Michael traded freelancing in Nigeria for a Product Designer role at an AI company in Paris, landing an EU Talent Passport with no degree, no French test, and no proof of funds. Here’s how he made it work.

Where do you currently live, and when did you leave Nigeria?

I currently live in Paris. I left Nigeria in August 2025, so it’s been almost a year now.

What did life look like for you in Nigeria?

I actually dropped out of university in my final year. I was studying computer science, and around the 300 level, I took an interest in design and started learning it. 

By my final year, I had a back-and-forth with a lecturer over a course I had been stuck retaking.  In addition to the disruptions caused by the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) strikes,  I was already looking at an extra year before I could graduate.

That was the tipping point for me. I was mentally done. I told my dad I couldn’t keep going, and while he was worried at first, he came around once he saw I already had a stable income from my design work.

I was mostly freelancing remotely for companies. I worked for a Kenyan startup remotely for about three years, from around 2021 to 2024. It was pretty successful, to be honest. I have about 84,000 to 86,000 , so I used that audience to keep work coming in. I didn’t have a month where something wasn鈥檛 going on. If I had too many jobs, I’d outsource the extra to other designer friends.

When did you first get the idea to leave Nigeria?

I always knew I鈥檇 leave at some point, but it wasn鈥檛 a pressing need for me. That changed around the time when the current government came in. 

I was comfortable. My mentality was  鈥淚’ll do my best here, but I won’t work myself to death in a broken environment, so any real opportunity to leave, I’ll take it.鈥� Interestingly, around 2018 or 2019, I actually had an offer to move to Finland, but I did the math on taxes and got scared about the language barrier, so I turned it down.

Was Paris ever in the plan?

Not at all. Paris was never on my mind. I knew I didn’t want the United Kingdom (UK) because the constant changes to immigration policy put me off. My actual plan was to start in an African country first, maybe Kenya, before moving anywhere else. I didn’t want to leave Africa so quickly.

So how did you end up in Paris?

I got an offer from a United States (US) company.  I did a trial period with them, and the pay was very good. But around the same time, an AI company in Paris reached out to me on X about a Product Designer role. I had always wanted to work at an AI company, so I stalled the US offer to go through the interview process. 

I went through their process, got the role, and the US company eventually pulled their offer after I  stalled them too long. That was fine 鈥� they still paid me for the weeks I had worked. 

Oh wow, interesting. What did the visa process look like?

The company’s immigration team handled about 90% of it. All I had to do was go to the Visa Facilitation Services (VFS) office in Lagos for biometrics and submit my documents. It’s a European Union (EU) Talent Passport, similar to the UK’s Global Talent visa, except it’s tied to your employer; you need a company to sponsor you.

Wish someone would just explain what鈥檚 going on in Nigeria?
That鈥檚 exactly what The Big Daily Newsletter does. We break down Nigeria鈥檚 biggest stories, explain what they mean, and why they matter, all in one quick read.

Did you need a language test or proof of funds?

I didnt need any of that. Normally, if you move to France on your own with a regular work visa, you need an A1 level in French, and the permit might only be valid for a year, but with the EU Talent Passport, there’s no French requirement, and it’s valid for four years from your first application.

You mentioned earlier that you didn’t finish your degree. Did that affect the visa requirements?

The visa needs either five years of experience or a relevant degree. I already had 7 to 8 years of experience by the time I applied. 

I asked the immigration team if that was still feasible, and they said yes, as long as I could provide evidence that I had been working for that period. I had to provide old paychecks and contracts. I had all of that ready, so I sent it over, and that was accepted.

What did the company actually cover, and what came out of your own pocket?

Honestly, I think I was an outlier here. Everything I had to pay for myself, like the flight and all, was reimbursed. The company had a loft I stayed in for about a month, then I moved to an Airbnb until I found my own apartment, and all of that was also refunded. The only thing I  paid out of pocket the whole time was food.

Any advice on what to negotiate when taking a job abroad?

Start from whatever the company is offering, but check that your standard of living won’t drop once you account for tax. I used that as my benchmark; if my standard of living would be worse in the new country, I wasn’t taking it. 

France has some of the highest taxes in the world, but for me, it’s a functioning system, so it didn’t bother me. I’ll also say that being single at the time made this a lot simpler. If you have a partner or kids, you’ve got a lot more to factor in.

What was your first week in Paris like?

It was rough, in a funny way. My basic French and Duolingo lessons could not save me at all. 

On the first day, I tried to order Nigerian food on Uber Eats, and it was about 鈧�30. I did the conversion to naira in my head and screamed. Another time, I tried to book a ride to work and kept asking drivers in French if they spoke English; three cancelled on me immediately. I eventually just stopped asking and used basic French to get through interactions. 

My first week was a good mix of excitement and being scared, because this was going to be my life from now on.

Is the language still a barrier for you now?

Not really. I’m not yet fluent, but I can navigate a lot of daily life in French. My biggest tip for anyone in the same position is don’t overthink it. I spent my first few days too scared to walk into the supermarket, imagining I wouldn’t be able to explain what I wanted, but when I finally went in, the interaction was extremely simple. 

If you’re stuck, use Google Translate; it won鈥檛 cost you anything. I took an audio language course for a while and had a private tutor for the first two to three months, though I eventually stopped the sessions because they started to feel like a chore.

Okay, what’s the cost of living like?

Paris is a completely different market from the rest of France; it’s expensive. The city is divided into 20 districts, and your cost of living depends heavily on which one you’re in. 

For rent: a comfortable, decent-sized solo apartment runs from about 鈧�1,400 to 鈧�2,000 a month. Something smaller might be around 鈧�900. If you’re sharing with others, it can go as low as 鈧�600. 

Food isn’t too bad, partly because my company gives me a monthly food allowance and a transport allowance. They also cover 50鈥�60% of my biking costs since I cycle to work instead of taking transit. Aside from rent, my extra monthly spending 鈥� groceries, random things for the apartment鈥� is maybe 鈧�150 to 鈧�200. Rent is easily where most of my money goes.

You鈥檝e been there for almost a year. What do you miss most about Nigeria?

Mostly the food and my friends. I cook a lot here and have found someone who can deliver Nigerian food, but it doesn’t taste the same.

Nobody tells you that the hardest part of leaving is the small things. Back home in Nigeria. I鈥檇 end my day with a call with my guys.  And now the call ends, and I’m just alone in my apartment. I miss my friends and family a lot. That said, if all of them were here with me in the EU, I might not think twice about staying for good.

What happens in the long term if you ever lose your job? Would you have to leave France?

France has some of the strongest labour protections in the world, so it’s genuinely hard to get fired without serious cause. That said, the EU Talent Passport is tied to your employer 鈥� so if I ever did lose this job, I’d need to find a new company willing to sponsor me, or change my visa status, within a few months. 

I’ve also been intentional about building a personal brand, so even in a worst case, I think I’d be okay within a few weeks or months. 

Going back to Nigeria no longer feels feasible to me. I used to run 24 solar panels with battery backup, Starlink, and a generator just to have consistent power and good internet, and I don’t want to go back to managing all of that. My plan is to build something solid in Paris first before I think about moving anywhere else.

What’s your favourite thing about living in Paris?

Surprisingly, it鈥檚 cycling. I hadn’t cycled in years before I moved here, and Paris has really good bike lanes, so I cycle to and from work daily. The architecture is beautiful and makes the whole experience worthwhile. 

I had read online that people in Paris are rude, but I’ve found the opposite; everyone I’ve interacted with has been helpful. I once fell off my bike, and a stranger rushed over to help me.

 There鈥檚 also a basic sense of safety here; I can walk past police without my heart racing, which isn’t something I could say living in Nigeria.

And what’s something you don’t like about it?

Some parts of the metro have a really unpleasant smell, not all of them, but enough places that it鈥檚 concerning. Honestly, I think that’s just a big-city thing; cities like Lagos and New York all have this smell issue, unfortunately.

How have you built community there?

Honestly, it’s been the hardest part. I went to an event for a group called Nigerians in Paris, and it felt lonely; everyone there already knew each other, and I went alone. I haven’t been back since.

What’s worked better for me is taking my time and letting it come to me easily. There鈥檚 a guy I met on X before moving here, who introduced me to the guy who now cuts my hair. There鈥檚 a friend who also moved to France on a scholarship, whom I meet up with occasionally, someone I met through (a mentorship platform for designers), and a colleague whom I hang out with regularly. I also joined a WhatsApp group for internationals living here, which has been more socially active than the Nigerian one.

I had an experience with someone I met on TikTok who turned manipulative. I noticed a pattern where she seemed to want to be my only source of community here. Knowing I was new and didn’t have many friends yet,  she behaved however she wanted and expected me to put up with it, but I blocked her. My advice from that is to build slowly and prioritise quality over quantity.

Looking back, what’s one mistake you made, or something you’d tell people to do differently?

The biggest one 鈥� I spent a full month in Paris before I started actually looking for an apartment. I assumed it would work the way it does in Nigeria, where an agent finds you something. 

n France, apartment hunting is more like applying for a job; you submit documents and wait to hear back. Start that search as early as possible, ideally from Nigeria if you can.

