September 11, 2024 • 44 mins
Join Stella Oni on the latest episode of "Talking Tech with Creatives" as she sits down with Gbenga Shokefun, a multi-talented Nigerian-American author, lawyer, and industrialist. Gbenga shares his fascinating journey from an influential creative family to his pivotal role in the Afrobeat genre and the founding of Question Mark Records. Discover his insights on the intersection of technology, creativity, and the transformative power of tech for emerging economies in Africa.
Gbenga delves into his passion for history and its importance for Nigerian youth, his innovative book "Adigun," and the need for leveraging AI and technology in African trade and business. He also opens up about his personal hobbies, including horse riding and polo, shedding light on the importance of balancing work and leisure. Tune in for a captivating conversation that explores the past, present, and future of Nigeria's creative and technological landscape.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
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(00:00):
Music.
(00:37):
Hi everyone, welcome to Talking Tech with Creatives podcast,
a technology podcast that dives into the intersection of technology and creativity.
My tongue is all over the place today. I'm Stella Oni.
Join me as renowned experts from the creative industry share their innovative
journeys, great tips and insights.
(00:59):
As an author with passion for crime, food, culture and tech,
I've always believed in the transformative power of technology,
especially for emerging economies in Africa.
My guest today is Benga Shokefun, and I'm going to tell you a little bit about him.
He's a multi-talented Nigerian-American author, lawyer, and industrialist.
(01:22):
He also always remained around creatives.
He was born into a creative family. His father was a pioneer broadcaster with
WNTV, the first TV station in Africa.
His mother was a celebrated chorister. She loved classic church hymnals,
and they were very strong influences on his creative expression.
(01:46):
Agbinga spent many years as a lawyer, as an entertainment lawyer in Los Angeles in America,
and he moved into music as
well production and management of musical talents he
was actually instrumental in the development of
his sister his sister is ty bello her music
(02:06):
career and actually was the one that gave her first professional camera so that
is awesome and he was amongst the pioneers of the present day afro beat genre
so it's it's it's mind-blowing benga founded co-founded Question Mark Records
with Kevin Luciano, Gabriel.
(02:26):
And he actually, that label where the ones that started off,
Asha, Mode 9, Silver Sadi, and some other Afrobeats and other amazing artists.
His passion is law and writing.
His first book he's going to tell us about that is Adigun. so
(02:47):
and he's got quite a lot of interesting hobbies
that we're going to talk about as well so without further
ado i welcome winga welcome welcome to talking tech with creatives but thank
you so much stella thank you so i know that i said a bit about you but can you
tell us a bit more about yourself what what else i thought i thought you were
(03:10):
just going to tell me to go.
Because there's nothing else to say.
So you kind of like yeah yeah just tell us a bit just tell us a little bit about
yourself in your own voice well uh you know i'm just me i'm just a very happy-go-lucky,
(03:31):
you know, normal human being, you know, just been blessed with proper education,
good parentage, been around the world, well-traveled and love Nigeria and actually
had to come back to Nigeria.
And one of those anti-Jakba, you know, anti-Jakba, you know,
(03:55):
what would I call it revolutionary,
fighter stop people from leaving just go and stand in the airport and just tell
them you can't go don't go.
So you said you kind of like you like Nigeria and for our audience,
(04:16):
Jakma in Nigeria is where you leave Nigeria to go
settle in the west somewhere outside of
Nigeria so for people like us who are
here you know and bigger in Nigeria we're coming
for you we're gonna
park a plane here and we're gonna start marching everyone back into that I am
I am happy for you to send me back happy to come I love Nigeria I love Nigeria
(04:40):
always write about Nigeria so tell us about your influence when you were growing
up because you know you've got such a wide remit of interest and experience that's you You know,
like want to know more about you. What were your influences?
Well, I think, you know, I came from a very small family.
I came from a family, you know, that believed so much in God.
(05:04):
God was the main, main stance in my family.
And I'm glad that, you know, we all still have the same belief and respect and regard for God.
Because sometimes these prayers, they make you OD on it, you know.
(05:27):
You know, you have to go to church, you have to wake up in the morning.
But good thing is that it's made all of us morning people. Structure.
Structure, that's fantastic. It made us morning people because 5 a.m., you're up.
You know, and when we grew older, when we went to parties, you know,
even you were allowed to go to parties, but you better come back home and sleep.
(05:50):
Because even if you have one hour of sleep, you're waking up at 5.
Wow. So, you know, every one of us, four of us, we're all morning people.
You know, you call my sister at five, she's like, hello, how are you?
You know, she's like, oh. You know, and it's contagious.
You know, my kids are morning people as well because they have to wake up as well.
(06:14):
My family, they didn't believe in that. Oh, it's a little boy letting sleep.
It's a baby. He doesn't understand. No, you will pray. so you
know it has really formed my my my
my work ethics my my whole aura
and my my sense of discipline came from that time you know there was a lot of
(06:36):
music in our home my father was a broadcaster i played about four or five instruments
in the house you know see why i took most of it but he left a few.
But, you know, music is in everybody.
(06:56):
And, you know, we just grew up in a very, very interesting neighborhood where,
you know, it was at a time of Nigeria where it was Musa Aira,
Dua Victoria, the right, the people on the right were white people,
who on the left were the black people.
And I can remember the white kids going to the fence and just watching us play.
(07:18):
And they want to play with us, but they weren't allowed.
Wow. Oh, that's crazy.
You know it was it was just post-colonial don't
forget that you know this was this was like early 70s
you know where we had just come through
that whole colonial era and there was and you know and the kids were all together
(07:41):
we're still together you know it was a wonderful it was if there was if there
was a hollywood in nigeria most of our drive would be hollywood because don't
forget we We didn't have movie theatres.
Yeah, we had a few, but the movie industry hadn't started.
No, no, no, not completely. Television was everything.
(08:03):
Yes. Television was everything. And the staff quarters for the television house was Musa Eradua.
From one to the end to Ido U Martin was all NTA staff quarters.
All the pioneers, all the pioneers, yeah. I mean, if you remember Village Headmaster,
(08:24):
Sisi Clara lived on number 20 or something. We were on number three.
Even Christopher Collardy used to be a director at NTE. NTE was called Nigerian
Broadcasting Television.
Art Allardy was next door to us. Oviya Gilles was one door away.
It was just the whole name. When you see an old program and all the names that came out at the end,
(08:49):
all my neighbors we all grew up
together so everybody it was just a whole community
of very creative parents and we
got created too you know you know we would come together and have and put a
band together you know with sticks and bamboo and you know and and we would
(09:09):
dress up you know masquerade all kind of different it was just fun because it was just a bunch of
very creative parents, you know, a bunch of very creative and silly kids.
And do you know that you could almost write a history, you know,
(09:31):
almost write history, you know, if you ever sat down to want to write about
that period, you could write something because that's one of the things I think
we need to have, a kind of recording of those,
era it was amazing it was amazing we need
we need a written down because it's not history oh it
was amazing we used to be in broadcast and back there that time
you you really would either be very very creative or just love the arts you
(09:57):
were different you were it was it was you were hollywood my father came back
one day and and and and from work and all of a sudden there was a boss bus comes into our compound.
Guess who that was? Fela Kuti. Fela Kuti.
And like, there were like 50 of them. It was my father's friend.
And my mother was so embarrassed.
(10:19):
It was, it was, it was there. My father was so happy to see him.
But the neighbors were really like, what is going on?
