Listening to Phyna break down on TikTok is uncomfortable because it feels familiar. A Big Brother Naija winner, millions in prize money, boreholes drilled for family, every relative’s problem treated as hers. Then the money runs out, the calls turn cold, and she’s back to waiting tables while people whisper “she’s broke.” It’s not just her story. It’s Nigeria’s story.
We obsess over making money but ignore the harder skill: keeping it. Behavioral economist Richard Thaler calls this “mental accounting”, the tendency to treat windfalls as free money to spend, not capital to grow. Psychologist Daniel Kahneman’s prospect theory adds that people feel loss more intensely than gain, so when the cash dries up, the shame hits harder than the joy of having had it. In Nigeria, that pain is amplified by what sociologists call the “extended family tax.” Success isn’t private. It’s a community project, and saying no feels like betrayal.
You see it everywhere. The commissioner who fed an entire ward in office broke two years after retirement. The NNPCL staff on a million-naira pension suddenly anxious. The governor who leaves power and can’t pay his own bills. Politics here is expensive theater. Loyalty is bought with daily largesse, and the moment the cash stops, the crowd disperses. That’s why many sit tight, recycling offices like survival insurance. They know what Phyna learned too late: without financial intelligence, fame is just a fast way to go broke publicly.
Research backs this up. A 2021 study in the Journal of African Business found that sudden wealth without financial literacy training leads to rapid depletion in 70% of cases in West Africa, especially when social obligations are high. Economist Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala has repeatedly warned that Nigeria’s wealth destruction problem is cultural as much as structural. We celebrate the windfall but stigmatize the waitress job, forgetting that dignity is in the labor, not the title.
Phyna’s mistake wasn’t giving. It was giving without a plan. No one sat her down to teach cash flow, investment, or the power of “no.” She thought the money would never finish, until it did. That’s the trap: conflating income with wealth. Income pays today. Wealth protects tomorrow.
The fix isn’t complicated, but it’s unpopular. Build buffers before you build boreholes. Learn to delay gratification. What psychologist Walter Mischel called the “marshmallow test” for adults. Treat every inflow as seed, not fruit. And normalize honest work, whether it’s in a boardroom or behind a restaurant counter. Abroad, waiting tables is respectable. Here, we mock it until the money runs out.
Nigeria doesn’t have a money problem alone. It has a money management problem. Until we treat financial intelligence as survival, not optional, the cycle continues: rise fast, spend faster, fall publicly, and blame the system. Phyna’s tears are a warning. Don’t let them be your biography.
Bagudu Mohammed
bagudumohammed15197@gmail.com