One more thing for anyone moving here single: don’t rush into a relationship. Give yourself at least a year to figure out your finances and habits before dating 鈥� especially in a city like Paris, where every luxury brand you can think of is just a walk down the street.

Anything else you want people to know?

Yeah, don’t be scared to ask questions and do your own research. Many people relocating want to hand everything over to an agent and hope for the best, but those who do their own research tend to land better deals. Use AI or search TikTok and Reddit; someone has already documented exactly what you’re trying to figure out.

On a scale of one to ten, how would you rate life in Paris right now?

I鈥檇 rate it a 7.5. It would be a ten if I got my French to a B1 or B2 level; there are a lot of experiences I hold myself back from right now because of the language.

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罢丑别听聽is returning on August 22, 2026, in Lagos! Come learn from finance experts and industry leaders, and partake in unfiltered conversations about building wealth and diversifying your income stream in a country like Nigeria.聽Real stories, expert advice you can actually use, and a community ready to build wealth together.聽.

For Nigerians earning 鈧�100,000 or less every month, surviving is about finding creative ways to stretch every naira. We asked Nigerians earning 鈧�100,000 or less how they’re making it work. Here’s what they told us.

1. “My children think I work night shifts.” – Bose*, 29, F

I’m raising two children on my own. Their father hasn’t been in the picture for years, and there were days I genuinely didn’t know where our next meal would come from.

I used to sell okrika clothes and made around 鈧�30,000 in a good month, but it simply wasn’t enough to feed my children and keep them in school.

Eventually, I started doing sex work because it was the only thing that paid enough.

My children think I work night shifts, and I hope they never find out the truth. Every decision I make is about making sure they have food to eat and can stay in school. As long as I can give them that, I’ll keep doing whatever it takes.

2. “I walk to work so I can afford food.” – Jumoke, 24, Supermarket Worker (鈧�55,000/month)* 

After the fuel subsidy removal, I stopped paying for transport every morning. Instead, I walk about 40 minutes to work. I leave home before the sun comes out, so it’s easier.

I only take a bus home if I’m too tired to walk back. It saves me a few thousand naira every month, and that money usually goes toward food or unexpected expenses.

It’s not easy, but I’d rather spend that money on feeding myself than on transport.

3. “Living with my aunt is helping me save.” – Jolomi, 25, Pharmacy Assistant (鈧�65,000/month)

I earn 鈧�65,000 every month, but I still live with my aunt, even though my office is over an hour away.

I spend about 鈧�20,000 on transport every month, but staying with her means I don’t have to worry about rent or cooking every day. If I lived alone, my salary wouldn’t last at all.

I’ve been trying to save little by little, but at this rate, moving out isn’t happening anytime soon.

Wish someone would just explain what鈥檚 going on in Nigeria?
That鈥檚 exactly what The Big Daily Newsletter does. We break down Nigeria鈥檚 biggest stories, explain what they mean, and why they matter, all in one quick read.

4. “The shop owners let us buy food on credit.” – Tunji, 37, Painter (Around 鈧�50,000/month)

I’m a painter, so my income depends on whether I get jobs. Some months are good, but most aren’t. There are weeks when my phone doesn’t ring at all.

My wife braids hair, but business has been slow for her, too.

The only reason we’ve been able to get by is that the shop owners in our area know us. They let us collect food on credit and tell us to pay whenever I get my next painting job. I honestly don’t know how we’d feed our children if they didn’t trust us like that.

5. “My church helps me when things get really difficult.” – Ngozi, 32, Hotel Cleaner (鈧�25,000/month)

I’m a single mother, and I work as a hotel cleaner. I earn 鈧�25,000 every month.

By the time I buy food, pay my child’s school fees and recharge my phone, there’s almost nothing left.

Thankfully, one woman from my church sometimes calls me to clean her house and pays me 鈧�40,000. The church also shares foodstuffs from time to time.

Those moments make a huge difference because I’m not even thinking about saving anymore. I’m just trying to make sure my child and I make it through each month.

6. “My wife’s salary keeps us going.” – Peter, 37, Danfo Driver

In 2023, the company I worked for shut down, and I lost my job.

I spent about two years looking for another one without any luck before I started driving a danfo bus.

On a good day, I make between 鈧�10,000 and 鈧�15,000, but not every day is a good day. My wife recently got a job as a primary school teacher and earns 鈧�50,000 every month. That salary has been a blessing. We combine our incomes to feed our family and meet the children’s needs.

There’s rarely anything left after that, but having two incomes is what keeps us afloat.

7. “Private lessons are what keep me afloat.” – Salome, 25, Private School Teacher (鈧�25,000/month)

I got my first teaching job after NYSC at a private school, and my starting salary was 鈧�20,000. They didn’t always pay the full amount. Sometimes, I’d receive 鈧�18,000.

I eventually negotiated it to 鈧�25,000, but it still wasn’t enough. School closes around 3 p.m., but I don’t go home because I have private lessons until about 7 p.m.

Almost every teacher at my school does the same thing. The money from private lessons is what helps me survive because my salary alone can’t.

罢丑别听聽is returning on August 22, 2026, in Lagos! Come learn from finance experts and industry leaders, and partake in unfiltered conversations about building wealth and diversifying your income stream in a country like Nigeria.聽Real stories, expert advice you can actually use, and a community ready to build wealth together.聽.

Nigeria has developed a strange talent for treating investigations as a fancy thing rather than a red flag. Politicians accused of diverting billions, forging credentials, or hoarding wealth don’t disappear from the public eye; instead, they resurface on ballots and campaign posters, asking for your vote like nothing is happening.

The most recent example is the former Attorney-General of the Federation (AGF) Abubakar Malami, who is running for governor of under the African Democratic Congress (ADC).

On July 15, 2026, a Federal High Court in Abuja ordered the permanent forfeiture of 48 properties linked to him, valued at about 鈧�213.2 billion. The forfeiture is part of an ongoing Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) investigation into Malami’s assets, tied to a 16-count money-laundering charge the commission filed against him, his wife, and his son, all of whom have pleaded not guilty.

Everyone who has heard this news has rightly expressed shock at the sheer number of properties owned by Malami and has urged the EFCC to be thorough with the investigation. We totally agree, but here鈥檚 a question that’s been bugging us ever since: Why is he still running for office?

Of course, the investigation doesn鈥檛 automatically mean he鈥檚 guilty, but the question was never really about guilt. It’s about why a person whose character is being scrutinised by the EFCC is asking for a public role. 

The scary thing is, Malami isn’t an isolated case; he’s just the most recent name in a much longer pattern.

Former Delta State governor Ifeanyi Okowa is under investigation by the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) over the alleged diversion of about 鈧�1.3 trillion from the 13 per cent derivation funds allocated to the state between 2015 and 2023. He is also the(APC)  Delta North for 2027.  

Former Kogi governor Yahaya Bello is standing trial for laundering about 鈧�80.2 billion allegedly diverted from the state鈥檚 funds, as well as a separate 鈧�110.4 billion fraud and criminal breach of trust case.  Pick your jaws from the floor, because he just won the APC’s for Kogi Central and will be contesting in 2027. 

Oh, and there鈥檚 former Minister of Innovation, Science and Technology, Uche Nnaji, who went viral in 2025 after a Premium Times investigation found that he had forged his university and National Youth Service Corps (NYSC) certificates.

He is currently to become the next governor of Enugu State, and has been cleared by a faction of the PDP, even though he is under active investigation by Nigeria’s Independent Corrupt Practices and Other Related Offences Commission (ICPC) for the same issue. 

At this point, it鈥檚 safe to say that in Nigeria, “under investigation” is a signal to politicians to run for office.

In Malami鈥檚 name, there are many mansions

Malami’s is the only one of the four in which a judge has actually issued a ruling. Justice Joyce Abdulmalik found that the assets were reasonably suspected to be proceeds of unlawful activities and not acquired from legitimate sources of income, leading to his forfeiture of everything from a foundation building to an 鈧�11.2 billion, 131-room hotel. 

The Big Daily is your weekday shortcut to the biggest news shaping Nigeria. We cut through the noise, connect the dots, and explain why the news actually matters, all in one quick read.

鈧�1.3 trillion is a lot to misplace

Okowa’s number is so large that we had thought it was a typo, but apparently it鈥檚 not.  

His camp says the investigation and insists the funds were accounted for. We don鈥檛 dispute this, but at this time, it鈥檚 just his word against the EFCC鈥檚, and that鈥檚 simply not enough for a person hoping to be a Senator, making our laws.

In April 2025, he to the APC, and little has been heard about the investigation, but the EFCC says the regardless of which party he belongs to. Somehow, none of this stopped Delta North APC delegates from handing him their senatorial ticket.

Two trials, one ticket

Bello’s situation might be the most jarring of them all; In addition to his ongoing EFCC trials, people couldn鈥檛 quite decide whether he was truly cleared for the primaries.

He somehow emerged with 72,399 votes to defeat his nearest rival’s 319.

The EFCC keeps reminding everyone that Bello is, which is true, but also not the point. Nobody’s asking Bello to be convicted; we’re asking why an active fraud trial isn’t enough to put his character in question.

