WWNIGERIA SPEAKS OUT

Friends, members and well-wishers of Who is Who Nigeria South Africa.

The Publisher and Staff of WWNigeria thank you for your continuous support and encouragement.  

Who is who Nigeria was founded by the Publisher four years ago for the sole purpose of bringing to light Nigerians unsung, that are making great contributions to the continents development and the world at large.

We are not all oblivious of the negative publicity and the negative treatment Nigerians have always received worldwide.  Let’s take South Africa for instance, would it be right to say that all South Africans are baby and child rapists because of the less than 0.5% of its people are offenders?

Nigerians have for years been tainted by negative, ill-informed, prejudiced, one sided reporting by most or if not all world media, as we know what sells is bad news and sex. 

Nigerians have and are still contributing positively worldwide in all fields; Sports, Medicine, Technology, Education, Fashion Entertainment, Business and Investments, Nigerians have been breaking barriers for Africans,these have not been highlighted enough.

Who is who Nigeria South Africa aims to bridge this communication divide, therefore we urge all our members, well-wishers, readers, patrons and supporters to like, comment, introduce and make comments on our blog and  facebook page and feel  free to share info and pictures of what you do on our group page on facebook and don't forget to follow us also on twitter.

WWNIGERIA HANDLES;

Twitter:  @whoiswhonigeria

Blog:  wwnigeria.blogspot.com

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Thanking you for your support and patronage.

 Publisher and the WWNigeria Team

 ANTHON NNAIFE
       PUBLISHER







                                                                                                
                                                                                                                                           

FELICITY YOUNG ODEMUYIWA
Business Development / Chief profile Analyst

HENRY KENTEBE
    RESEARCH

The 56 year old Nigerian who bought London Gatwick Airport for £1.4 billion from the British Airports Authority (BAA Airports Limited)

Nigerian, Adebayo Ogunlesi,  has acquired the London Gatwick Airport as the new owner. The Gatwick deal is a £1.455 billion agreement with BAA Airports Limited. Adebayo Ogunlesi, 56, is the chairman and managing partner, Global Infrastructure Partners (GIP), an independent investment fund based in New York City with worldwide stake in infrastructure assets,is  the new owner of the London Gatwick Airport.  Ogunlesi attended the prestigious King’s College, Lagos. He is a member of the District of Columbia Bar Association. He was a lecturer at Harvard Law School and the Yale School. Ogunlesi, whose father was the first Nigerian-born medical professor, studied philosophy, politics and economics at Oxford and then earned law and business degrees from Harvard.  Ogunlesi has lived in New York for 20 years and is active in volunteer work. But he also cultivates his ties to Africa. He informally advises the Nigerian government on privatisation. The late Manute Bol, former NBA center, visited Ogunlesi in his Park Avenue office, seeking donations for a charitable foundation in former basketball star Manute Bol’s homeland, Sudan.

Ogunlesi walked Bol around the hallways, introducing him to junior staff. It was just another day in the Bayosphere.

Prior to his current role, he was executive vice chairman and chief client officer of Credit Suisse, based in New York. He previously served as a member of Credit Suisse’s Executive Board and Management Council and chaired the Chairman’s Board. Previously, he was the Global Head of Investment Banking at Credit Suisse. Since joining Credit Suisse in 1983, Ogunlesi has advised clients on strategic transactions and financings in a broad range of industries and has worked on transactions in North and South America, the Caribbean, Europe, the Middle East, Africa and Asia.

In the US, he is known as the Nigerian who clerked for late Supreme Court justice, Thurgood Marshall, who they say was unable to pronounce his name and quickly dubbed him Obeedoogee. Colleagues and friends call him Bayo.

 Sade Adu

She is the first Nigerian grammy award winner, a Mulatto born to a Nigerian father and English mother on 16th of January 1959 is a famous Singer, composer, record producer and songwriter. Her full names are Helen Folasade Adu.

WALE

Olubowale Victor Akintimehin born on September 21, 1984, known by his stage name Wale is a Nigerian American rapper from Washington D.C. His parents are of the Yoruba ethnic group of southwestern Nigeria and came to the United States from Austria in 1979. Wale's family first lived in Northwest, Washington DC before moving to Montgomery County when Wale was 10. He rose to prominence in 2006, when his song "Dig Dug (Shake It)" became popular in his hometown. Wale became locally recognized and continued recording music for the regional audience. Producer Mark Ronson discovered Wale in 2006 and signed him to Allido Records in 2007. While signed to that label, Wale released several mixtapes and appeared in national media including MTV and various urban magazines.

