I Lied About Living in Canada for Two Years. My Family Still Thinks I Am Rich.

This was 2022. I was 27, working a remote customer service job that paid 120,000 naira a month. But on Instagram, I was living in Toronto. I used my friend's photos , snow, CN Tower, Tim Hortons cups , and posted like I had japa'd.

My mother started calling me 'Canada boy'. My younger brother asked me to pay his school fees. My father told everyone at his church that his son was abroad. I could not tell them the truth. So I took loans. I sent money I did not have. I paid 350,000 naira for my brother's semester fees using a shylock at 20% interest.

One day, my mother's pastor called me on video to 'pray for my journey mercies'. I was in my one-room in Egbeda. I had to run outside and pretend the network was bad. Omo, I sat on the floor after that call and cried. I had borrowed over 1.2 million naira to fund a lie.

I almost collapsed when the shylock sent men to my workplace. I had to beg my manager for an advance. That was the day I told my mother the truth. She did not speak to me for three weeks. But she also paid the balance of the debt from her savings.

Now I am 31, still in Lagos, still paying her back. The lie bought me two years of respect I did not earn. The truth cost me something sweeter , my mother's disappointment, yes, but also her pity. And that pity taught me that nobody loves you more than the person who sees you at your lowest and still calls you 'my son'.