When Faith decided she wanted Canadian Permanent Residency (PR), she booked her English test and weeks after she had her Invitation to Apply.

In this story, she shares how she skipped the agents entirely, the exact strategy that got her PR in under four months, and the one thing she’d tell anyone drowning in online migration advice.

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

Well, that’s a pretty layered question. I left Nigeria for Dubai in November 2020. I later moved to the UK in December 2022 for my master’s, and I got my Canadian permanent residency this year. I travelled to Canada on April 2. I’m currently splitting time between the UK and Canada, but I’ll be moving to Canada for good pretty soon. 

Wow! That’s a lot. Before we get into Dubai, take me back to what life was like for you in Nigeria

Way before any of this, I wrote my General Certificate Exam (GCE) at 13. I think I was the youngest person I knew to write it at the time. I then finished secondary school at 14. 

I was too young to be admitted to a Nigerian university, so I completed a French-language diploma at the Nigerian French Language Village to buy time. But when I tried to get into a Nigerian university afterwards, I ran into the usual admissions frustrations; one school’s deadline closed the day I submitted, and another just mishandled my application without telling me what else I needed to do.

At that point, I decided I wasn’t going to wait around anymore. Looking back, I genuinely believe it was God at work. When He wants to push you somewhere, He just lets things happen the way they do, so you end up moving in that direction. 

My parents couldn’t afford to send me to school in the United Kingdom (UK) or the United States (US) for school, so I found out about universities in the Benin Republic through a friend, applied entirely on my own and didn’t tell my parents until I had gotten in. My mum funded it after they found out. 

I graduated at 18 and returned to Nigeria to serve in the National Youth Service Corps (NYSC).

That’s really interesting. So,  what were you doing before you left for Dubai?

After NYSC, I moved to Abuja to work as a restaurant manager. I specifically asked to be posted there instead of  Port Harcourt because I wanted to be somewhere I didn’t have too many ties, so I’d be forced to figure things out on my own.

That job ended up being huge for me. It’s where I did restaurant consulting, operations management, sales, and recipe compliance, and it’s honestly where my love for hospitality and food businesses really started.

After a while, I moved to Lagos and entered the oil and gas industry as a business development executive. I was earning well, living comfortably on the island, and meeting great people. But I got bored fairly quickly, which happens to me a lot. I loved my boss and the company, but I realised I was chasing someone else’s dream, not mine. My dream was to eventually own a chain of contemporary restaurants, and I wasn’t going to get there sitting in oil and gas.

So what took you to Dubai?

I applied for a hospitality master’s in Spain first and got a partial scholarship, but I realised the school was far from town and I wouldn’t be able to work while I studied. 

Around the same time, Dubai was preparing to host , and it was the biggest name in tourism. So I thought, why not go get hospitality experience there first, build some bragging rights, and then apply for my master’s after?

How did you actually get into Dubai? What was the visa process?

I applied for a visit visa. I found an immigration company online, and they handled my visa application. What I submitted was fairly straightforward: bank statements, proof of funds, passport details, and information about my job at the time.

I actually got the visa and bought my flight before COVID hit, so my trip was delayed. I flew out of Abuja to see my parents first, and that’s when the lockdown happened. I got stuck in Port Harcourt with just a handbag while all my luggage was still in Abuja. Dubai’s borders eventually reopened, and I landed in November 2020.

The visit visa was renewable, so you could just keep topping it up, no physical stamp needed except at the airport. The important thing was staying legal in the country. Once I found a job, the company would sponsor a full work visa.

What was life in Dubai like for you?

The first three months were tough, especially because I wasn’t working. 

I had to set a photo of Dubai’s skyscrapers as my phone’s screensaver, as a reminder every time I unlocked my phone that God’s promises for me were true and that I was going to make it happen.

I started selling Nigerian food to other immigrants I met around, going from shop to shop with a little trolley. Eventually, I landed a restaurant job doing customer service and online orders.

Wait! You actually turned down a work visa sponsorship?

Yes! The restaurant wanted to sponsor my visa, but that came with a two-year commitment to the company, and I just knew that wasn’t what I was meant to do. I kept telling myself, “God, this is not what you’ve brought me to do.” 

My friends thought I had gone mad. People were literally praying for the kind of opportunity I was turning down. But I stuck to my decision. Not long after, a friend connected me to a high-end sales role selling skincare with gold and diamond infusions, plus non-surgical facelifts. That job changed everything. I was earning up to 15 times what I made at the restaurant job.

