Humans Of New York: Nigerian Women's Stories

Humans Of New York popularly known on the social sphere as HumansOfNY is a photojournalism and photo documentary platform. They go around the world covering stories of real people on diverse humane topics.

Their recent visit to Nigeria spurred discussion across all social platforms because of the topics and the discussions the women that were featured decided to speak on.

This 13-Year-Old Nigerian Girl Went From Being Bullied To Becoming A World Famous Fashion Designer

From an artist’s run-in with the police, a young lady’s disillusionment with Christianity, and many more, here are ten Nigerian women’s stories as featured on Humans of New York.

1. On not being silenced by the government

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“The first time I was offered a journalism job in Nigeria, the newspaper owner suggested that I supplement my income with bribes. He told me: ‘I’m giving you a platform. Use what you have to get what you need.’ I knew then that the rumors were true. Journalism in this country was corrupted. There was no idealism. Reporters were writing stories for money. And even more damaging, they were killing stories for money. I didn’t want to participate. I felt it would be more ethical to just find a corporate job. But in 2008, I was given the opportunity to manage a new paper founded by Nigeria’s only Pulitzer Prize winner—Dele Olojede. The paper was called Next. And we tried to change things. We hired young people who were untainted by the culture. Half of them were women. We paid them well and we trained them well. Ethics came first. Accepting gifts was absolutely forbidden. Our paper survived for three years. During that time, we broke major stories every single week. We exposed all sorts of corruption. But we were targeted for our success. Our reporters were detained. Our board members were threatened. The government leaned on our advertisers, and they withdrew one by one. Eventually we were forced to close. But for three years we set the pace. We created a mold. And I believe we changed the media landscape. Investigative journalism is stronger now. Many of our journalists have gone on to start amazing publications of their own. The paper may have been short lived, but I know it had an impact. Revolution is too strong of a word– but we definitely shook the table.” (Lagos, Nigeria)
A post shared by Humans of New York (@humansofny) on Oct 4, 2018 at 12:57pm PDT

2. On maltreatment and the want for a better life

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“I want to live a happy life. I’m tired of living a poor life. I’m trying to save money for school but nothing is working. I’ve left home three different times looking for work. The first time I found a job as a housekeeper. But every morning when I got dressed the man would try to touch me. I was only seventeen. He wouldn’t even stop when I threatened to tell on him. His wife blamed me for his attention. She beat me severely. There were bruises all over my body. She didn’t even allow me to eat. But I tried to stay because I wanted to go to school so badly. Then one morning he tried to rape me in the bath, and I finally ran away. When I found a new housekeeping job, the same thing happened. This time it was a pastor. So a few weeks ago I switched to a cleaning job at an art gallery. But they just fired me for speaking to the visitors. I don’t know why this always happens to me. It makes me so angry. I get mad at my parents for being poor. I get mad at my friends for going to school. When I see their graduation pictures on Facebook, I just start crying. I’m already twenty years old. I should be finishing school, but I haven’t even started yet. But everything has it’s own time. Hopefully my time will come too.” (Lagos, Nigeria)
A post shared by Humans of New York (@humansofny) on Oct 3, 2018 at 12:35pm PDT

3. On mourning a child

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“It wasn’t sudden. He was born four months early. The organs didn’t have enough time to mature. He just wasn’t ready for life. But he held on for more than two years. He was such a happy child. He laughed so hard when you rocked him. We called him ‘Bibi,’ because his older brother couldn’t say ‘baby.’ Toward the end, he was learning to stand on his own. We honestly thought he was going to make it. But his immune system was just too weak from all the medication. And his lungs were too weak from all the machines. He couldn’t survive. I had a hard childhood growing up. This place makes you tough. Nigerians and cockroaches will be the last living things on this planet. I can remember being nine years old, and sitting down with my brothers to make a plan when we ran out of food. Our only idea was to drink a lot of water. So I’ve always had to be strong. When my brother died, I couldn’t mourn. I was the oldest in the family. I had to hold it together and make arrangements. But not this time. After Bibi, I decided that I don’t ever have to be strong again. That was my child. I can’t button this one up. Either I allow myself to be weak, or I’m never going to get through it.” (Lagos, Nigeria)
A post shared by Humans of New York (@humansofny) on Oct 1, 2018 at 1:19pm PDT

