SOFT LIFE OR DIE TRYING

SOFT LIFE OR DIE TRYING By EbonamIzuchukwu Prologue: The Boots That Never Walked A Multigenerational Lagos Tragedy Marina, Lagos – June 10, 1985 The scent of crude oil and freshly minted naira wafted through the air as Engineer Ademola's polished Oxfords clicked across the marble floor of the NNPC headquarters. The glass tower seemed to stretch higher, holding his future like a mirage. At the security desk, a French expatriate handed him a badge with a wink. "Bonjour, monsieur. Votre badge." The laminated card felt warm in Ademola's palm as he caught his reflection: crisp white safari suit, neatly trimmed moustache, eyes lit with unspoken promises – pension at 55, staff housing, free healthcare for kids not yet born. Outside, a newspaper vendor's voice rang through the Lagos humidity: "Daily Times! Oil boom go last fifty years!" Ajegunle, Lagos – March 15, 1992 In the center of the room, the boots sat like an altar, polished daily but worn rarely. Under the flicker of a kerosene lamp, eight-year-old Ngozi watched her father move the brush over the leather with careful strokes – not out of necessity, but ritual. "Daddy, why do you still polish them if they don't call you anymore?" The brush paused, and the room fell silent except for the dying generator's coughs and Mrs. Adekunle's wails from next door – another pensioner evicted. When he finally answered, his voice carried the weight of loss: "A soldier stays ready. Even when the war is over." On the radio, Babangida's voice crackled through static: "The government can no longer be the employer of first resort…" Lekki, Lagos – 4:17 AM, Present Day Ngozi's iPhone-6 cast a blue glow on her tired eyes as she stared at Slide 27 of a pitch for a Canadian client. A ₦200 debit from "Blessing Beauty" caught her attention. Her cousin's i********: story flashed: "Private jet vibes! #HustleHard" Her thumb moved automatically – double-tap, keep the lie alive. Just like her father used to knot his NNPC tie every morning, long after the job was gone. A new notification lit up her screen: "Good morning! Psalm 23 for financial breakthrough! Share to 10 groups!" – Mum. The generator stuttered outside, and on her laptop, the PowerPoint timer blinked: 5:18 AM | 62 slides to go. Somewhere in Ajegunle, those boots still sat in a metal trunk, gathering dust. Somewhere in Marina, the cocktails still flowed. And Ngozi – daughter of the boom, survivor of the bust – kept scrolling, kept clicking, kept pretending. The war wasn't lost; it had just been outsourced. CHAPTER 1 FROM PENSION TO POS (How Nigeria Weaponized Hustle Culture) Lagos, 2008 The cybercafé was more than just a space to access the internet. It was a microcosm of the city itself—desperate, cluttered, and under constant pressure to survive. The faint smell of unwashed armpits mingled with the burnt scent of motherboard circuitry, forming an unholy blend that lingered in the air. Ngozi’s fingers hovered over the keyboard, her eyes heavy with exhaustion. The screen in front of her was a blur of flashing pop-ups, each one promising quick riches. But there was one that always caught her eye, no matter how many times she saw it: "MAKE $500 DAILY FROM YOUR BED! Nigerian Prince System VERIFIED!" She stared at it for a long moment, as though the blinking lights might somehow convince her to click. She didn’t, of course. But the temptation was always there, gnawing at her. It wasn’t that she wanted to fall for such scams, but there was a quiet, insidious desperation that crept into her thoughts—What if? What if this one time, it was real? What if it was the answer to everything? Beside her, a boy in an oversized Arsenal jersey slammed his fist on the table in frustration, knocking over his empty bottle of cheap gin. His breath reeked of alcohol and boiled corn, and his wild eyes darted around as if searching for someone to blame. "Yahoo Yahoo no work again! Dem don upgrade American firewall!" His voice cracked with bitterness, the familiar echo of defeat in his words. Once, Yahoo Yahoo had been the golden ticket for so many young men in the city—an underground economy that seemed to promise a way out. But now, it felt like everyone was getting scammed, one way or another. They were all fighting for scraps. Ngozi closed her browser window, not because she was disgusted, but because the cycle felt familiar. It felt like something she was too familiar with, too used to. Desperation. But as she was about to shut the laptop, she was interrupted by the café owner's daughter—fresh from London with her new iPhone 3G. Her accent was thick, like a weapon in her mouth. She leaned over to show off the magazine she had just bought. "Don't bother with scams, love. The real money’s in motivational speaking now. Look." She flicked through the glossy pages, the paper crisp and white like it had never been touched by human hands. Among the ads for forex trading and real estate webinars, Ngozi’s eyes caught something familiar—a photo of her father’s old colleague, now posing as a “Global Hustle Guru”. The man was dressed in a Team No Sleep t-shirt, his belly straining beneath it as he stood in front of a rented