Linda Ikeji - Motivational Woman's Story #12

Linda Ikeji is a graduate of English from the University of Lagos. After graduating in 2004, she started Blackdove Communications, a models and event management company. She had been modeling since 1998 but quit soon after starting her company, preferring to stay behind the camera by running the agency. So what happened since she stopped modelling and how did she become the blogger we all know and love, or love to hate? She said this in a BN Interview;

When I was much younger, I wanted to be a journalist. That was my dream. When I was about 10 years old, I was already writing. I wrote a few fiction stories in my notebooks and I gave a few people and they read and they thought I was a good writer...

So when I finished school, and I had become a model and people knew me as a model, it was very difficult for me to go back to back to being a journalist so I just moved on from there. But then I discovered blogging in 2006. Incidentally, it was through www.bellanaija.blogspot.com...

From then, I started reading her blog and one day I said to myself, I can actually live my dream, put stories together, tell people what is going on, so I created the blog that year. I created the blog in 2006 but I really started blogging early 2007.

Dr. Joe Odumakin - Women's Motivational Story #11

Dr. Josephine Okei-Odumakin is a Nigerian democracy activist and women's rights advocate. Her passion for human rights activism made her one of the targets of the Babangida administration; she was arrested and detained about 17 times at different locations in the country. However, Dr. (Mrs.) Joe Okei -Odumakin refused to be deterred. She later became the assistant general secretary of the Campaign for Democracy in 1994 when the battle against the annulment of June 12 became so fierce.

She was the head of the organization's secretariat from 1995-1996 when the then chairman, late Dr. Beko Ransome Kuti and the general secretary, Comrade Odion Akhaine, were put in jail. She eventually became president of the organization on July 29, 2006 at a convention held in Akure, Ondo State.

Dr. Joe Odumakin is also the executive director of the Institute of Human Rights and Democratic Studies, president of Women Arise for Change Initiative, the chairman of Task Force of the Citizens Forum, founder of the Save Nigeria Group, and spokesperson of the Coalition of Civil Society Organizations.

Hafsat Abiola - Women's Month Motivational Story #10

Hafsat Abiola is a young activist who works to promote women, youth, and democracy in Nigeria, and around the world. She is a founding member of several initiatives including Global Youth Connect, Youth Employment Campaign, and Vital Voices: Women in Democracy. She is a member of the World Wisdom Council and the World Future Council. Hafsat is the author of many articles published in international and national media, and assistant editor of Imagining Ourselves, an international anthology of women.

Hafsat is also the Executive Director of the Kudirat Initiative for Democracy, KIND, an NGO that seeks to empower democracy and development in Nigeria by strengthening organizations and creating initiatives that advance women. KIND’s main programme is Kudra, a programme that offers leadership training to 750 young women across Nigeria each year.

Chika Unigwe - Women's Month Motivational Story #9

Chika Unigwe was born in Enugu, Nigeria, and now lives in Turnhout, Belgium, with her husband and four children. She holds a BA in English Language and Literature from the University of Nigeria, Nsukka, and an MA from the Catholic University of Leuven, Belgium. She also holds a PhD from the University of Leiden, The Netherlands, having completed a thesis entitled "In the shadow of Ala. Igbo women writing as an act of righting" in 2004.

Chika Unigwe is the author of fiction, poetry, articles and educational material. She won the 2003 BBC Short Story Competition for her story "Borrowed Smile", a Commonwealth Short Story Award for "Weathered Smiles" and a Flemish literary prize for "De Smaak van Sneeuw", her first short story written in Dutch. "The Secret", another of her short pieces, was nominated for the 2004 Caine Prize. She was the recipient of a 2007 Unesco-Aschberg fellowship for creative writing, and of a 2009 Rockefeller Foundation fellowship for creative writing.

Adenike Ogunlesi Ruff'n'Tumble - Motivational Woman #8

"Adenike Ogunlesi is the founder of Ruff 'n' Tumble, a childrens clothing line in Nigeria. From a tiny shop with her and her mother as the main staff, Adenike turned Ruff 'n' Tumble into an instantly recognizable International brand. She has built a reputation for being one of the best manufacturers of children's clothing in Nigeria. For more than a decade now, Adenike Ogunlesi’s Ruff 'n' Tumble has earned accolades, both at home and abroad, with her exciting and hip apparels in the children clothing business.

In her second year as an undergraduate law student at the Ahmadu Bello University in Zaria, Adenike opted out of school unsure of what to do with her life. She reluctantly accepted her mother's invitation to work in her womens tailor shop. That experience helped her to discover who she was and what she wanted to do. Today Ruff 'N' Tumble is a thriving business with 50 employees and distribution along the West African coast.

Uche Pedro of Bellanaija - Motivational Woman #7

Uche Pedro is the founder of BellaNaija.com, a leading website for entertainment, lifestyle and fashion in Africa and CEO/MD of Bainstone Limited, a new media company. At 25, she was rated #22 of the Top 100 people, places, events and things that shaped 2008 by PUNCH.

