Complete Speech -“Overtaking Is Allowed: Why I Am Investing $500,000 in African Content Creators as the Future of Independent Media” by Chude Jideonwo.

Complete Speech -“Overtaking Is Allowed: Why I Am Investing $500,000 in African Content Creators as the Future of Independent Media” by Chude Jideonwo.
September 19, 2025 Dorcas

Do you know who the number one YouTuber in Nigeria is at the moment—and possibly the highest-earning content creator? 

Give me a guess. 

I can bet it’s no one you are thinking. 

It’s a guy you’ve probably never heard of. His name is Agbaps Shorts. 

My research guys say he is a Nigerian 3D artist and animator who started his career in Abuja. His videos on YouTube have racked up a staggering 5.2 billion views. 

5.2 billion views. 

This channel launched less than four years ago. So it’s 5.2 billion views in 4 years. 

He has 8 million subscribers, his channel ranks 611th globally in subscribers, and that channel racks up an average of 10 million views every single day. 

It is mind-blowing. 

And his success is no fluke. Because he also has 6.3 million followers and 87 million likes on TikTok, and hundreds of thousands of followers on Instagram. 

He has no public brand to speak of, he doesn’t do interviews, hasn’t been selected by YouTube Black, hasn’t given a TED talk, hasn’t done any major brand sponsorships, hasn’t done collaborations with celebrities— yet his estimated earnings have, in some years, passed $2 million dollars a year. 

And his expenses are just himself, his computer, standard animation tools and Internet connection.

If he posts nothing else this year—if he literally does no work—he is guaranteed to make nothing less than $100,000. And that is almost certainly an under-estimation. 

Of course, everyone already knows the lend of Mark Angel Comedy, who has accumulated 2.5 billion views on YouTube alone. But that’s on just one channel. Like any global super brand, Mark Angel has multiple YouTube channels: over 12 million subscribers across the two bearing his name, and millions more across social media sub-brands belonging to his protégés, Success and Emmanuellla. BuinessDay estimates he has once earned $4.2 million in annual revenues from YouTube alone. 

There are others in the billion-plus range, including SamSpedy, who last year made my annual #TheJoy150 list of the most interesting people in the culture for straddling both reach and brand. He has 1.5 billion YouTube views, 4.1 million subscribers, and annual earnings that some estimate as reaching $1.1 million on some years. He has also built a mainstream persona, Mama Ojo, that is extremely popular across several African countries. 

Agbaps, along with Mark Angel and ePianoh individually, have more video streams than Rema, CKay, and Flavour—the musicians with the most streams. 

Now, knowing my people, someone will say: “It is because it is comedy.” As if that changes anything about how revolutionary, how utterly inspired, this achievement is. 

But just to disabuse you of that notion: in the top 10, we also have Sandra Okeke. She is a fitness creator. She now has 1.5 billion views, and hundreds of thousands of dollars in average annual streaming revenue alone. 

Again, her influence is no fluke. She also has 1.2 million Instagram followers—for a creator brand she built when she was about 22. 

The estimated $2 million+ she has earned over the past few years is just from exercise videos. No studio. No touring. No grant from the Federal Government’s DICE fund. No interventions from the AfDB or Luminate. It’s all streaming revenue. From exercise videos. From one brilliant young woman. 

There is also @editorialbeauty556 with her almost 3 million followers. But let’s not talk today about Edith and her skin lightening content today. 

This million-subscriber, million-dollar earning list also includes House of Ajebo and Real Aba Boys, who recently have been joined by the filmmakers—representing the second wave of big money YouTube earners—including Uchenna Mbunabo TV, Chukwuemeka TV, and the YouTube megastar Uche Nancy, who with her family can make anyone a movie star in a month via their incredibly high-engagement communities across YouTube, Facebook, Instagram and TikTok. Quietly. Without making too much noise. That list also includes the Hausa-language channel, Saira Movies.

And many of these dollar-based winners are outside the mainstream spotlight. In fact, in the top 100, only about three creators have mainstream brands—Mark Angel, Brain Jotter, and the queen mother, Ruth Kadiri. And only one of the names is a mainstream institution: Channels TV. 

