With the persistent economic challenges millions of Nigerians have been grappling with, the tilt towards loan sharks for many individuals, including small business owners, has been swift. While this easy access to loans offers instant relief, it’s always the borrowers’ first step into the cycle of debts birthing untold perpetual pain, depression, and panic disorder.IDOWU ABDULLAHI writes The only thing that mattered was her eyes.
They were a window to her current state of helplessness. Inioluwa’s eyes mirrored an uninteresting phase of life devoid of self-worth. She was living in nostalgia for a time past.
Inioluwa had become a contrast to her name. While her name depicts abundance, she reeks of lack as her way of life had been inseparably bound up with loans and living under the chokehold of debts. She lost her business to the debts as the sanctuary she thought loans could provide her turned into a self-designed cage of mental and emotional torture.
Whenever her phone rings, she falls into a state of despair as each ringtone shoots up her adrenaline on a journey of palpitations – reminding her of how low she had sunk. Once a tool for connection, the phone had become another unending nightmare that she couldn’t wake up from. “With several calls I received daily, I have been losing sleep and finding it hard to concentrate on anything.
I live in perpetual fear of the day they (loan recovery team) would knock on my door to seize my belongings. If not for advice from .