Every week, 91 seeks to understand how people move the Naira in and out of their lives. Some stories will be struggle-ish, others will be bougie. All the time, it’ll be revealing.
What’s your earliest memory of money?
Around the time I was in primary four, my mother ran a big restaurant in the North, right opposite major banks and close to a government house.
I used to go into the banks to deliver lunchboxes to customers and collect money. I was so tiny that I had to tap the top of the counter so the bankers would know I had arrived. My mum also had a deep freezer. I would take sachets of water, put them in a cooler and sell outside the shop for ₦5 per sachet. The whole bag cost ₦15, so whatever profit I made was mine to keep for snacks.
My dad ran a large building material business. That was where I learned sales. I was always so shocked by his pricing strategy.
How so?
My dad could tell a customer that he bought a sheet of zinc for ₦100 and was selling it to them at ₦110. But then, I’d look at his records and see he actually bought that zinc for ₦50.
I asked him about it one time, “Is it that you are lying to these people?”
He responded, “You wouldn’t call it a lie. It’s more like business now. It’s sales.”
He explained that if you tell customers you bought it for ₦50 and want to sell it for ₦100 or ₦150, they won’t buy. But if you tell them you bought it for ₦100 and are selling for ₦150, when they bargain down to ₦120 or ₦130, you’re not at a loss.
So, on my dad’s side, it was more about actually learning how to do business than about touching the money. But on my mum’s side, I saw the money and touched it.
What did all of this mean for your family financially?
We were an okay family. I’m the last of five children, and my mum made sure I went to a private primary school. In fact, I was the only one of my siblings to attend a private primary school because my mum was so intentional about my education. We lived in a two-bedroom apartment, and my mum was such a fashionista that if her children came out, you would know they were out. Money wasn’t really a problem for us growing up.
Then, around 2010 or 2011, my dad’s business suffered a major crash. We became a one-income household, with my mum’s restaurant business holding everything together while paying off the outstanding bills of the failed business.
My dad left for the East in 2012, and my mum stayed behind briefly because her business was doing well. By then, she had expanded into commercial catering and consulting for restaurants. Two of my brothers were still in school, so my mum had one of my sisters stay behind with them.
But my dad kept pushing for the family to join him, so my elder sister and I went to the East that same year. I was 12 years old and supposed to make the transition from JSS3 to SS1.
What was that move like for you and your sister?
Jesus Christ. It was a completely new world.
My dad was crashing with his younger sister, who had a chin-chin production company. They would make us wake up at 5:00 a.m. to start mixing flour by hand. Then we’d start frying over clay ovens, and we wouldn’t eat breakfast until noon. Sometimes, it was the chin-chin we made that we ate.
When it rained, the town was so bad that the water reached our knees; we were literally swimming. My sister got a job that paid her ₦5,000, but her first salary went straight into buying drugs because she got sick. I wasn’t even going to school. My mum usually sent us money, but since my sister and I couldn’t cook for just the two of us because of the other people in the house, we mostly ate street food and snacks, which wasn’t healthy.
This went on for about six months until my mum eventually sent money for us to rent a one-bedroom flat. She also had to leave her business in the north to come take care of us because my sister and I were dying and looking malnourished.
What did your mum’s moving to the East mean for her finances?
We lived in a very rural area in the East, where no one was eating at restaurants. She tried making soup for people to buy, tried going into red oil, and tried importing melon, but nothing worked. Still, she used her last card to put me in the best school she could find.
In 2018, when I was 17, I wrote JAMB and scored 290. My mum wanted me to attend a private university or study abroad. She even tried setting up a Coca-Cola wholesale partnership to finance my schooling, but in July 2018, she suddenly passed away.
I’m so sorry
Her death was a massive shock.
My siblings were living in different places, trying to survive, and it was just my dad and me left at home. I couldn’t even take my post-UTME because we were burying her, so my JAMB score became useless.
I had to find a job teaching nursery school, earning ₦6,000 a month, so I could buy a JAMB form for 2019. But I would go to school to teach and just start crying. I didn’t even know I was grieving; I just kept going till I couldn’t take it anymore.
I stopped going to work and bed-rotted for about three to four months, and the 2019 JAMB form passed. I didn’t even know that time had passed. I stopped going to church, stopped talking to my dad, and cut myself off from my siblings. My dad kept calling them to come and carry me before I died, but my sister couldn’t because she was in school trying to see herself through.
How long were you in that state?
Almost the whole of 2019.