Love that for you. So how did the UK come into the picture?

At some point, I wanted more immigration stability, so I looked into Canada. That’s when I found out (WES) no longer evaluates degrees from most schools in Benin Republic, and my first degree was from a school there. Instead of fighting that, I decided to do a master’s in the UK, since a fresh, recognised qualification would help me build a stronger case for Canada afterwards.

I made the decision, applied three days later, got admitted three days after, and paid my full fees within a week. I entered the UK in December 2022, and my course started in January 2023.

What was life like while you were studying?

I worked part-time in education as a teaching assistant in a special-needs school and as a support worker in healthcare. That healthcare experience ended up mattering a lot later; it contributed to my Express Entry eligibility. 

I was very intentional about never applying for a job with a Certificate of Sponsorship (CoS), even when people around me were chasing those roles, because I didn’t want to start conditioning myself to stay in the UK long-term.

Nice, now let’s get into the Canada process. Walk me through it.

In August 2025, I was in church, and my pastor was preaching about not procrastinating on the things you’ve set your mind to do. That same day, I booked my International English Language Testing System (IELTS) exam, exactly one month before the test date, and I hadn’t studied a single day yet. 

Between a full-time job, running my own business, and recovering from surgery two months prior, I didn’t start proper studying until about two weeks before the exam and didn’t get serious until three or four days before.

Oh wow! Did that affect your results eventually?

I got a perfect score. I sat for the exam on September 28, and the next day at church, I asked God to change that score if it wasn’t what I needed; some people would call it delusion; I call it faith. 

When my results came in the next day, I screamed in the Uber I was in. I maxed out every section. The moment my score came in, my Comprehensive Ranking System (CRS) score shot up. I entered the Express Entry pool the very next day, September 30, created my profile with all my experience, and got my Invitation to Apply exactly (ITA) two weeks later, on October 15.

What documents and timeline did the PR application involve?

I submitted my application 19 days after getting my ITA, on November 3, and they confirmed receipt within an hour. I did my medicals as part of the process. One thing that mattered a lot was my letter of explanation; I ended up writing about 16 pages, explaining everything clearly, including explaining my proof of funds.

My money was spread across a few different accounts, including some newer banks so I moved everything into my HSBC account and included proof of that transfer to show the funds were genuinely mine. You don’t need six consecutive months of savings sitting untouched,you just need to show the funds are legitimately available to you.

It took exactly four months to get from submission to approval. I got my PR confirmation, sent in my passport, and got it back with my PR stamped in about a week. I landed in Canada on April 2.

What did the whole process actually cost you?

From start to finish — IELTS, Express Entry, the application itself — I spent under £1,800 total for the entire process. I know people who’ve been charged £3,000 by agents for the same process.

You’re clearly not a fan of agents.

Not at all, specifically for this process. I did everything myself — no agent, ever, for Canada. It took a lot of research, filtering out wrong information, outdated advice, and other people’s bad experiences. I now run to help people build their own Express Entry profiles, plus an IELTS strategy ebook and boot camp classes with mock tests. 

There isn’t a one-size-fits-all pathway; some people qualify through the Canadian Experience Class, some through a Provincial Nominee Program, and others because they have family in a specific province. It really depends on your individual profile.

The two biggest factors for PR success are a high CRS score and working in an in-demand job category. Your CRS score comes down to age, academic credentials, and your language test results, which is why I stress the IELTS so much. I didn’t need French for my application; my score was already high enough from my healthcare experience and academic background.

What’s life actually been like so far, between the UK and Canada?

The UK was a big culture shock after Dubai. In Dubai, everything was delivered to your door; I once asked a friend in Sheffield to have a painkiller delivered to me, and he looked at me like I was mad. In the UK, I had to get used to paying council tax, doing things myself, and a much colder social culture generally. I was low for the first four to six months after moving.

Canada, so far, feels like the closest thing to Dubai I’ve experienced — modern buildings, condos with pools and gyms, and a genuinely warmer culture. When I arrived at the airport, a stranger helped me lift my suitcase onto the train without me asking. Someone even walked me to my platform. That kind of thing just doesn’t happen in the UK, in my experience.

What’s your favourite thing about Canada?