You know, in a quiet neighborhood like that, my mother was like,
oh God. And I mean, I found it very exciting.
You know, You know, there were people on the fence. There were people just out
(10:40):
there just coming in just to see him from the window.
And they were there all day.
Wow. All day. And they had a great time. Like I said, that is history. That is history.
So, you know, kind of like looking, going into that, because I can see,
you can see the kind of childhood you had, you know.
And I know that you're passionate about the future of youth in Nigeria,
(11:02):
you know. And you actually said that, especially in your book, Adigun.
Can you tell us more about your feeling about the youth in Nigeria?
What do you think the future holds for them in terms of creativity?
Because you're in two spectrums. You've got your entrepreneurship and all that
going on. You've got your creativity and your background.
(11:23):
But what do you think about the youth?
What do you see for them? Well, I think there are two things. if we look back.
It doesn't look good. If we look now, it doesn't smell good.
But there is a future that is really nice, that I feel I can see.
And that future is growing right now.
(11:45):
It's growing and it looks good. Okay, talking about the past.
We've created a youth community that have grown through young age without history.
At some point, the government took history out of schools. I don't know whose
idea that was, but, whoa, that was the most. Did they do that?
(12:10):
Yeah, because they did. They stopped history lessons in schools.
Oh, my God. So what we have now is a youth population that are very divisive in nature.
You know, they are so conscious of who they are.
(12:34):
I mean, it's ridiculous to find a child, you know what I'm saying,
so, so, so strongly evil.
You know, when I was growing up, I didn't know tribe by boundary. I did not. Yes.
You know, I didn't know that tribal boundary. I just loved kids and we were together.
(12:57):
So what we have created is a generation of children because history binds us.
History is so, so binding, you understand, that it's unbelievable.
And that's what you would find in my book, Adigun.
Adigun tells you, you understand, about that Nigerian thing.
(13:18):
Adigun warns you, you know, about what problems you would have if you're thinking of dividing Nigeria.
This boy, you know, be it fiction, his mom, Ibo, his father,
Yoruba, grew up in the Fulani enclave.
He lived in a fictitious community called Jobore, okay?
(13:42):
And in Jobore was a lovely village close to the Atlantic Ocean.
You know, the kids were together. They played together and it was just it was
set just after the Biafran war,
So, you know, there was a place where in there were in a place where there was
caution Okay to divide it to the division Okay, and the boy is Yoruba.
(14:06):
His father is Yoruba. His mother is from Arochukwu Okay, and he grew up with
a fuller name he he gets to a point where he had to test those.
Because all of a sudden, he finds himself in the middle of everything,
where his father made his father's Ulani friend's daughter pregnant, who used to be his carer.
(14:32):
You know, Hadiza was Adegu's carer.
And Adegu's father's friend, Daladi.
Had his daughter, only daughter, come and live with his father.
And she cared for Adigo, taught him Fufu, the Fulani language.
(14:52):
He had his goats and even husbandry was normal to him. He was a Fulani boy.
Adiza would always take him to the Fulani enclave. And he grew up as a Fulani boy.
Even though his parents were, his mom was from Arotuku in the east.
And his father was Yoruba. So growing up as a Nigerian, the book Adigun totally
(15:19):
just makes a folly of people who are saying we want to divide Nigeria.
How do you divide a country that is so fused together?
People have intermarried. There are millions of Adiguns in Nigeria.
So when you divide Nigeria, where are you going to put those people who have
(15:41):
parents from two different geographical locations?
So, you know, you see the struggle. All of a sudden,
Adegun is put in the point where he's been sold out to the Fulani's because
his father made his friend's daughter pregnant.
And the lad is like hey
(16:03):
you've made my young daughter pregnant
you can have her but we're because we know
him he's our so the child is
like you know you're gonna you know
he didn't he couldn't come he was
too young to understand why his parents were
allowed the fulanis to take him okay so let
(16:25):
me just jump in there because i know i don't want to tell
all our audience about the guleden go
and buy a copy so we're talking
about the tribes as well because some of them
i don't know about the fulani the yorubas nigeria is
kind of divided into different tribes and in
terms of your book it's like what you're saying is that you know we have a lot
(16:46):
of youths that are from this kind of like fused you know they they they their
background that's all like myself i'm from two tribes so imagine someone trying
to divide me you can't divide me because are from two great tribes in Nigeria. So...
Kind of like, you know, in terms of the youth, what we're saying is that,
you know, it's one Nigeria in a way, isn't it?
(17:09):
You know, we're talking about one Nigeria. Yeah, I had divided it into three.
I was talking about what was happening from before.
Yes. And why, you know, we have created this generation of children who have
lost all sense of unity because they took history from them.
Yeah. The book Adigo talks about the history of the Igbos, talks about the genealogy
(17:35):
of the Igbos, trace the genealogy of the Igbos through my characters to Israel.
To? To Israel. Israel? There is a discussion where a lot of the Igbos believe
that genealogically they are related and they came from Israel through Mesopotamia.
(17:59):
Into Africa and then found themselves in eastern Nigeria and it's amazing how
much proof you can find there's a tribe the Jewish culture.
The Similarities between the Jewish culture and the evil culture if you go to
an evil man's house You find they all have something called will be God God
(18:22):
is like a grandchild of Jacob Jacob, okay?
And in my book, I mention all the names and how they scatter, even attack.
Of the, of the, of the, of the, of the, of the, of the Quarra area.
The Atah was one of those children, grandchildren of Jacob, that Atah was one
(18:45):
of them who went that way up north.
Okay. And you have all, you know, just all over the whole place.
And it also shows how there's some anthropological truth.
There's some truth because you can see the signs.
(19:09):
It's just the same way you can go to America and see signs of the Scottish.
Of the French, of the Irish in America.
You go to Igbo land, and you're seeing cultures that resemble Jewish culture.
So, you know, I studied that for a while, even though I wasn't able to lay my
(19:38):
hands on the truth per se,
but at least I was able to demonstrate the existence of that discourse through my characters.
I can't wait to read it. You know, I'm quite interested in that.
So I'm going to move on to technology here. Yeah.
So I know, like I said, you know, that you think organizations in Africa should leverage technology.
(20:01):
And we're kind of like in the age of AI and all of that kind of technology now.
So how do you think what do you think Africa should do?
Nigeria or Africa should do to leverage the technology because it's moving so fast.
I can't even keep pace. We can't keep pace with the movements.
What should they do? What should be what should be done now?
(20:23):
Well, I think, you know, we are blessed with a huge youth population.
I mean, that's the best asset any country can have.
When you have a huge percentile of your population that are up-and-coming youth, then you're blessed.
And when you have that kind of youth
(20:46):
population, which means you have a population that is ready to learn.
You have a population that can take the country to a different level because of knowledge.
It is such a blessing that knowledge has now become such a phenomenon.
It has become an amazing phenomenon. Knowledge at my time was school,
(21:12):
one television station, and your parents.
Nothing else. if you're lucky you'd have right on a magazine coming from a castle
you can hear about learn about music if you're lucky you might get the odd you
know foreign newspaper in the library but now everything is available to these kids and if you know.
(21:38):
AI has made knowledge into something, into a monster.
Knowledge that people take thousands, hundreds of years to get.
AI will give it to you in a second.
So, you know, I think we are in a very, very advantaged position as Nigeria
(22:01):
Nigeria, because we have a population that can soak all that knowledge.
And if we, so what we should be doing is planning things.
So that these kids can take the positive knowledge.
Because there's a lot of knowledge. And don't forget that.
