This is Bolanle’s Story As Told To Sofiyah 

My dad was probably the first person to introduce me to the idea that women have their own agency, and I learned what that looked like by watching how he treated women.

My dad is a retired diplomat, and both of my parents were civil servants. He’s often posted to different countries, so my mum would sometimes take a break from work, and we would all travel with him. This meant there were periods when she didn’t have her own source of income and was financially dependent on him. Not once did I ever see him use that dependence against her. He was always respectful towards her, and I also watched him advocate for women to have the same opportunities as men during his career.

Before what happened to me, I had never experienced gender-based violence and didn’t really understand it outside of the context of a husband abusing his wife. I knew that violence against women existed, but I had never personally experienced it or seen it happen around me.

I had always been cautious with people I didn’t know, though. I think women have to be alert because of the society we live in, even though we shouldn’t have to. If someone comes to my house to repair something, for example, I won’t let them close the door. I don’t care how many mosquitoes come inside; the door is always going to stay open. I’m constantly aware of my surroundings and conscious of the people I allow into my space.

It was this mindset I had when I hired my former driver. He had only been working for me for about two weeks before the incident, and I was extremely busy because I’d just moved into a new apartment and was opening my salon. There wasn’t really much of a relationship between us beyond the normal driver-employer dynamic, although I had already noticed that he had a slightly condescending attitude towards me.

It was the kind of attitude I’d experienced from some Nigerian drivers before, where you get the sense that they’re wondering, “Who is this person? Why does this girl live alone? Where does she get her money from?” I wasn’t sure it would work, but I desperately needed a driver at the time, so I decided to give it a try.

Then one day, I discovered that he had been stealing from me.

I had left some money in the car and counted it, only to realise that some of it was missing. When he came the next day, I told him my money wasn’t complete and that I couldn’t have someone who had stolen from me working for me, so I would have to let him go.

Instead of addressing the missing money or even apologising, he just asked about the money he was owed for the work he’d done. I told him I would send it to him that day because I didn’t want to escalate the situation. I got into my car and started driving out of the compound with my windows down because I’d just turned on the car.

As I was leaving, he started shouting at me to give him his money before I went. I reminded him that I’d already said I would send it, but he kept shouting, and then he suddenly lunged through the passenger side of my car.

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His body came into the car, and he was on me, so I started freaking out and trying to get him off me. I had already driven halfway through the gate, so I stopped the car and tried to push him away. I can’t remember exactly what happened, but I remember getting myself out of the car and eventually getting him off me. In that moment, I was completely terrified. 

What made it even more traumatising was the actions of the security guards. They were right there, but they didn’t even make any immediate move to come and help me while I was being attacked. It took them a while to intervene, and when they finally came over, they were telling him to calm down. They were bystanders to the attack, and that stayed with me because I couldn’t understand how they could see someone physically attacking me and not immediately come to my aid.

I had only just moved into the apartment, so I didn’t know them, but I shouldn’t have needed to know them for them to help me. If you see someone attacking another person, you should be concerned. As security guards, their responsibility was to protect the people in that compound, but they didn’t do that when I needed them to.

I eventually got back into my car and drove away because I didn’t feel safe staying there. I remember immediately sending the driver his money afterwards because I was panicking and just wanted to move on. I had my hands full with the salon and my new apartment, so I just wanted to put it behind me.

A few hours later, someone called my phone and threatened me, saying they knew where I lived and that I had better pay the money I owed him. That’s when I really started panicking because I realised the situation wasn’t over.

The person who called wasn’t even the driver. It was someone else, and that made the situation feel even more sinister to me. I had never been so scared in my life. I remember standing outside my salon and crying because of this. 

The moment I informed my dad about the call, he called the police, and they immediately went into action. We reported the case, and within about two days, they tracked the driver down and arrested him. He was charged in court, and the police followed due process. He spent a day or two in a cell before he was granted bail, and once the court granted him bail, there wasn’t much I could do about that.

The frustrating part was what happened afterwards because the Nigerian court system is incredibly slow. The first court proceeding took place a few months after the incident, but the case dragged on, and then COVID-19 hit, creating a massive backlog in the court system. There were huge gaps between court dates, and eventually, the case just died. 

I was disappointed that we couldn’t go through the full process, but I wasn’t interested in revenge. I believe strongly in consequences because I think that’s part of what makes a society function. If there is a law, it needs to be enforced, because when there are no consequences for people’s actions, people become more willing to do whatever they want.

At the same time, I had to learn how to forgive him for myself. As a Christian, I had to get to a place where I could release him from my heart while still believing that he should face the consequences of his actions. Two things can be true at the same time.

The aftermath affected me more than I realised. I don’t think I slept in that apartment for about three weeks after the incident. I was extremely nervous because I knew he knew where I lived and that he was out on bail. For about two years after the incident and throughout my time living in that apartment, I didn’t have a driver. It was only after I left that place that I eventually became comfortable enough to employ a driver again.

Looking back, I also understand my dad’s fear about me moving out. When I first told him I wanted to leave his house, he actually said no, which surprised me because he wasn’t usually like that. At the time, I didn’t understand what he was trying to protect me from, but after what happened, I realised he understood some of the vulnerabilities that come with being a single woman living alone in Nigeria in ways I hadn’t considered.

When I eventually started hiring drivers again, I became much more intentional about who I allowed to work closely with me. If I sense that a driver is condescending towards me because I’m a woman, I let him go immediately. I understand that someone might not be comfortable working for a woman, but they can’t work for me because I’m not going to manage that behaviour anymore.

The interesting thing is that I don’t think I fully processed what happened when it happened. I compartmentalised it as, “This person is just a mad person,” and kept moving because that’s what you do when you’re trying to get through life. There are so many things to deal with as an adult in Nigeria that sometimes you don’t even have the space to process your trauma.

It was only recently, when I shared the story publicly, that I realised I hadn’t fully processed it. I had to ask myself whether I felt safe and what feeling safe actually looked like for me, and I realised that my level of caution had become much higher.

The experience also gave me a deeper level of empathy for women who have experienced violence. I’ve always been an advocate for protecting women and using my platform to speak against violence, but experiencing something like that yourself changes the way you understand it. I was also lucky because it could have been much worse. I could have been killed or ended up in the hospital, and in that moment, I had to fight for myself and fight for my life.

I also find it interesting that I didn’t initially identify what happened to me as gender-based violence. I just thought of it as a Nigerian man being a mad person, but when I look at it now, I understand the gendered element more clearly. There are things people feel comfortable doing to women because they don’t see women as equal to them, and I’ve experienced situations where a man is being aggressive towards me, and another man has to intervene.

That’s why I think we have to keep having conversations about equality between men and women, even when people are tired of hearing them. When I shared my story on Twitter, some of the responses were genuinely disheartening: people asked what I had done, claimed there were two sides to the story, and outright gaslit my experience.

It made me realise that there are still people who don’t think what happened to me was wrong, and those are the people we need to have these conversations with. The conversation is actually very basic: men and women are equal, women have the same rights as men, women deserve to be treated with respect, and women have the right to their own lives and their own agency.

We’ve not even crossed that basic point yet. You can meet a 19-, 20- or 21-year-old boy who will tell you that men and women are not equal, and I always wonder where he learned that. You’re 20. You’re not 40 or 50. What year are we in?

