie about it. Don’t sneak around. Do it with your chest and if I can’t handle it anymore, I’d bounce.

Linda, 23
I am very particular about bonds and intimacy in of communication. So for me, cheating is having romantic feelings and acting on them with someone else while having a partner. Hanging out in date like settings and giving them energy that should only be exclusive to a partner.

Amaka, 19
Existing in other women’s spaces. I consider confiding in other women cheating. If you go to them for emotional and personal stuff etc.

Cynthia, 33
I am not one of those people that say “sex is sex”. Sex is not just sex. Sexual activities are not just sexual activities and doing them with someone that is not your partner means you cheated.

Continue: https://www.zikoko.com/her/8-nigerian-women-tell-us-what-their-definition-of-cheating-in-a-relationship-is/

As told to Kunle Ologunro

My name is *Linda, and I’m from Oron in Akwa Ibom State. I am the fifth of the six children my mother gave birth to. Not long after my mother had the last child, my father abandoned her, and she was faced with the burden of providing for six children alone. As a way to lighten the burden, I was sent to Lagos to stay with my uncle, my mother’s only brother.

My life in Lagos was fine. My uncle was a senior staff at NNPC. He enrolled me in a private school and took care of me like I was his child. The only problem was his wife. She treated me like the typical Nollywood evil stepmother, but I didn’t let that get to me. I’d come from a place where basic necessities were hard to come by. But here I was in Lagos, enrolled in school and living well. I wasn’t going to let her treatment get to me.

But then I turned seven, and my uncle became sick. It started gradually: dry cough, rashes and all. They took him to several hospitals yet there was no improvement whatsoever. Back then, TB Joshua was the trend and his church (the old site) was very close to us, so they took him there. He was given a handkerchief and special plates, but he never got better.

Instead, he became leaner. Then, they took him to another church around Ikotun Egbe. The pastor and some of the church came to our house to pray. It was during their prayers that they told my uncle’s wife that I was a witch and that I and my grandmother, who was 70 at that time and was suffering from dementia, were responsible for my uncle’s sickness.

The next day, my uncle’s wife came to pick me up from school and took me to that same church. I was there for over a week. I wasn’t given any food, just water and olive oil to drink. Every morning, the pastor would flog me and ask me to confess. I was innocent, but he wanted a confession from me, so I started making up stories from the movies I had seen just so they would let me go.

Fortunately, one of the family’s bigger cousins heard what was happening, so he stormed the church and took me away. I stayed with him for a few weeks before his wife also drove me away saying I was a witch because I was very inquisitive. I had to return to Akwa Ibom.

If you’re from Akwa Ibom or you’ve been to Akwa Ibom, I’m sure you’ve heard stories or seen young boys and girls, who were driven away from their homes all in the name of witchcraft, roaming the streets. It happens in Oron where I am from, and it is still very much in existence today. In fact, it is a common thing in my village to murder people who are perceived to be witches or wizards.

Because of what happened in Lagos, I was branded as a witch, and my Uncles wanted to kill me. There is something they give to those who are perceived to be witches. It’s believed that if the person isn’t a witch, they would eat and vomit it, and if the person is, eating it would would kill them. But our bodies are different, and that stuff has killed many innocent people. When they gave me to eat, I vomited, and they concluded that I was a “strong witch.”

Very early the next morning, my mother smuggled me out and took me to one church. From there, I was taken to a home for kids who were driven away by their parents. The home is disguised as an orphanage, but it really isn’t. I can’t mention the name because so many kids are still there. The home is located in Abia state and the founder goes about picking up street kids. She often travels to Akwa Ibom to get these kids that were driven out of their homes; she brings them back to her orphanage where she cleans them up and gives them out to those looking for house helps for a specific amount.

Continue: https://www.zikoko.com/life/i-was-accused-of-being-a-witch-and-sold-to-2-families/

The subject of this week’s What She Said is a 40-year-old woman. She talks about losing custody of her kids after an abusive marriage, travelling the world and how her dad’s love for food led her to start a confectionery company.

If someone was meeting you for the first time, what would you tell them about you?
I would say I am simple and a lot of people find that complicated. When it comes to my experiences, I would say I’m on my ninth life because I’ve had a crazy ride.