Positive, yeah. Yeah. It comes with both.
(22:24):
So what we need to do, first things first, put history back into the schools.
Okay? So we can know who we are. Okay?
Once we know, once the kids know who they are, they can now go and get that knowledge.
Okay? And then they can do all they need to do in unison at United Nigerians.
(22:46):
And they can represent Nigeria via that same technology to the world.
And then we can now begin to sell our own stories, sell our own understanding
of what technology is giving to us, to the world, in our own way.
(23:07):
So we own our story. Exactly.
Yes. Yes. Yes.
Good. You're going to say. So Nigeria, we're blessed.
We're blessed. And what I wanted to tell you before, when we were talking about
unity and the youth and all that stuff, is that there is a present population
(23:28):
who is that population who are ready to take on the world.
But there's another population in the diaspora that people are not even thinking about.
These kids, my son was born in Los Angeles 25 years ago.
25 years ago, he was a baby.
Okay. And a lot of kids who were born in that era were born in that time. Okay.
(23:56):
We've lost him. Let me, we'll wait for him to come back.
Okay. Okay, so 25 years ago, the kids in diaspora. Okay, now,
my son was born in Los Angeles.
And while he was born, there were a whole bunch of...
Thousands of Nigerian families had children as well, but at the same time.
(24:18):
Those babies are 25 years old now.
Okay. Those are the babies who live in Los Angeles, live in Germany,
live in London, who have gone into corporate London, corporate America.
Okay. And they have friends. Their community are not Nigerians.
They went to American schools.
(24:38):
They didn't go to Nigerian schools. All their friends are Nigerians.
Why do you think Whiskey is blowing up Why do you think Afrobeat is going big
Because there is a Youth population In the diaspora,
Consuming Love Nigeria Consuming Consuming They love their country A lot of
these kids Never been to Nigeria before They speak Yoruba They speak Igbo Okay
(25:01):
Some of them Had to go and learn On YouTube And they eat Nigerian And they eat
Nigerian food They eat Nigerian food Bless,
their parents Okay,
They may They may speak like English, they may speak like Nigerian,
but if they hold that EBA for you, you'll be shot.
If they hold that EBA for you, you'll be shot.
(25:24):
It's like you're talking about my kids, you know? Yeah. I mean,
I have two. I have two. It's amazing.
And these kids are more Nigerian than you and I.
Absolutely, yeah. So, we have a population in the diaspora, millions of them.
Okay that is waiting okay for
that time we have a population in the
(25:47):
diaspora that is connected with the population in nigeria yeah if you remember
the end size period how do you think those kids got that far because their generation
is they're not playing i never i didn't connect it at all. I did not connect it to your life.
They are super connected to the kids in Nigeria via telephone.
(26:15):
And let's kind of put credit where credit belongs, because you're one of the
Afrobeat movements, you're one of the people that started that movement.
Afrobeat, we cannot say enough about how it has connected those children, the music.
The music has made it one,
(26:38):
you know, because it's like suddenly there's this connection now that there
are heroes out there singing our song,
you know and everybody's dancing
to it yes so we need to
put that credit we need to give you that credit as well for well i mean i mean
i i mean bless bless up bless up bless up uh bless up b1 obi asika bless you
(27:02):
kevin luciano bless up yeah you know many many many you know Sunday Are,
you know, I mean,
I can't, you know. It's incredible, yeah.
We were all doing what people thought was impossible.
There was a time when I left Los Angeles and came to Nigeria and set up a record label in Nigeria.
(27:25):
And my friends in LA said, you must be crazy, you know, trying to promote Nigerian
music. But look at that now.
Look at now. Egg on their faces, you know. I mean, we have Obiasika.
I did an interview with him and it was
just an amazing interview so i'm so
i'm blessed yeah i'm blessed to have him to have had him as well so
(27:45):
i kind of like want to touch on an interview that you did you talked about trade
practices of pre-colonial africa and you mentioned a kind of like you know because
my interest in the trade model you said that you know that that would benefit
because of the african trade agreements you know the new one that is coming
true yeah so So you want us to kind of like,
you want Africa to kind of like have something that benefits Africa,
(28:09):
as opposed to the colonial times where we knew that trade benefited the West.
It wasn't the colonial master.
Can you just kind of elaborate on that? Tell us a little bit about that.
Yeah, I think the African trade zone, free trade zone. African, yeah.
Yeah, the initiative is the most amazing initiative because all of a sudden
(28:32):
we're going back to the drawing board.
All of a sudden, we're remembering that there was the Trans-Sahara trade.
We traded with each other really before colonialism.
There's so many Sudanese that came to trade in this part of the world. They never went back.
They are the Nigerians who are in Oyo, Oshogo, and all these places.
(28:56):
Some of them came with Islam.
And they never went back. We had an amazing trade caravan route that was there before.
So this African Free Trade Initiative.
Exciting because it's almost like it's bringing back the
camels all over again it's like the trans sahara has
(29:18):
woken up again it's been dead for so long they shut
it down it was shut down okay and
now we have to now we now created all these artificial barriers
and all the documentation and all these things now
we've opened it up i'm i'm into
manufacturing okay and i manufacture
(29:38):
manufacture rope in in nigeria industrial ropes
you know and all these ropes in nigeria and guess what you
know i looked at i'm like wow this is amazing because a rope
in nigeria is a rope in mali a
rope in mali is the same rope in in in
the in the republic of benin yeah it's a rope everywhere exactly
(29:58):
so why can't i sell my rope in togo
you know so why
do i need and now you
know beautiful things are happening you know companies that are calling us from
from different parts of of west africa wanting to trade with us you know and
(30:19):
i'm sure it's happening to other people making other things as well so it's
it's an amazing big up to to to echo us That's,
you know, big up to all the Nigerians who made that happen. That's fantastic. Yeah.
So hopefully you're going to be leverages of technology, you know,
with making that happen. Absolutely.
(30:41):
Technology is going to play a very, very, very important crucial role in making that happen.
It's going to make things easy for us, you know, going to make us communicate better.
Is going to make it even even even the financial system
you know in in the world right now it's never
been seen before where you can move you know
(31:02):
you move fun from from one one one bank to
another remember the days when we used to go to uba and union bank and just
open those big books you know open them and then you find your name and then
oh my god you know just made made things and we're going to make business a
little bit better than what we used to have back then.
(31:25):
Yeah, I think we're in exciting times. So I'm going to ask you,
what are your, because I did forget to mention that you're director of Nigerian
Ropes PLC, you know, because that's where you've got all this umbrella of things that you're doing.
What are your frustrations in business and where you are now?
What are the things that frustrate you? I think I think what you know what
(31:50):
I what frustrates me really is the government can be playing a different role
for business I think the government you know has forgotten that they are.
In partnership with private businesses. The government was gradually drifting
(32:10):
to become the enemy of the manufacturers, you know.
But I'm so grateful to God for our new president, President Ahmed Bolafinumbu.
I'm so glad because I feel like he's one of us, okay?
I feel like his understanding of business, The understanding of international
(32:32):
business is beginning to come to play.
If you watch the decisions it's making, you could tell that this is somebody
that understands business.
Okay, that's good. And I think that it's one of us, and I think that there's
a lot of discussion going on now with Manufacturers Association of Nigeria.
My seat on the committee, one of the branches of the Manufacturers Association
(32:58):
of Nigeria, and I see the conversation changing.
I see that, you know, what has happened in the past while we,
how we got to where we are was that the partnership between the private and
the public, you know, broke down.
