Many people have asked me why I started NJOKU Forum and Champagne & Jollof. To put it simply, these are the natural extensions of things I have been doing over the last 15 years since I arrived in West Africa to found Iroko. This is my attempt to connect the dots to where I ended up today—building communities within the UAE and across the GCC to Africa corridor. Anyone who knows me from the University of Manchester could easily identify me as a mix of many things (2002 – 2005 as a Chemistry undergraduate and nightclub promoter) and (2005-2008 as a burned-out student magazine founder and struggling nightclub promoter, among many other roles). So the economics of partying or gathering people in the same place was not something new or foreign to me. My experience with nightclubbing and gatherings has always been somewhat unique in that I don’t and have never really drunk alcohol. It’s not for religious reasons or because I am a hardcore Puritan; it’s simply that I don’t like the taste of 99% of available alcoholic drinks. Alcohol actually tastes disgusting to me. Before you protest, walk with me—think back to your first experience. For the most part, from constantly asking my observations, it seems that for many, it wasn’t usually a pleasurable one; rather, peer pressure and the fact that alcohol is an acquired taste remain the main social lubricant in our culture at any social gathering. In my case, I never acquired the taste for it because it tastes horrible to me, so I simply don’t drink it. Unfortunately, I still spend too much money on alcohol and ended up investing in DRINKS, one of the largest online distributors in Nigeria—but that’s an entirely different story. So my partying experience has been all about just vibes, but the stone-cold sober variety.

Deals and Disco in Cannes

When I started Iroko, I had no knowledge of content sales and distribution. At the beginning, our business was simple: we acquired content from producers, platformed it via our apps, and tried to figure out ways to attract and retain paying subscribers. That was it. However, when we had an oversupply of content rights, we needed to find a path to monetize it. Enter MIPCOM, the global content marketplace where, for decades, deals between global studios were made. My first visit was in 2014 (10 years ago), and I was captivated by tens of thousands of people, very few of whom were of African origin. So my approach was to make it my mission to smile and try to speak to any person of color I could find. Back then, we had no business, but I would reach out and try to connect with folks who looked like me and could potentially help me understand how best to monetize my growing Nollywood library. One of those people was the amazing Olivier Laouchez (Founder of Trace – acquired by TPG). Olivier and the Trace teams used to hold their meetings on a yacht docked next to the Le Palais des Festivals (the main Cannes conference center). I can assure you those meetings were much more on-brand and ballerific than any of the stuffy, windowless meeting spaces inside. More importantly, the best event of the bi-annual trade show was the TRACE Party. Invite-only, I remember hustling to get invites on behalf of others, featuring full DJ sets, and it was great to see all the relaxed professionals in a fantastic setting. Deal terms weren’t finalized there, but they definitely softened as you saw the negotiating folks throwing shapes on the dance floor. For me, networking lessons were easily learned. From my experience, pricing and closing deals is 50% about whether the person even likes you. Alcohol (the social lubricant) helps with that. I can see how, 10 years later, the yacht inspiration for Champagne & Jollof I (on a big ass yacht) was partially derived from those experiences. 10 years ago is a long time. I met some super amazing people who were much much earlier in their careers during those disco and dinner events in Cannes. from those networking years which included Alex Okosi (Africa MD for Google) Jocelyne Muhutu-Remy (MD SSA for Spotify), Ben Amadasun (VP Netflix MEA) to Wangi Mba-Uzoukwu (ex Head of Originals Prime Video) and Paul Mayanja (Industry Leader Google Sweden)

Champagne & Jollof version1

When my wife and I abruptly moved to Accra in 2018, we only knew a handful of people. So, typically for me, I went about gathering parents of my kids’ school friends to organize playdates. Kids going to each other’s houses is fine, but when I liked the parents, it made sense to gather them all in a more efficient manner. Whiskey or gin tastes terrible to me, but I have found that champagne is appealing to most (mainly the mothers who attended the initial events), so when we bought our permanent site in Accra and completed the 20m pool, we began inviting our kids’ friends and their parents to our house. At least once a quarter, we would have 10-15 parents and sometimes up to 30 kids playing in our pool, house, and garden area. It was so much fun. Whenever more than two Nigerians gather, we inevitably start discussing and dissecting the issues facing our glorious nation, proposing all sorts of impractical solutions. That was the theme of our gatherings: kids hanging out while their parents quaffed champagne with jollof on the side. Through my kids, I met some incredible people while we were in Accra, from startup founders and investors to C-suite executives across African finance, oil and gas, and high-level government.

Whining and dining

While running Iroko, I rarely had an office and often spent 7 months of the year traveling somewhere or another. So during most days (even now), if I don’t have a meeting, I would literally spend my time lying down in a hotel room, working. I hate sitting at desks; it makes me feel sad. I don’t really like emails or phone calls. For the last 10 years, I have rarely used email and prefer asymmetric messaging through WhatsApp and Slack. Over the last decade, as I slogged across city to city as a glorified Nollywood salesman, I would organize dinners with interesting people I met in those locations. Whether it was meeting my content suppliers in Johannesburg, my investors in Paris, attending the Africa Summit in DC, or the UN General Assembly in New York, or the MIPCOM trade fair in Cannes, or just pitching business through Dubai, Lagos, London, or Houston, if not just to alleviate my boredom, I would host dinners. Lots and lots of dinners. I would collect interesting people (typically Nigerians), and we would lament the issues facing Nigeria and Africa, offering impractical solutions over whole grilled sea bass or T-bone steaks (which I don’t even eat unless it’s in a burger or meatball, let alone goat, lamb, or other meats I have never tried—I realize I am starting to sound odd). What was cool about these meetings is that I ended up building a global network of high-performing Africans from 15+ cities I used to visit regularly. Over the years, I have found that these connections have helped me in the most unexpected ways, closing knowledge gaps, aiding in partner evaluations, and generally connecting with long-term cool people.

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