CCM: Give us a background of yourself, who is Omojuwa?
Omojuwa: I’m a Nigerian, I attended King’s College Lagos, I studied Agricultural Economics at the Federal University of Agriculture Abeokuta, in Ogun state. I started omojuwa.com at the university in 2009. Well first of all I didn't like the fact that my surname did not ring a bell outside of Lagos at the time, I wanted to have a surname that would ring a bell and then secondly I didn't like the fact that whatever I said or whatever interest I had about how Nigeria or my part of Nigeria was being governed, I didn't have access. I couldn't really influence things, so I had a ten year plan that by 2019 I’d have enough influence and access to be able to for instance, call a governor to say “excuse me I just heard that you're introducing this policy but excuse me I think it’s a bad idea. I think you should think twice about it and this is what I think you should do.” Or I can call the president and say “look, Mr. president I heard that you're trying to introduce this idea, I know a couple of Nigerians that can help make it better.” You know, have that access to be able to influence stuff, so it was a ten year plan and you know when I started this I didn't think about twitter, I didn't think about Facebook, I was already using Facebook at the time to get stuff done, twitter I really did not get it. A lot people find that very difficult to believe, I didn't get twitter… there were times I would be tweeting and nobody was replying me. I’d be like “what’s going on here?” before I understood that they had to even follow me to even see what I was saying but you know as God would have it a lot of things sort helped to fast-track my agenda. So Twitter came, I stopped using the twitter handle I created in my company name, I started a company when I was at the university which is the company I still run. I opened a new account in my surname, @Omojuwa, so I have now omojuwa.com and then I have the twitter handle. And then fortunately I realized that when I was tweeting people were actually paying attention, I also realized that the more I spoke the more people were following so of course it started getting intense, the blog continued to run, eventually I was fortunate to be involved in certain things at the right time for instance the occupy movement. It is always a difficult thing to say, some people want to put me in the box of being an activist, I don't like boxes I say no, I'm not an activist, of course I write, you could say I'm a columnist, I write for The Punch, I write for Leadership, Metropole, Naij, I've written for CNN, I'm a public speaker, I've been involved with stuff at the United Nations level, The African Union, The World Economic forum, Halifax international security forum, name it.. I've spoken at universities around the world; I've represented the continent from Brazil, to Washington, to Berlin. I just like to define myself in terms of my name. So who am I? I'm just Mr. Japheth Joshua Omojuwa because the story continues to write itself and I continue to reinvent myself. I continue to discover even myself, I'm looking for new territories, just before I came here I was discussing a new idea that practically had me abandon the things I'm doing at the moment and just focus on it. You can employ people to monitor the other things because its a far bigger dream with far bigger vision than what it is.. So who am I? I think that answer would be provided when I finally die and people get asked those questions because I know I've meant different things to different people, to some people I'm like a crazy person, to some people I'm like “oh he's nice”, I hope that captured the essence of my personality
CCM: You mentioned that you want to have an influence, would you say that was what inspired you to start your blog omojuwa.com ?