So the public, which is the government, became very unrealistic and antagonistic
(33:19):
towards the manufacturers.
They were more interested in collecting taxes and just coming,
you know, it's ridiculous. Nicholas, I got to my office one day and then somebody,
they had chained my gate.
You know, they chained my gate. Some ministry of environmental and they said they locked my gate.
And, you know, we couldn't come in. Why?
(33:41):
Oh, well, your papers for your building, you know, your building.
My company is 60 years old.
Well, there is space you are not using. And we want to know why you are not
using, you are not building on that space.
They just came like that. Oh, my God.
People have to go to the factory. That's why there is space in there.
(34:01):
You know? And then they locked us up and we were locked down for so long.
And I spoke to the commissioner at that point.
And I was shocked. You know? He was like, well, you know, you need to talk to
them. And government before was more about revenue drive.
(34:22):
Just come and negotiate. What can you pay? You know? And I see a difference
with this new government.
I see a dialogue going on. I see all that rubbish that used to happen in the
past suddenly is a start.
So there's a conversation going on now, thanks to our president.
You know, there's a conversation going on between the government and the businesses.
(34:45):
And there's a lot of conversation going on now.
And I see a very, very fantastic future for manufacturing in Nigeria. Definitely.
Fantastic. Maybe you can tempt me down there.
My challenge is really with government. My headache was government.
And I believe that there's good things about to happen to the business. I'm hopeful.
(35:08):
Okay. Okay, so one question I want to ask you, considering your experience now,
if you kind of like stand back and look at where you are now and where you were
before, what kind of decision would you, what kind of, would you make different decisions?
What are the things you would have changed from the decisions? My personal life?
Anything, anything, anything goes in this question.
(35:33):
Business, personal, you know, I kind of like reflect, you know,
you sit down and reflect and say, had done it this way. Maybe it would have gone that way.
I just... I think, I think, I think, I really wish I'd spent all that time I've
spent in America and Nigeria.
I really feel like I wish, I wish I would, there was a lot more I could do for
(35:58):
Nigeria if I had stayed here.
When did you relocate? When did you relocate to Nigeria? I left Nigeria right after law school, 1988.
Yeah so okay so when you came to america from nigeria from america to nigeria
when did you relocate back to nigeria that's what i meant i came back totally 2006.
(36:20):
Okay so this is quite a while it's quite a bit long it's a long time to the
gun you come back and your friends are governors where do you start from you
know you know people that was
in law school you know that You just have to start, it's been too long.
To find your way, it took a while.
You know, and that's why I talk to people. I mean, just come back home now, man.
(36:44):
You know, just come, just start, you know, because it's going to take you a
while to get it together. To get back, yeah.
So, you know, just come. I mean, you don't have to stay, but just come,
you know, and see what's going on.
And, you know, just dig in, you know, dig in, take your own space and just, you know, be there.
So it took a while for me to really, really, really just, you know,
(37:06):
get into the rhythm. It took a long time.
Well, well done. That was brave. That was brave. Nigeria changes per second.
Nigeria of yesterday is not the same Nigeria today. And tomorrow is going to
be a different Nigeria. And it's changing.
We're a growing country. And it's tough. You need to, you know.
(37:26):
So I totally really wish I had stayed here.
Yeah. Really. Anyway, well, you didn't and you're,
whether we kind of like it or not, you know, some of our experiences whether
in the diaspora or within Nigeria you know it kind of like you know it would
impact whatever you're doing now so you're even though you said oh you wish
(37:48):
you'd come back maybe whatever you gained before 2005.
Before you relocated is what you know part of
it is what you've got now so maybe I kind
of see that now I see for me like I'm in a diaspora and
absolutely to be candid I love Nigeria I
love when I come to Nigeria I don't want to leave you know
(38:08):
so at the same time I kind of like because I've lived
so far out of outside of Nigeria for so long it's like how do I kind of stay
or should I do both you know that's the kind of conversation I'm having with
myself now in terms of that you know because but staying out of Nigeria what
I'm an author and what I'm writing is a mix of Nigeria
(38:30):
and kind of British in a way.
And it's a, it's a, it's a kind of, it comes out as a, as a, as a different mix.
So I don't know if I'd stayed in Nigeria, would I have had that?
Would that happen? That's the question. AI.
There's no way. There's no way. There's no way AI would do it.
(38:50):
AI cannot personalize anything.
Well, not at the moment anyway. It can't personalize. What, what,
what is coming? No, it's not, it's AI. It's almost there.
It's still not Stella It's not Stella only It's coming It's coming to get you.
So we're kind of like nearly at the end of the interview And it's been a good
(39:11):
one So I want you to tell us about your Because I know you have all these lovely
hobbies So tell us all about your hobbies Because they're so, you know,
Well, I mean, I, you know, I, I, I, you know, my, my family lives in London.
I work in Nigeria, basically in London almost every month.
You know, I travel a lot back to my family.
(39:31):
And being in Nigeria, you know, Nigeria is a very funny place.
If you don't find work, devil will find work for you.
So, you know, the only way around it is, you know, keep yourself busy.
I play a lot of golf. I play golf like twice a month, twice a week.
I have, I own four horses who I love them greatly.
(39:54):
Very, very passionate about them. I love them so much. I see them every day. You know, I ride them.
And weekends I play chakras with the boys, play polo as well.
Play polo chakras and stick them balls, you know.
So, you know, the secret is by the time you get home. You're tired.
No time to think of anything else. Yeah, you sleep well.
(40:20):
And, you know, by the time you're running your family in England,
you know, you chain Daira out with pounds. There's no money left.
I tell you, Naira, Naira the woman is Daira.
There's no money left. By the time you feed horses, there's nothing left.
What got you into polo? What got you? And how did you start collecting horses?
(40:40):
I'm curious because not everybody does it. So it's something that I need to ask you.
I think it's just the love of animals. I think I'm more in love with the animal than the game.
As a matter of fact, I used to hate Portal because I used to think that the game itself is...
More attention to the game than the animal. I used to see a lot of polo horses
(41:04):
just die on the polo, on the polo mat.
Because it's like, it's like, it's like you're taking an athlete, you know,
and having that athlete just run, run, run for seven minutes,
you know, and you know, there's a lot of animals dying and, you know,
and then, and then even the attitude towards the animal, the animal can't run as much anymore.
(41:27):
More and then you just abandon it so you know
i i started adopting horses
you know i adopted my first
two they were in very deplorable
conditions and it was such so
much joy to bring them back to to to
(41:48):
life again and give them a proper life if
i had the money and adopt more you know
because it's such an amazing feeling and horses are the
most misunderstood animals especially in
nigeria i mean anybody's seen any horse they force me to think about that if
you kick you i'm like come on horses were not made to keep any other animals
(42:12):
you know they don't just their whole life is not just to kick and a lot of times
people when you see the horse stamp its leg.
It's not trying to kick you. It's just trying to... The horse doesn't have hands
to touch flies and shoe flies away.
So he's stamped just so that he can get the fly off its back.
And there's a fly on his back. He can't reach it. And he moves and drives.
(42:37):
And people are just scared of all those movements.
And they totally just relabel the poor animal and just make the animal so dangerous.
And everybody's scared of it. and so when you
actually move close to them and they they feel you
love them they love you back well so when
did you get when did you get into horse
(42:59):
riding i've been around horses for
for a long time i i only i only i've
only started playing polo for the last four years
now but i've been around horses i
lived close to the polo club so we used to come there and
just you know just look after the horses shot hay and just you know they'll
(43:19):
let us work you know and I just love looking after them and I think that you
know people don't love them as much as they should so I try and give them as much love that I can give.