Lamborghini. His smug expression looked back at Ngozi with the kind of emptiness she had come to associate with hustle culture. Her father’s former colleague had traded in his dignity for these hollow promises of success, flashing his wealth for all to see. “7 Streams of Income in 7 Days!” Ngozi felt a bitter chuckle rise in her throat, but she swallowed it back. This wasn’t the future she wanted. This wasn’t what her father had dreamed for her. She shut the laptop with a quiet click, turning her focus inward. Lagos, 1999 The TV screen flickered as General Obasanjo’s voice boomed from the small black-and-white television, announcing his inauguration. "We must rebuild our great nation!" he declared, flanked by smiling foreign dignitaries and their immaculate suits, clapping in harmony with every word he spoke. Ngozi, no more than nine, was on the floor playing with her father’s old NNPC ID card. The edges were curling, the plastic warped from years of use. She ran her small fingers over the numbers, the significance of them almost lost on her. She had heard stories of her father’s proudest achievements—how he had fought to climb the corporate ladder, how he had dreamed of retirement in comfort. She had imagined him in his crisp NNPC uniform, a symbol of a stable, secure life. That was before everything began to unravel. Her father snatched the card away, as though he was afraid it might slip through his fingers and disappear. "Don’t spoil it! That’s my pension proof." His tone was sharp, defensive, and it startled Ngozi. She hadn’t meant to upset him. But her innocent questions about the card, questions about the future, seemed to push him further into his shell. Mama’s voice floated in from the kitchen, cutting through the tension with a sharp laugh. "Pension? Even civil service people no dey see pension again. Na only hustle dey now." Her words felt like a cold slap. Ngozi had always admired her mother’s resilience, the way she carried the family through tough times. But this bitterness, this reality, wasn’t something her nine-year-old mind could fully grasp. How could her mother speak so cynically of the future? Wasn’t this the same future her father had once been so hopeful about? That night, Ngozi watched as her father spread out newspaper clippings on the floor—job ads for the desperate, the ones who had nowhere else to turn. Each one circled in red ink, each one carrying a promise of hope that felt increasingly distant. Security Man Needed (Age 35 Below) Driver Wanted (Must Own Car) NNPC Re-Employment Form (₦5,000 Processing Fee) The last one made her stomach churn. Her father was holding onto a thread, desperately trying to find a way back into a system that no longer cared about him. She realized then—Hustle was the only currency left. There was no room for dreams anymore, only the grinding, endless search for survival. Cybercafé, 2012 The walls of the cybercafé seemed to close in on Ngozi as she sat, her hands frozen over the keyboard. The noise of the other patrons, their frenetic energy, made her head ache. They were all here, just like her, trying to find a way out. But the question always lingered—A way out to what? Her browser history was a map of the country's growing obsession with escape: “How to make money online in Nigeria” “Forex trading: Real or scam?” “Best way to get Canadian visa lottery results” Beside her, Chidi, a boy who once sat at the top of their physics class, was now lost in his own delusion. "Na multi-level marketing. You pay ₦50k to join, then recruit others. In six months, you go buy Range Rover!" His excitement felt like an act. His teeth were yellowing from a diet of street food and cheap gin, his shirt collar frayed and hanging loosely from his shoulders. And yet, on his w******p status, there was a photoshopped image of him standing in front of a glittering Dubai skyscraper, arms spread wide, with the caption: "The grind never stops!" Ngozi didn’t know whether to laugh or cry. She had seen it before, this twisted version of success—people pretending to have it all while drowning in debt and shame. The promises of luxury were just a smokescreen, a cover for the desperation that fueled every decision. Bank Queue, 2016 The day Ngozi received her dismissal letter was the day she realized there was no escape. The bank restructuring had left her without a job, and it seemed like every door she tried to open just led her back to the same grim reality. As she stood in the long queue, clutching the letter, she overheard a conversation that made her feel sick. "My sister, forget 9-to-5! Buy POS machine. I dey make ₦30k daily!" The woman behind her was dressed in a faded ankara, her wig askew, but her voice carried the fire of someone who had found her “solution.” This was the new gospel—Forget traditional work. Hustle. Hustle until you have no choice but to keep hustling. Outside, a billboard loomed over the city’s traffic, mocking the struggle: "STILL USING ONE HAND? DOUBLE YOUR INCOME TODAY!" The image of the smiling man holding two POS machines felt like a sick joke. In a country where wealth was more about appearances than substance, this was the new symbol of success. If