There is still so much work to do, which is why I don’t think we can afford to stop talking about these things. People are learning and unlearning things they thought were normal, and they’re questioning things they’ve said and done, and that matters.

For me, it all comes back to what I learned from my dad and mother. A woman should have her own identity; she should be able to work and earn her own money; and she should be able to make decisions about her own life without that making her less deserving of respect. I’ve always known that because I watched my dad live it, but this experience showed me how important it is to keep insisting that others understand it, too.

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

It’s exactly this reason why all the smart business owners know they’re not only selling products or services, but they’re also giving their customers countless reasons to keep coming back. 

Here are six things they understand about Nigerians and awoof. 

1. Nigerians loveeee a good jara 

You know we are not lying. 

If you think we are, let’s do a quick experiment. Two restaurants in your area sell the same food at the same price, but while one just gives you the meal you ordered, the other throws in a free mocktail or cocktail of your choice with the food. Let’s be honest here, which one would you go back to?

Exactly. 

Let’s face it. We love feeling like we are getting something extra, but smart businesses know the goal isn’t just to make a customer happy for a fleeting moment. The goal is to create an experience that gives them a reason to keep returning. 

It’s this understanding of consumer behaviour that makes smart businesses look beyond the first purchase. They are fully aware that the relationship doesn’t end once a customer pays, and that’s where the real work of keeping them engaged begins.

2. Customers might come, but are you sure they will stay?

Convincing someone to buy what you’re selling usually requires hard work and a PhD in people-pleasing, but guess what? That’s not even the hardest part. 

The hardest part is getting them to keep coming back because while you might think there’s no one doing a business like yours, remember that you live in Nigeria. There are like fifty of you. 

An aesthetically pleasing product might get customers through the doors, but these businesses need to understand what keeps people interested after that first experience. Who are the customers that keep choosing them? What exactly in particular do they respond to? What can make their next experience spectacularly better than the last?

Businesses that fully understand customer behaviour don’t just focus on getting new buyers. They pay attention to the people already engaging with them and develop different ways to strengthen their business-client relationships.

3. We might love a great discount, but it gets to a point 

Let’s not lie, discounts are great when you want to attract every Tom, Dick, and Harry (because, really, who doesn’t love a good discount?), but are they enough to build loyalty? 

Yeah, we thought so. 

The thing is, every single day, there’s another business out there offering a lower price for their services or products. If the only reason customers swarm to you today is that you’re offering something cheap for a short period, they’ll probably find another place to flock to once that’s over. 

Smart businesses that flourish in the long run understand that the goal isn’t to win customers by constantly cutting prices. It’s about creating enough value that customers still choose them even when they know a discount won’t be available. 

This is where Rewrd comes in. 

Rewrd is a rewards platform built to help businesses build customer loyalty by providing them with a smarter way to reward the people who choose them. Rather than relying on discounts to bring customers back, merchants can use Rewrd to create a reward system that encourages repeat purchases and helps them get more value from their existing customers.

4. Humans will forget everything but a good business

Let’s take a trip down memory lane and think about that one online business you ordered from. Not only was the person in charge really nice to you, but when your order arrived, it came with thank-you gifts, and even though it has been a year since you last ordered from them, you still think fondly of them and can’t wait for the next time you need to get something from them. 

This is because customers don’t only remember what they bought but also how the business made them feel. Rewrd helps merchants build on that by giving them a way to recognise and reward customers beyond the first purchase. By rewarding customers in meaningful ways, businesses can make customers feel appreciated and strengthen their relationships with them.

5. People love to see progress, and smart businesses are aware

Rewrd helps businesses tap into something customers already love: the feeling of making progress towards something valuable.

There’s a reason people enjoy fitness streaks, savings goals, and games that show how close they are to advancing to the next level. Seeing progress gives people a reason to stay motivated and keep going.

The same idea applies to customer loyalty. When customers know their purchases are bringing them closer to a reward, they have another reason to stay engaged with a business instead of treating every transaction as a one-time interaction.

Rewrd helps businesses build on this behaviour by rewarding customers in a simple and meaningful way. Instead of customers making a purchase and moving on, each interaction gives them another reason to stay connected with the business.

For merchants, this creates more consistent engagement and helps turn occasional buyers into returning customers.

6. As long as Nigerians exist, awoof will too 

Let’s be real: there won’t be a day when a business offers Nigerians a free reward, and they say no. Thinking about it is almost impossible because that day will probably never come.

Smart businesses know that the real value isn’t just in giving customers something extra. It’s in turning that excitement into lasting customer relationships, and that’s exactly the opportunity Rewrd helps merchants tap into.

For businesses ready to turn customer loyalty into a growth strategy, you can start your Rewrd journey . 

1. Movie: Mulan (1998)

When China calls one man from every family to fight an invading army, Mulan secretly disguises herself as a man to take her ageing father’s place. She must survive military training while hiding her identity, ultimately proving that courage, intelligence, and determination matter more than gender. The story explores duty, self-discovery, and the challenge of societal expectations, proving that courage and leadership have nothing to do with gender.

2. Movie: Legally Blonde (2001)

After being underestimated, Elle Woods proves that femininity and intelligence are not opposites. Refusing to shrink herself to be taken seriously is feminist. The concept of calling female lawyers “men in skirts” or trying to postulate that law and femininity do not go together was heavily debunked in this movie. 

3. Movie: A League of Their Own (1992)

During World War II, when many male baseball players left to fight, an all-women professional baseball league was created to keep the sport alive. The film follows sisters Dottie and Kit, along with their teammates, as they navigate fierce competition, sexism, public scrutiny, and their dreams of being taken seriously as athletes. At its heart, it’s a story about women proving they belong in spaces that underestimated them.

4. Movie: Mona Lisa Smile (2003)

Set in the 1950s, Mona Lisa Smile follows Katherine Watson, a progressive art history professor who begins teaching at the prestigious all-women’s Wellesley College. She encourages her brilliant students to think beyond society’s expectations of marriage and domestic life, urging them to pursue careers, independence, and lives of their own choosing. As her ideas challenge the school’s traditional values, both Katherine and her students are forced to confront what fulfilment, ambition, and freedom truly mean.

5. Movie: Erin Brockovich (2000)

Based on a true story, Erin Brockovich follows a struggling single mother who lands a job at a small law firm and stumbles upon evidence that a powerful utility company has been contaminating a town’s water supply. Despite having no formal legal training, Erin relentlessly investigates the case, earning the trust of affected residents and helping build one of the largest environmental lawsuits in U.S. history. The film is a story of persistence, courage, and the power of refusing to be underestimated.

6. Movie: Suffragette (2015)

Suffragette is a 2015 historical drama film centred on the British women’s suffrage movement in the early 20th century. A working-class laundress, Maud Watts, is drawn into Britain’s growing women’s suffrage movement after witnessing the injustices women face daily. As she joins protests demanding the right to vote, she risks her job, family, and freedom. The film follows the sacrifices ordinary women made to secure a fundamental right that many now take for granted.

7. Movie: Whale Rider (2002)

Set in a Māori coastal village in New Zealand, Whale Rider follows Pai, a young girl who believes she is destined to become the next leader of her people. But tradition dictates that only boys can inherit the role, and her grandfather refuses to see her as a worthy successor. As Pai quietly proves her strength, compassion, and deep connection to her culture, she challenges generations of gender expectations and redefines what leadership can look like.

