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Joycee Awosika, A Luxury Wellness And Spa Brand-Builder

ORÍKÌ Group is a wellness and personal grooming brand that is the first and only company in Nigeria to operate a luxury spa chain coupled with its own farm to skin product range.

They utilize the most, efficient & potent natural ingredients from Africa. ORÍKÌ Group comprises of a multi-channel spa, farm to skin retail product company and a wholesale & amenity product line for spa’s, hotels, and airlines.
They are a fast growing organization having developed/operated six spas, retail stores and created distribution channels across Nigeria and in three countries.

Their mission is to leave a piece of Africa with consumers around the world by creating farm to skin products, wellness centers, empowering farming ecosystems and instilling ‘skinfidence.’

Joycee was intrigued by natural ingredients and their potency as a young girl. The more she experimented; skin and hair became her weapon of choice for self-expression – a way to experiment with raw materials and resources – and it powered a journey that led her back to her roots on the continent of Africa, specifically Nigeria, and that propelled the creation of ORÍKÌ. After years of experimenting with all types of natural ingredients, at one point creating a mini lab in a home setting, testing and experimenting with diverse materials from activated charcoal to wild berries and ingredients in between.

Joycee wanted others to experience the potency of natural ingredients. Seeing a void in the industry and a depiction and narration of Africa as being helpless and lacking, she launched a personal grooming brand “inspired by nature and crowned with opulence,” focusing on a wide range of raw materials and ingredients for all skin types, creating formulas that work for all depending on skin type and concern.

Her goal as a business owner is to expand into more and more communities, giving more people the opportunity to make wellness a lifestyle.
The ORIKI Team is diverse and they all bring their unique strengths to the table. Everyone’s voice matters and everyone’s suggestions and comments are welcome.

Joycee developed a love for entrepreneurship at a young age as she had keen interest in solving problems and monetizing opportunities. She started a babysitters club when she was younger, a candy store out of my locker, she made accessories and much more as a child. Her father was also an entrepreneur and she used to enjoy visiting his office and learning about what he did, it definitely left an impression and fueled her passion.

ORIKI is scaling and expanding and bringing more ORIKI locations to more communities; they are currently working on 3 other locations as well as launching a new farm to skin product line and a new haircare line. In 2020 they were able to scale two of their service offerings – Our Spa at Home services have provided hundreds of homes the opportunity to have spa services in the safety and comfort of their home.

For Joycee, making an impact as an entrepreneur is of utmost importance to her.

Joycee’s personal piece of advice to everyone is to partner with God. In her words, “I have seen my business transform as I said NO to fear and instead gained confidence by trusting in God through every season and allowing him steer the ship and lead my efforts. I’ve come to realize that obstacles and challenges are inevitable but I no longer let the struggles consume me because I have faith that the company would be victorious.”

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Chika Ruth Nwajoku, a Nigerian Entrepreneur Impacting Lives Through Footwear Production

Chika got her footwear making skills during the annual mandatory National Youth Service Program in 2012. She has since used her work at NCR Design Shoemaking School to improve the lives of women and youths in Nigeria by enabling them to produce and export standard footwear products through training, job matching opportunities, mentoring, and access to quality and affordable raw materials.

In 2017, Chika participated in the YouWin (Youth Enterprise with Innovation in Nigeria) scheme, an initiative that finances outstanding business plans for the young, aspiring entrepreneurs in Nigeria. In 2019, she emerged among the top 100 semi-finalists in the Access Bank Womenpreneur pitch-a-ton competition. In 2020, when the COVID-19 pandemic triggered a lockdown and restriction of movements and social distancing, as well as an economic recession that resulted in loss of jobs, hunger and insecurity, Chika took to training 36 students (2 students each month) in the art of footwear making for free. She organized virtual meetings to speak on the importance of vocational skills and handiwork in these days of uncertainty when nothing is sure, with regards to securing a good job.

Chika also recently got shortlisted as one of the top 20 female entrepreneurs to participate in the She Leads Africa High Growth Coaching program. She is a member of the Bell-Africana community, YALI West Africa, She Leads Africa, and currently signed up for Female & More Africa in collaboration with Ford Foundation.  Her designs have been featured in publications, and have been worn and commended by reputable icons.