COURTESY NIGERIANS IN PARIS

Hakeem Seriki, born November 28, 1979 known by his stage name Chamillionaire, is a Nigerian American rapper and entrepreneur from Houston, Texas.

CHAMILLIONAIRE

 Hakeem Seriki, born November 28, 1979 known by his stage name Chamillionaire, is a Nigerian American rapper and entrepreneur from Houston, Texas. He is the CEO of  Chamilitary Entertainment. He was also the founder and an original member of ‘The Color Changin Click’ until the group split in 2005. According to Celebrity Net Worth, Chamillionaire has an estimated net worth of $15,000,000.

Seriki's stage name Chamillionaire is a portmanteau of "Chamelon" and "millionaire".

  

COURTESY NIGERIANS IN PARIS

TINIE TEMPAH In February 2011, he won a Brit Award for Best British Breakthrough Act. He was born in London, England and his origin is Ibusa, Delta State Nigeria

TINIE TEMPAH

Patrick Chukwuemeka Okogwu, born 7 November 1988, known by his stage name Tinie Tempah, is a Nigerian English rapper. He released his first mixtape in 2005; his first album, Disc-Overy, debuted at number one in the UK in October 2010 and was preceded by two British number-one singles. In February 2011, he won a Brit Award for Best British Breakthrough Act. He was born in London, England and his origin is Ibusa, Delta State Nigeria. Regarding his London upbringing, Tempah states, “London is one of the only places in the world where you can live in a council block and see a beautiful semi-detached house across the street. Growing up around that was inspirational, it kept me motivated".

COURTESY  NIGERIANS IN PARIS

Chuka Umunna is a Member of the British Parliament representing the Labour Party and the Shadow Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills. He is the first person of Nigerian descent to be a member of a Shadow Cabinet.

He was born on October 17, 1978 to an Igbo father and British mother in Streatham, London (the constituency he represents in Parliament). His father is from from Awka, the capital of Anambra State. Umunna earned an LLB in English and French Law after studying at the Universities of Manchester and Burgundy, and later gained a master's degree from Nottingham Law School. He was elected MP in 2010 and joined the Shadow Cabinet in May 2011 as Shadow Minister for Small Business and Enterprise before becoming the Shadow Business Secretary in October of the same year. During his tenure he has focused on policy topics such as university tuition fees and banking sector reforms.

Before entering politics, Umunna worked as an employment lawyer representing both individuals and companies while also publicly writing and speaking on various social and economic issues. He has also taken on a number of charitable roles with a focus on young people, including trusteeships of the Anthony Bourne Foundation and the 409 Project. He served as a school governor of Sunnyhill Primary School and Children’s Centre in Streatham. He is a member of Compass, the Fabian Society, GMB and Unite. Umunna is a patron of Latimer Creative Media, a social enterprise which trains young people in digital media and a supporter of Cassandra Learning Centre, a charity raising awareness and working to stop domestic violence. He is currently a board member of the Generation Next Foundation, which sponsors activities for London-based youth.

                      Watch Umunna's speech at the 2012 Labour Party Conference

                          



Courtessy ZODML

Abani is the recipient of many awards, honours and fellowships, including the PEN USA Freedom-to-Write Award, a Prince Claus Award, a Lannan Literary Fellowship, a California Book Award, a Hurston-Wright Legacy Award, a PEN Open Book Award (formerly the Beyond Margins Award) and a Guggenheim Award.

Christopher Abani (better known as Chris Abani) is a Nigerian author. He is the first writer of Nigerian descent to win the PEN/Hemingway Award (the other being Teju Cole). He was born in Afikpo, Ebonyi Stateon December 27, 1966 to an Igbo father and English mother. His father and mother met at the University of Oxford, where she was a secretary and he was a student. In 1968, Chris, his mother and four siblings left Nigeria during the civil war. They lived in England for three years before returning home.

