My Fear Of Poverty Is Crippling

“Hauwa, where have you been?”

hiding my face because I genuinely have no answers.

Please let me apologise. Life and its problems took over for a bit there but I promise to be consistent from this point in time, forward.

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The streaks of light from my window woke me this morning. I was a little annoyed because I originally had black-out curtains but I changed them because they made my house look like a fraud boy’s safe space. These new curtains fit better but the problem is - once it’s daytime, everywhere is flooded with light. I shrug the annoyance off because I’ll take this over the yahoo aesthetics any day.

As my senses came to, I realised I had fallen asleep on my couch again. I remember watching something on the tv and when I got drowsy, I told myself I’d close my eyes for a few minutes only for me to wake up in the morning. What this small experiment showed me is that I have now become an old woman and just like that, I was catapulted into a series of thoughts.

I am not oblivious to the fact that you reach a certain point in life where you cannot actively work anymore and you’re either dependent on the groundwork you’ve laid down in your youth or dependent on the children you have. I currently do not have any children nor can I afford a child right now so the only option I have is to work in order to secure myself in my old age (if I get to live long).

While struggling to make something of yourself as a young person, the fear of poverty also hovers because being a citizen of Nigeria is knowing that you are just one health challenge away from being broke. And what’s worse? The health challenge does not even have to be yours. It could be any one of your loved ones and that is scary.

I watched my mother go broke paying for hospital treatments for my grandmother who was battling cancer at the time. Unfortunately, we lost her in the end.

This crippling fear of poverty began when I was a child. The first time I was sent home from school for not paying my school fees, I saw my father’s face fall in disappointment. He put his head between his palms for a few minutes. I couldn’t understand why because I was elated that I didn’t have to go to school. However the elation quickly disappeared when my father raised his head. He was close to tears. I don’t know what happened in the hours between that day and the next but my father sent me to school that morning with proof of my school fees already paid.

My father has always been my protector and seeing him unable to protect me from the shame of being sent home from school did something to me. I never wanted to lack.

One day, during EID, my father was sitting with his friends and I went to ask him for money. He asked what I wanted to use the money for since we were at my grandmother’s for Eid, there was food, drinks and his car to take us back home, I replied “Financial Security”. My father and his friends burst into laughter because what does a 10 year old kid need financial security for?

He finally handed me a N200 note and I skipped away.

I didn’t know what the N200 could do or not do but the fact that I had money gave me a feeling of security.

This is how I live as an adult but unfortunately adulthood requires you taking risks with your money or you will in fact end up with the poverty you were running away from.

In order to make money, you have to be open to the money leaving your hands. You have to spend towards your goals. This is something I’m just learning how to do.

I am able to give to people but to give to myself? HAYYYY. Wahala.

So, in 2025, I am trying to spend money both on myself and on my business. This year, I have a number of travel plans lined up and a number of projects I want to invest in. If my money finishes, it finishes and I will rebuild because I want to believe that it is possible.

There is an adage that says don’t kill yourself before death comes.

Please do not be too afraid to give yourself nice things, you deserve it and you have worked for it. And at the same time, don’t be afraid to take risks. Your money can only work for you if you let it go out to work.

Thank you for always sticking with me even when I disappear without an explanation.

I love you,

Hauwa 🤎

This week’s song is Soulmate by Andrea Vanzo.