Show me your particulars

Nnaji’s story doesn’t involve a single naira 鈥� just a degree that, as far as anyone can tell, only existed in his imagination. 

Shortly after Uche Nnaji’s ministerial screening in August 2023, a tipped off Premium Times about suspected discrepancies in his school and National Youth Service Corps (NYSC) certificates. Two years later, the newspaper published an investigation indicting Nnaji, and he responded to the growing scrutiny the way innocent people definitely do: by trying to y from releasing his own records. That didn’t work.

The University of Nigeria, Nsukka (UNN) disowned the certificate he had presented, which was apparently forged, and three days later, Nnaji resigned. The ICPC eventually caught up to him, arresting and arraigning him for forgery. Naturally, none of this is stopping his second attempt at the Enugu governorship, this time on a borrowed PDP ticket. 

Gaslighting 101

None of these men is legally barred from running for office because Nigerian law only candidates after a criminal conviction, not during an investigation or a forfeiture, and the parties know this. 

This means the burden of vetting has been quietly outsourced to you, the voter, standing in front of a polling unit. 

What next? 

The National Assembly has to close the conviction-only loophole in the Electoral Act so that pending trials over public funds actually affect eligibility. Follow the money yourself. Right, the only people keeping score are EFCC prosecutors, and their case files move a lot slower than election season does.

Most importantly, we have to be a nation and society in which people with questionable character do not dare to hold public office.

罢丑别听聽is returning on August 22, 2026, in Lagos! Come learn from finance experts and industry leaders, and partake in unfiltered conversations about building wealth and diversifying your income stream in a country like Nigeria.聽Real stories, expert advice you can actually use, and a community ready to build wealth together.聽.

Despite this, he built , whose flagship programme, Spark Nation, is an educational and leadership-building initiative empowering African youth through debate competitions and mentorship, expanding it from one state to three African regions with zero government support. This is his story, as told to Orame.

I grew up in Abakaliki, Ebonyi State. My father was wealthy when I was a child, then made a bad investment and lost it all. We went from the elite class to one of the poorest, most dangerous neighbourhoods in the state.

My primary school was so overcrowded that it ran a shift system to get through. This meant they taught one set of pupils in the morning, and another in the afternoon. 

My secondary school, Urban Model Secondary School, was home to cultism. My classmates came to school with guns and machetes. It’s a miracle I never joined a gang myself, and I think it was due to geography: I lived in one gang’s territory and schooled in a rival gang’s, so joining either meant I could never go home or go to school. My parents were also strict.

We had no cable TV, just an antenna that caught NTA. On the Sundays we were lucky to get electricity, we’d cluster around the set for Who Wants to Be a Millionaire? I wanted to be a contestant so badly that I started reading everything I could find 鈥� McMillan readers, newspapers, magazines 鈥� just to prepare.

The show ended before I was old enough to go, but the reading habit stayed with me. It took me from an Abakaliki ghetto to a first-class degree in English, and eventually to fellowship training at Yale, Princeton, and Duke.

The Big Daily is your weekday shortcut to the biggest news shaping Nigeria. We cut through the noise, connect the dots, and explain why the news actually matters, all in one quick read.

Why we started Spark Nation

Spark Nation is an academic competition for secondary school students across Nigeria. Schools register their students, who go through virtual and national preliminary rounds that test them in debate, general knowledge, and critical thinking, before the best schools compete live at our annual bootcamp. It’s free to enter, and every student who makes it through the process walks away feeling academically pushed, whether they win or not.

People online complain about the “Olodo uprising” culture that seems to be taking over our country. Young people are chasing entertainment and fame over learning, but you can’t blame the youth alone; they gravitate toward what’s rewarded. Initiatives like Spark Nation don鈥檛 get the support and backing needed to impact the lives of young people.

Back in 2017, when I was running the Creative Writers’ Association at Alex Ekwueme Federal University, Ndufu-Alike (AE-FUNAI), a lecturer suggested we organise a beauty pageant, because sponsors like MTN would fund it. I asked if we could do an intellectual competition instead, like a debate, and he backed out almost immediately. 

That’s the pattern I’ve come to notice. The people who should be championing rigorous learning would rather swim with the tide, because swimming against it is stressful. 

A TikTok challenge can get sponsorship overnight,  but when you pitch something mentally taxing, brands and sponsors disappear. 

Right now, not a single multinational operating inside Nigeria funds our work.  Every dime for Spark Nation comes from outside the country, mostly Nigerians in the diaspora.

We started Spark Nation because we wanted a competition that would have children undergo rigorous mental training and prepare hard, whether they win or not. 

One student who didn’t make our final round this year still scored about 340 on the Joint Admissions Matriculation Board (JAMB) exam because months of prep forced him to study seriously. 

In secondary school, my classmates and I would miss competitions because my school couldn’t afford the entry fees. Registration for the Spark Nation competition is now free. Spark Nation is built so that the child of a wealthy family and the child of the poor can compete on the same footing.

The programme has grown fast. We ran it locally in Ebonyi State in 2024, went national in 2025, and, with a partner organisation, recently hosted students from across West and Central Africa at this year’s edition 鈥� over 200 schools registered for the virtual and national preliminaries, and the top 40 made it to the physical bootcamp. By the time we got there, we had 235 delegates in the room: 104 students, 45 volunteers, 31 teachers, 15 observers, 14 scholars, 14 management staff, and 6 adjudicators.

Spark Nation sits under One Youth Global, which now funds full university scholarships for over 37 students across Nigerian tertiary institutions 鈥� including monthly stipends, laptops for many, and mentorship from people abroad. It’s the same principle: don’t just reward brilliance once, follow through on it

The part that doesn’t show up in a pitch deck is how much energy it takes to run this without paying anyone.

In 2024, our partner waived a $2,000 registration fee and covered accommodation for ten of our winning students to attend a leadership programme abroad. We only had to raise money locally for visas and flights. I made a proposal to get state government support for that, and a public office holder in Ebonyi asked if I could get our foreign partners to send dollars so the government could “facilitate” things on their end. 

A state commissioner asked whether his own child could be added to the list. A civil servant in the Ministry of Education sat on our file, waiting for a bribe before he’d pass it to the governor’s desk.

This is so frustrating because these are underprivileged  Ebonyi kids who earned their spot. I’m not asking for myself. Our volunteers are graduates or soon-to-be graduates. We’re the ones trying to help children in these officials’ own communities, and they’re demanding bribes to let us do it.

Since 2024, we’ve asked the Ministry of Education and local government chairmen for one thing: a bus so public school students can reach the free preliminaries and to aid the logistics of our team members and volunteers. So far, not a single local government has provided a bus. So our volunteers ride commercial vehicles into rural communities themselves, to hand principals physical invitation letters.

Our education system trains people for jobs that no longer exist. I know biochemists working as photographers, and most of the time it’s not out of passion but for survival. Starting a business is also not a great option; With lending rates near 30%, a young person who borrows a million naira to start a business owes 1.3 million before they’ve made a single sale. 

So if someone has the chance to leave and God hasn’t specifically told them to stay, I tell them to go. What I won’t tell anyone is to stay and suffer for patriotism’s sake. But leaving shouldn’t mean disappearing. 

Look at how India’s boom was partly built by diaspora investment flowing back in. None of Africa’s major independence-era leaders trained locally, but they came back with something. If you’re abroad earning well, send a fraction of it home to fund an impactful project. Come back when you can.

There’s an Igbo saying: he whom they have rejected does not reject himself. We can’t keep waiting for a failing government to save us. When you walk into a dark room,  you have two choices 鈥� sit and argue about how dark it is, or light something.

My challenge to any young Nigerian reading this: pick one small piece of this and commit to it. Don’t worry about scale. If you can’t build a school, buy a school bag. If you can’t afford that, buy exercise books for the kid who came first in your neighbourhood school.

When I was younger, my uncle bought a bottle of Fanta for whoever placed first in class. I wanted that Fanta so badly, I studied harder than I ever had. That one bottle of soda changed my academic trajectory. If you have no money at all, give an hour a week teaching a child to read. Just introduce light.

While I encourage us to introduce light, I also recognise that individual acts of kindness can only go so far. Spark Nation’s experience is proof. The state of education in this country is a governance failure that officials could fix if they wanted to, and until they do, the people abroad will keep paying for what should already be a basic public service. 

罢丑别听聽is returning on August 22, 2026, in Lagos! Come learn from finance experts and industry leaders, and partake in unfiltered conversations about building wealth and diversifying your income stream in a country like Nigeria.聽Real stories, expert advice you can actually use, and a community ready to build wealth together.聽.

When set her mind on leaving Nigeria, Finland wasn鈥檛 in the plan, but one Twitter post from a travel consultant changed everything. In this story, she shares how she navigated the country’s joint application system and the one thing she鈥檇 warn every prospective applicant about.

Where do you currently live, and when did you leave Nigeria?

I live in Turku, Finland. I left Nigeria in August 2025.

What was life like in Nigeria right before you left?

I travelled a few months after graduating from Kwara State University. I wasn’t working, but I was more or less a full-time content creator on at that point.

Before I left, I had about 40,000 to 50,000 followers. I used to post relatable, funny tweets, but as I got closer to leaving, I started getting more strategic with my content.

