If you have ever drank garri at 1am whilst thinking of how to stretch ₦1000 for the next three days, then you already know how my story started. I am Tobi and once, I was a broke undergraduate with a “rich mind but poor pocket.” Today, people invite me “The Garri Investor” to events and seminars and ask how I turned mistakes into millions.
It started with thrifted clothes, a cousin of mine who lived in Lagos sold “okrika” at Yaba. I begged her to sell me some stocks on credit and as expected, she looked at me with disdain and blatantly refused. After several intervention from family members and various pleas and promises, she agreed and I remember her clearly saying “If you run away with my money, I will disgrace you on the streets of Lagos.”I promised and within a week, I sold half the clothes in my hostel. I thought I had arrived.
I was calculating profits, dreaming of opening my own boutique after graduation. But then, the unexpected, someone else in my hostel started selling the exact same clothes at a much reduced price. By month’s end, I was stuck with unsold jeans, tee’s and shirts and a bruised ego. In business, monopoly is sweet, but competition will test your creativity.
Then the struggle began, I had to hawk clothes from hostel to hostel, one lecture hall to the other including to off campus areas. It took a month, but eventually I sold out. That phase ended there.
Then came 2019, everyone was screaming “Crypto to the moon!” Out of fear of missing out, I decided to join the moving crowd, a roommate connected me to a Telegram group where a “guru” promised 200% profit in two weeks.
200% in two weeks!!!
It sounded unrealistic, but after seeing many people cash out and the pressure of meeting up with my peers, I took all the ₦35,000 I had saved from selling clothes and invested. To them it wasn’t much, but to me, that’s all I had.
Two weeks later, the group vanished. Admins? Gone! My money? Gone too! That night, I cried quietly under my pillow while pretending to read, for a week, I didn’t stop crying. Then I knew, when it looks too sweet, it’s probably a sugar-coated scam.
My story then changed; a friend, Seyi, noticed I was always broke despite hustling. He said, “Tobi, you sabi write, why not try copywriting?” I laughed. “Who will pay me for writing when people are struggling to buy rice? ”Who will bother to read my works when people are trying to make ends meet each day? But he showed me screenshots of payments from a foreign client. That was nothing to convince me, I have seen scams with more than that evidence in the past. After the back and forth, I decided to give in.
My first gig? I got paid $50, I screamed so loud, my neighbors thought I had won a visa lottery. That was the moment I realized sometimes, opportunity doesn’t have to be new, it can be a rebrand on what you already have.
With my background as a good essay writer in secondary school and known for writing love letters for my friends, copywriting and content writing was easy to grasp. The money started to come in, I decided to try invest again, but only this time, smarter. Instead of chasing “double your money” schemes, I downloaded Bamboo and PiggyVest. I started with ₦10,000 weekly savings. Small, yes, but consistent.
But then the plot twist again , five months later, my phone got stolen with my ATM card inside. My bank account was wiped clean, If not for the ₦200,000 I had in PiggyVest, I would have been back to square one. That was the day I understood the power of separating incomes; spending funds, savings funds and contingency funds. Security isn’t only about locks, it’s also about financial firewalls and financial knowledge.
With time, things started to fall back in place, money started flowing, I bought a laptop, shoes and clothes and even rented a bigger apartment after NYSC. Within months, my expenses almost equaled my income. Then reality came knocking on the door, one of my biggest clients cut me off suddenly. My income dropped by half, but my lifestyle was already inflated. I nearly fell into debt again, I had splashed my savings on my lifestyle. That painful season forced me to adopt a strict rule, spend less than you earn, invest more than you spend.
The breakthrough came when I diversified. Instead of relying only on copywriting, I plunged a portion of my earnings into learning digital marketing and trading US stocks. Slowly, my portfolio grew. My side hustles started funding other hustles.The real game-changer? I purchased acres of land in Ibadan with the income from a thousand dollar gig. Six years later, it was valued at x10. That single investment taught me patience pays more than hype. Now at 26, I earn from three main streams; copywriting, digital marketing consultancy, and various investments. I’m not a billionaire yet, but I no longer calculate garri-to-water ratios at midnight.
What surprises most people is not my success, but my failures, the unsold thrift clothes, the lost crypto money, the wiped bank account, the inflated lifestyle. Each mistake was a plot twist that pushed me toward smarter decisions. If there’s one truth I’ve learned, it’s this, the Nigerian youths’ future is not in salary, rather, it’s in creativity, consistency, and calculated risks.
The journey will not be straight and smooth, it will twist, bend and sometimes throw you flat on your face. But every mistake is a tuition fee for the wealth you’re building.
So, if you’re reading this while drinking garri, remember, garri is not the end, sometimes, it’s the beginning of an empire.
Written by,
Al-Ameen Adediran
Intern, OHR Publishing Comms. Unit