8. Animated Movie: The Breadwinner (2017) 

The Breadwinner is about an 11-year-old Afghan girl, Parvana, who is forced to step into a world that has decided women and girls should be invisible. After her father is unjustly imprisoned under the Taliban rule, Parvana disguises herself as a boy so she can leave the house, work, and provide for her family. What makes her story feminist isn’t simply that she is brave, but it’s that she challenges a system built on restricting women’s freedom, denying them independence, education and a voice. Her fight isn’t about becoming someone else or proving she deserves rights. It’s about refusing to accept a world that says she should have none in the first place.

9. Movie: Women Talking (2022) 

Women Talking is about a group of women in a secluded religious colony who come together after discovering the extent of the sexual violence they have experienced. The film’s main message isn’t about the women speaking up, but more so about their recognising that silence has allowed the system that harmed them to continue, and using their voices to question the rules that have controlled their lives. Their conversations become an act of resistance, helping them reclaim their autonomy and decide what kind of future they want, instead of accepting the one that has been forced on them.

10. Movie: Ex Machina (2014) 

Ex Machina is centred on Ava, an artificial intelligence created by a man who designs her with the appearance and qualities he believes will appeal to him. Ava’s eventual escape isn’t what necessarily makes Ex Machina feminist (even though that was really cool). It’s that she recognises the limits placed on her by the person who created her and refuses to remain an object built for someone else’s desires. Her liberation comes from rejecting the role she was assigned and taking control of her own existence. 

11. Movie: I Am Not a Witch (2017) 

I Am Not a Witch explores how patriarchal societies use superstition as a tool to control, isolate and punish women who do not fit into expected roles. The film’s feminist message lies in how it exposes these accusations as a way of maintaining power over women rather than simply reflecting belief. Young Shula’s experience shows how easily women can be labelled, exploited and stripped of their autonomy, from young girls accused of witchcraft to widows and women who challenge traditional expectations.

12. Animated Movie: Persepolis (2007) 

Persepolis explores the impact of Iran’s revolution on women, particularly how state-enforced rules were used to control their bodies, clothing and freedom. The film’s feminist message comes from showing how these restrictions shaped women’s everyday lives while highlighting their resilience in a society that tried to silence and limit them. 

13. Animated Movie: Barbie and the Three Musketeers (2009) 

Barbie and the Three Musketeers reimagines who gets to be a hero. In a world where courage, strength and adventure are often associated with men, the film places women at the centre of the story, showing them as capable fighters who challenge the belief that women cannot be the “strong ones.” Its feminist message comes from allowing its female characters to be brave, skilled and ambitious without needing to step into traditionally male roles to prove their worth.

14. Movie: Funmilayo Ransome-Kuti (2024) 

Funmilayo Ransome-Kuti is a biographical film about a woman whose legacy is often reduced to being “the first Nigerian woman to drive a car,” but her impact went far beyond that. The film highlights her role in fighting unfair taxes imposed on women in Abeokuta and her lifelong commitment to women’s education and rights. Her story is feminist because it shows a woman challenging systems that limited women’s opportunities and using her voice to demand a fairer society.

15. Movie: Gangubai Kathiawadi (2022) 

Gangubai Kathiawadi is about a woman forced into sex work, who refuses to remain defined by the system that exploits her. Gangubai becomes powerful, and she starts asking why women in the sex trade should have to live without dignity, safety, education, political representation or protection. Her fight isn’t to escape the hand she was dealt, though she had every right to, and I would argue she could have, or to become acceptable to society. It’s to make society take women like her seriously. 

16. Movie: Lionheart (2018)

Adaeze steps into her father’s struggling transport business and quickly discovers that competence doesn’t automatically earn people’s belief in a woman’s ability to lead. Lionheart interrogates the assumptions underlying that doubt. It asks who gets to inherit, who gets to make decisions, and why a woman’s ambition can be treated as a threat. 

17. K-Drama: Extraordinary Attorney Woo

Woo Young-woo is a brilliant autistic lawyer, but being brilliant doesn’t stop the world from constantly questioning whether she belongs in the room. The show is interesting because it asks who gets to define what a “professional woman” should look and behave like. Young-woo doesn’t become ‘worth’ by learning to hide the parts of herself that make other people uncomfortable. Instead, the people around her have to confront their own narrow ideas about competence, communication and normalcy.

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18. Movie: Citation

In Citation, a student reports sexual misconduct by a powerful professor and discovers that speaking up is only the beginning of the fight. The film is interested in what happens when institutions are structured to make women responsible for proving their own victimhood. It asks why powerful men can rely on their reputation while women are expected to have perfect evidence, perfect behaviour and perfect credibility before anyone believes them.

19. Movie: Little Women (2019)

Little Women refuses to give us one correct way to be a woman. Jo wants artistic freedom. Meg wants love and family. Amy wants financial security and recognition. Beth wants something quieter. The film is inherently feminist, not because all four sisters are ambitious, but because it seriously acknowledges that women can want radically different lives without one of those choices being automatically more respectable. It also asks why women are so often told that ambition, money or independence make them less feminine.

20. Movie: Harriet (2019) 

Based on a true-life story, Harriet is about a brave woman escaping slavery. It is about what happens when a woman denied freedom decides that surviving isn’t enough. Harriet Tubman repeatedly returns to help other enslaved people escape, turning her own liberation into collective action. The film challenges the idea that women, particularly Black women living under extreme oppression, are only victims of history.

21. Movie: Hidden Figures (2016)

Hidden Figures is about three Black women whose mathematical brilliance helped NASA accomplish extraordinary things, even as the institution around them was built to make their presence difficult. It is about the difference between being capable and being given access to the rooms where capability matters. Katherine Johnson, Dorothy Vaughan and Mary Jackson weren’t waiting to discover their potential. They already had it. The system just had to stop getting in the way.

22. Series: League of Their Own (2022)

Set during World War II, A League of Their Own starts with women being given a chance to play professional baseball while the men are away. But the series quickly asks: which women? White women are allowed onto the field while Black women are still shut out, forcing Max Chapman to fight racism and sexism just to pursue the career everyone else is being encouraged to have.

Alongside that is the story of queer women trying to find love and community, even as being open about who they are can put their lives and livelihoods at risk. So the series centres on women breaking into a man’s world and how even opportunities supposedly created for “women” can still exclude Black and queer women.

23. Series: Charmed (1998–2006)

The original Charmed makes three sisters the centre of a supernatural story in which their power literally comes from standing together. Prue, Piper, Phoebe, and later Paige are allowed to be ambitious, messy, sexual, career-focused, romantic, maternal and selfish at different points without the story deciding that one version of womanhood is the correct one. Their sisterhood is also crucial: their power isn’t something one woman earns by being the best. It works because they rely on one another.

24. Series: Charmed (2018–2022)

The reboot takes the original’s witches and their strong sisterhood and deliberately sets them in a more contemporary, intersectional world. The sisters are Latina and Afro-Latina, one is queer, and just like their mother, a women’s studies professor. 

The show brings misogyny, racism, sexuality, consent and reproductive politics into its conflicts, asking what it means for women to have power in a world that is constantly trying to define how they should use it. It can be ‘unsubtle’, but that’s part of its appeal.