Heralded by the Washington Post as the twenty-first-century daughter of Chinua Achebe, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie is the author of three novels: Purple Hibiscus (2003), Half of a Yellow Sun (2006), and Americanah (2013); as well as The Thing Around Your Neck, a short story collection (2009). Her work has appeared in many publications, including the New Yorker, the Iowa Review, and Zoetrope

Adichie was born on September 15, 1977 in Enugu State, Nigeria. She is the fifth of six children born to Grace Ifeoma and James Nwoye Adichie. Although her family's ancestral hometown is Abba in Anambra State, Adichie grew up in Nsukka, in a house formerly occupied by fellow Nigerian writer Chinua Achebe. Adichie's father, who is now retired, worked for the University of Nigeria, Nsukka (UNN), was Nigeria's first professor of statistics and eventually became Deputy Vice-Chancellor of the University. Her mother was the first female registrar at UNN.

Florence Onyebuchi Emecheta is a renowned Nigerian novelist

In 1979, The Slave Girl won the New Statesman Jock Campbell Award for Commonwealth Writers. In 1983, she was included on Granta's inaugural list of the Best of the Young British Novelists, alongside writers such as Salman Rushdie,Kazuo Ishiguro and Ian McEwan. Since 1979 she has been a member of the Home Secretary's Advisory Council on Race, and she was a member of the Arts Council from 1982 to 1983. In 1992, Emecheta was awarded an honorary doctorate of literature from Farleigh Dickinson University in Madison, New Jersey. She was awarded an Order of the British Empire in 2005.

Bola Agbaje playwright and scriptwriter.

Bola Agbaje is a playwright and scriptwriter. Her first play, Gone Too Far! premiered at the Royal Court Theatre in London in February 2007 (where she had trained under theatre director and playwright and won the 2008 Laurence Olivier Award for Outstanding Achievement in an Affiliated Theatre.

Early Life and Education

Born in 1981, Agbaje grew up on a housing estate in South London. She spent two years of her early childhood in Nigeria but left at the age of six. After earning a degree in Media Communications, she initially dreamt of becoming an actress but eventually discovered a love of playwriting. She works part-time as a housing manager for the 600 tenants of Beckton Estate in London.

Works

Much of Agbaje’s work is inspired by the unique dynamics and problems of modern British society. Her engaging use of plot reveals the warm humanity of her rich and fascinating characters while exploring themes such as London life, youth culture, identity and stereotyping. In an interview, she stated that a production of the play The Gods Are Not to Blame by Nigerian dramatist Ola Rotimi inspired her to similarly celebrate her culture through theatre.

As a result of the initial success of Gone Too Far!, the play was performed at a number of theatres, including the Albany And the Hackney Empire.

In July 2008, her second play In Time opened the Tiata Delights’ season at the Almeida Theatre, which led to a nomination for the 2008 Evening Standard Charles Wintour Award for Most Promising Playwright.

In 2009, Agbaje was commissioned by the Tricycle Theatre to be part of its “Not Black and White” season with the play Detaining Justice. It opened on November 25, 2009 to a sold-out audience.

Off the Endz, Agbaje’s second play for the Royal Court Theatre, opened on February 19, 2010 and was directed by Jeremy Herrin. Her other works include House of Correction, Belong, and Playing the Game, which was part of the Women, and Power and Politics season at the Tricycle Theatre. Her most recent play, The Burial will be showing at the Albany Theatre in May 2013.

Agbaje recently received development funding from the UK Film Council and is working with the UK production company Poisson Rouge Pictures to adapt Gone Too Far for film.


             

Biyi Bandele-Thomas (generally known as Biyi Bandele) is an award-winning Nigerian novelist, poet and playwright known for his depictions of African and African immigrant experiences.