Did you consider doing NYSC before you left?

I actually had plans to. My school kept delaying the National Youth Service Corps (NYSC) process. I registered, thinking I’d do my orientation and work in between, but they kept extending it until the travel process began. So it wasn’t that NYSC was never in the plan; it just got overtaken by events.

When did you first think of leaving Nigeria?

Honestly, it was way before I graduated. My sister had travelled out on a scholarship before me, so it was already like a blueprint in my mind. 

I knew Nigeria wasn’t going to give me the life I wanted. As early as my 200-level, I kept telling myself I鈥檇 start looking for opportunities to leave once I got to the 300 or 400 level. It was always at the back of my mind.

Was Finland always the destination?

No, it wasn’t always Finland. I used to look at Canada, the United Kingdom (UK), and sometimes the United States (US). 

Canada was actually top of my list because my sister lives there, and I felt it’d be easier to go where she was. But sometime in my 300-level, I saw a post on my timeline from a travel consultant about Finland, saying there were many scholarship opportunities and that it was relatively easy to migrate.

I sent him a DM, and he told me to reach out once I was done with school. But I didn’t just wait on that; on my own, I started researching schools, requirements, and the people I needed to talk to .

What did you study for your undergrad, and what pushed you toward your current course?

My undergrad was in Business Administration, and I always wanted to do an MBA. But over time, I started exploring other options and became interested in AI governance. 

Right now, I’m doing my Master’s in Governance of Digitalisation at . It’s a two-year program, and I’m done with coursework. I only have my thesis left to write.

Nice! Let’s get into the process 鈥� how did you apply to school in Finland?

I used the joint application system, which usually opens in January. You can apply to up to six schools in Finland for a flat fee of 鈧�100. I picked three schools and four courses 鈥� your course has to align with what you studied for undergrad, they’re strict about that.

Everything from the schools, their courses, requirements, and scholarship provisions is on . Depending on the school, you might need a recommendation letter, an academic CV, a motivation essay, or, in my case, a one-minute video explaining why you chose that school and course and why you deserve a scholarship.

How does the scholarship work?

It’s part of the same joint application. You have the option to pay your own fees or receive financial assistance.  I selected the financial assistance option for all three schools.

I got my first admission in March, with a 50% scholarship. I decided to wait on the other two schools since they were offering higher percentages. Later that March, I was invited to interview at the school I’m at now, and about a month later, I got the 80% scholarship. The third school rejected me. So out of three schools, I got two offers.

How did the visa process go?

I didn鈥檛 use a travel agent to apply for the visa. About a month after my admission, I went to , the Finnish Immigration Service, and did it myself. 

What documents did you need for the visa?

The big one is proof of funds. The standard requirement at the time was around 鈧�9,600 to prove you could sustain yourself for a year. I had about 鈧�9,800 in my account. 

They鈥檙e also particular about the source of the money. Some people earn funds through salary, some through business ownership, some through selling assets like land or cars, and some through sponsorship. I used my brother’s business as my sponsor.

For sponsorship specifically, they asked for his  Corporate Affairs Commission (CAC) documents, his six-month bank statement, my own three-month bank statement, a signed and stamped sponsorship letter from him, and a cover letter from me explaining the arrangement 鈥� how much he was sending, when, and how he makes his money.

Beyond that, I submitted my admission letter, my passport data page, my school fee receipt, and proof of health insurance, which I got through for about 鈧�30,000.

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What happened at the visa interview?

The consul asked which school had admitted me and how I was paying my fees.  I told her about the 80% scholarship and explained that I had already paid the remaining 20%, with receipts attached.

I also told her about the sponsorship from my brother and what his business does. That was really it. The whole thing is built around proving your source of funds is genuine.

How long did the visa process take, and how did you feel waiting?

It took 28 days for the decision, then about another week for the residence permit to arrive from Abuja. Honestly, I can’t fully explain how I felt waiting; I was anxious the whole time. I knew I hadn’t touched the money in my account, so there was no reason for a red flag, but I had heard of people waiting from 20 days to a full year for a decision. 

I was in a group chat with other applicants, constantly asking when they were going for their appointments so I could calculate my own timeline. The day my visa came through, I nearly lost my mind.

What did the whole process cost you?

Aside from the 鈧�18 million proof of funds, I estimate I spent around 鈧�5-6 million in total. That covers the 鈧�100 joint application fee (about 鈧�150,000+ at the time), the visa application fee of about 鈧�450 (which came to over 鈧�800,000 paid in person at VFS, plus delivery charges), the 鈧�30,000-ish health insurance, and flights to Abuja first, then to Finland. There鈥檚 also the balance of my school fees.

Did you need an English proficiency test?

No, I didn’t. My school gave me a letter of English proficiency instead; there was an exemption specifically for Nigerian students. But it varies; some schools ask for a formal English test. For the general application, you’ll need your transcript, degree certificate, and either the test or the proficiency letter.

What are some mistakes you made during the process?

Just one: when I submitted my visa application, I was sure I had attached everything, but my passport data page didn’t show up on the site. I only caught it a day or two before my VFS appointment and panicked, but it turned out to be a small fix; I just had to re-upload it as an additional document, since the system sometimes drops a file if you’ve attached too many at once. Lesson: always double-check every document actually uploaded, not just that you attached it.

What was the first week in Finland like, and what culture shocks stood out?

I wasn’t overly excited when I landed. I think I was just tired from the two-day journey. It hit me properly on the second or third day.

One early culture shock: public transport runs strictly on schedule. In Nigeria, you can just stand at a bus stop and something will come; here, you check Google Maps, and if you miss the bus, you’re waiting another ten to 20 minutes.

Another one 鈥� a lecturer once lost 20 minutes to a technical issue in a computer room, and later that day sent an email apologising to the whole class and confirming that the material wouldn’t appear on our exam. I remember thinking that could never happen back home.

Registering as a resident and opening a bank account were another shocker; everything runs by appointment. I waited close to two months to open a Finnish bank account. You can’t just walk into a bank the way you would in Nigeria.

How did you sort out accommodation?

Honestly, this tested my patience the most. I didn’t know anyone in Finland before arriving, and I made the mistake of waiting until my residence permit was approved before applying for student housing. Because of that delay, I didn’t get my own apartment until December, even though I arrived in August.

Before travelling, I messaged someone on Instagram, and she agreed to let me stay with her for the first month if I hadn’t sorted accommodation by the time I arrived; she ended up picking me up from the airport too.

 I stayed with her far longer than a month in the end, and we just clicked. My advice to anyone coming: the moment you get your admission and start your visa application, apply for student housing immediately so you’re not stranded.

What do you love most about living in Finland?

The security and quality of life, honestly. My door can stay unlocked, and I can walk outside at 1 a.m., without anything happening to me. Everything just works. The one thing that drags the experience down is the job market, which is genuinely difficult right now.

How have you built community there?

I have, and my church has been a big part of it. It helps that we’re a Black congregation.

The friend who housed me had already been in Finland a year longer, so she introduced me to her circle, including other international students. A group of us who arrived around the same time now hang out occasionally. Beyond that, I keep a small circle and enjoy my own space. I鈥檓 not an extrovert, so being indoors doesn鈥檛 bother me much, except that it gets boring sometimes.

Has the language been a barrier?

Yes, especially for jobs 鈥� that’s actually one of the biggest reasons the job market is difficult for internationals. Finnish people can speak English, but they default to Finnish first, and they take pride in the language. If I say “English, please,” they’ll usually switch, but early on, when I got lost navigating the city, some people would just point me to Google Maps instead. I still don’t speak Finnish 鈥� I’m learning slowly, but I get by on English day-to-day.

What’s the cost of living like as a student?

It’s still cheap, at least where I am. Student housing ranges from about 鈧�230 to 鈧�250-plus a month, depending on the setup and the city you live in.

Food isn’t too expensive either. As long as you have a job, you’re generally fine. The minimum wage varies by industry, but it’s roughly 鈧�10-鈧�12 per hour, and as a student, you’re allowed to work up to 30 hours per week.

Do you miss Nigeria?

I mostly miss my mum and the general chaos and energy of home. There’s a liveliness in Nigeria that I miss. 

t’s not really about the food, since I still cook Nigerian food here. But if you sent me back right now, I couldn’t last more than three weeks before wanting to return to Finland.

What does the path to permanent residency look like from here?

My residence permit lasts for two years. The rules have recently changed 鈥� if you complete 15 credit units of Finnish-language coursework while studying, you can now apply for PR much sooner than before, instead of waiting four to five years.

Once my current permit expires, I can also apply for an extended residence permit that gives me time to look for a good job. I don’t know the full details of that process yet, though.

Anything else you want people to know?

Scholarship policies are changing. My school used to offer an 80% scholarship, but that’s gone now. What’s available currently is more of an “early bird” discount, around 鈧�3,000 off if you pay your school fees on time.

Universities across Finland seem to be cutting back on scholarships in general, so anyone considering this route needs to check directly with their target schools rather than assume scholarships like mine are still on the table.

On a scale of one to ten, how would you rate life in Finland?

I’d have said ten, but the job situation knocks off two points. So, eight out of ten.