That is fantastic and on that note this is the end of podcasts thank you so
(43:45):
much you were a very tough customer to pin down,
I'm so sorry I'm so so sorry you're busy so thank you so much and,
thanks a lot.
(44:05):
Music.
Music.
(00:37):
Hi everyone, welcome to Talking Tech with Creatives podcast,
a technology podcast that dives into the intersection of technology and creativity.
My tongue is all over the place today. I'm Stella Oni.
Join me as renowned experts from the creative industry share their innovative
journeys, great tips and insights.
(00:59):
As an author with passion for crime, food, culture and tech,
I've always believed in the transformative power of technology,
especially for emerging economies in Africa.
My guest today is Benga Shokefun, and I'm going to tell you a little bit about him.
He's a multi-talented Nigerian-American author, lawyer, and industrialist.
(01:22):
He also always remained around creatives.
He was born into a creative family. His father was a pioneer broadcaster with
WNTV, the first TV station in Africa.
His mother was a celebrated chorister. She loved classic church hymnals,
and they were very strong influences on his creative expression.
(01:46):
Agbinga spent many years as a lawyer, as an entertainment lawyer in Los Angeles in America,
and he moved into music as
well production and management of musical talents he
was actually instrumental in the development of
his sister his sister is ty bello her music
(02:06):
career and actually was the one that gave her first professional camera so that
is awesome and he was amongst the pioneers of the present day afro beat genre
so it's it's it's mind-blowing benga founded co-founded Question Mark Records
with Kevin Luciano, Gabriel.
(02:26):
And he actually, that label where the ones that started off,
Asha, Mode 9, Silver Sadi, and some other Afrobeats and other amazing artists.
His passion is law and writing.
His first book he's going to tell us about that is Adigun. so
(02:47):
and he's got quite a lot of interesting hobbies
that we're going to talk about as well so without further
ado i welcome winga welcome welcome to talking tech with creatives but thank
you so much stella thank you so i know that i said a bit about you but can you
tell us a bit more about yourself what what else i thought i thought you were
(03:10):
just going to tell me to go.
Because there's nothing else to say.
So you kind of like yeah yeah just tell us a bit just tell us a little bit about
yourself in your own voice well uh you know i'm just me i'm just a very happy-go-lucky,
(03:31):
you know, normal human being, you know, just been blessed with proper education,
good parentage, been around the world, well-traveled and love Nigeria and actually
had to come back to Nigeria.
And one of those anti-Jakba, you know, anti-Jakba, you know,
(03:55):
what would I call it revolutionary,
fighter stop people from leaving just go and stand in the airport and just tell
them you can't go don't go.
So you said you kind of like you like Nigeria and for our audience,
(04:16):
Jakma in Nigeria is where you leave Nigeria to go
settle in the west somewhere outside of
Nigeria so for people like us who are
here you know and bigger in Nigeria we're coming
for you we're gonna
park a plane here and we're gonna start marching everyone back into that I am
I am happy for you to send me back happy to come I love Nigeria I love Nigeria
(04:40):
always write about Nigeria so tell us about your influence when you were growing
up because you know you've got such a wide remit of interest and experience that's you You know,
like want to know more about you. What were your influences?
Well, I think, you know, I came from a very small family.
I came from a family, you know, that believed so much in God.
(05:04):
God was the main, main stance in my family.
And I'm glad that, you know, we all still have the same belief and respect and regard for God.
Because sometimes these prayers, they make you OD on it, you know.
(05:27):
You know, you have to go to church, you have to wake up in the morning.
But good thing is that it's made all of us morning people. Structure.
Structure, that's fantastic. It made us morning people because 5 a.m., you're up.
You know, and when we grew older, when we went to parties, you know,
even you were allowed to go to parties, but you better come back home and sleep.
(05:50):
Because even if you have one hour of sleep, you're waking up at 5.
Wow. So, you know, every one of us, four of us, we're all morning people.
You know, you call my sister at five, she's like, hello, how are you?
You know, she's like, oh. You know, and it's contagious.
You know, my kids are morning people as well because they have to wake up as well.
(06:14):
My family, they didn't believe in that. Oh, it's a little boy letting sleep.
It's a baby. He doesn't understand. No, you will pray. so you
know it has really formed my my my
my work ethics my my whole aura
and my my sense of discipline came from that time you know there was a lot of
(06:36):
music in our home my father was a broadcaster i played about four or five instruments
in the house you know see why i took most of it but he left a few.
But, you know, music is in everybody.
(06:56):
And, you know, we just grew up in a very, very interesting neighborhood where,
you know, it was at a time of Nigeria where it was Musa Aira,
Dua Victoria, the right, the people on the right were white people,
who on the left were the black people.
And I can remember the white kids going to the fence and just watching us play.
(07:18):
And they want to play with us, but they weren't allowed.
Wow. Oh, that's crazy.
You know it was it was just post-colonial don't
forget that you know this was this was like early 70s
you know where we had just come through
that whole colonial era and there was and you know and the kids were all together
(07:41):
we're still together you know it was a wonderful it was if there was if there
was a hollywood in nigeria most of our drive would be hollywood because don't
forget we We didn't have movie theatres.
Yeah, we had a few, but the movie industry hadn't started.
No, no, no, not completely. Television was everything.
(08:03):
Yes. Television was everything. And the staff quarters for the television house was Musa Eradua.
From one to the end to Ido U Martin was all NTA staff quarters.
All the pioneers, all the pioneers, yeah. I mean, if you remember Village Headmaster,
(08:24):
Sisi Clara lived on number 20 or something. We were on number three.
Even Christopher Collardy used to be a director at NTE. NTE was called Nigerian
Broadcasting Television.
Art Allardy was next door to us. Oviya Gilles was one door away.
It was just the whole name. When you see an old program and all the names that came out at the end,
(08:49):
all my neighbors we all grew up
together so everybody it was just a whole community
of very creative parents and we
got created too you know you know we would come together and have and put a
band together you know with sticks and bamboo and you know and and we would
(09:09):
dress up you know masquerade all kind of different it was just fun because it was just a bunch of
very creative parents, you know, a bunch of very creative and silly kids.
And do you know that you could almost write a history, you know,
(09:31):
almost write history, you know, if you ever sat down to want to write about
that period, you could write something because that's one of the things I think
we need to have, a kind of recording of those,
era it was amazing it was amazing we need
we need a written down because it's not history oh it
was amazing we used to be in broadcast and back there that time
you you really would either be very very creative or just love the arts you
(09:57):
were different you were it was it was you were hollywood my father came back
one day and and and and from work and all of a sudden there was a boss bus comes into our compound.
Guess who that was? Fela Kuti. Fela Kuti.
And like, there were like 50 of them. It was my father's friend.
And my mother was so embarrassed.
(10:19):
It was, it was, it was there. My father was so happy to see him.
But the neighbors were really like, what is going on?
You know, in a quiet neighborhood like that, my mother was like,
oh God. And I mean, I found it very exciting.
You know, You know, there were people on the fence. There were people just out
(10:40):
there just coming in just to see him from the window.
And they were there all day.
Wow. All day. And they had a great time. Like I said, that is history. That is history.
So, you know, kind of like looking, going into that, because I can see,
you can see the kind of childhood you had, you know.