Omojuwa: okay, the specific story is, I was having a conversation with a friend, Kunle Fadiora and I like to mention his name because without that idea… I was always going to have a website, I always wanted to have a website even before he said it but it was what he said that got us started and fortunately he's a web developer, so Kunle was like “look this guy you say things …” and now this might sound like I'm boasting or whatever but that’s what he said so I have to say it, so he was like “you say stuff that somebody wants to come back and hear it again like can’t you just have a website where people can just go and check your stuff, I was like “wow I’ve always wanted to have a website and I was like go and start it lets do it, so you know the next day I saw him I was like “how far, have you started?”, He was like “ha’an”, I said yeah lets get it started immediately! So 15th of February 2009, it got started. So in school I was doing it and even at the time when we started, I knew it was going to be something that was going to be very influential, I knew that we were like first movers, people were already doing those stuff but it was still an open space, even as I speak to you the internet is “neuland” (check spelling), Germans will say “neuland”… It’s a new land for Nigeria, its still a fresh place, its still a place to be conquered… The highest number of followers that people have in this country is still less than two million. Nobody has two million followers on twitter, there’s a lot to be done. So at that time I always knew, I wrote articles about what they could do with twitter and social networking before I even did anything meaningful. They are on the internet, when you see the date you’ll know that I’m saying the truth, before I even did anything solid or meaningful with social media or how social media helped me to access some other opportunities, I wrote about what it was going to do, so I knew exactly what I was doing you know. I didn't know it was going to be so fast but I knew exactly what I was doing, I knew that people were going to prefer to read news from their phones, I knew that people would rather not drive to go and buy stuff because look. No matter what the government does about transportation, No matter what they do about communication, Our population would continue to increase and we might start decreasing marginally but we would continue to increase in population for the foreseeable future, which would mean that we would always really have traffic issues, so you'd want to ask yourself, Do I want to buy this thing online and have them bring it to my house? or do I want to drive to Shoprite or Ceddi plaza, eventually those questions would answer themselves easily. You'll want to do it online because efficiency would have set in, people would begin to trust the system and then that’s how it works. So it then means that businesses would be domiciled online, Ideas would be domiciled online, Personalities, I’m building a personality brand, Personalities would be domiciled online and those pictures that I saw at that time are practically obvious now, but I can also tell you that nothing has started.
CCM: You mentioned you're part of the occupy movement, such a movement would you consider yourself an activist, a social media activist?
Omojuwa: When I started out being a voice that people would listen to, I was very conscious of something. I was very very conscious of the fact that this should not just be me speaking for people, this should me making people see that we can speak for ourselves. So I immediately was always saying “No, I'm not an activist, Don’t call me an activist”… it was intentional, I didn't want a situation where people would have their rights disrespected and then they would be thinking “let me go and talk to Omojuwa,” I wanted a situation where they would know that they could be their own voices and represent themselves, so I was very very very intentional about saying I'm an active citizen. Look, I'm not a fool, I do things that you would say “oh he's an activist” because what’s activism? Being a voice for and doing something in order for order in the society, being a voice for constitutionalism, human rights and stuff like that and standing up for the rights of the underprivileged. I knew that was me being an activist but it was important for me to let people see that its not an office, its not a job, its my responsibility as a citizen. So I wanted a generation of activists and see, between then and now, I have personally… I cant say fulfilled but fulfilled in the continuum in terms of the fact that I am really fulfilled. That’s not that we won’t still continue that’s why I said in the continuum because there is still a lot to be done but I am actually excited to see Nigerians fight for themselves, stand for themselves, people fighting organizations that disrespect them and you know people starting hashtags, because we opened up that space, we let them see that look, these guys that we call our leaders, they're not Hercules, they're not Zeus, they're not mythical things. They are human begins like us with flesh, with blood and they can be tackled and they can be challenged, so am I an activist?… In reality Yes, to a large extent but I don't want to be called an activist because what I do anybody can do, its not a job for me, I don’t have an organization I’m an entrepreneur. The late great Gani Fawehinmi he was an activist right? What was his main tool of activism? … It was being a lawyer you know. He was using his ability as a lawyer, his strength as a lawyer to fight for the downtrodden. You can be a photographer and use photography to do activism, you can be a musician like Baba Fela and use your music to be an activist, so then I'm a writer, a columnist, a social media entrepreneur and I'm using those tools to activate the rights of other people and of course my own rights. I've really really fought for myself as a person even before social media came in, I've really battled people, fought banks you know before people started tweeting about them so the story is not about “oh now this thing I have is to let me start using it.” I fought a whole bank in 2003 and there was no Facebook or Twitter you know, so I'm not an activist in the sense of “oh lets go and call an activist” and they'll come and call me, I won’t answer you. I'm an activist in the sense of it should be a way of life, you should be an activist, everybody should be an activist and if we are afraid of that word then lets say we are active citizens.
CCM: how did you as a person impact on the critical issues of occupy Nigeria, Bring back our girls etc.?