I grew up in a large family. I had two brothers and four sisters. I enjoyed my teenage years a lot. Sometimes I think I enjoyed it a little too much. I had friends from all over the world. At my school, people say you don’t gain knowledge, you gain friends.

My parents were free-spirited, open-minded people. When I lost my mum, a day before my tenth birthday, it changed our world. Somehow, my dad was able to fill that gap — cooking and caring. It was so seamless that we almost didn’t notice the void my mum’s death created. He filled that void so well, and we did not feel deprived. I got so interested in food because he was always cooking something.

And then?
Somehow I found myself married at the age of 20 to someone who was abusive. He stopped me from going to school, stopped people from seeing me. I had no friends nor money. I was caged in his house for years and had three children.

That’s awful. Why did you get married so early?
It’s complicated and I do not like talking about it. My mum was not there and I relied on others to guide me. But some of them were misguided and they misguided me as well. I was advised to marry early, have kids early so I could move on with my life and grow with my children. My dad was also pressured. They implied he was a man and wouldn’t understand these things. It must have all come from a good place, but it ended up wrong.

I ran away with my children a couple of times, but I ended up coming back. He would beg for my return and promise to change. But that didn’t last. In two weeks he would be back to his normal self. Until one day, I decided it all had to stop.

He took my children away from me, and it’s been 14 years without them. In a case like this, where a woman suffers is when she goes to court or when the police are involved. If you’re young, policemen say things like, you’re sleeping with other men or “If we should lock him up, you’re the one that will come begging.” The policewomen would take his side because he has money. They made my life miserable. I tell people that whatever you do, make sure you don’t find yourself in court in Nigeria or have anything to do with the police.

What did you do after you got out of your marriage?
When my marriage ended, I had ₦40 in my . I started all over — I had been in school but my ex asked me to stay at home until my first son was ready to go to university. I didn’t defer my ission, so I started from 100L when I got out of the marriage. I was in school studying marketing when I decided to start crafting chocolates. Not for the money; it was more of the statement — I wanted to create a chocolate-crafting Nigerian company.

Continue: https://www.zikoko.com/her/what-she-said-i-havent-seen-my-kids-in-14-years/

Tunji*, 32, and Ezinne*, 28, knew they wanted to get married a week after they met. Now, they are engaged, but Ezinne’s father refuses to give his blessing to a Yoruba man. For today’s Love Life, they discuss how their faith has helped them through it.



What’s your first memory of meeting your partner?
Ezinne: It was a Saturday in June 2020. I was heading to work, and I sat at the back of the bus. Before I got down, he tried to strike up a conversation. It was a very hot day, so I was wondering how anyone could still have the energy to be toasting someone.

Anyway, we spoke for a bit, and he asked for my number. It’s not like he wowed me or anything, but I gave it to him. I honestly didn’t think it would lead anywhere.

Tunji: I will never forget meeting Ezinne for the first time. Some might call it coincidence or chance, but I know it was God’s divine orchestration. I was meant to go for an early meeting that day, but I ended up delaying it. We wouldn’t have met if I didn’t.

I can’t even call what we had love at first sight. It was more than that. After we exchanged numbers, we spoke non-stop; our connection was undeniable. We knew exactly where the relationship was going within a week.

Omo. Ezinne, was it this intense for you too?
Ezinne: At first, no. I wasn’t really looking for anything serious at the time; I just wanted to focus on God. After just a week of talking, however, I knew I wanted us to be together forever.

I’ve spoken to guys for months without it going anywhere, but in a few days, Tunji proved to be everything I’d been looking for. We also bonded over our Christian values, so it was very easy to go from there.

Where exactly did you guys go from there?
Ezinne: After that first week, the next move was telling my pastor about him. We had previously prayed about me meeting my spouse; I just didn’t know it was going to happen so soon.

It wasn’t even about meeting our parents for us, it was about meeting the spiritual authorities in each other’s lives. Then we started praying together. We’ve been doing that every night since July, except when we have a fight.

Tunji: After we met each other’s pastors, we went to meet our parents. This all happened within a month of meeting each other. It was an eventful couple of weeks, but we knew we wanted the relationship to go all the way.