you couldn’t hustle, you didn’t matter. Lekki, Present Day Ngozi’s iPhone buzzed with a stream of notifications, each one a reminder of her failure to meet society’s expectations. "Your cousin Emeka just tagged you in #HustleHard post." "Your Cowrywise balance: ₦2,300." "Your mother: When will you build house?" The messages felt like the weight of the world. The world was telling her she wasn’t enough—not enough hustle, not enough success. Ngozi glanced at the framed photo of her father’s NNPC ID, now gathering dust. Her father’s dream was now reduced to a relic, just like the promises of pension that had never come. Her own certificate from the bank, where she had once been employee of the month, now sat beside it—a hollow reminder of a life that seemed to slip further away each day. Outside, Fela’s voice echoed through the radio, singing of revolution and resistance: "Them don turn us to slave..." Ngozi glanced out the window. The city was alive with energy, but it felt suffocating, like it was slowly squeezing the life out of her. She stepped out into the streets of Lagos once again, the noise, the chaos, the desperation filling her ears. A new billboard caught her eye: “SOFT LIFE IS FOR THE WEAK. GRIND NOW, REST IN HEAVEN.” She smiled bitterly. The words were a cruel reminder that this was the world she had inherited—the world her father had left her. A world that promised everything, but delivered nothing. She reached for her battered sneakers—the same ones she had worn years ago. They had carried her through so many false starts, so many dead ends. They were a symbol of survival, not success. A reminder that some battles were not won with ambition, but with endurance. Some wars weren’t fought with guns. Some battles were fought in the spaces between breaths, in the moments of exhaustion and hopelessness. And in those battles, there were no winners. Only survivors. CHAPTER 2 INSTAGRAM CEOS & THE ART OF PERFORMATIVE HUSTLE The rented Lamborghini’s air conditioning hummed, but it felt more like a cold wind blowing through her thoughts. The car, the watch, the photographer’s insistence—it was all a performance. Ngozi knew it. She had become a professional at pretending. But the person staring back at her from the side mirror seemed like a stranger. She adjusted herself, glancing over at the photographer. He gave a thumbs-up, his voice sharp over the hum of the engine. "Perfect! One more, just like that. You own Lagos!" A hollow feeling gnawed at Ngozi’s chest as she forced another smile, posing the way she had been told. But she couldn’t shake the gnawing doubt that sat heavy in her gut. Was this all she was? Just another image, another moment to be captured and shared online, to keep up the illusion of a life she didn’t actually l ive? Her phone buzzed, pulling her from the thought. It was a w******p message from Mama. "This is how you spend your salary? On nonsense photos? When will you build a house?" She closed her eyes for a second, taking a deep breath. Not now, she thought. I can’t deal with this right now. The message stung. She had heard it before, many times over. Mama didn’t understand. She couldn’t. But it didn’t make it any easier to ignore. Mama’s words always hit harder because they came from a place of love. She wanted Ngozi to build something solid, something real. To have the security she had never had. But security wasn’t Instagrammable. Security didn’t get you brand deals or partnerships with influencers who had more followers than she could ever dream of. Ngozi clicked her phone off, burying it deep in her bag. The reality was, this wasn’t about building anything real—it was about building an image. The facade of success was the true currency in this world. People didn’t want hard work. They wanted to see results. They wanted the story, the dream, the aspiration. It didn’t matter how it came, as long as it looked like it came easy. The photographer signaled for her to get out of the car. She did, the heels clicking against the pavement as she stepped onto the sun-baked street of Lekki Phase 1. He repositioned her, telling her to look into the distance, as if contemplating her future, as if her life were some kind of romantic movie. "Perfect! Think about what you want. Where do you see yourself in five years?" But Ngozi didn’t want to think about the future right now. She didn’t want to think about the life she was pretending to live. She just wanted to escape, to find something more real than this fabricated version of success. But how? And where? The phone buzzed again. Another message from her mother. “What will you leave behind? You’re spending your life doing nonsense. You’re not serious. Who are you trying to impress?” It was always the same. Every message, every call, felt like another weight pressing down on her. The expectation was heavy, suffocating. Mama’s voice in her head, always reminding her that there was a right way to live. A way that involved building, investing, saving. A way that wasn’t so flashy. But in a world obsessed with the quick fix, the shortcut, the overnight success, it was hard for Ngozi to see a way forward that didn’t involve the constant