Loans for school fees, and other vanities?

In fact, you are encouraged to stick your children in any of our exorbitant private schools, in the guise of giving them great education – when what you have in mind is how many business connections you want to make – and where that does not materialize, you cannot retract and you just keep sinking […]

In fact, you are encouraged to stick your children in any of our exorbitant private schools, in the guise of giving them great education – when what you have in mind is how many business connections you want to make – and where that does not materialize, you cannot retract and you just keep sinking into debts while heaping the blame on your poor children; whom you are also probably spoiling rotten (for the loan disguises – or postpones – your trouble in paying the dollar-denominated fees while giving them the idea that their parents are as rich as the parents of their mates). It’s a kinda fake lifestyle.
But before anyone gets into the vicious debt cycle of taking loans from banks to pay children’s school fees, perhaps they should consider stepping those children down to cheaper schools! Some public schools are still great. Make sure you aren’t struggling to keep them in that nice private school simply because you are a wannabe who wants to rub shoulders with the ministers whose children also attend the same school. It’s more like 10% chance for you to get a big contract as a result of your children attending that school, and 90% chance you will give yourself heart attack, keel over and die – leaving debt behind for the same children at a young age!
It’s the sign of the times. My generation, we all went to public secondary schools and public universities. But today, our children all attend private secondary schools, and private – or more likely – foreign universities. It’s the way we roll in Nigeria. We kill whatever works and create private alternatives that puts everyone in trouble by piling financial pressure on all and sundry.
I have been seeing adverts upon adverts in newspapers and online. Our banks know that if you are vain enough to send your children to those highbrow schools you cannot ordinarily afford, you will steal money in your office, or do deals, or be corrupt, and will not want your children embarrassed out of school. You are also likely to be working in one of those places where they pay very well, but where somehow, your money never gets home with you – perhaps because of the unnecessary expectations like business-class tickets for the family to fly off to the next exotic location for summer/winter/autumn/spring! So here comes the loan for your children’s school fees.  You can pay later when that deal comes through. It doesn’t matter that we all had extra time to prepare for these fees with all the Ebola-extended holidays. This is the new reality.  I was told of a woman who works for an oil company in Nigeria, who had to go to her pastor for special deliverance from ‘the spirit of buying too many clothes and shoes’.  So, there you have it. A well-paying job doesn’t solve every problem!
But back to the new, modern, financially-inclusive loans. I think it is a sign of personal finance mismanagement, in most cases, to go borrowing your children’s school fees. Nothing wrong in seeing a delay in coming up with the money, but a loan? I see a situation where Nigerians are being drawn into debts on all fronts. All the government – and the people – seem to talk about, is the need to create credit and give loans to the people. We may be (again as in 2007/8), running ahead of ourselves with this vanity loans issue. Industries are still comatose, chances for employment still diminishing, the economy is still fragile, yet these vanity loans are gaining currency.  Their key selling point is that we can ‘enjoy today and pay later’.  Deferred gratification and modesty are no longer termed as virtues.  Most SMEs are still being ignored by these same banks, many of whom only throw money at already blossoming ideas (who no like beta thing?)
Other types of loans around the country today:
1. Credit Cards for High-Networth Individuals, (especially politicians and government appointees, who know exactly how to clear those loans using the commonwealth)
2. Home Loans at 20% per annum (not too bad except these are tied to exorbitant ‘estates’ built by over-leveraged mortgage banks),
3. Salary Advance loans (given to those who always purchase shoes and bags and suits in advance and always come up short each month),
4. Household Appliance Loans (for the next biggest plasma 3-D TV, to give you, like the addict that you are, a bigger adrenaline rush now that Barclays Premier League is back)
5. A resurgence of car loans (usually for brand new cars being pushed by the large car-dealers in town. Not for bushmen like me. I only ever bought a Kia Rio brand new in my life and I know what I saw in the hands of those Indians who almost charge you to death for maintenance!)
6. Rent Advance Loans – for those living in areas where their salaries cannot ordinarily afford, like Banana Island, Maitama and Asokoro, when your salary is a mere N100,000 per month.
7. How can I forget the credit card that is potentially tied to our National ID card. Debt has been democratized
8. One bank used to have loans for women to buy gold back in the day. I think this is also coming back.
9. Some banks have loans for people to perform pilgrimage. Others for the burial of their parents.
Are we condemned to keep repeating the cycle of Irrational Exuberance? Or maybe I’m just a cave man. I think debt has a way of blocking one’s mind to certain realities which one should really engage with. Debt limits one’s ingenuity. Debt creates an illusion of abundance but a lot of pain when it is time to repay.  I also think that the availability of ready cash – whether yours or borrowed – exposes one to always being the fool who gets dumped with the most unnecessarily expensive products. Yes, if one is flush with cash, one bargains less, and one is likely to buy anything that is shoved in one’s face. And these days, marketers shove things in your face – physically, with advertisements, online – just everywhere you turn.  
But the economists who rule the waves globally, say debts is the best way of ‘growing’ an economy – debt for all, individuals and countries (I will address this fallacy someday soon). For me, I just cannot get the African Debt Burden crisis off my mind. Nor the huge margin loans some had to repay in Nigeria in 2008, after the Stock Market was ‘pumped’ by the smart alecs, and ‘dumped’ on the majority who wanted to join the Joneses. Softly softly on the vanity loans please.