4. On writing and other artistic pursuits

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“I had a lonely childhood. I didn’t have many friends. I spent a lot of time writing depressing poetry in my room. But everything changed the first time I saw someone perform a spoken word poem. It was at a fellowship meeting. I never realized that poetry could impact an audience like that. After the meeting, the girl invited me to join her poetry club. There were seven members. They met every Thursday under a guava tree in the school courtyard. It was a place for me to just write, and to read what I’d written. It was a place where I felt accepted and got critical feedback. I got better at writing. I grew more confident. Eventually I performed in front of larger audiences, and my projects got more ambitious. Now I’m working on a book. It’s been my main focus for the last four years. It’s about a little girl who’s misunderstood. She’s an artist. She wants to be recognized and understood. But everyone around her thinks she’s a witch. When I began writing the book, the character was based on myself. But I’m so different than her now. I’m not depressed anymore. I’m closer to my family. I don’t feel so isolated. But I’m not sure she’s gotten there yet. I’m struggling to not impose my growth onto her journey. As a writer you’re supposed to detach yourself from your character. But when you’ve included so many elements of yourself, and you’ve evolved so much—it’s really hard to do.” (Lagos, Nigeria)
A post shared by Humans of New York (@humansofny) on Oct 1, 2018 at 11:10am PDT

5. On having a relationship with God

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“I attribute my success to getting to know God early in life. Where I grew up, it was easy to go wayward. And it was risky to go wayward. Thankfully I studied the Bible enough to know the definition of sin. It taught me right from wrong. If I’d been out there trying to figure it out myself, I’d have taken too many wrong turns. I’d probably have gotten pregnant at a young age. I definitely wouldn’t be an architect right now. Maybe some people can do it without God. But not many people in my neighborhood were reading books about morality and ethics. We weren’t being taught the seven habits of highly effective people. But we did have the word of God. I relied on it. And it carried me through.” (Lagos, Nigeria)
A post shared by Humans of New York (@humansofny) on Sep 29, 2018 at 2:03pm PDT

6. On Yahoo boys and integrity in work

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“They’re called Yahoo Boys. The name comes from the old days when they used Yahoo email accounts to scam people. I first started seeing them when I went to the University of Lagos. They form little gangs. They travel in convoys where all the cars are the same color. They’re always on their laptops. These days a lot of them are legitimized. They rent office space. They refer to their targets as ‘clients.’ They start charities. They put their fraud money into other businesses. Some of them have Instagram accounts with hundreds of thousands of followers. They post pictures of their cars and clothes. They never mention where they got their money– but everyone knows. A lot of them buy art from me. Since a lot of their scams are emotional fraud, they’ll even ask me for advice on things that women would say in a relationship. Or they’ll ask me to pick up their phone and pretend to be a secretary. I never participate. Recently I’ve even stopped selling them paintings. It’s cost me a lot. But I can’t take their money without feeling complicit.” (Lagos, Nigeria)
A post shared by Humans of New York (@humansofny) on Sep 28, 2018 at 10:24am PDT