And I know that you're passionate about the future of youth in Nigeria,
(11:02):
you know. And you actually said that, especially in your book, Adigun.
Can you tell us more about your feeling about the youth in Nigeria?
What do you think the future holds for them in terms of creativity?
Because you're in two spectrums. You've got your entrepreneurship and all that
going on. You've got your creativity and your background.
(11:23):
But what do you think about the youth?
What do you see for them? Well, I think there are two things. if we look back.
It doesn't look good. If we look now, it doesn't smell good.
But there is a future that is really nice, that I feel I can see.
And that future is growing right now.
(11:45):
It's growing and it looks good. Okay, talking about the past.
We've created a youth community that have grown through young age without history.
At some point, the government took history out of schools. I don't know whose
idea that was, but, whoa, that was the most. Did they do that?
(12:10):
Yeah, because they did. They stopped history lessons in schools.
Oh, my God. So what we have now is a youth population that are very divisive in nature.
You know, they are so conscious of who they are.
(12:34):
I mean, it's ridiculous to find a child, you know what I'm saying,
so, so, so strongly evil.
You know, when I was growing up, I didn't know tribe by boundary. I did not. Yes.
You know, I didn't know that tribal boundary. I just loved kids and we were together.
(12:57):
So what we have created is a generation of children because history binds us.
History is so, so binding, you understand, that it's unbelievable.
And that's what you would find in my book, Adigun.
Adigun tells you, you understand, about that Nigerian thing.
(13:18):
Adigun warns you, you know, about what problems you would have if you're thinking of dividing Nigeria.
This boy, you know, be it fiction, his mom, Ibo, his father,
Yoruba, grew up in the Fulani enclave.
He lived in a fictitious community called Jobore, okay?
(13:42):
And in Jobore was a lovely village close to the Atlantic Ocean.
You know, the kids were together. They played together and it was just it was
set just after the Biafran war,
So, you know, there was a place where in there were in a place where there was
caution Okay to divide it to the division Okay, and the boy is Yoruba.
(14:06):
His father is Yoruba. His mother is from Arochukwu Okay, and he grew up with
a fuller name he he gets to a point where he had to test those.
Because all of a sudden, he finds himself in the middle of everything,
where his father made his father's Ulani friend's daughter pregnant, who used to be his carer.
(14:32):
You know, Hadiza was Adegu's carer.
And Adegu's father's friend, Daladi.
Had his daughter, only daughter, come and live with his father.
And she cared for Adigo, taught him Fufu, the Fulani language.
(14:52):
He had his goats and even husbandry was normal to him. He was a Fulani boy.
Adiza would always take him to the Fulani enclave. And he grew up as a Fulani boy.
Even though his parents were, his mom was from Arotuku in the east.
And his father was Yoruba. So growing up as a Nigerian, the book Adigun totally
(15:19):
just makes a folly of people who are saying we want to divide Nigeria.
How do you divide a country that is so fused together?
People have intermarried. There are millions of Adiguns in Nigeria.
So when you divide Nigeria, where are you going to put those people who have
(15:41):
parents from two different geographical locations?
So, you know, you see the struggle. All of a sudden,
Adegun is put in the point where he's been sold out to the Fulani's because
his father made his friend's daughter pregnant.
And the lad is like hey
(16:03):
you've made my young daughter pregnant
you can have her but we're because we know
him he's our so the child is
like you know you're gonna you know
he didn't he couldn't come he was
too young to understand why his parents were
allowed the fulanis to take him okay so let
(16:25):
me just jump in there because i know i don't want to tell
all our audience about the guleden go
and buy a copy so we're talking
about the tribes as well because some of them
i don't know about the fulani the yorubas nigeria is
kind of divided into different tribes and in
terms of your book it's like what you're saying is that you know we have a lot
(16:46):
of youths that are from this kind of like fused you know they they they their
background that's all like myself i'm from two tribes so imagine someone trying
to divide me you can't divide me because are from two great tribes in Nigeria. So...
Kind of like, you know, in terms of the youth, what we're saying is that,
you know, it's one Nigeria in a way, isn't it?
(17:09):
You know, we're talking about one Nigeria. Yeah, I had divided it into three.
I was talking about what was happening from before.
Yes. And why, you know, we have created this generation of children who have
lost all sense of unity because they took history from them.
Yeah. The book Adigo talks about the history of the Igbos, talks about the genealogy
(17:35):
of the Igbos, trace the genealogy of the Igbos through my characters to Israel.
To? To Israel. Israel? There is a discussion where a lot of the Igbos believe
that genealogically they are related and they came from Israel through Mesopotamia.
(17:59):
Into Africa and then found themselves in eastern Nigeria and it's amazing how
much proof you can find there's a tribe the Jewish culture.
The Similarities between the Jewish culture and the evil culture if you go to
an evil man's house You find they all have something called will be God God
(18:22):
is like a grandchild of Jacob Jacob, okay?
And in my book, I mention all the names and how they scatter, even attack.
Of the, of the, of the, of the, of the, of the, of the Quarra area.
The Atah was one of those children, grandchildren of Jacob, that Atah was one
(18:45):
of them who went that way up north.
Okay. And you have all, you know, just all over the whole place.
And it also shows how there's some anthropological truth.
There's some truth because you can see the signs.
(19:09):
It's just the same way you can go to America and see signs of the Scottish.
Of the French, of the Irish in America.
You go to Igbo land, and you're seeing cultures that resemble Jewish culture.
So, you know, I studied that for a while, even though I wasn't able to lay my
(19:38):
hands on the truth per se,
but at least I was able to demonstrate the existence of that discourse through my characters.
I can't wait to read it. You know, I'm quite interested in that.
So I'm going to move on to technology here. Yeah.
So I know, like I said, you know, that you think organizations in Africa should leverage technology.
(20:01):
And we're kind of like in the age of AI and all of that kind of technology now.
So how do you think what do you think Africa should do?
Nigeria or Africa should do to leverage the technology because it's moving so fast.
I can't even keep pace. We can't keep pace with the movements.
What should they do? What should be what should be done now?
(20:23):
Well, I think, you know, we are blessed with a huge youth population.
I mean, that's the best asset any country can have.
When you have a huge percentile of your population that are up-and-coming youth, then you're blessed.
And when you have that kind of youth
(20:46):
population, which means you have a population that is ready to learn.
You have a population that can take the country to a different level because of knowledge.
It is such a blessing that knowledge has now become such a phenomenon.
It has become an amazing phenomenon. Knowledge at my time was school,
(21:12):
one television station, and your parents.
Nothing else. if you're lucky you'd have right on a magazine coming from a castle
you can hear about learn about music if you're lucky you might get the odd you
know foreign newspaper in the library but now everything is available to these kids and if you know.
(21:38):
AI has made knowledge into something, into a monster.
Knowledge that people take thousands, hundreds of years to get.
AI will give it to you in a second.
So, you know, I think we are in a very, very advantaged position as Nigeria
(22:01):
Nigeria, because we have a population that can soak all that knowledge.
And if we, so what we should be doing is planning things.
So that these kids can take the positive knowledge.
Because there's a lot of knowledge. And don't forget that.
Positive, yeah. Yeah. It comes with both.
(22:24):
So what we need to do, first things first, put history back into the schools.
Okay? So we can know who we are. Okay?
Once we know, once the kids know who they are, they can now go and get that knowledge.
Okay? And then they can do all they need to do in unison at United Nigerians.
(22:46):
And they can represent Nigeria via that same technology to the world.
