By Babajide Komolafe The need to support youth entrepreneurship as a solution to the increasing challenge of unemployment in Nigeria is reflected in the success story of Paystack, a fintech start-up company founded in 2016 by two Nigerian youths-Ezra Olubi and Shola Akinlade. The company which became part of Stripe, an American technology company through a $200 million acquisition deal, currently employs more than 70 people in Lagos. Like Ezra Olubi and Shola Akinlade, many Nigerian youths, driven by the need to escape the hash realities and unemployment in the country, are embracing entrepreneurship and venturing into different sectors of the economy. READ ALSOBuhari seeks Senate’s confirmation of Gen Yahaya as new COAS While some like the Paystack founders have recorded outstanding success, most are struggling, due to several factors including poor power supply, low capacity and inability to access funding to scale up their businesses.
Nigeria, Africa’s top oil producer and home to the second-largest reserves on the continent, is expected to benefit from the rise in oil prices in many ways.
Oil prices are currently inching closer to $70 per barrel as the positive outlook of a return to global economic recovery swells investor sentiments.
Historically, there has been a strong positive correlation between crude oil prices and the performance of the Nigerian economy. For example, when oil prices plummeted due to the COVID-19 outbreak and the implementation of lockdown protocols in 2020, the Nigerian government scaled down the budget to align better with the drop in crude oil price.
After almost five years of having to be described as the Stripe of Africa, Paystack finally became a part of Stripe in a major acquisition which caused ripples of excitement across the fintech industry. The reality that two young Nigerian men, who did not school abroad, could start and grow a company that would be acquired by a Silicon Valley Company is more than a little exciting.
The acquisition is valued at over $200 million, Stripe’s biggest acquisition to date and the biggest startup acquisition in Nigeria so far. This is the story the world knows, what many do not know is the history that preceded and naturally led to this acquisition.
TextDika Ofoma
‘If I can wear make-up in a society like Nigeria, what is stopping me from achieving my dreams?’
Enioluwa Adeoluwa was in his first year in university the first time he tried make-up on. He was in the company of his female friends and while they applied different shades of foundation and concealer just as they had watched Jackie Aina do on YouTube, he thought to do the same. That was in 2014. Today, the 21-year-old is a beauty influencer with over a hundred thousand followers on Instagram, and has been nicknamed ‘lip gloss boy’ (reapplying lip gloss as he delivers a punchline has become a motif of his comic skits) by fans, even though he would rather be called ‘beauty boy’.