Omojuwa: First of all, you have to have an agenda because what did I even do?, Occupy wall street had started in September of 2011 and a lot of conversation on Nigerian twitter was “lets have occupy Nigeria” “no, we can’t have it Nigerians will not come out” “we are too lazy, we can’t have occupy Nigeria.” Before there was the subsidy issue, so it was basically about, see these people that are occupying wall street they're even well dressed and looking chic and cool you know, beautiful and look at us here with our downtrodden lives and we need to occupy this country and let something work. It was not about some subsidy issue, it wasn’t. It was about justice in the country, but I realized that the conversation was not going anywhere you know, we were just talking and blabbing. There was this side that said “lets do it!” and there was this side that said “hey you're fooling yourselves, you people can’t do nada.” So I sent an email across in November and I copied a lot of people that I felt had competence in certain areas you know like Kunle Durojaiye, strategy, Tolu Ogunlesi, he writes, Bello El-rufai, Musa Usman, Azeenah Mohammed, Yemi Adamolekun, Seun Fakuade, Chinedu Ekeke, copied all of these names and Gbenga Sesan of course, and basically said “guys, okay we've been making noise, now lets organize, lets analyze, what are the issues we want to tackle?” For me this was just an email to get it started and then I also said that I would prefer that Enough is Enough Nigeria is the organization, because we were not an organization we were individuals. So of course we formed the issues and we said at the time that this was not much about subsidy as it was about the size of government, this was not much about subsidy as it was much about waste in government and you could see that on the 7th of January 2012, when the President came to address the country, he was talking about reducing his travels, he was talking about reducing the number of government appointees, he was talking about reducing salaries, you can go and check it on the internet, his broadcast was answering our issues and we crafted those issues, we moved it away from “reduce subsidy or don't reduce subsidy” to actually saying “No, its not even about this, its about corruption, its about big government, its about waste” and then so when he came out to speak he was actually responding to us and it was intentional on our part. We decided to frame that issue and that’s what we do to this day, you can go and ask former President Jonathan, he will tell you, we framed the conversation around his government, we did not let him to determine the conversation in terms of “oh I'm actually working, it’s transformation agenda”. No, you're not working, because you cannot reform a system if you don't deal with the leakages in that system, so it means you cannot reform a system without corruption being dealt with. We emphasized and amplified the issue of corruption and Nigerians began to look at that side of the conversation, we emphasized and amplified the issue of accountability and transparency in government and eventually they started paying attention to us, you see that the President, the former President Jonathan in his campaign in Lagos and subsequently, he kept talking about social media, I mean in the wrong terms saying people were attacking him, he didn't really get it even till he got voted out, the new President came in and immediately got it in his inaugural address, he was thankful and also saying how we could use it and then use it better. This generation is the most powerful generation in this history of this continent, in the history of this country, we have tools that those that came before us never even dreamt of or imagined. As a regular citizen in a house in an unknown village in Nigeria, in an unknown village maybe in Hadejia or Adamawa or Birnin Gwari in Kaduna or some place in Lagos, you have access to the internet, you can reach out to some influencer, you could get an issue started it becomes viral, we have never had it so good as citizens in this country. Now its one thing to have a tool, its another thing to know what to do with it, it Is another thing to know where to use it, we have this power, what we do with it is what we have to decide for ourselves. So in terms of impact I’m not going to lie to you we've really influenced stuff, we've impacted some others but we can do much more better.
CCM: Thank you Japheth, we would also like to ask if there’s a special someone ?
Omojuwa: I don't want to talk about it.
CCM: The most difficult thing about success is you have to keep succeeding… what are your strategies?
Omojuwa: Well its not much about strategy as it is about principles, one of my main principles is to always start each day as a new plate, so which basically means that whatever I achieved yesterday, is gone with yesterday. So it doesn't mean that I can’t talk about it if we have to talk about what we've done but in my head its always about what we are yet to do or what we want to do, so to always keep my mind fresh, to always understand that in the next two years when people are talking about what we’re doing now and we don't improve on them its going to be like “oh, they used to do”. There was this magazine that really inspired me to see things that way, Ebony magazine of ’95, I saw it in 2011 or 2012 thereabouts and they featured Oprah Winfrey in ’95 and they said a lot of nice things about her, what she was doing, how she was revolutionizing the perception of the black African American woman and all of those things, it was really really cool and then I looked at the magazine and what they said about Oprah and then I looked at the Oprah of the time that I was reading that magazine which was almost 20 years since the magazine came out, I was like “wow, God saved Oprah that she didn't stay at that level”, because compared to who she had become and what the magazine was saying she was, they were two different things entirely so that made me understand that you have to just keep it fresh, you cannot afford to sit on your laurels, so no matter what people say about me, no matter what treatment I get from wherever, I'm always about the next thing, I'm always about what to do, I'm always about the next partnerships, I'm always about what has not been done and I'm grateful for what we've done but I'm really much more interested in what we have not done, for me that’s the secret to keep the vibe going.