Since the incorporation of NCR Design in 2018, Chika has through the business provided the needed skills that have pulled 1000 beneficiaries of the footwear making programs out of poverty and given them a new lease of life. Chika is working towards expanding the business to accommodate varieties of courses to enable the participants to opt for the one that suits them best.

What inspires Chika the most is her desire to help others by using her business to provide jobs for those with special needs. All I have ever wanted to do in my life is to help people especially women who do not even know why they are suffering, who are denied access to quality of life, who are willing to work to get those two pieces of bread for themselves and their families, who should not suffer.
She draws inspiration from the hardships of these people, to work her way out somewhere through which she can really help them.

They provide students with enough training skills and support that will enable them to establish a career in small and medium size businesses. NCR Design provides mentorship and internship opportunities, free accommodation and makes its training facility, tools, and equipment available to students who completed their training in the school.

Chika does not come from an entrepreneurial background, and her parents are disappointed chose Shoemaking over Medicine, Engineering, Law etc. In her own words, “I wanted to create value with something that I was passionate about. I have always loved shoes but became increasingly interested in shoes when I joined shoemaking CDS group during my days as a Youth Corp member in 2012. I started to dig deep into the art of shoemaking, read about master shoemakers, the business of shoemaking, its rewards, the challenges, and opportunities… just everything about it. It was fascinating to say the least. It had never occurred to me that I could make a living out of it because interestingly, I am a graduate of Soil Science so academically, nothing really linked to the career I have now. But growing up I loved making things. I loved art. I loved creating, but somehow had forgotten about it during my years as a student. My joining the shoemaking CDS group made me remember how much I loved crafts.”

What gives Chika the most satisfaction as an entrepreneur is knowing that she is contributing to something larger than herself. That I am solving problems and bringing a product and service to the world that people need.

Chika says to young women, “You can be anything and everything you set your mind to, with the right amount of ambition, commitment, dedication and of course, hard work – you will do it. First things first, you need to realize what that best version of yourself looks like. What does this woman look like to you? Who is she? What does she do? Did she build a business from the ground up? Or is she an amazing advocate for female empowerment? There are certain questions you must ask yourself to get to know yourself. Figure out her traits and see how many of them you have yourself. Chances are, you have a lot more in common than you may have originally thought. The only differences might be that this woman is recognized for her work and gets to do it on a larger scale. That is how you need to figure out how you can take the next step.It is all about your mindsets and reprogramming your mind for success. The women we admire and look up to and aspire to be all each have different mindsets.”

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Nigerian Fashion Educator, Omotola Olaniyi-Omosebi is Empowering People Through Fashion Training

Omotola Olaniyi-Omosebi is the current Creative Director of Gmoty Fashion Academy. A graduate of Business Administration from Yaba College of Technology Yaba Lagos. She founded Gmoty Fashion Academy in 2014 graduating from Ginani Fashion School. In 2016 she attended Zaris Fashion Academy for a finishing course. Her mission is to help women become resourceful so they can help their children and family.

“A few years ago, I struggled with how to cut and sew clothes, I didn’t know where to start from or where to learn the skills I needed. So I spent years looking for a solution to this problem from different places. I ended up wasting years learning little to nothing, I wasted money and time yet with nothing to show. On different occasions I would watch videos, read books and even attend sewing group tutorials all in the hope to learn. My sewing skills, interpretation of designs or perfect finishing was nothing to write-home-about. I became so confused, worried, scared and frustrated because I knew I was losing out, I didn’t believe in myself and my skills as I couldn’t sew anything meaningful for myself, not to talk of making clothes for clients. I spent a full year learning from a so-called ‘good’ tailor. But I knew if I could get hold of these skills it would help a great deal. I knew I needed a way out very fast because it was starting to affect my self-esteem; I didn’t like the fact that I was always asking my husband for every single kobo I needed. It was really bad. I finally found a way out.”