7. On questioning religious beliefs

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“In my church you’re either Christian or possessed by demons. We have services four times per week. Luckily zoning out looks a lot like praying. I’m not saying that I don’t believe any of it. I just have a lot of questions that nobody will answer. Whenever I ask a hard question, they just show me a bible quote that says I shouldn’t ask questions. It doesn’t make sense to me. I think I’m becoming a Nihilist. Honestly, I don’t see any reason why people should be born. You exist, then you strive to attain something to make sense of your existence, and then you don’t exist anymore. Can’t we cut out some of those steps? It’s just too much work. I didn’t sign up for this. And when you finally die– instead of everything stopping, you have to become conscious again? Heaven doesn’t sound that great. Supposedly there’s a lot of singing and trumpets. That sounds exhausting. I’d rather be sleeping.” (Lagos, Nigeria)
A post shared by Humans of New York (@humansofny) on Sep 25, 2018 at 1:27pm PDT

8. On saving lives

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“My mother won the visa lottery, so when I was young my family relocated to Minnesota. I think I’m the only one of my siblings who always viewed Nigeria as home. I participated in Model UN. I studied international political science. I admired Nelson Mandela. So I always knew I’d go back to Africa one day. After graduation I interned with an NGO in Northern Nigeria. During that trip I witnessed a breached birth in a village. There was no C-Section available, so the baby died. I knew then that not only would I be coming home to Nigeria, but I’d be doing something in healthcare. I’ve been home for six years now. I’ve chosen to work on the country’s blood distribution problem. Every year tens of thousands of people die while waiting for blood. Meanwhile there are blood banks discarding unused inventory. My company LifeBank is trying to close that gap. Most blood banks in Lagos are participating in our program. Every morning we take an inventory. And when blood is urgently needed, we use bikes to deliver. It’s not easy. Imagine New York City without the infrastructure and no subway system. That’s Lagos. Yet LifeBank has delivered over 10,000 bags of blood within 55 minutes. Blood shortage is a global problem. And if we can do it in Lagos, we can do it anywhere. In December we’re expanding to two new cities. But I see us all over the world.” (Lagos, Nigeria)
A post shared by Humans of New York (@humansofny) on Sep 27, 2018 at 11:55am PDT

9. On advertising in Nigeria

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“You can’t just use Beyoncé to sell products in Nigeria. Well, maybe Beyoncé is a bad example. Beyoncé can sell anywhere. But most of the time you need to adapt your advertising to local tastes. So I help international companies create marketing campaigns for Nigeria. A few years ago I started my own company. I’d gotten tired of working for someone else. I was doing all the work on some projects, and I’d only walk away with peanuts. So I took the leap. My goal was to win a single bid that first year. I just needed one big name to risk a little money on me. Because a little money to them was a lot of money to me. I knew I had the technical experience. I had the ‘know how.’ I just didn’t have an office, or a staff, or a big name. But that became my pitch. I argued that bigger agencies take their clients for granted. I told companies: ‘I’m not relaxed like that. I’m hungry. I’m going to give you more juice.’ My first client ended up being Coca Cola. Maybe I didn’t have things quite as figured out as I allowed them to believe. But hey, that’s advertising. And I delivered.” (Lagos, Nigeria)
A post shared by Humans of New York (@humansofny) on Sep 25, 2018 at 10:39am PDT

10. On sacrificing for children

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“My husband is a mechanic, but his business is slow. It’s not enough. I’m selling this so my children can go to school. I want them to go above me. I want them to be a great someone in this country. When I see them happy, I feel happy. Every time I pay their school fees, they tell me: ‘Mommy you are the best mommy.’ So I’m out here all day in the sun. Then I go home, I cook, I bathe, I put them to bed, and then I go to sleep. I’ve been sick with malaria this past week. I haven’t been able to work. My husband wants me to rest but the kids are beginning to cry from hunger. The stress is too much for him alone. When I was lying in bed, I just kept praying: ‘God, help me go sell.’ But every time I went outside, my fever was too much. My body felt too cold. And I had to go back inside. Today is my first day back to work. I woke up with no headache, but it’s so bad right now. There’s pain all over my body. I’m just hoping to sell enough to buy tomorrow’s supply.” (Lagos, Nigeria)
A post shared by Humans of New York (@humansofny) on Oct 4, 2018 at 3:45pm PDT