In September, my brother came home and suggested I learn digital marketing. So, I went on Facebook and said I was learning digital marketing, even though I didn’t even know what it was. I wrote in a notebook with a blue pen whatever free courses my brother sent me that I understood, and with a red pen whatever I didn’t understand, to research later at cybercafés.
I also went back to teaching, now making ₦7,500 monthly.
How did learning digital marketing go?
Interesting story.
In January 2020, a lady posted on Facebook asking what people wanted to achieve, and I commented that I wanted to learn digital marketing. A man replied, telling me to add graphic design and that my life would change in five years. He offered to sponsor my learning.
I thought he was a scammer or wanted to use me for rituals, so I kept ignoring him, but he kept reaching out. He eventually connected me with his assistant, a woman, because he felt I’d trust a woman more. This man eventually paid ₦500,000 so I could learn digital marketing and graphic design at an institute for one year. He also sent me monthly stipends for transport. I couldn’t believe it.
By late 2020, I got my first social media management gig. It was free, but she gave me ₦5,000 monthly for data, and my sister sent me an Infinix phone. In January 2021, another influencer hired me for ₦30,000 per month, but she fired me after one month because her sales had decreased. She said my work was just to put picture, copy caption and paste.
I accepted in good faith because I knew I was not yet a good social media manager. So, I used my salary to buy data, paid ₦2,000 for a course, and dedicated three months to learning properly. I also stopped teaching at this time.
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What happened after those three months of learning?
My next client paid me ₦50,000/month to manage her clothing brand on Twitter, Instagram and Facebook. This time, I was like, “If I don’t do a good job here, then this social media is not for me.” Thankfully, I did a great job. We constantly sold out the clothes, and her followers grew.
Around that time, I was scrolling through Facebook and saw a pretty woman selling good Ankara dresses for ₦2,500. Remembering my dad’s business lessons, I told her, “Give me these clothes. I’ll take your pictures and post them for ₦5,000. Any amount I sell is not your business.”
I started posting her pictures, and it was an immediate hit. I also got some Facebook influencers to post the dresses. At some point, I was shipping packages to Lagos, Abuja, Kano, London, and Canada, moving over 300 pieces a month. That’s ₦2,500 in profit across 300 places.
Mad o
I was such a big girl, until everything crashed within five months.
I got the lady who produced the dresses to sell them to me for between ₦1,500 and ₦2,000, and ran a discount sale where people could buy three dresses for ₦7,500. People went wild, buying multiple pieces to resell.
I sold over 1,000 pieces in one week, bringing in over ₦2.7 million in revenue. My profit was supposed to be ₦1 million, while the remaining ₦1.7 million was for the production lady, who lived in Bayelsa. I first sent her a ₦750k deposit, plus another ₦250k a few days later. I’ve never seen the lady before, but that’s how we ran the business.
Once I got orders, I paid her a deposit, and then the balance after she delivered. It had gone smoothly several times up until that point. I even rented a shop for ₦180k and spent another ₦350k setting it up because I imagined I’d need a store to handle all the orders.
Unfortunately for me, this Bayelsa woman disappeared after receiving the deposit. She stopped answering my calls.
Ah. What did you do?
If I had known how crazy things would get, I would have been honest with the customers immediately after the woman disappeared. Maybe they would have helped me find her. But I was 21 and terrified.
I started by telling people orders were delayed due to the volume. Later, I said it was because the store wasn’t ready. I was hoping to find another tailor to make the dresses. Many people couldn’t wait, so I used the profit to start processing refunds.
I eventually found a tailor, but she insisted on sewing at ₦5,000 per dress, far higher than my other arrangement. She also insisted on getting paid in full. I needed about 200 dresses, which would cost me ₦1 million. By this time, I had used all the money I had on refunds. So, I cleared out my ₦250k savings, borrowed ₦300k from a friend and ₦150k from my siblings. Then I borrowed ₦50k here and there from different people just to complete the money and pay the tailor.
But my problems didn’t end there.
What happened?
The tailor delivered rags. They were so poor quality, I couldn’t even give them to a mad person to wear.
I got dragged on Facebook for two weeks straight by customers and even people who used to admire me. It was a terrible season. I started borrowing what I could to refund people again. At one point, I was over ₦1 million in debt. I was depressed all over again, and my dad started calling my siblings. This was towards the end of 2021.
How were you able to settle the debt?
In January 2022, my sister convinced me to follow her to the North, where she lived. There, I started juggling multiple social media management gigs at once, including a Canadian client paying me $100 monthly. The dollar was ₦500 at the time. Every amount I earned went towards settling debts.
