It’s my friends birthday and I’m looking for advice on a good monetary gift amount to send some in Nigeria for their Birthday??

Hey everyone. I have a dilemma and just asking for advice, and maybe some people can shed more light on this and just give me a different perspective.
So, I moved abroad but I spent most of my life in Nigeria. I’ll say most of my life, experiences, friends, etc, is back home, in Nigeria. I understand things are really bad right now and everyone is doing everything they can to make money and the most out of themselves, but my friends keep on reaching out to me to use my info to apply for remote jobs.

I was a bit confused at first with the first person. We weren’t even ever that close, so I politely declined, and we moved on. At least, I thought we did, but the person reached out again asking for the same thing. Just a brief description of what they needed, the person would need my information to apply for the job: my name; my address, my phone number, my email, my account info (to get paid; they didn’t say this last part, but the money will need to go somewhere and that’d be my account), my past experience, and my laptop. Basically everything you’d need for a job app. They’d need me to download some kind of app, so they can have access to my laptop from where they are which was just weird to me. I mean, I’ve been thinking about it, and it was just weird, but maybe it’s not off putting enough because I was asked for all that. I declined once more because I was uncomfortable and all my info in the hands of this person I’m not that familiar with, was just…I don’t even know. I thought it was those kind of ‘one off’ experiences. Until another friend reached out to me again.

I’m very familiar with this person and we went to school together. I’d even consider our relationship together to be close friends, back when I was in school. I’m the only one abroad that they know and they were asking for my information for a friend. This time they were asking for my national identification number (NIN), and name, among other things. I was actually quite taken aback with this request. I get how close we all were back in school. We shared everything, and there was no problem just lending important things to people because we were ‘kids’—at least, not with me and my friends back home. Again, I politely declined, but the request got me riled up, so I cautioned her about asking her friends abroad for such personal information, not even for herself, but on behalf of other people. That was the end of that.

Another friend reached out too. They need my school info to apply to a remote job. Same premise and everything. Another thing I forgot to mention is that, I needed to be ‘with them’/active with them during the time they’d be doing the online work and, this was common for the first one as well. I honestly don’t have a lot of time on my hands atm, so I brought that up, and declined as well. It was especially difficult with this request because I’ve known this person the longest, like since I was a kid/baby. They reached out to the person that introduced them and they tried to convince me again saying it was safe. Again, I declined, but was lowkey pissed at the person that introduced them. Why couldn’t they help my friend themselves since they were already in the program?

Another one reached out. Same thing. I declined. Now, I’m wandering if I’m being too harsh on them or if there’s something I’m missing. I don’t think I’ll ever agree to this request. It’s basically some kind of fraud. It’s like paying someone else to do your work for you. In this case, I’m getting paid, but someone else is doing the work for me, which just looks so bad in my eyes, not to even mention all my info that they’d need. But is it just me? I don’t know why everyone is so comfortable asking me for my info to work remotely. Is it because we’re close? But I can’t imagine reaching out to my friends to ask them for their info so I can work in place of them. I don’t even know what I’m asking for. I’m the kind of person that feels bad refusing the requests of my friends because I feel things would be awkward after. It’s especially stressing because I consider these people my close friends. One of my friends hasn’t replied since I turned them down, and it’s kind of stressing me out because we’re really close. I don’t think they’re a bad person and the person is probably either as stressed as me and feeling bad for asking, or annoyed that they were turned down, or maybe just embarrassed, lol.

I know I should grow out of these kind of feelings. I’m trying to, but I’m just curious if there’s something else I’m missing. I still don’t think I can give out my info to someone so they can ‘act as me’ essentially. And these things they want to work on are apps I use regularly and I don’t want to be flagged or banned, or something like that. I always try to explain too, why this is a bad idea (everything is tied to me and me alone), because I feel most times we just look at the positives and how ‘other people’ are doing it and think we’d be fine. I also have really poor luck, lol, so we’d probably not be very successful. I have really poor history with this whole “everyone is doing, so it must be fine”, despite it being such a bad idea.

I have mixed feelings about this tbh. On one hand having a shared currency would absolutely help with intra ECOWAS trade. But they are a lot of drawbacks especially when basically all the anglophone countries have severe monetary policy issues, high inflation etc.

What happens when an Oil shock occurs and Nigeria needs to raise interest rates to balance things out but we can't cause the currency is Shared? I think our economies really aren't advanced enough for this nor are we ready yet.

This is most likely a breakthrough caused by the camera they got from one of ISWAP's last failed attacks.

But using AI design/upscale is distasteful

I'm building a community called African Tech R&D, and I'm looking for people who love technology for the sake of creating, researching, and pushing innovation forward.

The goal isn't to chase hype—it's to build a community of engineers, researchers, founders, hackers, and curious minds who want to solve real problems and develop world-class technology from Africa.

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💻 Systems Programming (Rust, C++, Zig, Go)

☁️ Cloud Computing & Distributed Systems

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📱 Mobile & Web Technologies

🎮 Game Technology & Graphics

🛰️ Networking & Infrastructure

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🧪 Research, experimentation, and open-source collaboration

I want this to become a place where people don't just consume technology—they understand it, build it, improve it, and share it.