                                                                              Career as a Play write Early Life
Biyi Bandele was born in Kafanchan, Kaduna State on October 13, 1967. His father, Solomon Bamidele Thomas, was a native of Abeokuta, Ogun State and a veteran of the Burma Campaign during World War II (at which time Nigeria was still part of the British Empire). His mother was a keen storyteller and Bandele became an enthusiastic reader from an early age and a regular user of the library in his hometown. His father, a major influence on his literary life, introduced Bandele to the works of Wole Soyinka and Chinua Achebe, along with a range of international classics. It was while watching the television his father had bought that Bandele first encountered the world of theatre through John Osborne’s celebrated play Look Back in Anger. When he was fourteen, he left his parents’ house to earn a living doing odd jobs while still attending school. At this time, he began working on his first novel. He moved to Lagos in 1985 and two years later was admitted to the University of Ile-Ife (now Obafemi Awolowo University, Ile-Ife in Osun State) to study Drama. Shortly after his graduation in 1990, he left for London after winning first prize – a one-year stay in London – in the International Student Playscript Competition with his theatre piece Rain. He has lived in London ever since.

Bandele’s talent was recognised early when he won the International Student Playscript competition in 1989 with an unpublished play. He received the 1990 British Council Lagos Award for an unpublished collection of poems. As a playwright, he has worked with the Royal Court Theatre and Royal Shakespeare Company (RSC), as well as written radio drama and television screenplays. While working as the Arts Council Resident Dramatist with the Talawa Theatre Company at the Cochrane Theatre in London from 1993 to 1994, he launched his career in television by writing two screenplays: Not Even God is Wise Enough (directed by Danny Boyle and aired in 1993) and Bad Boy Blues, a BBC production starring Clive Owen and Burt Caesar in 1995. He went on to become Writer-in-Residence at the Royal National Theatre Studio in 1995. His 1997 adaptation of Chinua Achebe's Things Fall Apart for the British stage confirmed his place as an important voice of post-colonial theatre. His plays include Female God and Other Forbidden Fruit (1991);Marching for Fausa (1993); Resurrections in the Season of the Longest Drought (1994); Two Horsemen (1994), which was selected as Best New Play at the 1994 London New Plays Festival; and Thieves Like Us (1998). Oroonoko, an adaptation of Aphra Behn’s seventeenth-century novel of the same name, was performed by the RSC in 1999 and featured all-black cast. The play was later awarded an EMMA (Ethnic and Multicultural Media Award) in 2000. In 2001, he premieredBrixton Stories, the stage adaptation of his novel The Street (1999), as one of a series of plays commissioned for the RSC’s Other Eden project. Happy Birthday, Mr Deka, a play written by Bandele and specially commissioned by the Told by an Idiot theatre company, premiered in Liverpool in 1999. Between 2000 and 2001, he was the Judith E. Wilson Fellow at Churchill College, University of Cambridge. He was also the Royal Literary Fund Resident Playwright at the Bush Theatre from 2002 to 2003.

Career as a Novelist
Bandele’s first published novel, The Man Who Came in from the Back of Beyond, which he had begun writing as a schoolboy, was published in 1991. His second, The Sympathetic Undertaker and Other Dreams – a satirical narrative featuring a fictional character loosely based on the former Nigerian President Ibrahim Babangida – was released the same year and was later reissued as part of Heinemann’s African Writers Series in 1993. Bandele’s third novel, The Street (1999), set in the South London neighbourhood of Brixton, depicts the history of African immigrant culture in the area and the colourful characters who live and work there. In 2007, Bandele published another novel titled Burma Boy – a tale about African soldiers in the Second World War. The novel, perhaps his most personal work so far, deals with the struggles of Africans like his father who took part in the Burma conflict during World War II. "This novel really is the novel that I have always wanted to write from day one," Bandele said in an interview with Koye Oyedeji of BBC Africa. The novel was described by the Independent newspaper as "a fine achievement" and was praised for revealing a little-known aspect of African history. Burma Boy was published in the US in 2009 as The King’s Rifle.

Awards
Bandele’s awards include the London New Play Festival Award (1994); a University of Aberdeen Wingate Scholarship Award (1995); the Peggy Ramsay Award (1998); and the BT Ethnic and Multicultural Media Award for Best Play (2000). In 2006, he was named by the Independent one of Africa's fifty most important artists. Bandele’s most recent work wasan adaptation of Chimamanda Adichie’s Half of a Yellow Sun for film; the movie is scheduled to be released in 2013. He is a member of PEN, the Society of Authors and the Writers Guild of Great Britain 

Courtesy Zaccheus onumba memorial library

Watch Bandele discuss growing up in post-independence Nigeria in a 2010 Al-Jazeera English interview

                        

APPLE PAYS OUT 1 BILLION US DOLLARS FOR NIGERIAN CHINEDU ECHERUO'S HOPSTOP.COM

Apple has acquired Chinedu Echeruo’s HopStop.com, The Wall Street Journal’s publication, AllThingsDigital reports. Founded in 2005, HopStop.com makes mobile applications for both iOS and Android that covers over 300 cities and that helps people get directions or find nearby subway stations and bus stops. Terms of the deal have not been disclosed as at the time of this publication.