25. Series: The Wheel of Time (2021–2025)

The Wheel of Time gives women significant political and magical power. It shows that women can also be controlling, ambitious, prejudiced, protective and flawed. They compete with one another, build alliances and fight over who gets to decide what happens next. The show takes women’s relationship to power seriously enough to let them be layered and complicated.

26. Movie: The Princess Diaries (2001 & 2004)

Mia doesn’t become a different person when she finds out she’s a princess. She’s already an awkward, opinionated teenager with a very clear sense of who she is. The makeover is where the film begins to ask a more interesting question: what does the world think a girl has to change about herself before it will take her seriously? Mia is taught how to dress, speak and behave like a princess, while slowly figuring out which parts of that performance actually belong to her and which parts are simply expectations placed on women.

Then The Princess Diaries 2 takes that question from femininity to power. Mia discovers that, despite being the heir to Genovia, she can’t become queen unless she gets married. Suddenly, it’s not just about how a woman is expected to look or behave. Her right to rule is literally tied to whether she has a husband. And instead of accepting the rule and finding a man to satisfy it, Mia challenges the rule itself. It’s a very fairytale way of asking a very real question: why does a woman’s legitimacy have to come through a man?

27. Movie: The Handmaiden (2016)

The Handmaiden unfolds inside a world where men control women’s money, bodies, education and sexuality. At first, it’s two women being manipulated by men who believe they understand exactly what women want. Then the women start manipulating them back. The film explores women’s desire as something that doesn’t exist for male consumption or approval. Sometimes liberation looks less like being rescued and more like refusing to keep playing by the rules written for you.

28. Short Film: Siraam (2026)

Siraam follows a young woman navigating sex, relationships and the expectations placed on women. What makes her story feminist is not simply that she embraces her sexuality, but that she makes choices about her body without being reduced to those choices.

29. Series: Dickinson (2019–2021)

Dickinson reimagines Emily Dickinson as a woman resisting the limits placed on her creativity, relationships and identity. Emily is ambitious, and the show takes seriously how absurd it is to ask a woman with enormous creative ambition to be satisfied with the tiny life available to her. She wants art, love, the right to explore her sexuality, recognition and freedom without having to apologise for wanting more than one thing. The question underneath the whole series is deliciously simple: what if the “difficult woman” was never difficult? What if she just wanted more?

30. Short Film: Before We Fall Asleep

Before We Fall Asleep follows a couple whose relationship begins to unravel as long-held expectations and power dynamics come to the surface. Its feminist lens comes through in the way it questions the roles women are expected to play in relationships and what happens when they begin to push against them.

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

In this article, we spoke to 10 women who have chosen their careers over everything else, and they shared what that decision has meant for their marriages, children, families and themselves.

1. “I’m Just Glad My Kids Have a Father Who is There for Them” — Bimbo*, 40

When it comes to work, I’m a huge perfectionist. It’s one area of my life I don’t joke around with, and before I got married, I was honest with my husband that work would always take priority over everything else, and he understood. So, when we got married and even started having our kids, we barely fought because he knew what to expect. 

His job doesn’t demand much from him, unlike mine, so he easily took over the bulk of the parenting. If I knew I would work late nights, he would take care of them, and when I get back, he would take care of me because he knows how bad my migraines get after a long night.

Whenever I travel for a work event for weeks at a time, he makes sure the children don’t feel my absence in any of his actions, and I guess that’s why he’s their favourite parent. It would make sense to be jealous of the fact that my children don’t feel close because of how much work takes me away from them, but honestly, I’m just really glad that they have a father who is completely there for them in every way. 

2. “I Didn’t Want to Be Like the Women of My Family” — Oyin*, 39

When I turned twenty, I realised that I didn’t want to be like the women of my family who broke their backs serving men who didn’t serve them back, so I decided not to get married and focused on advancing my career instead. It has been nineteen years since I made that decision, and I’ve been having a good time. 

As much as the job market can get toxic sometimes, I love working so much. I love managing people, I love making my own money, and, most importantly, I love how it has given me the chance to meet many people. My family does not approve of my single lifestyle, of course, but the beautiful thing about the first child who makes bastard money is that everyone is always afraid to go against you out of fear of you financially cutting them off. 

There are days when I do ask myself if I’m really sure I don’t want to get married and have kids of my own, but then I watch my friends complain about their husbands’ weaponising incompetence, and assure myself that I made a good choice. 

3. “My Husband Tried Baiting Me Into Resigning” — Fathia*, 40

I’m an executive at a company that demands a lot of my time and energy. Because of that, I’ve had to put work before my husband and two children, which has caused a lot of problems between us. There was a time when I was the less busy parent, and my husband’s job was constantly demanding, but I never complained that the majority of the housework fell on me because I understood. So, imagine my surprise years later when he got a less demanding job, I got promoted at work, and he started having issues with the same things I had overlooked for him out of ‘uČÔ»ć±đ°ùČőłÙČčČÔ»ćŸ±ČÔȔ’.&ČÔČúČő±è;

There have been times I would leave work at 9 p.m. and still face the island-to-mainland weekday traffic, and when I got back home, I would find the children still waiting for me to cook because their father, who gets back home by 6 in the evening, refuses to cook. Aside from that, he would not help with their assignments or even help wash the flasks of food they took to school that day. When I confronted him about all this, he told me I should learn how to juggle my work and personal life better, but let’s not forget that when he had a demanding job, I was making sure our children didn’t feel neglected in any way. 

I knew he was just baiting me into possibly resigning, and I refuse to do that because I love my job. It’s my biggest priority. The week after confronting him, I hired a housemaid to help care for the kids, and although my husband hates it, I don’t really care about him. 

4. “In Prioritising My Career, I Emotionally Neglected My Children” — Biola*, 60

I hate being idle, and this inability to sit still without doing anything pushed me to become a dedicated career woman all my life. For decades, I worked tirelessly and prioritised my job over everything, including my husband and children. In most movies you see on television, it’s usually the husband who is barely ever home because of work, but in my children’s lives, it was I who was barely ever home. I only saw them early in the morning and at weekends, and I didn’t realise how much of a strain this put on our relationship until they all grew up and no longer wanted to be associated with me. 

It is only because of my husband that my children still keep in touch with me. They would have been completely okay with not associating with me at all if not for him, and to be frank, I don’t blame them. In prioritising my career, I emotionally and physically neglected them at precarious times in their lives, and that’s enough not to want to talk to me at all. It hurts, though. 

5. “My Mum Believes a Generational Curse is Preventing Me From Finding a Husband” — Keji*, 35

When I decided I would rather marry my work than have a husband, I knew my family wouldn’t accept it, so I had to devise a plan that wouldn’t cause complications. For years, while I focused on climbing the corporate ladder, I would have the occasional boyfriend, introduce him to my parents as someone I wanted to marry, and, after a few months, break up with him. 

This was a cycle I kept repeating because I knew it would make my mother think there was some family curse that was preventing me from finding a stable boyfriend that could eventually turn into a husband. I’ve been doing this for years now, and while everyone keeps praying over my head for me to find a good husband, I’m focusing on my work. There might come a time when my mum realises I’m doing it on purpose, but for now, she is just convinced it’s a generational curse preventing me from finding a good husband. 

