THE COST OF NETWORKING IN NIGERIA

Ola liked to say that Lagos was a city that demanded money before it offered possibility. It was something he often muttered to himself in traffic, watching Keke drivers argue over change or listening to motivational speakers on the radio urge young people to “show up” even when showing up required what they did not have. Ola owned a small digital branding business—a fragile thing he nurtured like a plant that refused to grow quickly. He called it BrandVerse, a name his friends mocked lovingly.

His closest friends—Tunde with his boisterous laughter, and Sade who spoke truth like a slap—always told him he worried too much. And then there was Ada, his girlfriend, who believed in him with a quiet intensity that frightened him sometimes. She often reminded him that success was not a Lagos street bus he had to chase; it could, perhaps, meet him halfway.

But Ola knew that in Lagos, halfway still cost money.

On a humid Saturday morning, he stood in the lobby of the Eko Meridian Hotel in Victoria Island, staring at the glossy banner for a “Young Leaders Networking Summit.” The lobby smelled of cologne and ambition—people walking around with curated smiles, holding cups of coffee they did not want but needed to appear occupied. Ola clutched the strap of his laptop bag tightly, remembering that the new blazer he wore had swallowed nearly half his monthly earnings. The registration fee alone could feed him for a week. And yet here he was, waiting for opportunity like someone waiting for rainfall in dry season.

Tunde had warned him: “Guy, no let these people chop your money finish. Network no be by force.”
But Sade had insisted: “Sometimes you need to enter the room, even if the room is expensive.”

Inside the conference hall, Ola listened to panelists repeat familiar lines about resilience and grit. He nodded along, even though he felt the weight of how much this performance—this ritual of success—cost him. He wondered how many young people were silently drowning under the pressure to appear successful before they even had the chance to be.

Later, during a break, he bought an overpriced bottle of water just to avoid looking idle. He exchanged business cards with people who seemed more interested in taking photos with the event backdrop than forming real connections.

It was outside—far away from the air-conditioned seriousness of the hall—that something real happened. At the bus stop across the street, while waiting for a ride to Lekki, he met someone who recognized him from an online design forum. They fell into conversation easily, laughing about how Lagos events sold hope the way hawkers sold pure water. That stranger, Chuka, would later become his most reliable client and eventually a collaborator on a branding project that opened unexpected doors.

When Ola told Ada about it later that evening, she smiled knowingly.
“Real connections rarely need a red carpet,” she said.
And he realized she was right.

Over time, Ola learned that networking was not defined by chandeliers or corporate backdrops. Some of his most meaningful conversations came from coworking hubs where people shared Wi-Fi passwords like family secrets, from long BRT rides where everyone smelled of tired dreams, from cafés where aspiring entrepreneurs sat with laptops and silent determination.

He began to understand that Lagos was not only a city of hustle—it was also a city of human stories, and sometimes those stories met in the most ordinary places.

Yes, networking had a cost in Nigeria. But it did not have to empty one’s pockets. Sometimes it required only curiosity, a brave hello, the willingness to listen, and the grace to be genuine in a city addicted to performance.

And that, Ola would later tell Tunde, Sade, and Ada, was how he learned that connections built from sincerity, not spectacle, were the ones that truly lasted.