How multicultural and warm it feels. People seem genuinely happier; restaurant staff, strangers on the street, everyone. When I joined a Toronto neighbourhood Facebook group, over a hundred people responded with tips on where to live, whether I had a car, walkability, all of it. It doesn’t feel like survival mode the way it does in the UK.

On a scale of one to ten, how would you rate life in the UK and life in Canada?

UK — I’d say four out of ten, and I’ll be honest that I’m biased. I’ve tasted a more disposable-income, higher-quality lifestyle in Dubai, so the UK will always feel like survival mode to me by comparison. People here eat and sleep so they can work, instead of working so they can live.

Canada — six or seven out of ten so far, based on visits rather than living there long-term. It feels multicultural, less toxic, and people are far more willing to help each other out.

Any advice for someone considering this exact route?

You can do whatever you set your mind to; that’s actually a tattoo I have. Don’t let other people’s negative experiences become your excuse before you’ve even tried.

The Canada PR process isn’t as complicated as people make it seem. Read, research, use the resources available to you, and only pay for guidance if you genuinely need pointers, not because you’re too scared to try.

Any mistakes you’d tell people to avoid?

Worrying too much during the waiting period. I paused parts of my own life while waiting for my application to come back, and it left me overwhelmed, almost depressed. What eventually got me through it was telling myself that everything was in God’s hands. 

I submitted a clean application, checked everything, and there was nothing left to do but trust the process. Once I actually settled into that and moved on with my life, I got my PR two days later.

This has been such a good conversation. Anything you want to add?

Just that everyone’s timeline and pathway is different. Don’t compare your process to anyone else’s. Focus on your own situation and what’s actually available to you.

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

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Tinubu responded with disagreement and a face, Onaiyekan later said, clearly wasn’t pleased. That single meeting has since spiralled into a between the presidency and other religious leaders.

Besties forever

If there was ever such a thing as a groupie award, someone should hand it over to Tinubu’s aides, because he can trust that they’ll always be there to defend him. 

After the cardinal’s interview, they issued statements of their own, refuting the cardinal’s comments and justifying the Tinubu administration’s reforms.

Temitope Ajayi, the special adviser to the president on media and publicity, the cardinal’s comments an “abuse of clerical privilege,” saying it was wrong for him to publicly give his account of the closed-door meeting with the President.  

Daniel Bwala, the Special Adviser to the President on Media and Policy Communications, politics had clouded the Cardinal’s judgment, alleging that he had openly supported the former Labour Party (LP) presidential candidate, Peter Obi, during the 2023 general elections.

Sunday Dare, the Special Adviser to the President on Media and Public Communications, put out a full titled saying that Onaiyekan acted in bad faith when he publicly discussed what happened during the meeting between President Tinubu and the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of Nigeria.

A Catholic priest, Reverend Father John Chinenye Oluoma, popularly known as Fada Oluoma, to the comments from Tinubu’s media team, saying they were acting like attack dogs, responding to criticism with insults rather than answers or solutions.

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Right, but at what cost?

Here’s where the story stops being about who hurt whose feelings. That same weekend, at least 52 people, including children, in an overnight raid on Kasuwar Daji village in Zamfara state,  after first overrunning a military base and seizing weapons from it. A coordinated raid on a community and the soldiers meant to protect it, and the Presidency was busy drafting statements about clerical privilege. 

That’s the reality the aides spent their weekend denying. It’s also the reality behind the growing numbers of insecurity and inflation in the country. About a million people are in the Northwest by banditry, food inflation has been climbing since April as insecurity chokes supply routes, and 34.7 million Nigerians are to face food insecurity by this year’s lean season.

Don’t you listen?

At this point, if a pothole criticised Tinubu’s road policy, someone in Aso Rock would accuse it of siding with the opposition. This government has one move for anyone who points out a problem: question their motives, never the problem.

In 2024, when the Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC) over unimplemented wage agreements, Tinubu the union of playing politics with the country’s hardship and told them to wait for 2027 if they wanted a say. The NLC wasn’t after his job. It just wanted the government to honour an already signed deal. 

Months earlier, when thousands of young Nigerians to protest hunger and hardship, the President that his government wouldn’t “stand idly by and allow a few with a clear political agenda to tear this nation apart.” 

A government that treats criticism as betrayal will keep getting the criticism wrong, and Nigerians will keep paying for that miscalculation in rising insecurity occurrences and increased food prices.