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I have lived in聽 South Africa for nearly as long as I鈥檝e been breathing. I don鈥檛 remember the move myself; I only know I got there in 2009, at age 4, because I was told. Before I was born, my dad had already been living and working there, trying to build something so he could bring my elder brother and me over.

My first real memories start from my preschool. By then, I’d already forgotten Yoruba, because my dad didn’t speak it and we were just fully becoming South African. My dad met my stepmom when I turned 6. She’s South African, and she’s the best woman in the world 鈥� she’s the one who raised me into who I am. We lived in the west of Johannesburg, moved between Roodepoort and a few other places, and I basically grew up there for the rest of my life. I only went back to Nigeria once, for a short trip in December 2012.

We weren’t rich. My family believed in discipline, education, and hard work above everything else, and my parents were very strict about it. My dad and stepmom would tell me, growing up: you’re a foreigner,  not South African, and you’ll never be treated the same 鈥� don’t forget that. I heard it, but it didn’t really register. I was a kid making real friendships. I felt like I belonged.

My parents鈥� warning never really hit home until I turned 18.

I watched my friends get their IDs, get their driver鈥檚 license, open bank accounts, you know? typical adult stuff. I’d ask my dad when I could do the same, and he’d just say, “It’s coming, it’s coming.” I didn’t know yet that there was anything actually wrong with my papers.

In high school, I was deputy head boy and a top 20 student. In my final year exams, I got four distinctions, including 90s in maths and physics. My marks put me in the top per cent of high school graduates in the country. 

On the strength of that, I got into Wits University to study chemical engineering and completely fell in love with the degree, but when I applied for a study permit, Home Affairs rejected my application. That’s when I found out I didn’t have proper papers, and that’s why other things were much more complicated for me.

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I want to be clear about this part. I didn’t sneak into South Africa. I came in as a child on my father’s documentation through the legal process. The problem wasn’t that I broke a rule, it’s that a category of people like me, who entered legally as minors and aged into adulthood within a broken system, don’t have a clean path to formalise their status. There are people in South Africa who came in illegally, who aren’t supposed to be there. I’m not talking about them, I’m talking about the ones who did it the right way and still got stuck.

When Wits saw that I’d hired an immigration lawyer and was actively pursuing my papers, they gave me a conditional registration for the second year in 2025,  meaning I could continue on the understanding that I’d have my status sorted out by year’s end. We appealed by email, over and over, no response.

In December 2025, my mom and I drove to the Home Affairs head office in Pretoria with every document printed out, because we weren’t even sure our emails were being received. Nobody came down to meet us. Someone upstairs called the reception desk and told us to leave, saying that appeals could only be done by email. When we asked if they’d gotten our previous ones, they didn’t even check.

By early 2026, Wits told me I couldn’t register for third year, and that was it. I’d worked as hard as a student possibly could, and none of it mattered.

I am hurt, but it wasn’t South Africans who did this to me. My friends never once treated me differently once they learned my situation; if anything, we got closer. A lot of them started emailing Home Affairs on my behalf, trying to get someone, anyone, to look at my case.

My daily life barely changed. The only real hostility I ever ran into was from the odd Uber driver going on a rant about immigrants “stealing jobs.”  I just sat in the front seat, trying not to say anything that would give me away.

The people frustrating my life were government workers, not neighbours. To me, it鈥檚 systematic xenophobia, because the system treats you as a permanent outsider, no matter how legal your papers are, how long you’ve lived there, or how much you’ve contributed. It鈥檚 heavier than the physical xenophobia everyone sees on the news.  It鈥檚 slow and invisible, so it doesn鈥檛 get as much attention as the second kind. Why would it? There鈥檚 no camera to capture it. 

I’ve given it a lot of thought, and I鈥檓 convinced the systematic failure in South Africa is behind the protests we see. Its invisible nature is why foreigners are attacked: most people can’t picture the government as the villain, so they blame the foreigner, who they can see. 

It doesn’t help that foreigners often take the odd jobs South Africans won’t 鈥� the barbering, the gardening, the roadside plumbing 鈥� for a fraction of what a South African would demand for the same work. That gets read as “stealing” when it’s really just people doing work nobody else wanted to do at a price nobody else would accept.

My dad lived this too. He’s an IT specialist who trained South Africans in townships for years, helping people become qualified enough to leave poverty behind. But because he was a foreigner, clients would refuse to pay him for finished work, knowing he had no real recourse. Several of his businesses went under because of it. He has permanent residence.

 My dad is married to a South African, and he still couldn’t get his son’s papers sorted. In January 2026, he moved back to Nigeria to try to start over.

Something broke in me when  I couldn’t register for my course for the third year of university. I had lived as close to a model life as a student could 鈥� head boy, top marks, no trouble 鈥� and it still came down to one fact: I was a foreigner, and the country I’d grown up in didn’t want me. I’ve put it this way before: the country raised me, then proceeded to abandon me once I was old enough for it to matter.

With school frozen, I spent most of 2026 at home, coding online because there was nothing else to do. When Nigeria opened its repatriation program, I signed up almost immediately. I was terrified, but I knew that if I didn’t do it, things could get worse for me.

The repatriation process itself took four days just for screening 鈥� passport vetting, police clearance, biometrics, and a final Home Affairs sign-off, at their Pretoria office. I went in expecting a single day and ended up sleeping at friends’ places for most of a week, because I hadn’t packed for a stay. 

During the wait before my flight, my university friends threw me a surprise goodbye party. We had a big, beautiful braai and spent time together. Towards the end of the party, they brought out a gift鈥� a South African soccer shirt signed by all my university friends. I felt so loved that I found myself crying on the floor, and in a heartbeat, all my friends joined me there, hugging and crying with me. This gesture had to be the best thing that has ever happened to me. I love my friends so much.

On Wednesday, July 1, the embassy called: my flight was the next morning, and I needed to be there by 10 am. As an overthinker, I’d already been packing in my head for months, but I still had less than 24 hours to compress an entire life into three bags. Friends came by to say goodbye, and sadly, I didn’t get the chance to see my best friend before I left 鈥� there just wasn’t time.

We got to the embassy at 10 am and didn’t leave until 7 pm. Five buses took us to O.R. Tambo airport. We didn’t board until 4 am and took off at 5. Because my visa had technically lapsed while I was waiting for Home Affairs to process my permit, my exit was recorded as an overstay, which resulted in a five-year ban. I can’t legally return to South Africa until 2031.

By the time the plane actually left the ground, I was feeling a lot of emotions, from fear to disappointment and, at some point, anger. I had been feeling this way since January, when I first accepted my fate, but there was relief mixed in, too: I was finally going somewhere I wouldn’t be treated as less just for being Nigerian.

We landed in the cargo area of the airport in Lagos, and it was so hot, it hit me like a wall. 

What I wasn’t ready for was how well-organised the reception was. MTN was waiting with SIM cards, 100 gigabytes of data, and 鈧�50,000 in airtime for every returnee, so we could reach our families immediately.

Within two hours of landing, they’d registered us for our National Identification Numbers (NIN). There’s something almost funny about that: I spent years failing to get legal recognition in South Africa, and I got documented as a Nigerian citizen within two hours of touching down.

My dad picked me up, and so far I’ve been living at my uncle’s place in Lagos. The culture shock is real; Nigerians are loud in a way that has nothing to do with anger. I’m naturally soft-spoken, and people keep telling me to “talk properly,” when really I’m just not used to how loud normal conversation is here. I can follow Pidgin but can’t speak it, and I never learned Yoruba 鈥� I asked my dad to teach me when I was 15, and he brushed it off, saying I’d pick it up in church.

Strangely, my body feels more at home here than it ever did in Johannesburg. I used to get sick constantly in South Africa. Here, despite the heat, something about it feels right, like my body already knows the place.

I haven’t seen a naira of the stipend I’ve been promised yet 鈥� I still need to open a bank account and link my number to my NIN before that can happen. My stepmom and little sister, who are both South African, are still there. I don’t know when I’ll see them again. Maybe December, if the money works out. Maybe not.

I’ve already secured my transcript from Wits, so I have what I need to transfer. The University of Ilorin is one of the few public universities that accept international transfers, and that鈥檚 my target. 

I’m going to finish my chemical engineering degree, then do a master’s in power engineering and petroleum, because I want to work on electricity generation and infrastructure on this continent.

What breaks my heart most isn’t the xenophobia on its own 鈥� it’s that it’s Africans doing this to other Africans. I don’t think that’s really xenophobia so much as Afrophobia. We’re sitting on the continent with the most untapped potential on earth, and instead of building it together, we’re chasing each other out.

I want to work for the African Union one day, on a policy that stops this exact thing from happening to the next person. South Africa raised me and then closed the door. I’m going to build what’s next right here, in the country that’s actually mine.

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On Friday, June 26, First Lady Oluremi Tinubu that Nigerians struggling with the cost of living should consider frying akara or roasting corn, as the Federal Government would offer grants to help them get started. Within hours, the tone-deaf comment had become the internet’s newest meme.

On July 2, President Tinubu at a press dinner, playfully introducing his wife as “Iya Alakara,鈥� meaning Akara seller. Following the joke, the Presidency’s media team leaned into the new nickname and posted an AI-generated of the First Lady as a roadside akara seller.