Because you see—as I have been saying to my students at the Creator Economy Incubator we’ve been running since last year, alongside Africa No Filter and the Co-Creation Hub, to train, mentor and fund young creators — in this new global creator economy that has emerged over the past decade: “Overtaking is allowed.” 

If you’ve ever driven in Lagos, you know the phrase. It’s painted on buses, whispered in traffic jams, shouted when one impatient driver cuts ahead of the rest. 

It means: you don’t have to wait your turn. You don’t have to beg permission. You don’t have to follow the slow path someone else has marked for you. You can overtake. 

It is sharp. Defiant. Hopeful. 

Because today, the new creative economy has no gatekeepers. It has only opportunity. 

This year, I am celebrating 25 years in the media, 20 years running media businesses and 5 years of my show – and I stand here today thoroughly excited and energised as if I just started because of that simple, revolutionary reality. 

Overtaking is allowed. 

You need no longer stand at the doors of traditional broadcasters, advertisers, or politicians and beg them to believe in you. The new economy—the creator economy—has demolished those gates. 

That is why we are here, at the Africa Creative Market, with an audience from more than 20 countries: To spread the good news, and to help people take advantage of it: the good news that creators are the future of independent media. 

And not just independent media— but all media. And entertainment. And technology. And business. 

 

Part 1: Proof It Works 

Let’s start with proof. 

In April, my team hosted #WithChude Live! in Lagos—Africa’s biggest talk concert without exaggeration. With ticket fees starting at ₦50,000, we filled the hall with over 5,000 guests. All of these people came to watch one creator—me. And all I did was host interviews on stage. No superstar performances, no special effects, just me doing what I do every week on my show.

And my audience—built over the past 5 years on Instagram, Facebook, TikTok, and YouTube—turned out for me. 5,000 people—for a single interviewer’s event. Without any major sponsor. 

Nothing like this has evee happened in any country in Sub-Saharan Africa before. And it only happened because of this new creator economy. 

This new economy where you can give a middle finger to advertisers if they lowball you, like I did in 2022, and trust your audience to pay for your content—$8 monthly, like my audience does. (And by the way, I invite you to join them. Don’t just praise me for the content—identify with our work by subscribing right now on your phone at watch.withchude.com.) 

Yes, my talk show is the most syndicated in the region—it has been on Channels TV, AIT, Africa Magic, Arise TV, TVC and others. But that’s not where my audience was built. In fact, many of those stations only licensed our content AFTER we had blown up on YouTube, where we are one of the top channels in the country, becoming a weekly—even daily—viral sensation. 

All I have is a URL—withchude.com—and a no-tech backend that relies on the vast globalized platforms across the world today: YouTube, Apple, Vimeo, Patreon, Substack, and my darling Nigerian creator-enabler, Selar.com. 

With that event #WithChudeLive, I proved the thesis I have been screaming about since I used Falz as my first case-study on the billion-dollar potential of the new creator economy – to my undergraduate students at the Pan-Atlantic University as far back as 2015. 

I was tired then, as I continue to be now, of brilliant, thoughtful young people waiting for brands, advertisers, sponsors and partnerships to fund or support their content—when there is already so much value across the internet being leveraged by people who don’t have time for big English and deep theory. And I’m not talking about “crypto money”. 

When I see younger people building new media platforms by recruiting reporters and editors, in an era of Gemini and CapCut and VidIQ and Newsship and GPT, rather than cementing the foundation of their individual voices, I want to shake them hard and and say: stop it; stop eeet. 

Stop copying your fathers. That era has passed. It’s now about you. Your voice, your clarity, your gift. Are you not seeing Tunde Ednut? Do you not know that that is a powerful media brand right there? 

Indeed, over the past 5 years of #WithChude, I have used my brand, my gift, and my life’s work to prove this thesis: that when creators own their content, their community, and their IP, they don’t beg—they build. 

My event proved what I call my 3-Point Model: Content. Events. Merchandise. • Content brings the audience.

  • Events deepen the community. 
  • Merchandise turns loyalty into sustainability. 

This is not theory. It is happening in real time. 