HopStop has oft been compared to Israel’s Waze which was recently acquired by Google for $1 billion. The move is seen as Apple’s plan to bolster its map offering especially given Google’s recent acquisition of Waze.

A serial entrepreneur, Chinedu Echeruo grew up in Eastern Nigeria and attended Kings College, Lagos. He attended Syracuse University and the Harvard Business School in the United States and founded HopStop.com after working for several years in the Mergers & Acquisitions and Leveraged Finance groups of J.P Morgan Chase where he was involved in a broad range of M&A, Financing and Private Equity transactions. He also worked at AM Investment Partners, a $500 million volatility-driven convertible bond arbitrage hedge fund.

He founded and raised nearly $8 million for his two U.S based internet companies; Hopstop.com and Tripology.com. Tripology.com was acquired in 2010 by American travel and navigation information company, Rand McNally. He was named Black Enterprise Magazine’s Small Business Innovator of the year and listed in the magazine’s Top 40 under 40 and is currently a partner and head of the Principal Investing group at Constant Capital, a West Africa based investment bank.

True to form, Echeruo is working on yet another venture but this time, focused on small businesses in Africa. Check out a video of Chinedu Echeruo below at 2012’s TedxIkoyi where he talks about his latest project for small businesses in Africa; “crowd sourced business in a box.”

According to him:
“There is no reason why every entrepreneur should have to reinvent the wheel every single time in all the countries in Africa. My idea is to essentially to have one place where a budding entrepreneur can access a template for starting a business, and then customize it to suit their own situation. Essentially a business-in-a-box

Nwanne Campo The African Diaspora Woman of The Year Award Winner

A Nigerian, born at Onitsha, schooled at Enugu and Awka. Unizik Sociology graduate. Though Nigerian, married to a Spaniard. Commentator and interpreter for FIFA Nigeria 99, under 18 world cup. And she , is an entertainer, actress, model, event planner, fashion consultant, tourist guild. Company’s representative a mother of two, a lover of life and happiness, and a God fearing Christian.

was awarded African Diaspora Woman of the year 2013 in Holland by Voice of Achievers. This came after few months she was awarded NEU award as the best event planner of the year in Spain on March 29, 2013.

The name Nwanne Campo may not ring bell to many Nigerians back home, as a result of migration which not only has robbed Nigeria of brain drain, but at the same time beauty drain. The presence of this dazzling, elegant, ebony black beauty radiates light to her environment. She is like an illuminator wherever she enters with her ever smiling face and fashion. Nwanne Campo’s love and selfless service to humanity, working voluntarily under an N.G.O. that rescued distressed and stranded African immigrants entering Europe through water and desert brought her to spotlight and endeared her to the hearts of many. Especially the many African immigrants she helped to rescue and rehabilitate in Spain.

This precious and versatile lady is a rare gift. Nwanne, who came into public glare in Spain and Europe as a philanthropist, model, actress, editor and event planner about 2 years ago, has been dazzling the scene since her appearance. Her stride into event planning is a new innovation and an edge over her contemporaries. Her efficiency in planning and organizing events is second to none. Whatever big event, be it wedding, birth day, pageant, inauguration, or book launch, once she is involved, the celebrant should go and sleep. She will be most useful to Nigeria if involved in the event planning of Nigeria’s centenary anniversary this year.

The Unizik Sociology graduate recently received the prestigious award of African Diaspora Woman of the year 2013. Organized by Voice of Achievers Netherlands. Former recipients of the award in the past include former President, General Olusegun Obasanjo, Nobel laureate, Wole Soyinka, Governor of Sokoto state, Aliyu Magatakarda Wamakko. The 2013 award saw the Sierra Leone President, Ernest Bai Koroma as one of the recipients.

     By Uchendu Precious Onuoha