pressure to look like she was winning. She closed her eyes, taking a deep breath. She had never felt more alone in her life. Back in the car, Ngozi scrolled through her i********: feed. She saw the posts from other “entrepreneurs”—young people claiming to be CEOs of businesses that didn’t exist, influencers flashing money they didn’t actually earn, forex traders promising financial freedom through methods that were nothing more than pyramid schemes. But these were the people who got noticed. These were the people who had the followers, the brand deals, the sponsorships. They were selling the dream, and everyone was buying it. Her feed was filled with images of success: rented mansions, private jets, vacations to the Maldives, yachts in Ibiza, expensive shoes, and cars. Everyone looked like they were living their best lives. Everyone except her. Ngozi’s thumb hovered over a post from @CryptoGenius. The caption read, “I turned ₦100k into ₦10 million in a month. Let me show you how to do the same.” She had seen this same post a hundred times, from a hundred different accounts. They all said the same thing. Join my course. Invest in my strategy. Learn from me, and you’ll be rich. But she knew better than to believe it. She had tried it all before: crypto, forex, stock trading. Each time, she had lost more than she gained. The world of online hustle was built on the idea of quick returns, but in reality, it was full of quick losses, scams, and false promises. She scrolled past it and saw another message. This one was from @ForexQueen. "Sis, I saw your post! With your looks, you can make $10k/month selling my trading course. 50% commission!" Ngozi rolled her eyes. It was the same thing over and over again. She knew these people weren’t real. They were just selling dreams to people like her. And yet, a small part of her wanted to believe it. What if there really was a way out? What if she could just jump on the right train, the right trend, and become the success story she had always dreamed of? Her thoughts were interrupted by the buzzing of her phone again. Another w******p message from Mama. "I didn’t raise you to be one of these oloshi girls. Do you think this i********: thing will last forever? How many of your friends do you see driving these cars? Don’t be a fool. Work hard. Build something that will last." Mama’s words were always harsh, but they were meant to wake her up. To shake her out of this world of illusion and fantasy. Mama had always believed that hard work was the key to success, and while Ngozi couldn’t argue with that logic, it felt out of place in this new world where success seemed to come so easily to the people with the right image, the right connections, and the right followers. Ngozi tossed her phone onto the passenger seat. The world she was in didn’t value hard work anymore. It valued perception. The perception of success, of luxury, of wealth. It was all about selling the dream, not about building it. She drove in silence for a while, her mind spinning. How had it come to this? How had everything she had worked for become so hollow? Her father had always worked hard, but his reward hadn’t been a yacht or a vacation home. It had been stability. It had been respect. He had built something real. But in this world of social media hustle, that kind of success didn’t matter. The only thing that mattered was what people saw. Her phone buzzed again, this time with a message from @POS_Poet, the anonymous account known for calling out the fakers, the ones who built their success on lies and illusions. The tweet read: "Madam with the fake alert, Your village people are watching. My machine has printed your shame." Ngozi stared at the words for a moment, her heart sinking. It felt like the world was turning against her. She was playing this game, but was she winning? Or was she just a part of the lie? She closed her eyes for a moment, letting the harshness of the message sink in. This was the truth she had been avoiding. All the glamour, the fake alerts, the rented cars—it was all a sham. It wasn’t real. That night, after she had scrolled through her feed one last time, Ngozi sat in the dim light of her room. She had no answers. She only had questions. What was she doing? Who was she really? Was this the life she wanted, or was it the life everyone else had convinced her to want? She couldn’t keep pretending. She knew that now. The hustle, the fake lifestyle, the i********: CEO persona—it wasn’t working. It wasn’t real. And deep down, she didn’t want it anymore. The next day, when her phone buzzed with another message from @HustleKingNG, she didn’t open it. Instead, she began scrolling through her contacts, searching for something, someone real. She paused on her mother’s name and hesitated for a moment. Then, with a deep breath, she dialed the number. It was time to stop pretending. It was time to start building something real. CHAPTER 3 JAPA OR JAPA-NOT (The Escape Temptation & Its Hidden Costs) Ngozi stepped into the packed hotel hall like a sheep entering the Promised Land of PowerPoint lies. The air was thick—too much cologne, too little hope. Every breath carried the scent of stale