Carte Blanche audience were not really that interested in the positive stories on Africa that I wanted to do which didn’t involve wildlife! That’s when I realised that I had a passion for telling positive stories about Africa. It was clear that if we Africans didn’t tell our own stories and shape our own past and present, no one was going to do it for us. My email signature bears a very profound African saying: “Until lions learn to write, hunters will tell their stories for them”.
Before being cast in the MNET drama series Jacobs Cross (my first ever acting
role), I had been pitching a lifestyle series to show “the other side of Africa” called Living It. I was tired of seeing Africans on TV with flies on their faces and other images of abject poverty and starvation. It finally got underway on DSTV years later featuring the lifestyles of Africa’s wealthy elite in an attempt to present a positive side of the African story. I had wonderful feedback on the series which proves that Africans really wanted to see themselves reflected in the media they consume. It was the same reason I wrote Africa’s Greatest Entrepreneurs. I have always seen myself as an entrepreneur. Prior to my PR company I had started a breakfast club at a restaurant in the UK and an African fashion business. They both did not last long but gave me lessons I have used in my other businesses. I battled to find a book on the many highly successful African entrepreneurs we have that would inspire me and give me insights, so I decided to write one. I approached Penguin Books with the idea and got a publishing contract. Writing the book was one of the toughest things I have done but sheer stubbornness and persistence got me through. There were many challenges including taking almost two years for one of the entrepreneurs to agree to an interview Africa’s Greatest Entrepreneurs was the impetus for me to start my own publishing business MME Media. South Africa’s Greatest Entrepreneurs, which was
Pic courtesy of Moky Makura
published in September 2010 was our first book, done in partnership with the Gordon Institute of Business Studies (GIBS). It made it on to the Exclusive Books’ best seller list and I am working on releasing Nigeria’s Greatest Entrepreneurs. But my real passion has been Nollybooks, our low cost books written by South Africans and aimed at a young black South African audience that was recently featured on CNN’s Inside Africa. They are currently in Shoprite Checkers and C N A and retail for approximately R35 each. Like Nigeria’s movie industry Nollywood, the books are about telling modern urban African stories. And that is my story. I was born in Nigeria and that defined me. I was educated in England and it equipped me. I now live in South Africa and this country has given me so many opportunities. I am not the stereotypical ‘rags to riches African story’ but I have taken advantage of the privileges I was blessed with and remained totally driven. If there is one thing that has been constant in my life, it is change. Today I live in SA; I am a publisher, actress, producer, author and entrepreneur. Tomorrow, who knows? What I do know though is that I will always be passionate about telling stories and about Africa. I want to be the lion that learnt to write.