A dedicated entrepreneur, overwhelmed by non-stop work and sleepless nights, fell asleep on a commercial bus and inadvertently left behind goods worth over N1 million. In a raw, emotional video recorded at the bus park as she tried to trace her items, she poured out her pain and regret.
“Somebody call God to have mercy on me,” she begins, her teary voice, obviously devastated. She explained how friends, family, and even loyal customers had repeatedly urged her to rest.
“They’ve been telling me, ‘Carosey rest! 
Even my customers that have been patronising me have been telling me to rest. I’m forming hardworking like na me work hard pass.”
The TikTok vendor described her hectic routine since she moved to Lagos: “I hardly sleep. I don’t sleep during the day, I don’t sleep at night… y’all know I’m in Lagos. Ever since I arrived in Lagos, I’ve not rested. I no dey sleep o.”
She would work late into the night editing content, attending to customers, and handling business tasks. “Day go break meet me there, I go jump up back I don waka comot.”
Her trip to Tradefair Market was driven by customer care and integrity. She went to buy sunscreen, face steams, gummies, and other products so she could offer complete, genuine solutions to her clients instead of sending them elsewhere where they might buy fakes. According to her, the total value of these goods was over N1 million.
On the return journey, fatigue hit her hard. “As I enter public transport dey come back, sleep dey catch me, sleep dey turn me.” She even secured her phone tightly in her bag to avoid losing it while dozing. Tragically, the goods were placed under the seat, and she forgot them entirely when alighting at her bus stops.
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The Devastating Realisation
She reached home completely drained: “I even got to the house, pulled my clothes off with so much stress, used the toilet, and lay down to sleep. I was even hungry, but I said, ‘ Let me sleep small before I go and look for food.”
Then came the cruel twist: “It was now as if I was dreaming of unboxing sunscreen products. When I opened my eyes, I said, ‘Where is my package?!’ That was when I remembered I did not carry it.”
At the time of recording, she was back at the park, determined to trace the bus and recover her goods. “If I don’t see it, I go sick o, and I might even pause my business to take a very long break; let me go and rest,” she said as tears trickled down her eyes the more.
Importantly, she refused to be too hard on herself: “I wasn’t careless, I was just stressed.
I’ve been doing business for years, and this has never happened before. I won’t even blame myself. I’m a human being; I deserve rest.”
This heartfelt confession resonates deeply because it reflects the reality faced by countless small business owners, especially women traders in Lagos. The pressure to keep pushing, to appear strong, hardworking, and indispensable, often comes at a huge personal cost.
Many Lagosians are sleep-deprived, constantly moving and daily grinding. The combination of long commutes, demanding schedules, unreliable public transport, and the sheer cost of living leaves little room for rest or recovery. Incidents like this are painful reminders that the “hustle culture” many celebrate can quietly break even the strongest among us.
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