And just like that, Akara became the main character. The conversation shifted from “How is selling akara the solution?” to “Who’s posting the funniest skit?” This happens every single time our leaders fumble; we laugh instead of demanding answers.

We’ve been here before

Nigeria has no shortage of serious political moments that somehow end up as memes.  

In 2018, a Joint Admissions Matriculation Board (JAMB) clerk in Makurdi claimed a snake swallowed 鈧�36 million belonging to the board, money later to staff misappropriation. 

The story quickly became one of Nigeria’s most enduring political jokes, with content creators making skits and using “the snake swallowed it” as a response when asked about something they don’t have an answer to.聽

In 2020, the Niger Delta Development Commission (NDDC) then-acting managing director, Kemebradikumo Pondei, mid-hearing while being questioned about 鈧�40 billion in missing commission funds, attributing it to an “unexplained health challenge.”

Content creators made skits and jokes about the situation, prompting multiple people to reenact the incident and causing it to go viral.聽

Here If snakes swallowing cash was the height of it, you鈥檙e in for a shocker. In 2022, officials at the Nigeria Social Insurance Trust Fund (NSITF) a Senate panel that termites had chewed through the receipts showing how the 鈧�17 billion was spent.

It’s the same routine. A crazy political moment occurs, the internet gets to work, and everyone’s in on the joke; before long, the memes have outlived the conversation that started it. 

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Standup comedians

We no longer live in a country where the government merely fumbles; we live in one where the government manufactures memes to cover up its fumbling. 

When the Presidency’s media team posted an AI-generated image mocking its own First Lady’s tone-deaf remarks, it wasn’t a harmless attempt to match the public’s humour. It was a calculated political deflection.

That’s where things get tricky. Once government failure becomes content, it’s much easier for the people behind it to join the joke than answer for it. By adopting the “Iya Alakara” nickname, the government effectively hijacked the narrative, shifting a legitimate crisis of empathy into a marketing campaign.

This means the next time a minister says something tone-deaf about your salary or your electricity bill, the expected response isn’t outrage, it’s a skit, and skits don’t get anyone fired.

What鈥檚 funny?

While Nigerians are busy making skits and memes out of failure and corruption, the country keeps dying. Transparency International’s latest Corruption Perceptions has rated Nigeria 26 out of 100 for the second year running, while the country slipped from 140th to 142nd globally.

This rating will only worsen if we allow politicians to get away with corruption. Our poverty rate will continue to skyrocket if we laugh away ridiculous solutions rather than demand accountability,  and politicians will generate memes to mock our poverty because we鈥檝e made them think it鈥檚 ok.

Because of our tendency to joke about everything, politicians know now they can get away with looting billions when they come to court in stretchers, when they pretend to faint, or make up ridiculous excuses to evade scrutiny.

They do it because they know we鈥檇 only be outraged for two days before we turn it into memes.

And so, it鈥檚 up to us to decide: do we want a political class so afraid of the populace they鈥檇 think twice about their actions and utterances, or one that fears nothing because they know they鈥檒l be laughed at rather than challenged.

We want to hear about your personal experiences that reflect how politics or public systems affect daily life in Nigeria. Share your story with us 鈥攚e鈥檇 love to hear from you!

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When you grow up in Nigeria, you learn very early that you are your own government. If there’s a fire, you fetch water. If there’s a security threat, you lock your gate and pray. I learned that lesson at eight or nine years old, when my school bus was involved in an accident on the expressway. We waited, but no police or road safety personnel came.

Eventually, the teachers with us flagged down a , and we went home. If we’d been bleeding instead of just stranded, that delay could have killed us. In Nigeria, it can feel as if nobody knows who you are or where you came from; help will not get to you, no matter how bad the situation is.

Years later, during the 2020 lockdown, I started actively watching the news with my dad. I would watch news stations like Arise TV, Channels, and sometimes CNN. I kept hearing the same two words, week after week, month after month: “unknown gunmen.

What shocked me the most was that it wasn’t just ordinary people saying it. It was the police and the military. Our very own security forces, telling the country that the people terrorising us were simply unknown. That never sat right with me. That was when the idea for the came to me.

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When I started telling people about the idea, the reaction split right down the middle. Some got it instantly, no convincing was needed, but a lot of people, including people very close to me, asked the same question first: don’t we already have Twitter and Instagram for this? 

I had to explain, over and over, that those platforms weren’t built for real-time reporting. If you’re an average person and you film an ongoing robbery and post it, it has to go viral before enough people see it and actually respond 鈥� and by then, whoever did it would be long gone.

Social media rewards what’s trending, not what’s happening ten minutes from your house, and these days it鈥檚 obvious that it wasn’t built for the kind of misinformation-proofing a safety tool actually needs.

What hurt even more, honestly, was realising the loudest support wasn’t coming from my own circle. I had a few hundred followers, so when we put out the call for beta testers and asked for general feedback, I assumed at least 20% of my own people would respond, but that wasn’t the case. 

It was strangers, people I’d never met, who actually showed up first.

I started commenting under security stories on Arise TV and Channels TV’s Instagram pages, one person at a time, pitching the app to people already venting about insecurity in the comments. Those strangers became our first real users, long before anyone in my network did.

The idea itself didn’t come from me alone. I met my co-founders, Tunji, in 2015 from secondary school, and Kosi around 2022. What brought us together on this project was a shared frustration with the state of security in Nigeria. 

Kosi had survived a “one-chance” robbery: he had gotten into the wrong bus and jumped out just in time before anything worse could happen.  Tunji remembers a night where he lay awake listening to gunshots coming from outside his own compound, wondering if anyone else could hear them, wondering who, if anyone, was coming to control the situation.

We were young, still in school, and we kept telling ourselves we’d build something “when we had more experience, more time, and more money.” At some point, we just asked each other, “What can we build now?” And that question solidified what the Wahala App is today.

What followed was three years of failure. We didn’t have the skills yet. My undergrad was in robotics and mechatronics, and I’m currently doing a master’s in mechanical engineering at the University of Michigan. None of that involves the software you use to build an app. 

The first attempt at building the app was a Figma file and a friend who tried to flesh it out, but their interests never really aligned, so it died. A second attempt with someone else went the same way: a good idea but no follow-through.

I remember my mentor once telling me that nobody hands you money or belief just because you have a good idea; if you have to build the first version out of toothpicks and paper, build it out of toothpicks and paper. That line followed me as I tried again. 

It wasn’t until October last year that things actually aligned, not just our schedules, but our experience. By then, we’d all levelled up in our own corners: I’d picked up enough software skills outside my formal training, Kosi had sharpened his mobile development skills, and Tunji had real production experience. We pushed, and pushed, and by late April this year, the app was live.

Once it was live, the three of us split along the lines of what we’d each spent years getting good at. I handle the app’s vision and mission, as well as the app’s AI feature.

The AI scrapes and verifies incident reports from credible Nigerian news sources around the clock, which populated the map with real data before we had many users at all.

Kosi, who has a degree in computer engineering and works in the human resources tech space, owns the mobile app, the user interface, and the notification urgency.

Tunji, who studied computer science and mathematics and has worked with Amazon and Twitch, built our entire mapping infrastructure from the ground up. His maps enable people to see that an incident happened ten minutes from them, not just read a headline about it.

Between the three of us, there’s no single founder-and-developer dynamic; we’re all technical, which means the product can move as fast as our shared urgency.

Watching the map fill in for the first time, even before real users joined, was its own kind of shock. In a single day, you’d see terrorism pins spreading across the North, banditry tearing through the Middle Belt, kidnappings locking down the South.

It looked like something out of an investigative documentary. I had to build a deliberate mental block to keep functioning, the way I imagine a doctor does, working around blood and death often enough that it stops being able to stop you. 

If I sat in the full weight of every notification, I’d never have shipped anything. What surprised me is that the data cuts both ways: the same feed that shows the worst of the country also shows when the police actually make an arrest or recover someone. 

We assume the government is failing at everything, all the time. The data doesn’t always agree. If people think the government is doing 20 per cent, the honest number is sometimes closer to 30. That realisation changed something for me about how I view law enforcement in the country. This is not me forgiving them for the times when they simply didnt do their job, but it has given me a clearer picture.

We’re a little over two months in now, with just over 100 users. A few weeks ago, a friend received a real-time alert in the app about an incident, and the story he’d been warned about didn’t become public until the following Tuesday or Wednesday, almost a week after he learned about it. When I shared this with the team, that moment solidified the work for us because that鈥檚 the app鈥檚 goal.

We鈥檝e been doing a ton of research about the accessibility of the app, and we鈥檝e found that in places like the South and Middle Belt, most people have some kind of Android device, even an old one, and that’s enough to run the app.

A photo of a suspicious car, a flooded road, a car involved in an accident, a building on fire, or a video of a robbery in progress, posted anonymously, can warn an entire street before the next person walks into the same danger. 

The harder case is the North, where the worst attacks happen, and connectivity is almost nonexistent. Nobody fleeing a gun stops to film it, but somebody in that community usually is documenting it. 

