Inskriba Conversations: How We Live

Inskriba

Conversations on how we actually live: law, money, health, and the systems that shape everyday Nigerian and African life, grounded in what a standing panel tells us. And The Builders: every week, one person building or fixing something in Nigeria, asked the same five questions. Hosted by Inskriba.

Episodes

  1. 4d ago

    Urgent 2K

    There is no contract and no collateral, only who you are to the people around you. "Urgent 2K" is the small, urgent ask that keeps Nigerian friendships and families liquid: money for data, a plate of food, transport home, returned whenever God writes it. Jii sits with Oshin Praise, whose research gave the thing its name, and Sheriff, the show's money regular, to map how a lending system with no paperwork actually runs. The anonymous panel answered first: nearly everyone has needed an urgent 2K, everyone has been asked, and the number is almost never really 2,000. From there, how you size up a borrower with no credit score, when trust curdles into being someone's crutch, the loan apps charging 300 percent, and why our most informal system might be our most honest one. This is not financial advice. It is a conversation about how we lend. Read the research and the panel's findings at inskriba.com. How We Live is an Inskriba production. In this episode: 0:00 A perfect week, and a laptop bag 3:10 What Jii does, and what Praise does at Inskriba 6:09 Where "Urgent 2K" came from: a message to Mum 8:32 Not financial advice 9:45 Sheriff: billing friends before month end 12:12 Shame, trust and paying back by barter 13:50 What urgent 2K means: the panel answers 17:08 Is there a bank for this? OPay, Moniepoint and the Islamic banks 19:35 How big can an urgent 2K be? Context, and Warren Buffett 23:09 Three ranges: baseline, functional, trust threshold 25:30 The numbers: 11 of 12 have needed one, all 12 have been asked, mostly food 27:01 Do you ask what it is for? 29:55 The credit bureau of social capital: sizing up a borrower 36:51 Reputation is the BVN 42:50 The trust deficit: loan apps at 300 percent, chicken or egg 47:00 "A kind of money one can forgo": the panel on trust 49:20 Saying no: when you become someone's crutch 53:59 The businesswoman and the friends who built a house 57:00 Shaming used to be expensive. Now it pays 59:30 Does gender change the rules? 1:07:50 Sheriff: borrowing from women, and the romantic exception 1:12:34 Married now, and the standing principle 1:16:10 Shout-outs: the friends who fed us 1:20:26 Pay back your urgent 2K

  2. Oct 3

    The Cost of Getting Sick

    Seventy percent of Nigerians pay for healthcare out of pocket, and about one in ten has insurance. Jii and Dr Nana, the Health anchor, sit with what that means on the day you get sick: why the biggest hospital in Ibadan became a byword for dying, whether a doctor must treat you if you cannot pay, what actually happens on the ward when the money runs out (consultants passing a hat for a patient, payment plans signed on discharge, referrals to somewhere cheaper), and why the chemist is most people’s first hospital. The panel’s answers run through it: twelve of fourteen have watched someone borrow to get well, families treat the most critical case first and the children before the parents, and on a five-point scale of how prepared they are for a sudden bill, the average is 1.8. Also: Alabukun, the N33,000 corps member, transport that costs more than the treatment, and the snake-bite example that explains how a hospital can have the cure and still not have it. Not medical advice, a conversation about the system we live in. The dataset is on inskriba.com. How We Live is an Inskriba production. In this episode: 0:00 Welcome back, and a question about herbs 4:15 The cost of getting sick: why UCH meant the end 6:43 Are doctors obliged to treat you if you cannot pay? 12:43 When a patient cannot pay: what actually happens 19:35 The panel: when the formal system fails, self-medication 21:06 Self-medication, and when to stop and see a doctor 26:43 Alabukun, a century-old habit 29:58 Who do you turn to? Almost everyone says my mum 32:14 Insurance: one in ten Nigerians is covered 36:31 When illness became a money problem: the panel’s stories 41:20 Transport: when getting there costs the treatment 46:30 Borrowing, selling, fundraising, going without 47:25 Who gets treated first when there is not enough 54:10 Leaving against medical advice, and the breadwinner who cannot be sick 56:03 How prepared are you? 1.8 out of 5 59:56 The cheaper option, and what it costs later 1:01:00 Does good health come down to money? 1:01:30 What it does to the caregiver 1:05:30 The snake-bite example: stock, suppliers, and who pays 1:07:40 One piece of advice

  3. Sep 26

    Financial Literacy

    Most of us heard "financial literacy" so often we never stopped to define it. Jii and Sheriff slow down on the phrase itself: what it means to manage money well, who actually taught us (the panel says mothers), and how our languages talk about money, from "the one with money has the right to shout" to money as a vehicle for good intentions. They trace a shift, from a parent's salary-and-savings-account to a generation told by the culture to just make the money and ask forgiveness later, and sit with why Nigerians distrust investing (the 2008 crash, MMM, the trillion-naira CBEX collapse) while still chasing the quickest possible return. The throughline: financial literacy is not having money, it is how you spend it. Not financial advice, financial understanding. The dataset is on inskriba.com. How We Live is an Inskriba production. In this episode: 0:00 Welcome back, and no financial advice 4:08 What financial literacy actually is 7:00 Who taught you about money: the panel says parents, by example 8:30 How our languages talk about money: proverbs from the panel 14:50 What money should mean to Nigerians 18:15 The generational shift, and strain theory 27:56 Saving, and the ajo tradition 32:36 The numbers: everyone saves; where they would invest 34:57 Why Nigerians distrust investing: 2008, land, and the NGX 40:40 What every young Nigerian should be taught 44:07 MMM, CBEX, and betting on getting out early 45:31 What is your belief about money 48:38 Money is a tool, not the goal