CCM: Have you ever considered joining active politics at some point?
Omojuwa: See, I am interested in humanity, I am interested in the betterment of society, I’m naturally interested in seeing that things are working well, so which means that I'm interested in politics but I'm also conscious of my limitations, I'm conscious of the fact that politics, you need clout, no matter what you think, I don't think I have enough clout to join politics, now. Politics, you need resources, no matter what you think, I don't think I have the resources, so I'm working so hard as an entrepreneur, I'm trying to make money, I'm building alliances across the world, across the country. Look, when you see me per time, you're likely to see me with people that are from other parts of the country, people that are not from my part of the country per time, at any point in time, 80-90% of the time. I'm building bridges, building alliances with organizations, with people, building international alliances, meeting people, all of these would still eventually, by God’s grace, bring me into public administration, I'm interested in public administration, I’m not going to pretend and say what people want to hear, because people like to hear that “oh, I’m not interested”, they like to be deceived you know. I’m going to, by God’s grace if I live long enough join politics because, take it or leave it, the easiest way, the most powerful way to make change happen in society is via politics. The most capitalized company in Nigeria I think is Dangote, pick a Dangote, not Aliko, the company (laughs), put the best brain in the world to manage Dangote, as the strongest company in Nigeria and then put an idiot to be the President of Nigeria, Nigeria is not going to move forward, Dangote will move forward, most capitalized company which means it can influence many things but make that intelligent person to manage the country, make an idiot the CEO of the most capitalized company in the country, that company will suffer but it is limited to the stakeholders of that company; The staff, The management and The shareholders but when you make a country work, you make opportunities available for everybody, so when a country moves forward, it moves the people. Our country is our largest social entity. When a company moves forward it moves a few people, I’m saying this because, if I'm not in government then that means I'm in an organization or in a company, I'm not able to do as much compared to if I was helping to run a government… I’m doing my part to help to move the country forward obviously but as a non states-person, when you are a states-person, your influence is much more direct so by God’s grace, I'm definitely going to eventually join government but not now, I don't have the resources now.
CCM: Finally, what is your advice to the youth of Nigeria today?
Omojuwa: I don't like to advice people because I think that if you're not motivated and inspired enough to set your life on the right path, then being advised is a waste of time because if you're not inspired by other people’s stories, if you're not inspired by what you read and what you hear, you cannot be inspired by me telling you “this is what I think you should do”, you can’t be. I think success is organic, it has to flow to you so I can now advice you how to get it done, “oh, you're starting a magazine, that’s beautiful”, I can give you suggestions as to do this and this but if you need me to start telling you “stop roaming the streets your mates are doing this”, I'm sorry, I'm not going to tell you that, I would rather use my time because my time is limited, so I would use my time on people that have found out that they need to do something with their lives and let them understand what they can do with it, so this is what I would say to these young people; Nobody is going to come and tell you to stop being stupid, nobody is going to come and tell you to get your life in order, by the time you suffer, you will know and you know sometimes it helps when life slaps you, naturally you will put yourself in order so “commit to your books, pass your exams”, I'm not going to tell you that. We have a deregulated media system, before you were limited to what you saw in your village or in your school or maybe on your street, now you can read about somebody’s life from your phones, you can see that a ten year old is getting stuff done and getting stuff started, fifteen year olds are graduating from university, twenty year olds are joining government big time and then you now need me to come and inspire you? That should inspire you, so they should listen, they should watch, put themselves in tune with global realities and get themselves inspired.
CCM: That will be all Japheth, Thank you very much.
Omojuwa: My pleasure.