Today the story is different, as Omotola not only sews well fitted garments, she also now help and teach other married women who are interested about learning how to sew and earn from the skill. In May 2018, she opened a Fashion Training Academy where she trains people so far, they have trained over 300 women (boys and girls also included for summer classes) and still counting. Gmoty Fashion Academy is indeed a community that helps women find clarity and move very fast from being a full housewife to a resourceful housewife.


Her fashion school doesn’t teach only fashion, they also teach the business side of fashion. This is where they bring in experts from the industry to train and educate their students on selling and branding etc. They train them and we give them their first job.

They also teach their students how to use the latest tech tools to promote their products and services.

We do fashion training and education, sales of fashion designs (Ready to Wear), childrenswear, handcrafted products made by students, including Laptop Bags, Ankara Tote Bags, Neck Pillows and Accessories etc. We also offer a range of consultancy and advisory services.

Omotola specializes in African ready to wear, casuals and corporate wear. She has participated in various fashion shows including Runway Fadan 2015 (Fashion Designers Association of Nigeria), Ankara Fiesta 2015 and a host of other exhibitions.

She has participated in various fashion shows including Runway Fadan 2015 (Fashion Designers Association of Nigeria), Ankara Fiesta 2015 and a host of other exhibitions.
Omotola is a recipient of the Goldman Sachs 10,000 women initiative Scholarship, and studied Entrepreneurial Management at the Pan Atlantic University (Lagos Business School). She is a member of FADAN (Fashion Designers Association of Nigeria) the recognized body for the Fashion Designers Profession. Also a member of AFDEC (African Fashion Development and Empowerment Centre).

What gives her the most satisfaction as an entrepreneur is the ability to practice her skills every day, and she is happy that this skill is creating the safe place for women to grow their self-belief so as to become support systems to their families and role models in their communities. Omotola finds joy in seeing women become more involved in running the home front, leading in their communities, and speaking out loud with their heads up high. This can only be achieved when our women are empowered with livelihood skills, when they have different streams of Income.

This is why Omotola screams to anyone who wants to listen “Learn a skill today!! Never depend solely on your spouse, the power you have is that little money you can call your own. The best time to start is NOW!”

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Amanda Obidike A Nigerian STEM Innovator and Founder of STEMi Makers Africa

STEM has a capacity to make huge impacts in the lives of young people, particularly women and girls, on the African continent cannot be underestimated.

STEMi Makers Africa, founded by Amanda Obidike, addresses the existing unemployment gap, the underrepresentation of young women and girls in STEM and the fragmented education system by training teachers and students in STEM Education.

Amanda Obidike is a multi-award winning social innovator, technologist and scientist. She is the Founding Curator of the WEF Global Shapers, Ozubulu Hub and Executive Director of STEMi Makers Africa. Her role in this position is to provide leadership, strategy management and oversee the design and implementation of sustainable Community projects and STEM Education across 19 Sub-Saharan countries by preparing the next generation of Africans with STEM lucrative skills for Africa’s workforce.
In addition to STEM, she addresses thematic topics on Social Innovation, Data Science, Youth Development, Entrepreneurship and socio-economic policies. In 2020, Amanda received several awards including the Global Award for Achievement by TechWomen 100 and 30 Under 30 Inspiring Leaders of Africa.

The lucrative jobs of the future required technical competence and 21st century skills that she didn’t have. Nigeria began to transfer major Resources and job opportunities to skilled professionals and expatriates due to a lack of competent and domestic STEM workforce. Seeing this economic disparity, she began to research on new labour market skills that youths like her can successfully thrive in. She got an opportunity to be trained by IBM in Business Intelligence/Analytics after 8 months. Upon completion, she took the initiative to serve as a knowledge panel in preparing Africans with 21st-century skills and future-focused options for an emerging workforce.
This was her inspiration, her driving force to starting STEMi Makers Africa.

Her advice to women is for them to be open to learning from women’s stories. Shared experiences from women who have existing businesses and start-ups can pave a lasting way for women who are about to launch their businesses in learning business ethics and challenges encountered.

Amanda urges women to not focus only on hearing the success sides or accomplishments of others  but strive to know the challenges, setbacks and hurdles they encountered. As this can help them overcome futuristic and business tendencies to failure.