Think of the ‘I Said What I Said’ 2-woman podcast, and the approximate $200,000 they made over about a month hosting an engaged diaspora audience in Canada, the UK and the US. Their tickets sell out in a matter of DAYS. 

Think of the East African tigress, Lynn Ngugi in Kenya, with her badass interview show that shakes the Kenyan government and global institutions. 

Think of Podcast and Chill with Mac G in South Africa— who were wooed by Multichoice, and then left Multichoice because they are better and stronger independent. 

When the people at Africa Magic disrespectfully asked me, in violation of a signed contract to give them my show exclusively in 2022 because, according to them, I was already being paid higher than any other talk show they had licensed, I said no and agreed to pull out. 

Just as the United Kingdom’s Steven Bartlett says he turned down millions from a major streamer for his own viral show because he knew, based on their current terms, he could do much better on his own. 

Any Nigerian pure content-creator who relies primarily on brand deals (save for brand ambassadorships) rather than streaming or commerce revenue, is likely making less than N100million a year, with most under N50million a year. To break above that ceiling, you must be streaming – or you must directly own your paying community. 

It is because of those streaming and subscription revenues that the creators I just listed above don’t beg brands. They didn’t wait for television stations. Because they don’t need them. Many of them today have more reach and engagement than TV stations with decades of investment. 

That is what overtaking looks like. 

This has always been in the making. At the media group RED | For Africa, which I co-founded when I was 20 and which has become the stuff of legend for shaping millennial culture, we experimented with this years ago. With The Future Awards Africa, Y! Magazine, YNaija, The September Standard, Party Jollof, #YTech100, and others. We were testing, scaling, and celebrating the idea that independent content could build movements. 

But then technology came and made it easier, faster, deeper. And so my spirit finally led me back to my roots as the independent single-creator interviewer that I was in my teens. 

I had stopped then because I couldn’t see a financial model. But I was just on the brink of a coming revolution—the one that came with my peer bloggers, BellaNaija and Linda Ikeji.

I left that calling for something big yes; to build one of Nigeria’s biggest communications groups—which continues to grow and lead its sector 10 years since I left. But the new economy made it possible for me to return to my true love—independent journalism, and interviewing—and to make big money from it. 

Now, I’m ready to take it to the next level. 

Part 2: The Creator Revolution 

Let me show you how big this is. 

The global creator economy is booming—valued at $250 billion today. By 2027, it will almost double to $500 billion. 

Here in Africa, the Africa Creative Market and CMI Data Repository project growth from $3.08 billion in 2023 to $5.10 billion this year to $17.8 billion in 2030 and $29.84 billion by 2032. That’s an annual growth rate of almost 30%—the fastest-growing creator economy in the world. 

But behind the numbers are the people. 

  • Mark Angel—from comedy skits in Port Harcourt—has made over well over $1 million annually on YouTube. 
  • Tayo Aina—Africa’s number one travel creator—with nothing but a camera and curiosity—earns more than $300,000 a year. 
  • Ruth Kadiri—our Nollywood powerhouse—has built a YouTube empire projected to over $500,000 annually. 
  • Tunde Ednut— one of our most powerful news aggregators—has built an Instagram juggernaut that makes an average of $5,000 PER DAY. 

And it’s not just entertainment. 

  • David Hundeyin. Fisayo Soyombo. Adeola Fayehun. Independent journalists with more credibility than entire institutions. 
  • VDM, Jude Bela—using community platforms to demand accountability. 
  • Opeyemi Famakin—one person, one camera, the biggest food critic platform in Nigeria. 
  • Sandra Okeke—building a fitness empire without gyms, just direct-to-audience trust.
  • Peller—building a potential multi-million-dollar business on Twitch, TikTok, and everywhere else he chooses to take his audience. 

Forget dancing on Instagram and digital socialites in overpriced costumes, I am talking about people who are building real financial and social empires. 

Because that’s what content disintermediation does: it shifts power from institutions to individuals. One person. One story. One voice. One platform. 

Adeola Fayehun has almost as many YouTube subscribers as Arise News. David Hundeyin, who is steadily building an army of African creators driving Africa’s agenda, can force governments to come on Twitter and defend themselves. The most influential review of Femi Otedola’s new book is a single Substack writer: Feyi Fawehinmi. 