You’ll Love: Solana Didn’t Choose Music. It Has Always Been a Part Of Her

6. “My Husband Understands That Work is My First Love” — Doyin*, 29

I don’t regret putting work above everything in my life, and maybe it’s because God blessed me with a mother who also did the same and showed me that you could still have a good marriage while putting yourself first. My husband and I have been married for five years now, and he understands that work is my first love and will remain like that forever, even when we have our children. 

We have had a lengthy conversation, and I’ve let him know that just because work comes first doesn’t mean our marriage won’t work. As long as we both respect and understand each other, there won’t be any reason to fight over my work schedules. I think having a husband who respects the work his wife does is what a lot of career women need, because if you are married to someone who has no respect for the job you do, he’s only going to keep dragging you down. 

7. “I Have to Deal With Family Because My Husband Can’t Stop Complaining” — Maria*, 36

Putting work above your marriage and your kids would get you on a lot of bad sides, and I’m a living testament of that. Apart from the occasional fights with my husband, who gets mad that he has to watch the children whenever work keeps me occupied for hours, I also have to deal with family members on both sides because my husband can’t stop complaining about my love for work. 

It’s already stressful trying your best to be a present mother for your children, and then I’m being dragged to one family meeting after another because my putting my work first is stressing a grown man out. The thing my husband knows but refuses to make peace with is the fact that I am not going to stop working. Work is the only thing that frankly keeps me sane in this world, and I love the fact that I can take care of myself and my children without needing to ask anyone’s son for that. 

8. “I’m Okay With Being a Single Workaholic” — Tola*, 30 

As a woman who put career over any possibilities of marriage, a lot of my friends expect me to regret it, and while I do, sometimes, I actually love being single right now. I am self-aware enough to realise that most romantic possibilities would not be okay with me being a workaholic who does not understand the concept of taking breaks. 

Work has affected my relationships with my family and friends, so I know it’s probably going to be worse if I do start dating someone. It has also come to my attention that men don’t really like career-obsessed women, and honestly, I would rather die than take steps down my career ladder just to appease someone’s ego. If I find someone who understands my workload in the future, maybe I’ll be open to giving them a chance, but for now? I’m very okay with being a single workaholic. 

9. “We Built a Bond With Our Daughters Without Work Being Affected” — Ella*, 40

One reason putting my career first has not affected my marriage or my relationship with my kids is that my husband is like me. We both love our jobs too much, and that’s one of the reasons why we fell in love with each other. Before we had our twin girls, we made an extensive plan on how to be there for them despite our jobs, and it has been working out well for us. 

On weekdays, we mostly have the housemaid take care of them, but we make an effort to be back by evening so we can learn how their day went and hear about any complaints they have. On weekends, we switch off our phones and spend the entire time with our girls, and by doing so, we have built beautiful relationships with them without work being affected in any way. 

10. “I’m Too Career-Obsessed to Make Space for Children” — Lillian*, 28

I’m a big career woman who has decided that I would not give birth to any children unless my possible future husband and I decide to give adoption a chance. I decided this because I’ve seen how many career women tend to scale back their dreams a bit every time they have children. Whether they like it or not, they have to make space for those children, and honestly, I’m too career-obsessed to do that. 

That is why I’m having a lot of problems on the romantic front. A lot of men I’ve had romantic connections with in the past were “traditional”, and whenever I talked about my career, they always reminded me that I would need to make work a lesser priority when I get reminded to them. Frankly, that is something I do not see myself doing, and I always let them know, but their responses have never been positive. For that reason, I will be staying single from now on and just focusing on my career. 

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

This is Solana’s Story As Told To Sofiyah 

I don’t remember much about my childhood, but I do remember music. My mum played a lot of , , and other Yoruba artists she loves around the house, so those sounds were a core part of my earliest memories.

Maybe that’s the reason why music always felt natural to me. I wrote my first song when I was six, although I honestly can’t remember what inspired it. People often ask me when I decided I wanted to become an artist, but I don’t think there was ever a specific moment. One could say music has just always been the way I express myself in this world. If I feel a certain emotion, experience something, or have a story I want to tell, I usually process it by writing and singing. There was never a time when I sat down and decided to start making music. It has always just been my normal way of life.

It wasn’t until my second year at university that this normal part of my life began to feel like something more. I had a roommate who worked at a recording studio, and she would always see me writing and singing in our room. One day, she decided to take me to the studio, and I believe that was when I started recording properly. Looking back, that was the beginning of my journey as an artist, but at the time, I wasn’t thinking about it as a career decision. I just found myself doing something I had always done.

It also explains why I’ve never really questioned whether music was the right path for me. While I do love fashion and creating things, music is the one thing I feel I can truly excel at. It is the one thing I can do well, and anything else I try would probably not give me the same joy and satisfaction.

Even though music has always been a part of me, and I was sure of what I could create, I didn’t get to where I am today alone. My friends were some of the first people who believed in me. I was always the girl writing songs and singing, and they were the ones reminding me that what I was creating was really good. Their encouragement gave me the confidence to keep taking myself seriously.

That confidence grew even more when I started working with . He helped me develop my sound, pushed me to explore more creatively and gave me a safe space to express myself. One thing you should know is that we both love experimenting, so working together has always felt seamless and easy.

That shared love of experimentation is also why I have never liked putting myself into a single genre box. People often describe my sound as Yorupop (Yoruba Pop), and I understand why, because my culture is a big part of who I am, but Yoruba music is only one part of my identity as an artist. I don’t want to create from a place where I feel boxed in.

I would love to keep exploring different sounds and finding new ways to express myself. If someone who has never heard my music asked me to describe it, I would say I’m an experimental artist, but no matter what sound I explore, I still want people to always hear that Solana stamp.

That exact mindset shaped . The title means “darkness” in Yoruba, and the song is about leaving a difficult place behind, but to be honest, I didn’t want it to feel like a sad song. I wanted it to show that you don’t have to leave darkness in a sad way. You can leave it happily, step into the light and find joy again. It is a song that carries a heavy message, but it is still a lot of fun.

Looking back, it’s quite interesting that Okunkun almost stayed unreleased. I recorded it in 2023, but when some people in the industry heard it, they had their reservations. They questioned whether Nigerians would connect with it. They felt it wasn’t the kind of sound people were used to hearing and wondered whether listeners would embrace a song that wasn’t Amapiano-led. 

At the time, those opinions affected me more than I admitted. The song remained unreleased for years because I started to question whether they were right, but eventually, I realised I couldn’t keep creating based on what other people expected from me. 

I had to remind myself why I started making music in the first place. I was making music for myself, and if I loved a song, that had to be enough. The people who connected with it would find it, and if they didn’t, I would still be proud of what I created.

When I finally started teasing Okunkun online, the response reminded me that trusting myself was the right decision. People from Nigeria, Europe, and America connected with the song and loved how different it sounded.

One of my favourite things since releasing Okunkun has been seeing the different meanings people find in the song. Yoruba is such a deep language, and people have interpreted the lyrics in ways I never expected. I love that because it shows how a song can grow beyond the person who created it.

That experience has made me even more excited about everything else I have to share. After releasing Dide and Okunkun, I’m preparing an EP produced entirely by Killertunes that drops next month. I also have a lot of unreleased songs, some dating back to 2019, that I can’t wait for people to hear finally. Watch this space.