She encourages women to feel free to network, attend business seminars (virtually or in-person), and most importantly, get a business mentor who is accessible. Someone they can always feel free to ask questions or give them that business support or counsel they may need.

Amanda Obidike serves as a Mentor in the New York Academy of Science, Cherie Blair Foundation, the 1 million Women in Tech, Global thinkers for Women where she lends her voice, knowledge, and serve as a role model to girls in Africa.

She currently serves on the Leadership Team of the 500 Women Scientists, USA and Trustee Board of the MAI Foundation.

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Bukky Asehinde Is Helping Creative Businesses Thrive With Her Bellafricana Platform

Whether they choose to admit it or not, the goal of every business or product owner is to be noticed and patronised by people outside the shores of their country.

One problem business owners have faced for years is making their products noticed by other consumers apart from those within their vicinity.
Getting products noticed by global consumers is always difficult for Africa’s creative women entrepreneurs, but this challenge represented an opportunity for Bukky Asehinde, founder of Bellafricana. Her platform is giving visibility to Nigeria’s creative business owners and their quality products.

Bellafricana, is a platform that empowers, supports and connects quality, talented and creative indigenous businesses to their local and global consumers.
Starting with Nigeria, their goal is to take it one African Country at a time.

Bukky created a platform to enable creative MSMEs to thrive, whilst doing all it takes to bring the quality products to the forefront of the market. She believes very much that a support group/community for these businesses will enhance the non-oil export in the African economy.

Bukky was inspired to start this up when she noticed a rise in the number of creative indigenous (made in Nigeria, Africa) brands that have great quality, yet are struggling to grow their business with little or no financing from both the government and bigger institutions.
She wondered for a long time, “Why should we wait on financial backing from the government and big institutions to help this industry, when we can create a platform to connect these Indigenous businesses who are maximising raw materials in Nigeria (Africa), providing employment for local talents within the country and creating wealth for the Nation?”. And so she conducted a research, which made her realize that one of the major challenges these businesses were facing majorly has to do with marketing and understanding the trade, which is the heart of any business.
This birthed Bellafricana, a community that showcases the products of local entrepreneurs to a wider audience, both locally and globally.

Bukky finds satisfaction as an entrepreneur because she is able to contribute to the growth of the economy, making an impact that will outlive her, and touching lives.

Bukky Asehinde

Her counsel to women who are trying to start a business is simple:

“SURROUND YOURSELF WITH WISE & POSITIVE PEOPLE: This is so vital especially when you know your personality type. I am an extrovert and a positive person, so having negative people around me was a no no. This I know has certainly helped my journey. Another key one is surrounding yourself with wise people, as the bible says also “He that walketh with wise men shall be wise: but a companion of fools shall be destroyed”.

GET MENTORS: It’s important to have mentors who key into the vision of what you do and are thought leaders in their various sectors not necessarily celebrities. How? (you might ask) by keeping a relationship with them and striking a mutually beneficial balance of what they do, they will give you more than their time when you show you care.”

Bellafricana is that “support system” every creative business owner needs to be globally accessible.

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How Ijeoma Onuoha Is Creating Stylish Fashion For Women Through Asoebigirl

Every woman wants to feel and look good, and finding the right stylish clothing for any occasion plays such an important part in that process.

In Nigeria, entrepreneur Ijeoma Onuoha, founder of fashion business Asoebigirl Limited and creator of the brand, Touchbyasoebigirl, is bringing her stylish designs within reach of every discerning woman. 

Ijeoma Onuoha is the founder and head creative designer at TouchbyAsoebigirl, a female fashion brand founded in 2017 under the parent company Asoebigirl Limited. She holds a Bachelor’s degree in Biomedical Technology from the University of Port Harcourt and a certificate in the Essentials of Entrepreneurship from Harvard Business School.

Your dreams are valid regardless of what your present situation looks like. Just start!

Touchbyasoebigirl is a female fashion brand (parent company Asoebigirl Limited) created to meet the fashion needs of women through affordable but stylish clothing.

