There is a street in every Nigerian city that does not sleep. It hums at night, stretches at dawn, and by evening, it is fully dressed—perfume in the air, lashes fluttering, laughter too loud to be innocent. Some call it survival. Others call it hustle. The girls? They call it “soft life.”
But soft life has a hard ending for many.
Let me tell you about three girls. Not statistics. Not headlines. Girls with laughter, dreams, and mothers who once plaited their hair under dim bulbs.
All Amaka wanted was a quick escape from poverty. She came from a one-room face-me-I-face-you in Ajegunle. Her mother sold akara; her father was a name spoken only in anger. Poverty sat with them at the table and slept in their flat rickety beds.
Amaka was beautiful in that careless, effortless way that needs no makeup: skin like morning, eyes that could convince you to sell freezer to an Eskimo. At 19, she was already tired of her life—tired of hawking, tired of being owed, tired of dreaming small dreams, tired of life passing her by.
Then she met Bose.
Bose wore wigs that entered the room before her. Her phone never stopped buzzing. She always had money—real money, not the kind that needed explanation. “You’re wasting your face,” Bose told Amaka one evening, sipping red wine like she owned the world.
They soon went into business.
The first time, Amaka cried in the bathroom afterward. The second time, she told herself it was just a transaction. By the third month, she had made enough money to move into an apartment in Lekki and started speaking through her nose.
Money came fast, faster than her sense could keep up with. Each client left her with a little damage to body, psyche.
But fast money has fast shadows.
One night, she followed a “big client” to a private apartment. Big client, big money, small sense. He wasn’t alone. The story changed midway. What was supposed to be a transaction became a trap, group sex and dark ritual.
Amaka was found two days later, broken in body and spirit. No police report. No justice. Just silence and stitches, rumours and rage. The “big client” had vanished into the same Lagos night that once promised her escape. Amaka returned to Ajegunle—not with riches, but with scars no wrapper could hide. Poverty was still waiting. This time, it came with shame.
Zainab didn’t come from poverty. She just wanted to be a star. Her father was a civil servant; her mother, a school teacher. She had options—university, NYSC, a steady climb up the ladder of modest respectability.
But Zainab wanted more.
She wanted the kind of life she saw on Instagram and Facebook: Dubai trips, designer bags, destination birthdays, champagne breakfasts. She wanted to be seen. Not just known, seen.
At the university, she became popular. Not for her grades, but for her glow. Her friends whispered about “runs,” but Zainab didn’t whisper. She upgraded.
She had rules. High-end clients only. No repeat nonsense. Everything neat, controlled, curated like her social media page. For a while, it worked.
Her Instagram was a movie. Soft lighting, hard currency. Comments full of fire emojis. “Baby girl for life,” they called her.
Then one night, the movie cracked.
A jealous “friend” leaked her private chats and videos. Screenshots spread like harmattan fire. Her carefully built image turned into a public spectacle overnight.
The same people who praised her now dragged her.
Her university called her in. “Reputation issues,” they said gently, before showing her the door.
Her parents? That was the real breaking point.
Her father stopped speaking to her. Her mother cried the kind of tears that age a woman overnight. The house that once held her childhood became too heavy to breathe in.
Zainab still had money, yes. But the leaked chat had already ‘spoilt’ things and money cannot buy back dignity once it has been shredded in the market square. Her soft life was funded by rich men. The spotlight she chased became the fire that burned her.
Betty thought she was in control.
She was sharp. Street-smart. The kind of girl who believed she could enter the lion’s den and come out alive.
She didn’t see herself as a victim. Never.
“This is business,” she would say, adjusting her handbag like a CEO. “Men need something. I provide it. They pay. End of story.”
She was disciplined. Saved her money. Invested small-small. She even helped her siblings through school.
If there was anyone who could “do runs” and retire clean, it was Betty.
Or so she thought.
One evening, she met a regular client—quiet, generous, predictable. The kind that made her believe she had mastered the game. But games have hidden levels.
The man became possessive. Calls turned into demands. Gifts turned into chains. Betty laughed it off at first.
“I’m not your property,” she snapped once.
He didn’t argue. He just changed tactics.
Soon, threats followed. Subtle at first. He knew where she lived. He knew her real name, her family.
Soon, Betty started feeling stalked and suffocated and tried to cut him off.
That was when things turned dark.
One night, he showed up uninvited. Words became violence. Violence became a hospital visit.
Betty barely survived—but something inside her didn’t.
Control is a beautiful illusion until it shatters.
She left the city quietly after that. No farewell post. No dramatic exit. Just a girl who once thought she was playing chess, only to realise she had been someone else’s pawn.
It is easy to judge these girls, easier still to dismiss them.
“Na their choice.”
“Yes… and no.”
Amaka chose escape. Zainab chose attention. Betty chose control.
But beneath those choices were deeper currents—poverty, pressure, comparison, the loud drumbeat of a society that celebrates wealth but rarely questions its source.
We live in a time where “soft life” is marketed like pure water. Where patience is mocked and process is insulted. Where young girls are taught—subtly, persistently—that their value can be negotiated.
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And so they negotiate.
Some win for a while. A few escape unscathed. But many, like these three, pay prices that no currency can cover.
The body remembers. The mind keeps receipts. Society never forgets.
And the night, that beautiful, dangerous night, always collects its dues.
Because the truth is this: not every fast road leads forward. Some are just shortcuts to places you can never return from.
So when next you see the glitter—the hair, the bags, the curated laughter, look closer. Sometimes, behind the shine is a story struggling to breathe.
Too many times, that story ends badly.
*Egbemode (egbemode3@gmail.com)
