The land my father gave me tore my family apart

Two years ago, my father called me and said, 'Deji, I'm giving you the plot in Akure to hold for the family.' I was in Yaba, doing my usual thing, and I just said okay. I didn't even think much of it. It was our family land, my father's decision, no wahala.

Then my uncle's business collapsed. The man owed people, serious people. He came to me, said, 'Sell the land, let me settle my debt.' I told him no. That land was not mine to sell, and I wasn't going to be the one to give away my father's inheritance. The family turned on me. They said I was a greedy Lagos boy who forgot his roots. My own mother stopped picking my calls for months.

I was the villain because I refused to do something that would have hurt everyone in the long run. Nobody wanted to hear that. They just wanted the problem to go away.

In the end, I kept the land. But I lost something that money can't buy: my peace. My mother still talks to me now, but it's not the same. Some debts can't be repaid with land, and some family wounds don't heal with time.