How did your parents react?
Ezinne: Meeting his parents was awesome. They were so nice, I wished they were mine. Meeting my dad, on the other hand, was horrible. Tunji would never say that because he loves my parents, but my dad was awful to him.

He came alone for the normal “I saw a flower in your garden” visit, and my dad began to lecture this 32-year-old man that marriage is not for kids. Then when he found out Tunji is a teacher, he asked how he would be able to feed me and afford school fees.

My dad insulted his life and destiny. He seemed offended that Tunji would even come to indicate any kind of interest. It was hell, but Tunji was cool throughout all of this. He just promised to come to see my dad again.

Tunji: I really didn’t think his initial reaction was out of the ordinary. It’s something any father could do to protect his daughter. At some point, I thought the questions were becoming a little too personal for the first visit, but I still didn’t feel bad about it.

I figured he wanted to know if I was ambitious enough to take care of his daughter.

Ezinne: LMAO. Do you see? My fiancé is too nice about all of this. He is as cool as a cucumber. He’s the peace in the storm, while I am fire and brimstone. I think that’s why we fit together so well.

Wait. Your “fiancé”? You guys are engaged?
Ezinne: LMAO. Yeah. We never actually dated. There was no “Will you be my girlfriend?” moment. It was more like, “I want to plan my life with you.” If you ask him, he’ll probably say he proposed to me since July, less than a month after we met.

There was no ring at first. He didn’t see the need. He had made his intentions clear, so he didn’t think there was a point to all that extra fanfare. On my end, I had also started behaving like I was engaged.

Then for my birthday, about three months later, he planned an official proposal with my very close friend. He went on his knees, pulled out a ring and asked me to marry him. I honestly didn’t know I needed a ring until I got one.

Wow. Did your family think things were moving too fast?
Ezinne: To be honest, my father has given every reason under the sun as to why Tunji isn’t the right man for me. He was still using, “You just met this guy,” even after seven months of constant visits, but the real reason is clear: he isn’t Igbo.

Tunji: My family didn’t think it was too early. At the time, our plan was to get married between February and March of 2021, about nine months after we met, and they were in full of that.

Continue: https://www.zikoko.com/life/love-life/love-life-my-father-doesnt-want-me-to-marry-a-yoruba-man/

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The subject of today’s “A Week In The Life” is Juliet Simone, and she’s a IndecentStar. Juliet tells us about some of the stereotypes she faces in her line of work, managing her family’s expectations with her job, and how powerful she feels when she’s in front of a camera.



MONDAY:
I’m awake every day between 5 a.m. and 7 a.m. I stand up from my bed by 6:30 am today, and the first thing I do is check my phone to see if there are any messages I missed while asleep. Then I start my morning ritual — I drink Seaman ogogoro to clear my eyes, do some squats to keep my body fit [because I don’t want to have a fat stomach], and look for something to eat. I’m done with my routine by 11 a.m. After that, I make content for my paying subscribers — I have a WhatsApp group where people pay ₦5,000 per month to see my nudes, watch me masturbate, rant or just dance. It would have been easier to manage the subscribers if I could go live on Instagram or Twitter, but I’ve been banned on both apps. I’m grateful that at least I still have my Snapchat where I can post even though I don’t fully understand how to use that app.

I don’t have time to be worried about Snapchat because there’s work to be done, and my major “headache” now is entertaining my subscribers on WhatsApp. I’ll video call my over 20 subscribers in batches of seven. The signs are clear that I have a long day ahead of me.

TUESDAY:
I don’t shoot porn videos every day because I don’t own a personal camera. Instead, I have to shoot once or twice in a week depending on the schedule of the actors, video crew and location. There’s a lot of planning that goes into making these videos. We travel outside Lagos, sometimes as far as Badagry, to make them. You can’t just say you want to act porn in your room or a hotel in Lagos. From the screams and moans alone, oversabi people will call police to arrest you for trying to murder someone’s daughter. There’s also the part of choosing the men I’m acting with because I have a preference — neat, honest, and willing to show face on camera — that must be followed. After making my choice, I invite the person for lunch to gauge them before we go for routine [HIV, Hepatitis, etc] tests. Then we can now shoot a video.