Uche was a 2010 Future Awards nominee for “Best Use of Technology”. She was also given Outstanding Contribution to Fashion Communication Award at the 2010 Africa Fashion Week held by Africa Fashion International (AFI) in Johannesburg, South Africa.

She was featured on Oprah Winfrey show, Beauty Around the World, in February 2010 and was interviewed by Isha Sesay for CNN i-list in September, 2010.

Oreoluwa Somolu - Motivational Women Story #6

Oreoluwa Somolu is Executive Director of the Women’s Technology Empowerment Centre (W.TEC). Prior to this, she was Project Manager of Youth Empowerment & Restoration Initiative, an organisation working to increase local content in the Nigerian Oil and Gas industry by raising awareness of Oil and Gas careers among students.

Oreoluwa worked for several years in the United States at an educational non-for-profit organisation on a number of projects, which explored the interplay between gender and technology and which sought to attract more girls and women to study and work in science and technology-related fields.

She has a Bachelors degree in Economics from Essex University, U.K. and a Masters degree in Analysis, Design and Management of Information Systems from the London School of Economics & Political Science. Her research interests are the applications of technology in improving lifelong learning and also to raise the economic and social conditions of people (especially women and children) in the developing world.

Nkemdilim Uwaje - Women's History Month Motivational Story #5

Nkem Uwaje is a Director of Future Software Resources Nigeria Ltd.. She attained a BSc. Hons in Bioinformatics at the Ludwig Maximilian University (LMU), as well as the Technical University of Munich (TUM) Germany. She has worked on various research projects at the Max Planck Institute for Psychiatric Research in the department for Statistical Genetics and Proteomics, as well as for the Pharmaceutical Company Affectis Pharmaceuticals AG, Germany. These research projects encompass the development of software solutions for complex biological as well as chemical calculations and simulations, database design and administration as well as statistical analysis.

After re-locating to Nigeria in 2005, Nkem Uwaje was involved in various research projects, such as the Wazobia Linux initiative, the E-Government Interoperability Framework, NITDA Open Standards Framework, as well as the deployment of e-commerce and e-portal solutions in the Nigerian public and private sector.

Women who Motivate #4 - Funmi Iyanda

Olufunmilola Aduke Iyanda (born 27 July 1971), better known as Funmi Iyanda, is an award-winning broadcaster, journalist, columnist and blogger. She produced and hosted Nigeria’s most popular and authoritative talk show New Dawn with Funmi, which aired on the national network for over eight years.

Funmi is the CEO of Ignite Media, a content-driven media organization operating out of Lagos. In 2011, she was honoured as a Young Global Leader (YGL) by the World Economic Forum and was recently named one of Forbes 20 Youngest Power Women in Africa.

Women who Motivate #3 - Chimamanda Adichie

Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie was born in Nigeria in 1977. She is the author of the novels Purple Hibiscus (2003) and Half of a Yellow Sun (2006), and of the short story collection The Thing around Your Neck (2009). She has received numerous awards and distinctions, including the Orange Broadband Prize for Fiction (2007) and a MacArthur Foundation Fellowship (2008).

Women's Motivational Stories #2 - Mo Abudu

Mosunmola Abudu, also known as Mo Abudu, is a talk show host, TV producer, media personality, human resources management consultant and entrepreneur. She is best known as the Executive Producer and host of the TV talk show, Moments with Mo,

Moments with Mo "is the first syndicated daily talk show on African regional television." According to wiki,

By October 2009, over 200 episodes had been recorded and aired with numerous topics ranging from lifestyle, through health, culture, politics, entertainment, tradition, to music and inter-racial marriages. Guests have included celebrities, Presidents, Nobel Laureates, and the 67th US Secretary-of-State Hillary Rodham Clinton,[2] Abudu says the show "highlights the life and accomplishments of a usually well known, but sometimes an undiscovered African individual who by his or her own tenacity and determination has accomplished something, overcome something or been a catalyst for something that makes her or him a role model to others."
Aired on M-Net with TV coverage in 48 African countries, the show now also airs on terrestrial and cable TV in other parts of the world.

Women's History Month - Motivational Stories #1

March is Women's History Month here in the US. Last month was the month of love and we celebrated the men who love us, and those we love. I've decided to use this month as an opportunity to showcase some contemporary Nigerian young women doing motivational things. I'll start with a young lady I discovered just some days ago

Ola Orekunrin is a 26 years old medical doctor and founder of Flying Doctors Nigeria, the first air ambulance service in West Africa. Her start-up is a social enterprise providing urgent air ambulances to leading health institutions, insurance companies and private individuals throughout West Africa.

Dr. Ola an exemplary product of England’s Foster care system, was raised in a working class home by foster care parents where she quickly learned the value of hard and smart work. Dr. Ola later applied these skills learnt in her childhood to put herself through school with jobs in retail, modeling and administration. Undeterred by the challenges (financial included) that seemingly blocked her path, Dr. Ola graduated medical school at age twenty one (21), becoming the youngest doctor to graduate in the entire country. With such impressive credentials and brilliance, you would think she would settle for working at England’s prestigious acute care facilities/hospitals. She had a different agenda.