More than anything, I want to keep making music that feels true to me. I’ve realised that I don’t have to fit into anyone else’s idea of what my sound should be. As long as I keep creating, experimenting and sharing the parts of myself that I put into every song, I know exactly where I’m meant to be. 

Here are reasons why we think Spider-Man is the most Nigerian superhero. 

1. He’s Broke

With Aunt May gone and no one remembering him, Peter is now poor as hell. Saving New York should have made him rich by now, but his account is in the red. Do you know who can relate to being broke despite working hard? Nigerians.

2. He’s Resourceful 

Like Nigerians, Peter Parker is resourceful, and this is why you would see him making his costumes and webbing himself. It would have been nice to outsource these things, but he does not have that money. 

3. He Deals With Street-Level Crimes

Unlike The Avengers, who primarily face universe-level threats, Spider-Man mostly faces street-level crimes, which Nigeria has plenty of. Just imagine the thought of being able to use your phone while sitting next to a window in a Danfo and not get robbed because all the phone snatchers are afraid of getting their bodies thrown through the wall by Spiderman. 

4. He’s Always Going Through One or Two 

If he’s not finding out that his crush’s dad is The Vulture, he’s getting exposed to the world by a villain, and just when things seem like they can’t get any worse, he accidentally messes up the universe so badly that everyone he loves forgets he exists. Peter Parker can never catch a break, and do you know who else is always going through one or two things? Nigerians. 

5. He Has the Problem-Solving Skills to Thrive in Lagos

Peter Parker knows that moving around any other way, say in a car like Batman or on a bike like Captain America, will leave him stuck in traffic until the crime is over. So, he swings instead. That’s the kind of problem-solving skill Nigeria brings out of you. 

6. He’s Adept at Juggling Different Things at Once 

If he’s not busy fighting crimes or trying to be a present nephew, he’s competing at an Academic Decathlon while crushing on MJ. That ability to juggle different things is a trait many Nigerians know all too well, especially those managing multiple hustles without breaking a sweat. 

In this article, ten women revealed the moment when they checked out of their marriages. 

1. “I Can’t Divorce Him Because I’ll Be Shamed” — Raliat*, 45

Before we got married, my boyfriend had always cheated on me, and when I wanted to break up with him, he told me that he would stop. I should never have believed him because he never stopped. His cheating got worse after the marriage, to the point where everyone in my neighbourhood was aware of his reputation. 

Among my friends and family, he has made me the butt of the joke, and at first, I kept assuring myself that he would change for the better, but he has not. Being his wife is draining, and although my daughter keeps telling me that I could divorce him, I can’t because I know how much I’ll be shamed for being a single mother. However, I have completely divorced him in my head, and I’ve stopped having sex with him. My friends keep telling me he’ll just use that as an excuse to cheat, but even when we were having sex, he was still cheating, so what’s the point? 

2. “He Went Behind My Back to Marry Someone” — Aisha*, 48

In my tenth year of marriage, my husband and his family brought a woman into our house and announced that she would be his second wife. I was absolutely gutted when I heard, and I got so angry when they all expected me to be diplomatic about it. My husband knew my position on marrying more than one wife. He knew I was adamantly against it, and still, he went behind my back to marry someone. When I confronted him about it in front of everyone, he didn’t even try to apologise and told me he wasn’t obligated to inform me about all the goings-on in his life. He ended it by telling me that I shouldn’t make a big deal out of nothing because he’s married to her, and there is nothing I can do about it.

After he said that, I carried our daughter to my parents’ house because I genuinely didn’t want to see him ever again. It was my mother who ended up forcing me to go back and accept the new wife, and while I did that, I started to detach from the marriage completely. It is obvious that he does not respect me or our marriage, so why should I continue to be attached to someone like that? 

3. “My Husband is More or Less of a Roommate These Days” — Titi*, 50  

My husband is a deadbeat husband and father who has done nothing to make my life or my children’s lives better in any way. He thinks that the only way he can be a present husband is by providing half of his children’s school fees and giving me a small stipend for household expenses. After that, he clocks out. 

I see my friend’s husbands giving them money to take care of themselves, and at first, it made me so jealous because my husband has never given me as little as five hundred naira to buy nail oil. One time, I even tried to get him to give me money to get my hair done, and he asked me why I was bothering myself with stupid things like that. I think that was when I realised that I was wasting my time with someone who does not love me.

Instead of wasting my time asking myself and God why my husband does not love me, I put all my energy into my business, which pays me well and has been fulfilling, because I mostly see him as more of a roommate these days. My children say it would be easier to just leave the marriage but honestly? It is too late to start my life all over again.

4. “I Became Known as the Wife of the Drunkard” — Biola*, 60 

My husband and I have been married for over thirty years now, and for twenty-two years of it, he battled severe alcohol addiction. At first, I didn’t think too much of it when he started drinking three beers in one sitting, but when he started to come home really drunk and vomit all over the house, I realised that it was bad.

I tried my best to get him to stop. I talked to his friends, his elder siblings, and even his parents in the hopes that they would talk some sense into him, but it didn’t work. He continued to drink until it became all he was known for on the street we lived on. I became known as the wife of the drunkard, and every job my husband had, he lost because he always went to work drunk. I had to shoulder the entire upkeep of the house because he didn’t seem to care about making sure our children had food to eat or money to go to school. I began to work from morning to night, and honestly, the exhaustion from that was enough for me to clock out of my marriage. I couldn’t handle working day and night, and an alcohol-loving husband together. 

My husband is on a path of recovery now, and while I should be excited about it, I don’t feel anything. For years, I waited for him to turn back into the husband I knew before the alcoholism, and at some point, I got tired of waiting. It would make sense to just leave him since our children are now grown but, what’s the point when I could have left him earlier? 

5. “I Stopped Seeing Him as Someone I Love” — Favour*, 30 

For two years, my husband and my best friend of fifteen years were apparently having an affair right under my nose. I was completely oblivious to it, even though my other friends kept telling me that it was weird that the two of them were so close. I never suspected them because I trusted them not to do something as awful as that to me, but they did. 

I found out about it through one of our mutual friends, who sent me a picture of them kissing. When I saw it, I raised hell. I broke things in the house, screamed, cried, shouted at both of them for hours, and left the house for a long time. After weeks of anger, my body calmed, and I finally processed the betrayal. For two years, they went behind my back, and I didn’t know. I felt humiliated, and although I knew in that moment that I would still stay with my husband even after what he did, I told myself to stop seeing him as someone I love. 

In my head, it’s better that way because I know that even with all the grovelling he did when I found out, he would still go back to cheating on me with someone else. I know that I could just leave him and find a new husband, but to me, it’s better to stay with the devil I’ve known for a long time than an angel I barely know. 

6. “I Accepted the Fact That I’m Married to a Coward” — Ngozi*, 36

I began to mentally detach from my marriage when I accepted the fact that I’m married to a coward. My husband’s family is made up of the most diabolical human beings ever. Ever since I got married to him, I’ve never had a moment of peace with them. I’m Igbo, he’s Yoruba, and because of that, they’ve tagged me as the evil girl who is unworthy of their son. Every time they visited, they found something to nitpick and berate me for. They would call me all sorts of derogatory names, and found joy when I cried in front of them. 