During video shoots, I tell my men that it’s acting we’re acting so they shouldn’t get carried away thinking it’s their girlfriend they’re fucking. I also make it clear that they must not cum in me — they can cum on my laps, face, tummy but not inside me — because the viewers want to see the sperm.

Anytime I’m stressed, I remind myself that it’s my channel that these videos are being ed to and that makes me happy. I’m excited anytime I look at my money counting and see that it’s dollars. I can’t wait till it’s plenty so I can cash out.

WEDNESDAY:
People ask me if I’m shy to have sex in front of a camera. Me, Juliet, shy for what? For why? I even think I’m addicted to the camera. I’ve been acting for a while, so I’ve gained confidence. Although I started acting porn three years ago, my dream was to always get into Nollywood, so I grew up participating in dramas, teen plays and being a drama queen. I wasn’t shy when I used to act for people, why will I be shy now that it’s my channel?

Anytime I’m in front of the camera, I feel like I’m Wizkid, Davido or even Burna Boy, and all these people are coming to look at me. I won’t lie, the first time I acted in a porn video, I didn’t know it’d go far. It wasn’t until my brother in Dubai called to say: “Juliet, you don dey act porn?” I was “Shoo, this thing is international now? This is my chance to shine.” In fact, during lockdown, I became famous again because one of my videos did like two million views. I noticed that anytime I ed my street, boys would be looking at me. It was one of my male friends that now gave me the gist that someone ed my video and people started sending it to themselves. Sometimes, too much of the attention in real life makes me shy, so I stay indoors. Other times when I want to do my werey, I wear my shades and don’t give them face. Is it pussy they’ve not seen before? Is it dick they’ve not seen before? — it’s everywhere. And if anybody comes to challenge me that why am I acting porn, I’ll also challenge them that why are they watching porn. Wetin carry their eyes go there? Are they also pornstars?

Continue: https://www.zikoko.com/money/hustle/when-im-front-of-a-camera-i-feel-like-wizkid-or-davido-a-week-in-the-life-of-a-IndecentStar/

With all the hormones flying about during pregnancy, it is no surprise that pregnant women end up doing some very funny things. So, we asked people to share the funniest experiences they have had pregnant, and those they have witnessed.

Odion, 56
One day while I was pregnant I had this sudden urge to lick ice cream. It was a bit different from the 2am fried yam cravings. I felt like if I did not have ice cream, I would die. My husband’s friend had to help me buy ice cream. When he asked how much of the ice cream I wanted, I gave him a paint bucket and told him to fill it up. When he brought it back, I licked so much ice cream I ed out and woke up in the hospital.

Angel, 37
I could not eat stew made with a blender. I would come back home from work, remove my jacket and bring out the grinding stone. After grinding my tomatoes and pepper, I would give to my sister to cook for me. It had to be grinded with a grinding stone, and I had to be the one to grind it. My sister kept complaining because we had a blender, but that was the only way I would eat.

Amaka, 31
When I was pregnant I could only eat food with a small spoon. When my husband brought me indomie with a fork, I started crying. I told him that he didn’t love me and I threw the indomie at him. Now, I can it that I was being a bit dramatic.

Bisi
My sister made a grilled sandwich when she was pregnant with her second baby. It was in her hand and she was so excited to eat it that she started to cry because she knew it would taste good. She was just crying with the sandwich in her hand

Continue: https://www.zikoko.com/her/8-nigerian-women-on-their-funniest-pregnancy-moments/

This subject of this week’s #NairaLife is an investment manager. He is in the business of helping people make money, and he has learned how to do the same thing for himself. What is most interesting about him? His motivations.



What’s your oldest memory of money?
Growing up, my dad did this thing where he would give me money and say:” Put this money in an envelope and keep it. I’ll ask for it later.” It may be weeks before he’d ask, but he usually did to confirm I still had it. Then he would give it back to me and ask me to keep it again. The lesson was, you don’t touch the money that’s not yours. After he died a few years ago, my mum found an envelope labelled “Daddy’s money” in a drawer at home. It’d been there for years.