There’s an Instagram account, run by someone who goes by “the English Malam,” that somehow manages to get real footage of bandits on motorcycles, almost always after the fact. That information already exists. It’s just stuck on one person’s page instead of reaching the people who need it in time. 

Our plan is to put that same documenting instinct directly into the hands of community leaders, vigilantes, forest guards 鈥� people already doing this informally 鈥� and pair it with SMS-based alerts, so that knowing about danger doesn’t require owning a smartphone or having data, just a phone that can receive a text.

None of these fixes Nigeria’s security problem, and I’m not naive enough to think that one app can. What it can do is shrink the gap between something happening and the people nearby finding out, the same gap that, decades ago, left a school bus full of kids waiting on an expressway with nobody coming to help them. The number of Nigerians who die or disappear and become mere figures is alarming. I want a market trader’s warning to count as much as a politician’s private security detail does. That’s the thing I couldn’t stop thinking about long enough to leave it alone.

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Adedamola (30) left Nigeria for the UK in 2022, eight months pregnant, because she was determined not to give birth in Nigeria. Three years later, she’s a Canadian permanent resident through the express entry pool, thanks to an Instagram comment from a stranger. Here鈥檚 how she did it. 

Where do you live now, and when did you leave Nigeria?

I currently live in Calgary, Canada. I left Nigeria in August 2022 for the United Kingdom (UK). 

What pushed you to leave?

Honestly, I had always wanted to leave. I’ve wanted to go to Canada since I was young. But my dad didn’t believe it was right for his single children to travel; he wanted me to marry first, before I could make such a decision. So when I was younger, I’d applied to the United States (US) and Germany before, during my service year, and I still didnt get the visas

The major push for me came on my wedding day (in 2021), when a close friend told me she was leaving for the UK with her husband within days. I remember thinking, ” What am I doing here? Everybody is leaving me.鈥� It also helped that I had gotten  married now, so my dad couldn’t ask, “Where’s your husband?” There was nothing stopping me anymore.

Add this to my fear of the Nigerian medical system as well. I didn’t want to have children in Nigeria. So had already begun researching schools in the UK on my wedding night, while we counted money.

Interesting story. How did you eventually end up in the UK?

When I was researching, I started with scholarships, but I realised that route would take too long, and I wanted something faster. So I started applying directly to self-funded schools. It’s actually very easy: you email the school, tell them your qualifications, and they go back and forth with you on fees and deposit.

I’d applied to and one other school, but it didn鈥檛 work out. Eventually, I found the University of Hull; it was cheap, the deposit was just 拢2,000, which was about 鈧�1 million at the time. 

Once the deposit cleared, the school upgraded my offer from conditional to unconditional and issued me a CAS (Confirmation of Acceptance for Studies). That’s what you use to apply for the student visa online. I was the main applicant since I was the student, and my husband came as my dependent.

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How much did the entire process cost?

The fees per person were: a visa fee of around 拢300鈥�400, an Immigration Health Surcharge (IHS) of 拢888.05, and a biometrics fee of about 拢69. The visa itself took about two weeks to come, which was fast.

So after paying the fees and getting the visa, what happened next?

I was admitted to the school, and I was expected to resume in September of 2022. By then, I was pregnant and due that same month. I was terrified of giving birth in Nigeria, and also worried that my admission would be revoked if I missed my registration window.

We got our passports back in August, and immediately after, we booked flights to leave in less than three days.

We paid 鈧�2.5 million for two tickets; meanwhile, people travelling around that time who could wait a few weeks paid as little as 鈧�500,000 for a family of three. My doctor was nervous about even certifying me to fly at 35 weeks. I couldn’t eat or drink much on the flight, and I was so anxious. We landed in the UK with very little money, about $150 in cash. 

Oh wow. Did you experience any culture shocks while settling in?

Moving to the UK, where the driver’s side is on the left, was really shocking for me. The cold was also a big shocker; it was a lot to take in, especially since we came when winter was about to start.

The biggest surprise of all was how supportive the system was. When I was anxious about the baby not moving, someone told me to just walk into the emergency department and explain how I felt. They attended to me immediately, even though I hadn鈥檛 done my registration yet.

We first stayed with a friend in Birmingham before moving to Hull, where my school helped us find accommodation. Because I was pregnant, our landlord gave us two rooms in a shared house and let us pay three months’ rent upfront. 

Balancing it all was genuinely one of the darkest periods of my life. My husband worked day and night to cover us once the prepaid rent ran out. I had to bring my daughter to class most days, and my lecturers would literally carry her while teaching. It was rough, but it got better with time.

That seems like a lot. What did work and the cost of living actually look like in the UK?

I first worked in a care home with elderly residents. The company had promised to sponsor our visas through a Certificate of Sponsorship (CoS), but once people’s student visas began to expire, they backed out. So I moved to a support work role with an organisation supporting people with disabilities, and stayed there until I left the UK.

There was a lot of racism in the UK, especially in healthcare workplaces, the kind of treatment that made me second-guess ever moving to the UK. 

When it comes to the cost of living, rent for a two-bedroom in the city centre was 拢650 a month. Food was actually cheap in the UK; we’d spend around 拢400 a month, mostly on African groceries since my husband doesn’t eat British food.

Between rent, bills, council tax, and food, we were spending at least 拢1,000 a month against a salary that maxed out around 拢1,600鈥�1,800. It was genuinely hard to save.

Childcare nearly broke me too; it was around 拢60 an hour, and I was earning about 拢12 an hour. That’s part of why I only had one child while in the UK.

So why did you leave the UK for Canada?

The path to actually becoming a citizen was almost impossible. After your student visa, the UK gives you two years post-study to find a job that’ll sponsor you with a CoS. You need five years on that sponsorship before you can apply for indefinite Leave to Remain (ILR), basically the UK’s version of a permanent residence permit and then more time after that (not sure about the exact number of years) before citizenship.

Employers in the UK know you need that CoS, so some of them treat you badly. I wasn’t willing to lock myself into five years of that.

On top of that, the UK kept floating policies to extend the timeline to ten years because so many immigrants had arrived during that period. I’d always wanted Canada anyway; I’d only gone to the UK first because I needed to leave Nigeria immediately.

How did the move to Canada happen?

I had been in Canada’s Express Entry pool since 2020, even before I married my husband. But I never received an invitation because my banking and customer service experience from Nigeria wasn’t in an occupation Canada was actively prioritising. 

Then one day on Instagram, I saw someone comment that she was leaving the UK for Canada, her exact words were, “thank God for healthcare.” I went straight to her DMs to ask what she meant because I had experience working in healthcare.

She told me Canada had started category-based draws, with healthcare as one of the targeted categories, and that support workers and care home staff were counted as healthcare workers, not just doctors and nurses. I had no idea.

That same night, I updated my Express Entry profile with my UK healthcare work experience. I had a score of 475; the draw cutoff was around 465鈥�468. I got my invitation to apply within a month.

That’s so awesome. Can you break down how the Express Entry scoring works?

Two people can have identical scores and get completely different outcomes because Canada runs category-based draws 鈥� they announce which professions or skills they need at a given time: French speakers, healthcare workers, welders, and electricians are currently preferred over other professions. If your score is high but you’re not in the category they’re pulling from, you won’t get picked.

To enter the pool, you need a degree evaluation and a language test like IELTS. Your score is also shaped by your age, points drop by 5 at each birthday after 30, and your education level.

If you have a master’s or postgraduate degree, you’ll have more points than someone with just a bachelor’s. I already had a master’s degree from Nigeria, so that helped me.

For work experience, the maximum is three years of foreign experience, and you can combine different jobs to reach it. For me, that meant one year in UK healthcare plus two years from my banking job in Nigeria. There’s a you can use to estimate your score before you’re even in the pool.

What were your next steps after getting your visa, and how did you secure housing?

Once the visa was sorted, we started preparing for the move. I actually found an apartment online before landing, but my cousin, who lives here in Calgary, was an incredible help. They went to view the property in person for me to make sure everything was legit, and they helped pay the deposit and the first month’s rent. Having family on the ground to verify things took a massive weight off my shoulders before I even boarded the flight.

Did you experience anything that was different from the UK when you first arrived?

One of the biggest differences was childcare. In Canada, my second daughter got a daycare spot at six months old; I didn鈥檛 have postpartum depression partly because of that support. Childcare is cheaper and a whole lot easier to afford now.

How did the job hunt go once you got there?

I was honestly terrified. Everything I saw online about the Canadian job market scared me. A friend who’d been in Canada for years told me the trick was applying in volume: like about  10鈥�15 jobs every single day. I treated it like a job itself, sometimes hitting 20 applications a day. Referrals didn’t work for me.

I also stopped using a generic CV. I tailored each CV to match the specific job description, using ChatGPT to help align my experience with each role’s requirements.

The interview process here is intense; I went through four or five stages for a single role. I eventually landed a customer advisor job at an insurance company in Calgary within three months of arriving, with no industry-specific experience required. They trained me for over a month before I started speaking to customers.

How does the cost of living actually compare between the two countries?

It’s high in Canada, too, but the earning power makes a difference. In the UK, I was earning around 拢1,600鈥�1,800 a month, and my expenses alone were eating over 拢1,000 of that.