Think about that. 

They can do this without the government patronage, funder privilege, and advertising anyhowness that has historically powered Nigerian media—because power has changed hands subtly, quietly, but definitively. 

In villages in Nigeria, and communities in Kenya, you will find a creator telling the stories legacy media never cared to—or couldn’t find the financial incentive to. 

If you want to deeply understand Nigeria’s latest mega project, the Lagos-Calabar Coastal Highway, the place to go is not TVC—it’s an army of content creators big and small with drones and motorcycles, premium storytelling and heavy-duty equipment—Mayor Sam, Edwonder, Afam Orji, Just Ozed, Tayo Amele, African Tigress, and others. 

If you want to get original contemporary footage of Africa’s most delightful tourist spots from Yola to Watamu, you won’t find them on STV or CNN; you will only find them on the YouTube channels of Steven Ndukwu, Adventure Singh, Connect Logs TV, Styl Up Africa, Fari Sanyika and Miss Trudy. 

Creators and the attractive stories they tell about Lagos’s social scene are the emotional infrastructure that sustains the global demand for Detty December and the organic inflow of forex it triggers—not government, not private equity, and no, not even Afrobeats. 

Instablog9ja, The Winlos, every single child of the old Mount Zion dynasty, Asherkine, Folagade Banks, Layi Wasabi, Nons Miraj, Sydney Talker, Diary of A Kitchen Lover, Fisayo Fosudo, Shank Comics, Comment Section, Isbae U, Taymesan, IAmDikeh, Joey Akan, Tobeszn who just returned from a spellbinding re-exploration of Northern Nigeria, Kizito who is the next big thing in African travel content …these are all visionary or superstar individual creators who are deeply investible and sustainable as brands and enterprises. 

It’s not elite media shaping real global opinion about Ibrahim Traoure and Julius Malema, like Kamala Harris and her enablers learnt in 2024 when Trump returned the second time. It is

African creators like Lynn and Tayo and Risen Africa and the father of them all, Wode Maya. Many of them report live from the scene, talking to on-the-ground sources and citizens, like we did last year in our documentary about West African democracy. Us creators are the ones making him – as Germany’s DW reported just last month – break the internet. 

This is journalism. This is entertainment. This is culture. And it is independent. 

Part 3: Why Overtaking Is Allowed 

Why is this happening? 

Because new technology made it possible. Because the middlemen are gone. Because power belongs to the individual voice. 

  • Spotify needed Joe Rogan. He got a $100 million deal. 
  • YouTube needs MrBeast. He makes $100 million+ a year from creator content. 
  • Outside content but still on the power of the individual voice, Taylor Swift proved one artist is more powerful than her label. Her personal wealth is now valued at $1.6bn. 

When Netflix pulled out or didn’t pull out of Nollywood, our creators shrugged and went to YouTube. 

When Multichoice started folding in, Paramount began to shut offices in Africa, and Stephen Colbert closed down his late-night show with its 200 staff—our creators just kept uploading. 

Institutions are shrinking. Individuals are rising. 

And the best part? This is not just global revenue. In Africa, it’s local currency spend, global currency revenue. 

It’s naira spend, dollar income. 

Meanwhile, this is not the same maths as the fintech unicorns, where revenues include processing other people’s monies and a large human resource infrastructure is needed to sustain the revenues. Here, there is no burn, no headcount bloat. This is direct income and low cost for the foreseeable future. This is 90% free cash flow. 

That is the cheat code. That is how a poor country with a huge population overtakes the rest of the world. That is how we leapfrog. 

Let’s take a look at some numbers:

  • 28.3m conversation 2020 est. diaspora Africans (Migration Policy Institute, citing UN Population Division) and 5m diaspora Nigerians (NotADeepDive.com) 
  • Diaspora remittances: $100B/year (World Bank) → opportunity for commerce/payments crossover; $4 trillion+ consumer spending power. (The African Union Development Agency-NEPAD) 
  • Media and entertainment sector is poised to grow from $9 billion to $13.6 billion by 2028. (PWC), creative economy, encompassing music, film, fashion, publishing, sports, and more, is estimated at $4.2 billion to $5 billion annually (Creative Africa Nexus – CANEX), Africa’s film and audiovisual sector contributes $5 billion too GDP, with a potential to generate up to $20 billion in annual revenues across broader creative industries (UNESCO), $5B+ privately estimated opportunity in diaspora cultural payments 
  • 1.4B Africans at home minimum: digital economy/internet users growing at approx 13% YoY (AFPIF); Domestic Digital Users growing from 540M internet users to 800M+ by 2030. (Brookings, 2023) 
  • Rising mobile payments and subscriptions. 
  • Huge under-served opportunity in culture-driven commerce. 