sweat, expired ambition, and a prayer wrapped in desperation. She squeezed between rows of plastic chairs, her thighs sticking to the same slick surfaces that had already supported the dreams of other hopefuls. At the front of the room, a man with bleached skin and a fake Toronto Raptors jersey adjusted his mic and grinned. Behind him, a slide blinked onto the screen—two stick figures, drawn with more confidence than accuracy. One stood beneath a drooping NEPA pole, sweating and squatting beside a broken fan. The other was in Canada, shoveling snow with one hand and flipping burgers with the other, grinning beneath a red maple leaf. “Look at this graph!” he boomed. “This could be YOU! For just ₦3.5 million!” Ngozi’s phone buzzed in her lap. A w******p message lit up her screen. 3:14AM – Canada Time Uche – Winnipeg “Sis, don’t fall for it. I’m shoveling snow at -30°C. My nursing degree is now a mopping license. They want Africans for dirty jobs only. Period.” She looked up again. The agent was handing out glossy “Success Testimonials,” a printed gallery of exported Nigerian excellence. Her fingers froze as she recognized one of the faces. Uche. Except in this version, he was wearing a white doctor’s coat and standing proudly in front of a hospital. In real life, he mopped those very same floors at night and slept in a shared basement flat with four other men during the day. The hustle had exported Its marketing team too. There was a time when Japa meant survival. Now, it was a product. An industry. Nigeria didn’t just export oil anymore; it exported dreams. And it did so with professional agents, church flyers, family group chats, and motivational seminars. There was an entire ecosystem built around escaping the country, complete with IELTS tutors, fake testimonies, and uncles who promised “visa runs” with a 97% success rate. Even her ex-boyfriend, who used to sell belts in Ikeja, now lived in Leicester and ended every tweet with “God did.” Ngozi remembered a birthday party in Yaba, where she met Ahmed. He had just returned from Canada and carried the air of a man who had seen war. No socks, sneakers too white, and an accent twisted at both ends. “Dem turn me to modern slave o,” he said, sipping fruit wine like it was therapy. “My madam made me rub her feet while she watched Big Brother Naija. One day she called me ‘my African boy’ and laughed. That was the day I booked my flight.” He now sold refurbished iPhones through his i********: page, @GadgetBayAfrica. His bio read: ‘From Canada with Hustle 💼🇨🇦’ Back home, the pressure was worse than NEPA voltage. Sunday lunch had become a battlefield of expectations. Mama slammed the pot of jollof rice on the table like it owed her money. “See Uche’s sister!” she barked. “She built house in Benin with Canada money! You? All you do is post nonsense on i********:!” Auntie Nkechi clucked her tongue and added her usual fuel to the fire. “My daughter sends $500 every month.” Ngozi dropped her spoon. “Your daughter is 35 and shares a flat with three men. One of them sings in the shower,” she said flatly. By the time the plates were cleared, her phone had already blown up. Family w******p Group: Mama: “Ngozi, this is how you talk to elders?” Uche’s Sister: “I pray Canada rejects you.” Ngozi has left the group. Later that night, back in her room, Ngozi stumbled across a Telegram group called #JapaNot. It was a strange place—full of weird usernames and too many memes—but something about it felt real. People were earning dollars without leaving home. People like her. A pinned tweet read: “Why suffer abroad when you can: ✓ Earn in USD remotely ✓ Spend in naira ✓ Actually see your family? #SoftLifeMovement” She fell down a rabbit hole of stories. Tola’s caught her attention. Tola had once sold her mother’s plot of land to fund a UK Caregiver visa. Got denied at the embassy after three attempts. Today, she earned $4,000 a month scheduling dental appointments for a clinic in Arizona—while living in Ibadan. “My classmates in London are still fighting rent and racism,” Tola wrote. “Me? I work barefoot with NEPA light and a ring light.” Maybe soft life didn’t need to come with snow. Weeks passed. Ngozi started applying for remote roles. Virtual assistant gigs. Content moderation. Admin jobs that paid in quiet dollars instead of loud struggle. Her savings grew slowly. Not impressively, not dramatically. But enough. She still went to the airport one morning. Not to Japa—but to see someone off. At 3AM, in the departure lounge of Murtala Muhammed, she watched a mother hold her daughter tight. They wore matching white t-shirts that read: “God’s Plan.” One-way ticket to Oman. The woman’s hands trembled as she pressed a Bible into her daughter’s arms. Ngozi’s phone buzzed again. Remote Job Offer: “Content Moderator – $1,800/month. 3AM–11AM shift (US hours).” She looked out the window. A billboard that had once read “Canada Awaits!” now displayed a new slogan. “SOFT LIFE IS RESISTANCE.” She caught her reflection in the glass. For the first time in a long time, she didn’t see a disappointment. Or a wannabe. Or a failure trying to escape.She just saw Ngozi, and somehow, that felt like enough.