I’m sorry about your dad. It must have been a profound moment when your mum told you about that envelope.
It was. My parents taught me how to respect money at an early age. When I got money gifts, they made sure I spent half and saved half. I grew up interested in how money works.

What was the first thing you did for money then?
After I graduated from university in 2001, I offered to work at a stockbroking firm for free. I studied psychology and had no major prior experience in the financial markets. However, the firm I worked at didn’t have much business to do at the time. After three or four days, I quit. A friend of a friend had a forex exchange company in the same building as the stockbroking firm, and he offered me a job at his.

What was the job about?
He sourced forex and sold to his clients, who were mostly merchants. He was like the average Bureau De Change guy, but he did more volume. When I started working for him, I was earning ₦5,000. I was his runner, doing istrative work and helping him facilitate transactions. He increased it to ₦8,000 during my service year. In the two years I worked for him, he gave me a few raises. When I left in 2003, I was earning ₦30,000.

Continue: https://www.zikoko.com/money/naira-life/the-nairalife-of-an-investment-manager-intent-on-building-generational-wealth/

Richdee1:
Wonders

Shall never end.

The subject of this week’s Abroad Life moved to the UK eight years ago. She talks about choosing the wrong school, racism, leaving religion, and going the extra mile to make sure her sister wasn’t stranded.

How long have you been in the UK?
I’ve been in the UK for almost eight years. I was 17 when I got here. I was lucky to go to a secondary school in Nigeria where IGCSE was a compulsory final year exam, so I was already automatically qualified to apply for college in the UK. When it was time to choose, I had two options: the school where my best friend was, or a school in a different city. I chose the latter. Big mistake.

How was it a mistake?
Settling in was difficult. First of all, it was a very white school. I met two other Nigerian girls there and thought we would be friends, but then I soon realised that even they were different. They’d lived in Lagos all their lives, I’d lived in Port Harcourt. I thought since we were all Nigerians, we’d be able to relate to the same things and laugh at the same jokes. I was wrong. It was hard settling in.

Why did you choose to go to a different school from your best friend?
I wanted my own experiences. I didn’t want to rely on another person to cultivate the types of experiences I had.

Did that turn out well?
I don’t think it turned out badly, although If I could turn back the hands of time and make that decision again, I probably would have chosen to go where my best friend was. It would have saved me a lot of stress. One time, I even had to fight my roommate for being an absolute bitch.

I’d love to hear that story.
My sister came here after me, and we were recently talking about how there was a lot of underlying racism even we didn’t notice. It was bad. But as for my roommate, the racism wasn’t underlying. She was Asian and very openly racist. She would constantly talk about how, where she comes from, people that looked like me were constantly bullied and beaten. She told me about how she used to bully one mixed-race guy in her former school. And then one day, I was in the room watching a movie on my laptop when she came in with her other friends, turned on the TV and made it very loud. When I asked her to reduce the volume, she started saying all her usual trash and then took my laptop and flung it on the wall. I beat her ehn.

Damn. Did you get in trouble?
No, I didn’t. Whenever my mother was in the UK and visiting my school, she used to bring gifts for the hostel workers. You know how Nigerian mothers are. So they already liked me and just overlooked it. When the issue died down, the girl requested a change of rooms. She said she was scared that I would beat her again.

A queen. Did anything major happen in college?
It was in college I realised that religion is a scam. We were doing a course on antibiotic resistance in evolution and I thought to myself, “If microorganisms can evolve, why can’t we?” The concept of creation started becoming fuzzy to me. I talked to my friends about it and they all thought I was crazy. After college, I went to university and ed the Christian union. I was trying to give it one last shot.

One day a lady came to give a testimony. She said someone she knew was diagnosed with cancer, and that after they prayed and went for a new test, the doctor said she didn’t have cancer. She had been given the wrong person’s test result. It was just a mix-up. I thought to myself, “How is that a testimony?”

My parents are pastors. My mum has been disabled since before I was born and she still believes that one day, she’ll miraculously get healed. If she did, then that would be a miracle. I couldn’t see any proof that there was a God, or heaven, or hell so I just left it all behind me.

Continue: https://www.zikoko.com/citizen/i-had-to-strip-to-pay-my-sisters-rent-abroad-life/