The thing is, I think I would not have cared too much about their actions if my husband had supported me, but unfortunately for me, he did not. When they called me worthless because all our children are girls, he did not say anything; when they called my mother useless for not teaching me manners, he stopped me from saying anything, and when his eldest sister flogged our lastborn till the point where she got bruised, he shouted at me for confronting his sibling. It was then that I realised that he is a coward, and there is no point expecting him to be there for me. He is my husband, but he hardly ever acts like that, and I cannot pretend everything is okay. 

7. “I Regret the Day My Husband Found Purpose in Religion” — Samiat*, 33

My husband is a big Alfa in our community, and because of this, he dedicates most of his time to others rather than to his family. It might seem blasphemous to say this, but I regret the day my husband found his so-called purpose in religion. I went from having my husband’s attention 24/7 to barely having him in the house. I do not have a problem with him responding to other people’s needs, but when he ignores his family because of them, that’s just unacceptable. 

Our baby boy is ten, and he barely knows anything about his dad because he’s not even home. When he’s home, the only thing he cares about is if his son is up to date with his Madrasah (Arabic school). He does not even know I changed our son’s Madrasah because his last ustaz (teacher) almost killed him for me. My husband is a good man, but he’s emotionally unavailable, and that’s one thing I cannot accept. I’m only choosing not to leave the marriage because I don’t have the energy to deal with judgmental family members. 

8. “I Can’t See Myself Doing Forever With Him Again” — Tanya*, 30

My husband is someone who cannot regulate his emotions, and because of that, he makes everyone in the house uncomfortable. If I do something he is not satisfied with, he is quick to say all sorts of things to me. I grew up without flinching because my parents never shouted or laid a hand on their children, but I now flinch at every sound because my husband loves to declare his displeasure loudly. 

We’ve been married for eight years now, and honestly, I don’t see us making it to ten years together. He has his sweet moments, and there are days I’m reminded of why I fell in love with him, but I can’t see myself doing forever with him again. 

9. “A Man Who Loves Me Would Not Slap Me” — Quineth*, 29 

The day my husband slapped me was the day I mentally left the marriage. I do not remember what caused us to start arguing that day, but I’m sure it was not serious enough to put his hand on me in front of my younger sister. I felt completely humiliated, and for days, I kept asking myself why he did that to me until I concluded that I didn’t deserve what he did to me. Although he and his family begged and stopped me from leaving the marriage, and he has not done anything like that again, I don’t feel like I’m in love with him like I was before. A man who loves me would not slap me. 

10. “He Doesn’t View Me as a Woman With Her Own Agency” — Mariam*, 45

I got married to my husband when I was 22, and he was 30, and we’ve been married for 23 years now. I understand that it seems beautiful that we have lasted that long, but I mentally checked out after our tenth anniversary, when I saw women in their twenties going out and having fun. I’m aware that I made the choice to get married, but I resent him because he had his fun before getting married, and I did not.

Then, I got married, and I had to be the perfect Muslim wife who covers her hair and does not do anything to embarrass her husband. There have been many times when I tried to break out of that bubble of expectations, and he kept pushing me back in it without talking to me. He just expects me to do anything he asks me to do, and it’s hard not to see that he doesn’t view me as a woman with her own agency. I wish I could leave him, but I know I won’t be accepted by my family or community afterwards. 

I genuinely loved my main job, but I lived on the mainland and hated the Lagos Island traffic. It was exhausting, and as much as Lagos was home, I never got used to the daily stress. Eventually, I realised I needed a change.

I was young and wanted more from life. I have always believed that no goal is unattainable if I am willing to work for it. So, when the idea of studying in the UK crossed my mind, I refused to ignore it. I confided in a friend, even though I did not even have a passport at the time. She was the one who told me the first step was to apply for a Nigerian passport and gather all my documents before applying to universities in London.

Once I had a clear plan, I told my parents about it too. The support I received from my family and friends turned studying abroad from something I simply imagined into something I was determined to achieve. From the moment I started the process, I knew I had to see it through. By the age of 26, I had applied to study Business with International Management at a university in London, and once everything was in motion, turning back was never an option.

I really could not have done any of it alone. At one point during the process, I needed about 1.1 million naira to keep things moving toward my move. I called three friends and had the full amount before 6 pm that same day because they were confident I would pay it back. My mother prayed over the whole process constantly, because she was scared that I was giving up something stable to chase something uncertain. Honestly, I understood her fear. I was leaving a job I loved and a country I knew for one where I had no family at all.

By the night before I travelled, that fear had settled into me too, sitting alongside the excitement in equal measure. I did not know what to expect when I landed in London, but I have never been afraid to take bold steps.

My friend, Anu, also made my transition much easier. Before I even left Nigeria, she had helped me look into houses and jobs, and the minute I landed, she helped me settle in properly.

School started almost immediately, so I did not get much time to fully take in my new reality before I had to start living it. As a student, I was allowed to work twenty hours a week, and my week fell into a structured rhythm: school on Mondays and Tuesdays, work on Wednesdays and Thursdays, and weekends spent on schoolwork or exploring London with friends I had made through school and church.

That rhythm made the days manageable, but it did not make every day smooth-sailing. To date, one particular evening still stands out to me. It was winter, everywhere was dark by 6 pm, and it was cold. I was rushing to catch my train when I slipped on the wet ground and missed it anyway. After that happened, I walked into a nearby restaurant, got food, and sat there staring into a blank space, quietly rethinking every decision that had brought me to that point. However, I did not let myself dwell on it for too long because I knew it was just a phase and that it would pass.

Around this time, I began to lean further into content creation. My page still had a mostly Nigerian audience, and I wanted to grow a UK following, too, so I started sharing what a day in my life as an international student looked like, along with outfit ideas and lifestyle content. My audience slowly began to shift and grow alongside me.

In 2024, I had a baby girl, and that year became the most beautiful and most challenging of my life. Things did not work out with her father, so not long after she was born, I found myself raising her alone, in a country with no family nearby. I had to figure out, almost entirely on my own, how to earn a living and care for both of us with very little support. Some months I paid rent and other bills and was left with less than fifty pounds, hoping a brand deal would come through before the month ran out.

My friends lent me money whenever things got hard, and my church helped more than once, too. Through it all, I kept posting fashion, lifestyle, and motherhood content, but I never mentioned what was actually happening behind the scenes. The thing about social media is that it makes everyone’s lives look so perfect, and since I did not want to be judged for struggling as a single mother, I carried my pain alone. My daughter and I always looked our best in public, and no one watching knew how much I was holding together on my own.

Eventually, I became honest with myself enough to know that I needed real help, the kind only my mother could give. Childcare in the UK is expensive, and I could not focus on work without someone to care for my daughter, so I saved up and began the process of bringing her over. That process stretched me in every sense. I was still postpartum, living on maternity allowance that was not much to begin with, and now had to pull from it to cover the cost of her visa. Because of this, I made sure the Home Office understood exactly what I was dealing with, that I was a new mother and a single parent who genuinely needed her mother’s support, and they granted the visa.

By the time she arrived, I was more exhausted than I had ever been, worn down by sleepless newborn nights, a caesarean recovery, and the weight of doing everything alone. Her arrival changed everything. She took on the cooking and cleaning, helped care for my daughter, and, for the first time in months, gave me the chance to rest properly. Slowly, I started to feel like myself again, not just as a mother, but as a person.