Their customers are fondly called “Touch Woman”. A Touch Woman is a woman that stays stylish regardless of what time or day or occasion it is, and to this end, Touchbyasoebigirl caters to different events; corporate look, casual, events and weddings, swim wear, lounge wear etc.


Their pieces are tailored uniquely to cater to individual styles and personality and their customer base currently extends beyond Nigeria into other African countries (Ghana, Kenya, South Africa, Botswana, Cameroon), UK, Europe and the US/Canada.
They recently launched a collection called the Touch Executive Woman which offers finely tailored pants suits that show the sexy, confident and powerful sides of the women that wear them.

She was inspired to be a fashion entrepreneur by her mother who has been a fashion designer for more than three decades. What she picked up as means of unwinding from work stress has now become a major source of income for her.

In her words, “Every time I walk into a room, I start to look for where there are needs (in some situations, I create the needs), and then find ways to meet these needs. You can say I have always been a sales woman. I started my first business at 19 years old while in University, I sold make-up products for a couple of years, sold thrift jackets from the UK and even lifestyle products like BP machines. The idea of multiple streams of income forever appeals to me and this explains why today I have a business running in fashion while I maintain a 9-5 job in the Healthcare industry. I guess we can say entrepreneurship comes naturally for me.”

Ijeoma Onuoha has over 7 years of work experience in Business development, relationship management and sales across different industries including Telecommunications, Media and most recently, healthcare.

 

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HerVest: All About The New Funding & Mentoring Platform Designed To Support Women

Gaining startup capital  for a new business can be extremely challenging. Women are often cut out of lucrative venture capitalist funding, leaving them with few options to accumulate the funds they need to launch their new venture. HerVest is here to change the narrative, as it is set to to help  women gain independence with a platform to help fund their dream ventures.

HerVest is a female-focused financial inclusion tech platform that enables women to participate in key financial services such as savings, investment and credit particularly credit for Small Holder Women Farmers. Launched in August 2020,  with about 2000 women currently using HerVest on both demand and supply sides.

According to Solape Akinpelu, founder  and CEO of  HerVest; “We launched the initiative to improve women’s lives by giving them greater access to and use of financial services and technology , our mission is to reduce gender based abuse and violence while strengthening an overlooked demography to feed Africa and the world’.

To know more about HerVest, kindly visit website at www.hervest.ng , the mobile app is available on Android and iOS at www.hervestng.app.link respectively

 

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Lagos State Government Shut Landmark Event Centre And 11 Others For Violating COVID19 Protocols

The Lagos State government has shutdown Landmark Event Centre and 11 other facilities for violating COVID-19 protocols.

The facilities were shut down during an enforcement operation led by the Director-General, Lagos State Safety Commission, Lanre Mojola. The team was out in the state on routine enforcement and monitoring activities to enforce compliance with the government’s directive on COVID-19 pandemic, especially as it concerns social and recreational centers.

Some other facilities sealed are DNA Night Club, Buzz Bar, Silverfox, Cocoon, Westend Nightclub, Rumours, Lekki Waterside, Landmark Event Centre and The Wave Beach club.

According to Mojola, event centers that broke the government’s seal and continued partying would be charged to court once documentation had been properly processed. He said the government was committed to curbing the spread of the virus and would leave nothing to chance to achieve this mandate.

Nigeria is currently experiencing the second wave of COVID19.

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“Nigeria Is Murdering Its Citizens” – Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie’s Article in New York Times Is Mind blowing

Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie wrote an article titled “Nigeria Is Murdering Its Citizens”, which was published by the New York Times on Wednesday, October 21, 2020.

In the Op-Ed, she speaks on the recent happenings in Nigeria: the necessity of the #EndSARS movement, the peaceful protest, Nigeria’s political culture being “steeped in state-sponsored thuggery”, and the killings at Lekki toll gate.

“I think of their families brutally plunged into the terrible abyss of grief, made more terrible by the knowledge that their loved ones were killed by their country. And for what? Because they peacefully asked to be allowed to live”, she writes.