You don’t need a media aide’s permission to say what you’re living through. Say it anyway, to your ward, your local rep, on your social media.

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In June 2026, a bus ride in Lagos turned into a kidnapping incident. He was beaten, robbed, and used as bait to extort ₦500,000 from his family, while the police station where the incident was reported stood by and did nothing.

This is Albert’s story, as told to Orame.

I left Calabar for Lagos on June 5, 2026. I needed to attend a friend’s birthday and reconnect with old classmates. I also wanted to try my hand at content creation and job hunting.

While in Lagos, I stayed with my friend on the mainland, and he pushed me to learn the roads myself rather than hide inside Ubers like every other newcomer.

One rainy evening, around 5:30 PM, I mistakenly dropped off at the wrong place. I had gone to the Island and was trying to head back to the mainland. I took a train from Mile 2 to Oshodi, but I had miscalculated. I tried calling my friend, but his line wasn’t going through.

It was all so confusing, for me and the rain at the same time. I asked a market woman for directions, and she calmly pointed me to a spot where I could board a bus to my destination. A younger guy stood next to me, and we both boarded together.

When I stepped inside, there were about six other men scattered across the seats, along with an elderly woman in the front.  Seeing that woman gave me a sense of safety. The bus wasn’t full, but I didn’t think much of it.

I sat down, put on my AirPods, and focused on my phone, editing a video and finishing a job application.

A few minutes later, the woman got off. Soon after, the driver pulled over near a secluded area with bushes and unfinished buildings. He stepped out, claiming he was going to buy fuel. That was the last time I ever saw him.

With the driver gone, one of the men sitting in front of me turned around and faced me.  “Guy, make I see that your phone,” he said.

I paused my music, confused. He repeated himself and reached out to grab it. I pulled my phone back and asked why he was trying to take it. I tried to slide the phone into my pocket to end the argument, but he stood up and snatched it right out of my hand.  

I started complaining loudly to the other passengers in the bus. “Guy, see as this guy take my phone! Why would he do that?”

Nobody moved. Nobody said a word.

That silence told me everything. The whole bus was a setup.

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One of the men told me to calm down. Another man slapped me across the face and said there were two ways this could go: I could keep quiet and cooperate, or they would beat me to death and nobody would come to save me. 

They grabbed the younger boy who boarded with me, took his phone too, and ordered us both off the bus and into an unfinished building. They slung their arms over our shoulders the whole way, so from a distance we looked like a group of friends.

Once we were inside the building, they set the younger boy on the bare floor and sat me on a chair, then forced me to open my phone. Whenever they needed access to a banking app, they simply held the screen up to my face to trigger the Face ID, and it would open.  

I had money spread across four active bank accounts, UBA, OPay, Sterling Bank, and a savings app. They transferred all my funds from the other accounts into my UBA account. 

When they opened my WhatsApp, they saw my best friend’s foreign number and called him. They were Igbo, but they intentionally spoke with a Hausa-Fulani accent over the phone because they knew exactly which accent triggers Nigerian insecurity paranoia.

Every time they dialled a contact, three to four of them would beat me, forcing me to cry out and scream for help into the phone. When you are being hit like that, fear completely takes over.

They told my friend they had already killed two people, and that I’d be the next if he didn’t send  ₦5 million for my release. They did the same thing to the other boy, beating him as they called his family. 

Listening to them role-play ‘commander’ on the phone, I realised these people weren’t insurgents and would most likely not kill me. They were just greedy men trying to make quick money.

They wanted my parents’ number. I lied and said my father wasn’t in my life, scared that if he heard ₦5 million, he’d send it immediately. They called my mother instead. She used to work in a bank, and I’m sure her instincts kicked in. She told my friend to tell them ₦500,000 was all the family had, and they took it.

They made my family transfer the ₦500,000 to my UBA account. Once the money landed, they demanded an extra ₦100,000, claiming it was for my transportation back home.

One of them took my phone, walked to a nearby POS stand, and withdrew all the money. By the time he returned, he had a side bag stuffed with cash. After that, they spent nearly 30 minutes waiting for Apple’s security delay to sign me out of my iCloud account. Once the phone was wiped clean, they walked us back to the junction, handed me about ₦1,000 for bus fare, and let us go. The original bus was long gone.

While all this was happening, my friend back on the mainland was frantically trying to save me. He had gone directly to the police station closest to his house to report the situation. The officers had him sit down and write a statement. And that was essentially where their involvement ended.