Life had just begun to steady when, in July 2025, something happened that changed everything. I am not comfortable sharing what, but it was a serious incident that pulled me into a cycle of police stations, court appearances, and lawyers. It was traumatic enough that I made a decision: I was never going to carry that kind of weight in silence again. So I shared a piece of my story publicly for the first time.

It reached far more people than I expected. My page grew from around 3,000 followers to 25,000 in just three months, but the growth itself was not what surprised me most. It was the flood of messages that followed, hundreds of women writing to say they had lived through something similar. My experience was not unique. It had never been.

I began responding to those women personally, encouraging them, praying with some, and reassuring others that things would get better. I did not take it lightly that so many trusted me with their stories. I believed that everything I went through happened so I could be in a position to meet these women. My content shifted too, away from just mother-daughter moments and more toward the real issues affecting women navigating life in the UK.

As my community grew, I hit the lowest point of my life, and that was searching for a stable home. My daughter and I moved through three different cities and stayed with three different families before we finally found a flat of our own. The day we settled in, I finally felt like I could breathe for the first time in a while. 

It was then that I started rebuilding in earnest, returning to the things I loved and opening myself up further to the community that had formed around me. That visibility eventually turned into a career of its own, and I have now worked with more than fifty brands, both in the UK and Nigerian brands with a presence in London.

Honestly, if I could sit with my past self, I would tell her that everything would be fine, that the pain she was carrying was nothing compared to the joy waiting on the other side, and that the pain itself was simply part of the journey. My life is not perfect, but it is beautiful, and everything I went through shaped me into someone more resilient than I used to be.

To every woman, especially every single mother, quietly carrying something heavy right now, I want you to know that what you are going through is not peculiar to you. 

So many women are living the same reality in silence, and there is no shame in that. On the other side of the breaking is often the best season of your life. Do not let the judgment of people who never walked your path convince you otherwise. I saw the beauty in mine. You will see it in yours too.

There’s quite a lot of misunderstanding surrounding money-smart folks. A lot of people tend to equate money-smart with knowing complicated investment terms or having plenty of money in the bank, but that’s not it. Being money-smart is actually about making thoughtful decisions with the money you have, building healthy financial habits, and learning how to make your money work for you over time.

If you’ve ever wondered where you fall, these everyday situations might have the answer.

1. You Don’t Feel Like Spending All Your Money the Moment It Lands

Whether it’s your salary, your monthly allowance from a guardian or money from a side quest, money rarely sits in your account for too long. Between the occasional black tax, that laptop you’ve been saying you would get, and one retail therapy after another, there’s always a reason to spend.

If your first instinct is to put a considerable sum aside before spending the rest, you’re already building an impressive habit that can serve you well in the long run. It doesn’t actually matter whether you’re saving ₩10,000 or ₩100,000; what genuinely matters here is getting into the habit of pouring money into yourself first. 

2. You Think Before You Bid Goodbye to Your Money 

Let’s be honest, we’ve all had that one friend or family member who has told us they’ve found the next big investment opportunity that could change our lives for the better, and they try to convince us to jump on board before it’s too late. 

Instead of straight-up jumping into it out of excitement, you take a step back and ask a few important questions. You want to know how it works, what you’re signing up for, and whether it fits your financial end goals. Taking the time to understand what you’re putting your money into is one of the simplest ways to make better financial decisions. 

3. You Find It Easier to Save When You Have a Goal

Saving becomes much easier when you’re working towards something that means a lot to you. It could be your rent, a new phone to replace your current dying one, a laptop to advance your career, a trip, or even the emergency fund you’ve been telling yourself you’ll build one day.

This is where Stanbic IBTC’s comes to save the day. Its Target Savings feature lets you save toward specific goals, making it easier to stay consistent and build concrete money habits that can help you save over time. 

4. You’ve Started Wondering What Comes After Saving

Most people’s money journey starts with saving, but it’s only human to start asking the important questions after a while. Once you’ve built the discipline to save consistently, you may find yourself wondering how else your money can grow.

To be frank, you don’t have to be an expert to take an interest in investing. Being curious and learning how it works will make it less intimidating for you. Another bonus is that it can help you feel more confident about the choices you make with your money. 

5. You Learn Better When You’re Having Fun

Not everyone enjoys reading long articles about money, but the truth is, most people enjoy a challenge, especially when there’s something to gain from it.

That’s what Stanbic IBTC InvestBeta Season 3 is designed to do. As an interactive investment game show, it gives young Nigerians a chance to test their investing knowledge. It allows them to learn new things along the way and stand a chance to win exciting prizes. Instead of making financial education feel intimidating and boring, it turns learning into something fun and rewarding.

If you can’t take our word, maybe you would take the word of Victor Chidubem, one of the winners of InvestBeta Season 2, who described the experience as “fun, educative and insightful.” He also calls InvestBeta an amazing opportunity that participants won’t regret. 

(Victor Chidubem)

6. You’re Always Looking for Better Ways to Handle Your Money

Nobody gets everything right from the start, and becoming money smart isn’t a miracle that happens overnight. It happens when you keep looking for better ways to save, spend and plan, even if the improvements are small.

That mindset is something Odira Osegbo, the first female winner of InvestBeta Season 2, has carried into her own financial journey. Speaking about how she invests, she said, “I am doing the money market fund and the equity fund. Money market because it is safe. So, that is what I mainly use for capital preservation because in money market, your money is preserved.”

(Odira Osegbo)

That’s why Stanbic IBTC is creating opportunities for young Nigerians to build stronger financial habits. Through initiatives like InvestBeta Season 3 and tools like BluNest, the goal is to make learning about money feel digestible and approachable.

7. You’re Ready to Find Out How Money Smart You Really Are

Yes, being street-smart can help you avoid costly mistakes that you’ll regret for the rest of your life, while being book-smart can open various doors for you in life. Being money smart, however, gives you the confidence to make better financial decisions at every stage of your life.

If you’re still wondering whether it’s worth putting your money knowledge to the test, Odira has a simple answer. In her words, you have “nothing to lose and a whole lot to gain.” If that sounds like your kind of challenge, Stanbic IBTC InvestBeta Season 3 is definitely a great place to start.

Ready to see how money-smart you really are? Register for Stanbic IBTC InvestBeta Season 3, and then you can take things a step further with the InvestBeta 20% Challenge. Commit 20% of your monthly income to a Stanbic IBTC Money Market Fund through BluNest for six consecutive months, complete weekly tasks, climb the leaderboard and establish a more consistent investing habit along the way.

That consistency comes with great rewards, too. Participants who stay on track can unlock milestone prizes after three months, while the top performers stand a chance to win cash prizes, including the grand prize of ₩150,000.

Ready to get started? Register for InvestBeta season 3, and InvestBeta 20%, , and follow for weekly community tasks.

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Founder and CEO of LSFPR

2.  Nike Fagbule

Founder and CEO Of Zebra Stripes Network

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Founder and CEO Of Redrick PR

4. Tokunbo- George Taylor

Founder Of Skot Communications 

5. Subuola Oyeleye

CEO Of Beauty Hut Africa

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Co- Founder and Host of I Said What I Said Podcast

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Founder Of Couleurz Global

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Founder Of Gratia Co Media and Host Of Is This A Safe Space? Pod

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Founder Of The Comms Avenue

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