  4. Sep 4

    The Act No One Read

    Most of us think an election ends on election day. For a lawyer, Kolade Adegbola reminds us, it ends at the Supreme Court. Ahead of 2027, Nigeria has a brand new Electoral Act, and almost no one has read it. So Kolade did, and walks Jii through what actually changed. The funding INEC gets to run the entire country, cut from twelve months to six. NIN added as valid voter ID. A voter's card you can now download and print, convenient, and quietly exploitable. Candidate lists that can stay secret until two months before you vote. On each one, the same question: real improvement, or an act written so the election favours whoever wrote it? No legal advice, just an attempt to know the rules before they are used on us. Read Kolade's essay at inskriba.com. How We Live is an Inskriba production. In this episode: 0:00 Meet Kolade Adegbola 2:03 Why read an Act no one reads 5:17 For a lawyer, elections end at the Supreme Court 10:11 INEC funding, cut from twelve months to six 19:09 NIN added as voter ID 29:58 The downloadable voter’s card 37:39 When parties must name their candidates 45:42 Publishing the candidate list, two months out 48:01 How an Electoral Act actually gets made 1:00:38 Campaign spending limits, doubled 1:07:52 Penalties no one expects enforced 1:13:48 Electronic transmission and its loophole 1:18:13 Form EC8A and the single point of failure 1:23:26 Primaries: consensus or direct, delegates out 1:28:25 Reform, or a new kind of problem?

  5. Aug 29

    The Minority Decides

    Bola Tinubu became president of 230 million Nigerians with 8.8 million votes. Out of 93 million registered, fewer than one in ten chose the winner. Sifon Bassey, Inskriba editor and researcher, spent a research paper asking how the minority came to decide for the majority, and Jii walks through what he found. Turnout fell from 43.7 percent in 2015 to 26.7 percent in 2023, the worst in our history, and Sifon's uncomfortable conclusion is that the real numbers were always this low; the technology just stopped inflating them. They get into why the insecure North still turns out while the calmer South stays home, the difference between not being able to vote and not bothering to, and why we may be the first generation building a voting culture to hand our children. Projections for 2027 included. Read the research and the panel data at inskriba.com. How We Live is an Inskriba production. In this episode: 0:00 Meet Sifon Bassey 3:16 The paper: declining participation 6:59 What voting actually means in Nigeria 9:00 The minority deciding for the majority 13:57 Apathy, not disenfranchisement 15:04 One voter, three elections 18:23 Why the real numbers are only now visible 20:51 Is turnout a cultural problem? 26:30 From ballot-snatching to vote-buying 29:39 The 2027 projection 31:36 Who is registering: youth and women 36:23 Logistics and INEC 39:26 Seventy-six percent still believe 46:49 Recommendations

  6. Aug 22

    One Emergency Away

    You are, as Dr. Nana puts it, one medical emergency away from bankruptcy in Nigeria. Jii sits with Dr. Nana Abadri, a doctor who began her housemanship the same week the country locked down, to look at the system most of us only meet when something has already gone wrong. They move from clinics and teaching hospitals to the quiet belief that going to hospital means not coming back; from malaria that kills because treatment started too late to why we minimise our own symptoms until we cannot. Underneath it sits the question that runs through this show: who can actually afford to be well? No drug, diagnosis, or prescription is offered here. It is a conversation about how we live with our health. How We Live is an Inskriba production. The conversation continues in writing at inskriba.com.

  7. Aug 15

    Money Is Freedom

    Money is freedom, and it is also the first thing that made a five-year-old spend his uncle's gift on sweets and keep the change quiet. Jii sits with Sheriff, a self-described financial enthusiast (his word, not "guru"), to ask a plain question: what does money actually mean to us, and how does it move through Nigerian life? They trace it from childhood piggy-banks and stolen savings to crypto, betting, and the stock market; from inflation quietly eating what we earn to the wild ways politicians, and Lagos itself, spend. This is not financial advice and never will be. It is financial understanding: the system of money, as it touches us. How We Live is an Inskriba production. The conversation continues in writing at inskriba.com.

  8. Aug 8

    Are Lawyers Liars?

    Are lawyers liars? Jii opens the very first episode of How We Live by putting that old accusation to Kolade Adegbola, Esquire, and the answer turns out to be more interesting than yes or no. From there: what the law actually is (Kolade calls it "a means of setting human interactions right"), why so many Nigerians only reach for it in a fight, and how most of us underuse the one thing quietly protecting almost everything we own. Along the way, why he stumbled into law while wanting to be a journalist, what law school in Lagos does to a person, and the difference between a Barrister and an Esquire that the Supreme Court has actually ruled on. This is not legal advice. It is an attempt to understand the law as it touches ordinary Nigerian life. How We Live is an Inskriba production. The conversation continues in writing at inskriba.com.

  • 8 Episodes

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Conversations on how we actually live: law, money, health, and the systems that shape everyday Nigerian and African life, grounded in what a standing panel tells us. And The Builders: every week, one person building or fixing something in Nigeria, asked the same five questions. Hosted by Inskriba.

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