They did not attempt to track my phone, monitor the bank transfers, negotiate with the captors, or send a team to search the area. They showed zero interest in taking action. It wasn’t until a mutual acquaintance pulled strings to call a high-ranking person at the station that the officers paid any extra attention—and even then, they didn’t leave the building.

When I finally made it back to my friend’s place late that night, I was in deep shock. I tried to laugh it off at first, but the weight of the trauma hit me hard the next morning when I woke up without my phone, my money, or my sense of safety.

I decided never to return to the police station to follow up. They were useless when my life was on the line, so going back would have been a waste of time and a reopening of fresh wounds.

A week later, sitting alone in my room, I turned on my camera and recorded a video sharing my story on TikTok.

I posted it because my online community was worried after I went silent for days. I posted it to warn others about the exact methods these thieves use, and, most importantly, to highlight the reality of living in Nigeria today: we do not have a government or a police force that protects us. You are entirely on your own.

The responses to my video were mixed. Hundreds of people flooded the comment section with their own dates and stories of being robbed or kidnapped in broad daylight. But others left comments mocking me for crying on camera, telling me  I shouldn’t show emotion because I’m “a man.”

That toxic mindset is something I refuse to accept. Going through a life-or-death situation is terrifying, and suppressing trauma only destroys men from the inside. Talking openly about it helped me heal.

Right now, I’ve taken a break from regular content creation to rebuild and restrategise. I’ve moved back to Calabar, and I’m preparing to start my master’s degree at the State University. I’m also planning to launch a podcast, a safe, anonymous space where NYSC corps members can share their workplace struggles without fear.

Nigeria may have failed to protect me that night, but I refuse to let that experience define my future. I am rebuilding my life, one step at a time.

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On July 20, 2026, an X user shared a announcing the closure of a private school in Lagos State, and this quickly went viral.

In the letter, the 30-year-old school in the state’s Ojodu area announced it was closing permanently due to the high cost of running a school amid the country’s economic hardship. 

We opened this letter hoping to see school fees but we got this letter instead.

This is so painful!!! A school that has been operating for over 30 years ooo!

— Misola in the Cloud (@Iam_Misola)

Nigerians have since taken to the post to express their frustrations with the hardship in the country.

This tragedy, like many things that happen in Nigeria, is not the only instance of the economy’s negative impact on Nigerians; it’s the one we’ve all heard about.

It is a direct result of Tinubu’s genius reforms, and educators saw it coming from miles away.

Back in 2024, Ajibade Bakare, proprietor of Ajibay Academy in Ayobo, Lagos, that the economic meltdown had multiplied his running costs by 100%. He warned that private schools would keep “closing shop” unless the government stepped in. He said:

“We are forcing ourselves to keep our heads above the water because we are more or less run­ning charitable organisations in order not to send home our stu­dents. We are running at a loss…”

Two years later, the closure of the Ojodu school proved him right.

It’s all about the Naira 

The recent school closure isn’t happening in a vacuum; it’s another result of Tinubu’s “temporary pain” reforms. 

According to the National Bureau of StatisticsNigeria’s inflation rate rose to 15.93% in May 2026, up from 15.69% in April. Food, transport, and restaurant costs were listed as the biggest drivers.

Those happen to be among the everyday costs of running a private school: keeping the lights on, getting people to and from school, and feeding students where boarding houses exist. 

A May 2026 Vanguard report found that in Lagos schools at the start of the third academic term. Parents were pulling their children out of school or delaying their resumption, simply because they couldn’t afford to send them back. 

While the government brags about the naira’s stabilisation on paper, school fees and the cost of school operations continue to climb. This is why a school that has survived three decades in Nigeria couldn’t survive this one.

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Bandits 1- Government 0

While economic hardship shuts schools from the inside, insecurity is shutting them from the outside. 

In May 2026, gunmen stormed a school in Oyo State and 39 pupils and seven teachers in a single raid.

Just six months earlier, on November 18, 2025, gunmen attacked a government school in Kebbi State, a vice principal and abducting 25 schoolgirls. 

Three days later, on November 21,  303 students and 12 teachers were taken from St. Mary’s Catholic School in Niger State. 

These are clearly not one-off attacks, and they aren’t slowing down either. If your child is about to start school, the choice isn’t simply public or private anymore. It’s which school can keep them safe? 