Here are excerpts from the article:

For years, the name SARS hung in the air here in Nigeria like a putrid fog. SARS, which stood for Special Anti-Robbery Squad, was supposed to be the elite Nigerian police unit dedicated to fighting crime, but it was really a moneymaking terror squad with no accountability. SARS was random, vicious, vilely extortionist. SARS officers would raid bars or stop buses on the road and arbitrarily arrest young men for such crimes as wearing their hair in dreadlocks, having tattoos, holding a nice phone or a laptop, driving a nice car. Then they would demand large amounts of money as “bail.”

SARS officers once arrested my cousin at a beer parlor because he arrived driving a Mercedes. They accused him of being an armed robber, ignored the work ID cards he showed them, took him to a station where they threatened to photograph him next to a gun and claim he was a robber, unless he paid them a large sum of money. My cousin is one of the fortunate few who could pay an amount large enough for SARS, and who was released. He is not one of the many tortured, or the many disappeared, like Chijioke Iloanya.

In 2012 Mr. Iloanya was 20 when SARS officers arrested him at a child dedication ceremony in Anambra State. He had committed no crime. His family tried to pay to have him released but were asked to bring more money than they had. So they sold their property to raise money and went back to the SARS office but Mr. Iloanya was no longer there. They have not seen him since. Photos of him on social media show a young man, still almost a child, with sensitive eyes and a future waiting for him. There are so many families like the Iloanyas who are caught between pain and hope, because their sons and brothers were arrested by SARS and they fear the worst, knowing the reputation of SARS, but still they dare to hope in the desperate way we humans do for those we love.

There have been End SARS protests, since 2016, but October 2020 was different, a tipping point had been reached. The protests signaled the overturning of convention — the protesters insisted on not having a central leadership, it was social rather than traditional media that documented the protests, and, in a country with firm class divisions, the protests cut across class. The protests were peaceful, insistently peaceful, consistently peaceful. They were organized mostly on social media by young Nigerians, born in the 1980s and 1990s, a disaffected generation with the courage to act. Their bravery is inspiring. They speak to hope and to the possibility of what Nigeria could become. Of those involved in the organization, none is more remarkable than a group called Feminist Coalition, set up by Nigerian feminists, who have raised more than $180,000, and have provided legal aid, security and food to protesters.

But the Nigerian government tried to disrupt their fund-raising. The Nigerian government has reportedly accused Flutterwave, the company through which the donation link was created, of accepting funds from terrorists, even though it is clear that Feminist Coalition’s members are not terrorists. Their fund-raising link suddenly stopped working. Still, they persisted and began to raise money through Bitcoin.

From the capital city of Abuja to the small town of Ogbomosho, state agents attacked and beat up protesters. The police killed a few and detained many others until social media and video evidence forced them to release some of the detained. Still, the protesters persisted.

The Lagos State government accused protesters of violence, but it defied common sense that a protest so consistently committed to peaceful means would suddenly turn around and become violent. Protesters know they have everything to lose in a country like Nigeria where the mere hint of violence gives free reign to murderous security forces. Nigeria’s political culture is steeped in state-sponsored thuggery. Politicians routinely hire thugs to cause chaos, especially during elections, and many people believed that thugs had been hired to compromise the protests. On social media, videos that attested to this — of thugs getting into SUVs that belonged to the government, of hardened and hungry young men admitting they were paid to join the protests and become violent. Still, the protesters persisted.

At about noon on Oct. 20, 2020, about two weeks into the protests, the Lagos State governor suddenly announced a curfew that would begin at 4 p.m., which gave people in a famously traffic-clogged state only a few hours to get home and hunker down. I feared that a curfew would provide an excuse for state violence, that in the name of restoring order, the army and police would unleash violence. Still, I was unprepared for the carnage that followed at the Lekki Toll Gate, the most prominent in Lagos. Government officials reportedly cut the security cameras, then cut off the bright floodlights, leaving only a darkness heavy with foreboding. The protesters were holding Nigerian flags, sitting on the ground, some kneeling, some singing the national anthem, peaceful and determined.

Read full article on New York times here

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Olamide Craig: 6 Reasons Why The #EndSARS Protests Have Been So Successful

Over the last week, a wave of protests spread across Nigeria, Africa’s largest economy and home to over 200 million people, about 60% of whom are less than 25 years old.