And then we can now begin to sell our own stories, sell our own understanding
of what technology is giving to us, to the world, in our own way.
(23:07):
So we own our story. Exactly.
Yes. Yes. Yes.
Good. You're going to say. So Nigeria, we're blessed.
We're blessed. And what I wanted to tell you before, when we were talking about
unity and the youth and all that stuff, is that there is a present population
(23:28):
who is that population who are ready to take on the world.
But there's another population in the diaspora that people are not even thinking about.
These kids, my son was born in Los Angeles 25 years ago.
25 years ago, he was a baby.
Okay. And a lot of kids who were born in that era were born in that time. Okay.
(23:56):
We've lost him. Let me, we'll wait for him to come back.
Okay. Okay, so 25 years ago, the kids in diaspora. Okay, now,
my son was born in Los Angeles.
And while he was born, there were a whole bunch of...
Thousands of Nigerian families had children as well, but at the same time.
(24:18):
Those babies are 25 years old now.
Okay. Those are the babies who live in Los Angeles, live in Germany,
live in London, who have gone into corporate London, corporate America.
Okay. And they have friends. Their community are not Nigerians.
They went to American schools.
(24:38):
They didn't go to Nigerian schools. All their friends are Nigerians.
Why do you think Whiskey is blowing up Why do you think Afrobeat is going big
Because there is a Youth population In the diaspora,
Consuming Love Nigeria Consuming Consuming They love their country A lot of
these kids Never been to Nigeria before They speak Yoruba They speak Igbo Okay
(25:01):
Some of them Had to go and learn On YouTube And they eat Nigerian And they eat
Nigerian food They eat Nigerian food Bless,
their parents Okay,
They may They may speak like English, they may speak like Nigerian,
but if they hold that EBA for you, you'll be shot.
If they hold that EBA for you, you'll be shot.
(25:24):
It's like you're talking about my kids, you know? Yeah. I mean,
I have two. I have two. It's amazing.
And these kids are more Nigerian than you and I.
Absolutely, yeah. So, we have a population in the diaspora, millions of them.
Okay that is waiting okay for
that time we have a population in the
(25:47):
diaspora that is connected with the population in nigeria yeah if you remember
the end size period how do you think those kids got that far because their generation
is they're not playing i never i didn't connect it at all. I did not connect it to your life.
They are super connected to the kids in Nigeria via telephone.
(26:15):
And let's kind of put credit where credit belongs, because you're one of the
Afrobeat movements, you're one of the people that started that movement.
Afrobeat, we cannot say enough about how it has connected those children, the music.
The music has made it one,
(26:38):
you know, because it's like suddenly there's this connection now that there
are heroes out there singing our song,
you know and everybody's dancing
to it yes so we need to
put that credit we need to give you that credit as well for well i mean i mean
i i mean bless bless up bless up bless up uh bless up b1 obi asika bless you
(27:02):
kevin luciano bless up yeah you know many many many you know Sunday Are,
you know, I mean,
I can't, you know. It's incredible, yeah.
We were all doing what people thought was impossible.
There was a time when I left Los Angeles and came to Nigeria and set up a record label in Nigeria.
(27:25):
And my friends in LA said, you must be crazy, you know, trying to promote Nigerian
music. But look at that now.
Look at now. Egg on their faces, you know. I mean, we have Obiasika.
I did an interview with him and it was
just an amazing interview so i'm so
i'm blessed yeah i'm blessed to have him to have had him as well so
(27:45):
i kind of like want to touch on an interview that you did you talked about trade
practices of pre-colonial africa and you mentioned a kind of like you know because
my interest in the trade model you said that you know that that would benefit
because of the african trade agreements you know the new one that is coming
true yeah so So you want us to kind of like,
you want Africa to kind of like have something that benefits Africa,
(28:09):
as opposed to the colonial times where we knew that trade benefited the West.
It wasn't the colonial master.
Can you just kind of elaborate on that? Tell us a little bit about that.
Yeah, I think the African trade zone, free trade zone. African, yeah.
Yeah, the initiative is the most amazing initiative because all of a sudden
(28:32):
we're going back to the drawing board.
All of a sudden, we're remembering that there was the Trans-Sahara trade.
We traded with each other really before colonialism.
There's so many Sudanese that came to trade in this part of the world. They never went back.
They are the Nigerians who are in Oyo, Oshogo, and all these places.
(28:56):
Some of them came with Islam.
And they never went back. We had an amazing trade caravan route that was there before.
So this African Free Trade Initiative.
Exciting because it's almost like it's bringing back the
camels all over again it's like the trans sahara has
(29:18):
woken up again it's been dead for so long they shut
it down it was shut down okay and
now we have to now we now created all these artificial barriers
and all the documentation and all these things now
we've opened it up i'm i'm into
manufacturing okay and i manufacture
(29:38):
manufacture rope in in nigeria industrial ropes
you know and all these ropes in nigeria and guess what you
know i looked at i'm like wow this is amazing because a rope
in nigeria is a rope in mali a
rope in mali is the same rope in in in
the in the republic of benin yeah it's a rope everywhere exactly
(29:58):
so why can't i sell my rope in togo
you know so why
do i need and now you
know beautiful things are happening you know companies that are calling us from
from different parts of of west africa wanting to trade with us you know and
(30:19):
i'm sure it's happening to other people making other things as well so it's
it's an amazing big up to to to echo us That's,
you know, big up to all the Nigerians who made that happen. That's fantastic. Yeah.
So hopefully you're going to be leverages of technology, you know,
with making that happen. Absolutely.
(30:41):
Technology is going to play a very, very, very important crucial role in making that happen.
It's going to make things easy for us, you know, going to make us communicate better.
Is going to make it even even even the financial system
you know in in the world right now it's never
been seen before where you can move you know
(31:02):
you move fun from from one one one bank to
another remember the days when we used to go to uba and union bank and just
open those big books you know open them and then you find your name and then
oh my god you know just made made things and we're going to make business a
little bit better than what we used to have back then.
(31:25):
Yeah, I think we're in exciting times. So I'm going to ask you,
what are your, because I did forget to mention that you're director of Nigerian
Ropes PLC, you know, because that's where you've got all this umbrella of things that you're doing.
What are your frustrations in business and where you are now?
What are the things that frustrate you? I think I think what you know what
(31:50):
I what frustrates me really is the government can be playing a different role
for business I think the government you know has forgotten that they are.
In partnership with private businesses. The government was gradually drifting
(32:10):
to become the enemy of the manufacturers, you know.
But I'm so grateful to God for our new president, President Ahmed Bolafinumbu.
I'm so glad because I feel like he's one of us, okay?
I feel like his understanding of business, The understanding of international
(32:32):
business is beginning to come to play.
If you watch the decisions it's making, you could tell that this is somebody
that understands business.
Okay, that's good. And I think that it's one of us, and I think that there's
a lot of discussion going on now with Manufacturers Association of Nigeria.
My seat on the committee, one of the branches of the Manufacturers Association
(32:58):
of Nigeria, and I see the conversation changing.
I see that, you know, what has happened in the past while we,
how we got to where we are was that the partnership between the private and
the public, you know, broke down.
So the public, which is the government, became very unrealistic and antagonistic
(33:19):
towards the manufacturers.
They were more interested in collecting taxes and just coming,
you know, it's ridiculous. Nicholas, I got to my office one day and then somebody,
they had chained my gate.
You know, they chained my gate. Some ministry of environmental and they said they locked my gate.
And, you know, we couldn't come in. Why?
