The white man comes to legally work in your land, you call them expatriates.
You go to legally work in their land, they call you immigrants.
Taking note.
I mentioned that my garage door was making a sound.
An American immediately said, "I got a guy."
He did not ask what the sound was. He did not ask what kind of door. He produced a guy on the basis of the word garage.
I asked who the guy was.
He said, "Just a guy."
He did not have a company name. He had a first name and a phone number in his phone saved as "Mike Garage."
That is the contact name. Mike Garage. As though Garage is his surname. As though there is a family.
I asked how he found this guy.
"My brother-in-law used him."
I asked if the brother-in-law was satisfied.
He thought about it. Then he said, "He's still standing."
The house is still standing. That is the entire review.
Inside I said: THEY DO NOT KEEP RECORDS. THEY KEEP LOYALTIES.
I called Mike Garage. He answered from inside a vehicle. There was wind. He said he could come Tuesday between eleven and four.
Between eleven and four. A window of five hours. In my country this would be a scandal. Here it is generous. He gave me a window at all. Some guys do not give you a window. Some guys say "Tuesday" and that is the whole appointment.
He came at 1:40.
He fixed it in twenty minutes. He charged me less than I expected and he did not take a card, only cash or an app I had never heard of.
Before leaving he looked at my water heater, which I had not mentioned, and said, "That's gonna go."
I asked when.
"Couple years."
I asked what I should do.
He said, "I'll give you a guy."
He gave me a guy. Mike Garage has a guy. The guy has a guy. There is a network beneath this country made entirely of men named after their function, and none of them advertise, and all of them are busy.
Inside I said: THERE IS A SECOND NATION HERE. IT HAS NO SIGNS. IT IS ENTERED ONLY BY INTRODUCTION.
I have been given four guys since.
I have a guy for trees.
I did not know I needed a guy for trees.
I have trees now, apparently. They are my responsibility. A man named Rick told me so and then left.
I give the federal government 24 hours to ban this thing called HMO in Nigeria.
Full family, straight from church with matching Ankara. Third set only today. God abeg 💔
you see some of the women in the comment section, they’re pissing me off.
lmao, they know exactly what he means but they still trying to twist it.
i showed my mum those girls glammed up in the second frame and no age below 20 crossed her mind.
if you want to advocate for something, the least you can do is be realistic
I will never forget my ex told me, after I shared the news of getting a new job after being laid off, “I was going to leave you in January if you didn’t get a new job…”
It was October 25th.
In the most brutal job markets and economies, after being laid off — after application after application, interview after interview, after exhausting my savings - that’s what she said to me.
he has to get it right first try too, her faith in him demanded it; that’s what a father does. not the one that won’t even answer and people will tell you prayed/asked amiss or he’s answering in mysterious ways
I earned $120K a year working for Shell in 2012.
Ten years and multiple promotions later, in 2022, that figure has doubled to $240K a year.
In 2023, I stumbled on an internal, confidential, document that showed the salaries of my superiors.
I saw that even if I were promoted multiple times again, the best I could hope for in another 10 years was another doubling to around $480K a year.
This may sound crazy saying it out loud but that wasn’t cutting it for me.
I simply didn’t want the next 10 years to be a repeat of the last 10.
I wanted geometric progression, not an arithmetic one.
On my 40th birthday, in 2023, I was asked to make a wish as a blew the candles on my birthday cake.
“Get the hell out of Shell,” I quietly whispered. Months later, I was out.
In 2024, my businesses grossed $500K; in 2025, they did $1M - geometric progression.
It required me to be delusional about my abilities, to bank on the faithfulness of God and to trust that inner voice that always nag at me that I could be more, I could do more and I could have more.