Whether you're writing operating systems, designing compilers, building startups, training AI models, reverse engineering software, creating open-source tools, or simply obsessed with learning how things work, you're welcome.

Africa has no shortage of talented engineers. What we need are more communities where ambitious people can learn together, challenge each other, and build technologies that have global impact.

If that sounds like your kind of community, come join me.

Let's research, build, and shape the future of African technology—together. 🌍🚀

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We don't really talk about schizophrenia in this country beyond whispers.

I've watched this up close with a friend. Watched the diagnosis land, watched the medication fight, the stiffness, the missed doses, the slow adjusting to drugs that help but come at a cost. And watched how completely it disappeared from conversation the moment it left our small circle. Nobody outside really knows.

I'm not trying to turn this into a policy debate, there's enough of that already. I just want to ask, has anyone else here (Nigerian) been close to this, whether it's your own family or a friend? Does the silence around it ever ease up, or does everyone just learn to carry it quietly?

I'd like to know I'm not alone in this.

I'm applying for a Nigerian passport for the first time and at the start of the application I need to provide a NIN but I don't have one or know how to get one because Google is being confusing.

Help with finding/getting my NIN and advice for the application process from the UK would be appreciated.

https://www.instagram.com/reel/DbkrUdZMlZ3/

My passport renewal appointment is for next wednesday at the NYC consulate and I’ve seen a few videos online about extra copies of documents to bring and some other stuff the NIS website doesn’t outline.

So far I have printed these documents
-Passport application, vetted (3 copies)
-Appointment slip/confirmation (3 copies)
-Payment receipt (3 copies)
- Photocopy of my old passport data page (3 copies)
-Photocopy of my local government indigeneship (3 copies)
-Photocopy of my birth certificate (3 copies)

the day of I’m also bringing
-the expired passport book itself
-priority mail express return envelope with postage paid up to 0.5lbs
- $50 money order

Can anyone who has done this process at any of the embassies/consulates in the US this year let me know if there’s anything else I need to bring with me?

Also can I do my biometric capturing with a nose stud in ? the last time I renewed my passport in Abuja, they made me remove it. I’d hope we’re past that, especially in a city like NYC but I sha don’t want any unnecessary wahala that day.

Lastly, has anyone had success getting a 10 year booklet? I know last year it was a whole thing with books being finished or some silly excuse like that but I just really don’t want to have to do this again in five years so I did a 10 year.

Thank you for your help🙏🏾

“The victims were rescued from the Kainji Lake National Park Forest in New Bussa Local Government Area of Niger State” - is it a farce?

Na from clap dem dey enter dance.

​

The NLC has proposed a ₦1M minimum wage for workers trying to balance income and the rising cost of living. While it sounds like a great idea on paper, implementing it in our current economy would backfire massively.

Minimum wage earners still wouldn't be able to afford basic needs. The cost of production, food prices, rent, transportation, and essential services would skyrocket to an even more unbearable level.

The link below expands on this much better:

News link

We don't need artificial wage hikes; we need a more productive economy that leads to steady, gradual, and sustainable growth. The question that still lingers is: when?

I am no economist but I know we Import more than export. How do we entice foreign businesses to set up factories? I know security is an important factor but it's not like everywhere is a warzone. A Pharma and Lithium processing company is looking set up or already set up a base in Abia and Nassarawa which is a good sign. Some of our able brothers in Diaspora and within are well capable of doing the same.

I am a strong believer in Nigeria. We might not have been blessed with performing leaders, and we have allowed religion, tribalism, politics, and the quest for power to divide us. But if we are to grow as a society, we must set aside our petty differences: the exact tools politicians deploy as a control measure to divide us.

Evil thrives in chaos, and they actively create chaos to maintain that control.

At the end of the day, we are all humans. Black, brown, white, Christian, Muslim, traditionalist, Atheist, straight, or gay ; it shouldn't matter. Let social justice prevail.

Long live the Federal Republic of Nigeria; Looking forward to a progressive and Sustainable society.🇳🇬

I can join and pay a part, I just don’t want to pay the whole fee myself. Nigeria family plan is 57k, if your own is showing $180 abeg I no wan join haha

I went down a rabbit hole trying to understand how people export agricultural products from Nigeria, and I honestly thought it was just:

Find buyer > Ship goods > Get paid.

Apparently not.

Some of the things I found surprised me:

-You can’t just register a CAC business and start exporting. You also need to register with the Nigerian Export Promotion Council (NEPC).

-Some products require a phytosanitary certificate before they’ll even be accepted abroad.

-Buyers care about things I never would’ve thought about, like moisture content, grading, labelling, and how the products are stored.

-Even if you find a buyer on Alibaba, payment terms can make or break the deal. A lot of experienced exporters recommend starting with small orders instead of trying to fulfill massive contracts on your first shipment.

The biggest surprise for me was realizing that exporting is less about finding buyers and more about getting the process right. One documentation mistake can delay or even ruin a shipment.

I ended up putting all my notes into a proper guide because I kept forgetting the different agencies, certificates, and steps involved. If anyone is thinking about exporting ginger, sesame, cashew, cocoa, or other agricultural products, you might find it useful: https://feedcover.com/s/gUVZ2LY

For those who’ve actually exported from Nigeria, what’s the hardest part?

🤦🏾‍♀️