The protests were sparked by rising police brutality, specifically that of the Special Anti-Robbery Squad (SARS) of the Nigerian Police Force, that disproportionately targeted the youth, often on trumped-up charges and typically leading to harassment, torture, rape, unlawful arrests, and extrajudicial killings.

It is thought that the groundswell of support for the movement could soon be shifting towards demanding accountability from the nation’s legislators, who are rumoured to be the highest paid in the world, and from there expanding to clamour for good governance in the nation as a whole. Let it be clear that we are not just taking this stance against SARS; we are making a statement against bad governance.

The protests, led largely by the nation’s youth, have attracted the attention of the international press with the hashtag #EndSARS trending across all social media platforms for several days in a row. Observers have commended the peacefulness and the organisational competence of the protesters, likening their tactics to those used by the Hong Kong protesters in 2019. Some have gone as far as to liken the October 2020 protests to the Arab Spring of 2011, calling it the start of the ‘Nigerian Spring’.

Here are six reasons why the October 2020 protests have been so successful so far:

Egalitarian

The movement has fiercely resisted the traditional leadership structure, and has, instead, opted for a decentralised style of leadership. Youths from different walks of life have contributed their skills and time into making the protests successful and no one person or role is seen as more important or less valuable.

But having no “leader” is not the same as having no “leadership”. There are several individuals and organisations spearheading different aspects of the protest, but none of them claim ownership of the movement and have eschewed calls to act as spokespersons for the protest. In sharp contrast to the Occupy Nigeria protests of 2012, there are no celebrity leaders or appointed heads, and many see this as a direct jab at the many NLC and ASSU leaders who after being called to Abuja to “negotiate” are alleged to have abandoned the cause.

Members of the Nigerian tech industry, which has been disproportionately targeted by SARS, have mooted the idea of creating a Nigerian version of Reddit where the Nigerian youth can participate in true egalitarian decision making via online polls. This will be similar to the LIHKG platform used by the Hong Kong protesters in 2019.

Organisation

One of the hallmarks of the protests has been the perceived excellence with which the youth have organised and the agility of the collective response to meet the operational, logistical, and strategic challenges of sustaining a nationwide protest. Within a few short days, the protesters have organised security, media, welfare, legal aid, emergency medical services, and refreshments for the protesters on the streets, while also ensuring a steady supply of mobile data, commonly known as “recharge card credit” to sustain the online protests.

Crowdfunding

Individuals and organisations across the country and in the diaspora have funded the uprising, sending in donations to help provide for the protests. But it has not only been money; many service providers, restaurants, bakeries, confectioners and bottling companies, to name a few, have turned up at the protests with free merchandise, food, and drinks for the protesters, each one of them seeing it as their civic duty to do something to reclaim the nation. In a country where billions of Naira are allocated for projects that are never completed, there has been a meticulous accounting for every dollar spent during the protest.

Technology and Connectivity

The use of technology is widely touted as a major ingredient in the success of the protests. Social media networking has been used to drive online protests. Slogans tweeted by protesters at home encourage the street protesters, and messages sent via instant messaging provide vital information and security updates from one protest site to others. GPS-based location tracking is being used to trace protesters who have been arrested, aerial drone photography is being used to capture unprecedented images of the crowd, and cryptocurrency is emerging as the major stream of the crowdfunding effort.

Community

Protesters, both online and on the street, fundraisers, organisers, lawyers, doctors, civil rights activists, journalists, photographers, and so on are all working in unity of purpose. The movement has created a unique sense of camaraderie, the kind only formed between people who share a common trauma. It is said that this generation of youth have grown up never knowing the “good days” fondly spoken of by the older generations, and that they are determined to bring change to the nation, one demand at a time.

Women

What do the English Suffragettes of the late 19th century, the Aba Women’s riot of 1929, and the October 2020 protests have in common? Women! Some of the most powerful voices online and on the streets, and some of the most prolific organisers behind the scenes, have been women. Buoyed by a burgeoning African flavour of the feminist ideology, the female input in the success of the protests cannot be overemphasised.

Source: Bellanaija

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