(33:41):
Oh, well, your papers for your building, you know, your building.
My company is 60 years old.
Well, there is space you are not using. And we want to know why you are not
using, you are not building on that space.
They just came like that. Oh, my God.
People have to go to the factory. That's why there is space in there.
(34:01):
You know? And then they locked us up and we were locked down for so long.
And I spoke to the commissioner at that point.
And I was shocked. You know? He was like, well, you know, you need to talk to
them. And government before was more about revenue drive.
(34:22):
Just come and negotiate. What can you pay? You know? And I see a difference
with this new government.
I see a dialogue going on. I see all that rubbish that used to happen in the
past suddenly is a start.
So there's a conversation going on now, thanks to our president.
You know, there's a conversation going on between the government and the businesses.
(34:45):
And there's a lot of conversation going on now.
And I see a very, very fantastic future for manufacturing in Nigeria. Definitely.
Fantastic. Maybe you can tempt me down there.
My challenge is really with government. My headache was government.
And I believe that there's good things about to happen to the business. I'm hopeful.
(35:08):
Okay. Okay, so one question I want to ask you, considering your experience now,
if you kind of like stand back and look at where you are now and where you were
before, what kind of decision would you, what kind of, would you make different decisions?
What are the things you would have changed from the decisions? My personal life?
Anything, anything, anything goes in this question.
(35:33):
Business, personal, you know, I kind of like reflect, you know,
you sit down and reflect and say, had done it this way. Maybe it would have gone that way.
I just... I think, I think, I think, I really wish I'd spent all that time I've
spent in America and Nigeria.
I really feel like I wish, I wish I would, there was a lot more I could do for
(35:58):
Nigeria if I had stayed here.
When did you relocate? When did you relocate to Nigeria? I left Nigeria right after law school, 1988.
Yeah so okay so when you came to america from nigeria from america to nigeria
when did you relocate back to nigeria that's what i meant i came back totally 2006.
(36:20):
Okay so this is quite a while it's quite a bit long it's a long time to the
gun you come back and your friends are governors where do you start from you
know you know people that was
in law school you know that You just have to start, it's been too long.
To find your way, it took a while.
You know, and that's why I talk to people. I mean, just come back home now, man.
(36:44):
You know, just come, just start, you know, because it's going to take you a
while to get it together. To get back, yeah.
So, you know, just come. I mean, you don't have to stay, but just come,
you know, and see what's going on.
And, you know, just dig in, you know, dig in, take your own space and just, you know, be there.
So it took a while for me to really, really, really just, you know,
(37:06):
get into the rhythm. It took a long time.
Well, well done. That was brave. That was brave. Nigeria changes per second.
Nigeria of yesterday is not the same Nigeria today. And tomorrow is going to
be a different Nigeria. And it's changing.
We're a growing country. And it's tough. You need to, you know.
(37:26):
So I totally really wish I had stayed here.
Yeah. Really. Anyway, well, you didn't and you're,
whether we kind of like it or not, you know, some of our experiences whether
in the diaspora or within Nigeria you know it kind of like you know it would
impact whatever you're doing now so you're even though you said oh you wish
(37:48):
you'd come back maybe whatever you gained before 2005.
Before you relocated is what you know part of
it is what you've got now so maybe I kind
of see that now I see for me like I'm in a diaspora and
absolutely to be candid I love Nigeria I
love when I come to Nigeria I don't want to leave you know
(38:08):
so at the same time I kind of like because I've lived
so far out of outside of Nigeria for so long it's like how do I kind of stay
or should I do both you know that's the kind of conversation I'm having with
myself now in terms of that you know because but staying out of Nigeria what
I'm an author and what I'm writing is a mix of Nigeria
(38:30):
and kind of British in a way.
And it's a, it's a, it's a kind of, it comes out as a, as a, as a different mix.
So I don't know if I'd stayed in Nigeria, would I have had that?
Would that happen? That's the question. AI.
There's no way. There's no way. There's no way AI would do it.
(38:50):
AI cannot personalize anything.
Well, not at the moment anyway. It can't personalize. What, what,
what is coming? No, it's not, it's AI. It's almost there.
It's still not Stella It's not Stella only It's coming It's coming to get you.
So we're kind of like nearly at the end of the interview And it's been a good
(39:11):
one So I want you to tell us about your Because I know you have all these lovely
hobbies So tell us all about your hobbies Because they're so, you know,
Well, I mean, I, you know, I, I, I, you know, my, my family lives in London.
I work in Nigeria, basically in London almost every month.
You know, I travel a lot back to my family.
(39:31):
And being in Nigeria, you know, Nigeria is a very funny place.
If you don't find work, devil will find work for you.
So, you know, the only way around it is, you know, keep yourself busy.
I play a lot of golf. I play golf like twice a month, twice a week.
I have, I own four horses who I love them greatly.
(39:54):
Very, very passionate about them. I love them so much. I see them every day. You know, I ride them.
And weekends I play chakras with the boys, play polo as well.
Play polo chakras and stick them balls, you know.
So, you know, the secret is by the time you get home. You're tired.
No time to think of anything else. Yeah, you sleep well.
(40:20):
And, you know, by the time you're running your family in England,
you know, you chain Daira out with pounds. There's no money left.
I tell you, Naira, Naira the woman is Daira.
There's no money left. By the time you feed horses, there's nothing left.
What got you into polo? What got you? And how did you start collecting horses?
(40:40):
I'm curious because not everybody does it. So it's something that I need to ask you.
I think it's just the love of animals. I think I'm more in love with the animal than the game.
As a matter of fact, I used to hate Portal because I used to think that the game itself is...
More attention to the game than the animal. I used to see a lot of polo horses
(41:04):
just die on the polo, on the polo mat.
Because it's like, it's like, it's like you're taking an athlete, you know,
and having that athlete just run, run, run for seven minutes,
you know, and you know, there's a lot of animals dying and, you know,
and then, and then even the attitude towards the animal, the animal can't run as much anymore.
(41:27):
More and then you just abandon it so you know
i i started adopting horses
you know i adopted my first
two they were in very deplorable
conditions and it was such so
much joy to bring them back to to to
(41:48):
life again and give them a proper life if
i had the money and adopt more you know
because it's such an amazing feeling and horses are the
most misunderstood animals especially in
nigeria i mean anybody's seen any horse they force me to think about that if
you kick you i'm like come on horses were not made to keep any other animals
(42:12):
you know they don't just their whole life is not just to kick and a lot of times
people when you see the horse stamp its leg.
It's not trying to kick you. It's just trying to... The horse doesn't have hands
to touch flies and shoe flies away.
So he's stamped just so that he can get the fly off its back.
And there's a fly on his back. He can't reach it. And he moves and drives.
(42:37):
And people are just scared of all those movements.
And they totally just relabel the poor animal and just make the animal so dangerous.
And everybody's scared of it. and so when you
actually move close to them and they they feel you
love them they love you back well so when
did you get when did you get into horse
(42:59):
riding i've been around horses for
for a long time i i only i only i've
only started playing polo for the last four years
now but i've been around horses i
lived close to the polo club so we used to come there and
just you know just look after the horses shot hay and just you know they'll
(43:19):
let us work you know and I just love looking after them and I think that you
know people don't love them as much as they should so I try and give them as much love that I can give.
That is fantastic and on that note this is the end of podcasts thank you so
(43:45):
much you were a very tough customer to pin down,
I'm so sorry I'm so so sorry you're busy so thank you so much and,
thanks a lot.
(44:05):
Music.
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