In Canada, I was earning about $1,515 biweekly, roughly $3,000 a month, while paying $1,300 for rent and about $150 for electricity. Even when my husband was between jobs, and I was the only one earning, I was still saving close to $1,000鈥�$1,200 a month.

With both of us working, household income would be closer to $6,000, against maybe $2,000 in fixed costs.

Groceries are expensive here too, but it still feels more manageable overall than the UK, where bills, council tax, and childcare left almost nothing behind.

What’s your favourite thing about Canada so far?

I love how family-oriented it is. The childcare support alone changed everything for me, and so far, I haven’t experienced the kind of racism I dealt with constantly in UK workplaces. I feel respected as a human being here, and genuinely at peace.

Any advice for someone considering this route?

Do better research. I see people who’ve followed me online for years still asking me questions I’ve already answered publicly, instead of looking things up themselves. 

I’ve never used an agent for any visa, be it mine, my husband’s, or even my parents’. Agents aren’t doing anything special; if you’d qualify, you’d qualify either way. People get scammed because they refuse to do their own homework.

Any mistakes you’d want others to avoid?

I wish I’d researched the UK more before picking a school. If I’d gone somewhere bigger, say Birmingham, Manchester, or London, instead of Hull, I might have had more opportunities outside healthcare.

I also didn’t realise until after I’d already spent the money that some people were coming from Nigeria with a CoS already arranged, sponsored directly, with visa and accommodation covered. If I’d known that route existed, I could have skipped a lot of the financial stress.

On a scale of one to ten, how would you rate your life in Canada right now?

Ten over ten. I feel relieved, at peace, and respected. I don’t have any complaints so far.

Want to share your japa story? Please reach out to me .

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Jumoke* (27) spent years building a career in Lagos until a global design contest she won convinced her that Nigeria was holding her back. She talks about her family’s nine-year wait for Canadian PR, the paperwork setbacks, and why Vancouver has made it all worthwhile.

Where do you currently live, and when did you leave Nigeria?

I currently live in British Columbia, Canada. I left Nigeria in August 2025.

What was life like for you in Nigeria before you left?

I already had a life built around my career. I had an existing community there. I worked as a visual designer, and I enjoyed it.

What pushed you to actually leave?

In 2018,  Adobe was running a contest sponsored by Marvel and Sony, and I won. But I was in the wrong country for it 鈥� it was a whole back-and-forth, and it took a year before everything was sorted before I could even get the prize I’d won. Just being in a country that wasn’t on their eligible list cost me that much time and stress. That was one of my “I have to move” moments. I felt there’d be more opportunities for me outside Nigeria.

Why Canada specifically?

The United States (US) was actually my first choice early on. I wanted to study Visual Effects (VFX) at a school in Los Angeles so I could eventually work at Marvel Studios. But as the changes in US politics took it off the list. Canada became the next option, mainly because my mum had already been here for a few years and understood how the system worked. Family was a big part of it. It’s also close enough to the US that if I ever wanted to move there later, I still can.

Walk me through the actual route you took to Canada.

I came here as a Permanent Resident (PR) through my mum. I didn’t have to go through the route a lot of people take, which is more strenuous, but mine still took time; we started the process in 2017, and it only clicked last year.

My mum had been there long enough to qualify for permanent residency. Once that clicked for her, she applied for the rest of the family. The COVID-19 pandemic caused some disruptions that delayed things. All in, it took almost a decade, but I鈥檓 here now as a permanent resident.

Yikes, nine years is a lot. What did the process actually involve once it got moving?

A lot of forms, honestly. It felt like one small mistake, even a stray full stop, could stop the whole thing from moving forward. There was a lot of back-and-forth with the paperwork. You had to fill out eight to ten forms per person, and we moved as a family, so imagine all of us filling that many forms each, all at once.

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What documents did you need to have in place?

Birth certificates, school certificates, basically, whatever certificates you had pertaining to school. A police background check. Photos showing family relationships, so pictures of us together, and my parents’ marriage certificate. And bank statements 鈥� I think what they also wanted to see there was proof of the jobs I’d held and payments from those jobs. 

Roughly how much did the whole process cost?

The PR application itself costs roughly $10,000. The flights for all of us came to about 鈧�15 million in total. We also had to do medicals twice, actually, at different stages 鈥� one was basic tests, the other was more in-depth, with X-rays and blood tests for certain diseases, which cost about 鈧�250,000 per person.

Other than COVID, were there any setbacks that slowed things down?

Honestly, I’d say the forms. It felt like our forms kept getting lost, or there’d be mistakes that genuinely shouldn’t have been there. It would take months for them to come back and say a detail was missing, you’d refill it, wait another four or five months hoping for good news, and then hear it’s something else missing. The whole thing was frustrating.

What stood out to you in your first few weeks in Canada?

The people, honestly. Everyone was so much nicer than I expected. 

In my second week here, I walked into Walmart when a Nigerian woman approached me, noticing I was new. She gave me her number and invited me to a Bible study where I met other Nigerians and people from different backgrounds. That’s how I started building community here.聽

Also, the system just works. When Google Maps says the bus will arrive in three minutes, it does exactly that.

What do you love most about Canada so far?

Being outside. Where I live, there are mountains everywhere, and the greenery is nothing like what we have in Lagos. Beyond the environment, there鈥檚 a feeling of possibility. I no longer feel that government incompetence or random hindrances will stop me from achieving anything I work towards.

And what don’t you love?

The pace, honestly. I don’t feel like I have enough time to actually enjoy things 鈥� I’m always on the move, always working. I think that’s partly because I’m still building my life here, so I have to lock in now if I want the future I’m picturing for myself.

Interesting, do you think that鈥檚 a Canada thing, or just you being ambitious?

Good question, actually. I think it’s more of a Western thing, you know, always being busy, leaving little room for family and friends unless you intentionally create it. I’m learning this. 

How have you been building community for yourself there?

I’d say I’m an introverted extrovert, so it doesn’t come naturally 鈥� I have to push myself, especially after a few days stuck indoors working. But even with how nice people have been, I still find myself too busy for the friends I do have. So it’s been about intentionally carving out time and accepting that things have to be scheduled here, not spontaneous like back home.

What’s the cost of living like over there?

I didn’t have a job for about ten months after arriving, which, honestly, led to another shock for me: how much the government actually helps you. There’s a program through community centres that serves citizens and new PRs, and that program paid me 1,060 Canadian Dollars (CAD) a month to cover rent, groceries, and living costs while I looked for work. That’s what sustained me and allowed me to contribute to the household rather than leave everything to my parents.

Rents are pretty expensive here. A friend of mine has a one-bedroom and told me she got a good deal, and she still pays around CAD 1,600 a month. 

For transport, I use a transit card, about $2.75 a tap, and any trip within roughly an hour to an hour and fifteen minutes of that first tap is free. Minimum wage here is around $18 an hour, and groceries usually cost me about $70 for a two-week stretch. Friends who’ve been here longer say prices have increased, but right now it seems pretty fair to me.

Do you miss Nigeria, and what specifically?

Sometimes, yes, mostly the community of people. Family, friends, church. I have a church here too, but it’s not quite the same. I miss being able to call someone up to hang out or go to friends鈥� houses spontaneously.

Any plans to move back, or just visit?

Definitely planning to visit, even next year. Moving back, though, I don’t think so. I might move to another country other than Canada someday, but unless Nigeria sorts itself out, I don’t see myself moving back permanently.

Looking back at the visa process, what should people taking a similar route watch out for?

The route I came through isn’t exactly common, so that’s worth keeping in mind. But generally, make sure anything you state on your forms can be backed up with actual documents, your certificates, your birth certificate, everything. 

I didn’t have my master’s certificate on hand at one point and had to send a statement of completion instead, which, luckily, still worked. Triple-check everything before you submit.

And now that you’ve actually lived there for a while, any mistakes you’d avoid next time?

I wish I had connected more while I was still in Nigeria and maybe even gotten an internship before leaving, even something small, because most employers here want “Canadian experience” no matter how strong your background is elsewhere. They want to see that you’ve worked somewhere in Canada first, even if it was volunteer work. I ended up volunteering to build that experience.

I wish I’d taken LinkedIn more seriously earlier; building connections and a presence there before moving would have helped, since referrals matter a lot here.

What do you do for work now?

I still design. I volunteered with an organisation for about a month. They saw my portfolio and the work I was already delivering, and then told me about a countrywide summer programme that runs for about eight weeks. I applied, and I got it. Now, I’m hoping they retain me permanently, but I’m still sending out applications just in case.

On a scale of one to ten, how would you rate life in Canada so far?

I’ll say eight. The two points I’m taking off are for the family and community I built back in Nigeria, which I don’t have here yet. Outside of that, everything’s been enjoyable. I haven’t run into anything particularly frustrating yet, no political unrest, no government incompetence 鈥� though I know I’m still fairly new, so there’s a lot I haven’t experienced yet.

罢丑别听聽is returning on August 22, 2026, in Lagos! Come learn from finance experts and industry leaders, and partake in unfiltered conversations about building wealth and diversifying your income stream in a country like Nigeria.聽Real stories, expert advice you can actually use, and a community ready to build wealth together.聽.