The hardest debt was the ₦300k loan. The girl put a bounty on my head, posted me on Facebook, and insulted my sister whenever she called. She also charged ₦10k/month in interest on the loan, and by the time I was able to pay her off in mid-2022, the debt had risen to ₦410,000. My sister and her colleague contributed and helped me clear the debt.
Phew. You were finally debt-free
Finally! It took me about a year to settle everything.
In August, I pitched to a tech community to manage their social media, and they sponsored my trip to Lagos for an event where I was a speaker. When I got to Lagos, I stayed with family, freelancing and volunteering for the community.
In May 2023, I got a job as Head of Marketing at an edtech startup, earning ₦250,000 monthly. But surviving in Lagos was hard. I was waking up at 4:00 a.m. and coming back at 11:00 p.m. because of traffic, literally eating dinner on the road.
Three months into the job, I decided to resign, but I needed to save at least ₦1 million before doing so. Thankfully, I’d already started saving most of my salary since my second month there. My siblings also gave me money sometimes. By October, I reached my ₦1 million goal and resigned.
What was the plan?
To freelance. I slept at home for one month first. Then, I bought a phone for ₦500k and a laptop for ₦250k and started hunting for gigs.
I got a consistent ₦100k/month gig almost immediately. By January 2024, I decided ₦100k wasn’t cutting it and started looking for more clients. Some came, but income wasn’t consistent. By June, I decided to return to Facebook and carry it on my head. I started posting regularly again, and clients began to come in.
In November 2024, a client paid me ₦50k for a content calendar — I didn’t even know it was possible to get paid for that. I had told her ₦25k, but she insisted I undercharged myself and doubled my ask. I made another calendar for her the following month. Also in December, I launched a simple ₦2,000 PDF digital product teaching people how to use social media for business, and I made ₦34k that month.
In January 2025, that content calendar client paid me ₦700k for a three-month brand management contract and referred her friend, who paid another ₦700k. Another pharmacist client paid me ₦900k for a six-month contract for her brand and ₦300k for her personal LinkedIn brand.
By this time, I couldn’t handle all the pages myself, so I started hiring people. In February 2025, we did ₦1.250 million in a single month, and we have grown even more since then.
Energy! What does your income look like these days?
I currently run three setups. I have my personal work, where I manage social media for retainer clients and brands. Then I have two businesses. One provides services like page revamps, customisation, and video editing. The other provides digital products, e-books, classes, and clarity sessions.
My personal income, after paying my team of graphic designers, social media managers, and my finance manager, averages ₦1.5 million monthly. In good months, it goes up to ₦2 million or more.
What kind of life does your income afford you now?
Anything I want. I have a housekeeper, and I’m always ordering food. I make sure I am okay, doing the things that give me joy. I go to the cinema at least twice a week because I like it a lot. I take skincare very seriously, so I get my facials, pedicures, manicures, and nails done regularly.
My sister says I’m the best gifter because I love gifting the people I love. I use the pro version of every subscription. It’s very freeing.
Love it for you. Can you do a breakdown of your typical monthly expenses?
This was what August looked like:
How do you approach saving and financial goals?
I live below my means. I don’t play with upskilling. It has brought me where I am today. I don’t want to be just a social media manager anymore. I want to go deep into product and brand storytelling, tech storytelling, and tech UGC.
One of my big goals is to study abroad in France. The university I want costs £9,000 per year, and I plan to go by 2028. I also want to save ₦50 million in liquid cash before I leave Nigeria. I’m currently at 40% of that goal. Living in the East with my dad — I left Lagos sometime last year to have more time for myself — keeps me grounded and my overhead low.
Also, I don’t have the time now, but by January, I hope to visit two countries per month until I leave Nigeria.
I think your journey so far has been impressive. Do you ever think about it?
Oh yes, and it feels surreal and unbelievable. People pay me to tell them how I got jobs or became successful, and I tell them you have to do the work; it doesn’t happen by chance.
I’ve built a team where I can decide not to work for a week, and everything runs smoothly. I don’t feel like I’ve “arrived” yet. I still want to make ₦5 million monthly in profit, but I can pat myself on the back.
How would you rate your financial happiness on a scale of 1 to 10?
6. I’m grateful for how far I’ve come, but I can’t just fly to Kenya, stay in a very nice hotel for one week, and come back as if nothing happened. I want to be a digital nomad, so the remaining 4 points will come when I start travelling.
If you’re interested in talking about your Naira Life story, this is a good place to start.
Find all the past Naira Life stories here.
