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Former associate professor turns e-hailing driver to support family after retirement [WATCH]
By Suraya Roslan, Mahaizura Abd Malik
January 31, 2026 @ 1:19pm
NILAI: A doctorate and more than two decades in academia, including retiring as an associate professor, do not guarantee a comfortable life after retirement.
This is the reality for former public university lecturer Dr Nik Rahim Nik Wajis, 62, who now drives for an e-hailing platform to support his large family.
Dr Nik Rahim said life has been financially challenging since his retirement, as he is still supporting six of his 16 children who are in school.
His monthly income, he said, dropped sharply from about RM10,000 to a pension of around RM2,000, an amount he described as insufficient to sustain his three families and meet the needs of his school-going children
"I could live alone, rent a cheap room, and eat just enough. But my children and my three wives are not options I can abandon," he said.
He said he had previously ventured into various fields, including real estate, umrah agencies, book writing, direct sales, gold investments, stocks and cryptocurrency, but most did not deliver the returns he had hoped for.
"It is not that I never had money. I did. But I did not manage it well, lacked investment knowledge, and had uncontrollable spending habits. That was my mistake," he said.
"In two hours, earning RM30 is enough to solve the day's problems. That is very meaningful," he said.
He views this phase of his life as an opportunity for dakwah and to inspire others, particularly the younger generation.