Between Tinubu’s and a hard place

Ordinarily, you’d expect that parents continue their children’s education in public schools, but those are nothing to write home about. To be fair, they haven’t been for a while now, but Mr Master Strategist hasn’t done anything to make public education a real alternative. 

In Nigeria’s 2026 budget, education was just ₦3.52 trillion, representing a measly 6.1% of the total spend of ₦58.18 trillion.

That’s the same share as the previous year, despite the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO) that 15 to 20% of national budgets go to education. The education ministry’s own was even crazier at ₦2.4 trillion.

That underfunding contributes to Nigeria currently having over 18.3 million , the highest number in the world, and why the public schools that exist are overcrowded and understaffed. So families priced out of private education don’t land softly; they land in a system that Tinubu has spent three budget cycles failing to properly fund. 

So what now?

Nigerians shouldn’t have to choose between bandits and bankruptcy when it comes to their children’s education. The Tinubu administration needs to raise the federal education budget to at least meet the UNESCO benchmark. 

Nigeria’s classrooms are emptying out from both ends, and silence isn’t going to refill them.

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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’t 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’d leave at some point, but it wasn’t a pressing need for me. That changed around the time when the current government came in. 

I was comfortable. My mentality was  “I’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.” 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 — 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.

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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 €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’t 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 €1,400 to €2,000 a month. Something smaller might be around €900. If you’re sharing with others, it can go as low as €600. 

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

You’ve 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’d 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 — 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’s 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’s 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’s 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’s a guy I met on X before moving here, who introduced me to the guy who now cuts my hair. There’s 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 — 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 — 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’d 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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For Nigerians earning ₦100,000 or less every month, surviving is about finding creative ways to stretch every naira. We asked Nigerians earning ₦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 ₦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 (₦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 (₦65,000/month)

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

I spend about ₦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.

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4. “The shop owners let us buy food on credit.” – Tunji, 37, Painter (Around ₦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 (₦25,000/month)

I’m a single mother, and I work as a hotel cleaner. I earn ₦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 ₦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 ₦10,000 and ₦15,000, but not every day is a good day. My wife recently got a job as a primary school teacher and earns ₦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 (₦25,000/month)

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

I eventually negotiated it to ₦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.

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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 ₦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’s a question that’s been bugging us ever since: Why is he still running for office?

Of course, the investigation doesn’t automatically mean he’s 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 ₦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 ₦80.2 billion allegedly diverted from the state’s funds, as well as a separate ₦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’s 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’s safe to say that in Nigeria, “under investigation” is a signal to politicians to run for office.

In Malami’s 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 ₦11.2 billion, 131-room hotel. 

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₦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’s not.  

His camp says the investigation and insists the funds were accounted for. We don’t dispute this, but at this time, it’s just his word against the EFCC’s, and that’s 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’t 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 — 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.

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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 — McMillan readers, newspapers, magazines — 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.

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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’t 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 — 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 — 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 — 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. 

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When set her mind on leaving Nigeria, Finland wasn’t 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’d 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’d 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 — 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 €100. I picked three schools and four courses — 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’t 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 €9,600 to prove you could sustain yourself for a year. I had about €9,800 in my account. 

They’re 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 — 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 ₦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 ₦18 million proof of funds, I estimate I spent around ₦5-6 million in total. That covers the €100 joint application fee (about ₦150,000+ at the time), the visa application fee of about €450 (which came to over ₦800,000 paid in person at VFS, plus delivery charges), the ₦30,000-ish health insurance, and flights to Abuja first, then to Finland. There’s 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 — 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’m not an extrovert, so being indoors doesn’t bother me much, except that it gets boring sometimes.

Has the language been a barrier?

Yes, especially for jobs — 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 — 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 €230 to €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 €10-€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 — 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 €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  South Africa for nearly as long as I’ve been breathing. I don’t 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 — 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 — 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’ warning never really hit home until I turned 18.

I watched my friends get their IDs, get their driver’s 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’s 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’s heavier than the physical xenophobia everyone sees on the news.  It’s slow and invisible, so it doesn’t get as much attention as the second kind. Why would it? There’s no camera to capture it. 

I’ve given it a lot of thought, and I’m 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 — the barbering, the gardening, the roadside plumbing — 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 — head boy, top marks, no trouble — 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 — 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– 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 — 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 ₦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 — 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 — 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’s 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 — 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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