I invite you to pay key attention to the Diaspora numbers. Because for creators, that’s where the real action is. 

70% of Nigerian YouTube consumers are out of Nigeria according to YouTube itself —making the revenue possibilities endless. 

YouTube also revealed that the number of Nigerian channels making eight figures – that is, between N10 million and N100 million, or between $7,000 and $66,000 in revenue – grew by 100% year-on-year (y-o-y) in 2024. 

Selar paid out N9.8 billion to mostly African creators last year, with revenue from audiences in 194 countries. 

And we are actually just getting starting. 

Because the biggest gift to the Nigerian creator economy is ‘japa’ – immigration and globalization. It’s the tens of thousands of people leaving Nigeria to go spend hard currency in trusted stable or growing economies, converting their neighbours and communities in the process, while intuitively pushing platforms to be more inclusive. 

Because money always talks. 

Capitalism and technology—especially the monopolies that accelerated innovation—have been key to this change. Which reminds me: when indulgent kids in the California or Berlin complain

about any of the above, Africans may want pause before we join them. The context for us is different. The leverage they give us is indispensable. 

If my show, for instance, grows to reach just 10% of the current estimated US/UK migrant population —which is almost always 100% digitally connected—at $8 a pop just for the content — it translates to 250,000 monthly subscribers and $19million+ annual revenue. That is minus the events and merchandise. 

And all I need is two chairs, two cameras, and one guest weekly to draw in that revenue. 

Afrobeats did it through streaming and indirect community. The creator revolution is doing it through streaming, subscriptions, and direct community. 

Overtaking is allowed. 

 

Part 4: My Thesis and the Next Level 

But here’s the problem. 

For too long, the support for creators has been grants, mentorship, training, networking. Important, yes. But not enough. 

Grants are good. I have helped disbursed them to creatives, working in conjunction with organisations from the Ford Foundation to the Gates Foundation. I also benefit from them, and they have helped so many who do important work. But I don’t rely on them, and they are not the magic bullet. 

Grants don’t build empires. Mentorship doesn’t scale industries. 

Capital does. Capital that chases an exciting, buoyant market—which is what we have. 

YOU, as a creator, need to see this as a business for which you can build something deeply real. 

YOU, need to stop waiting for Netflix and Spotify, Prime and HBO, TIFF and Cannes, brand managers and marketing directors. 

YOU, have access to the same courage, the same power and the same magic that Maurice Sam and Kwadwo Sheldon have. 

You have to realise—with a growing global audience, a rising African population that is flowing steadily towards the diaspora, galloping demand for local content from Africa, an explosion of creator platforms locally and internationally, excellent unit economics primed for scale and an abundance of fintech tools that enable cross-border remittances—that you have everything you

need to become a dollar millionaire in a number of years as a creator – without sending one proposal. 

Your moment is here. 

The creator moment is here. And it will continue to be here over the next few years as Nigeria continues to be a sexy global brand. 

Our moment as creators is here. 

Actually, the moment has always been here. But at this point in history, I have decided to take a trumpet, mount a pulpit and announce it so loud, so long, and so deep that you hear it in the core of your soul: Power has changed hands, and overtaking is now allowed. 

As with Afrobeats, we have to understand this deeply as a movement—and leverage it powerfully as a market. 

And that is why I am sharing with you, exclusively today, that in January I will be launching the Fourth Mainland Creator Fund—or the 4ML Creator Fund. [FourthMainland.com

In January 2026, through one of the companies in my portfolio of media holdings, Joy, Inc., I will begin to invest $500,000 of my own money—almost ₦1 billion—into African creators. 

Not companies. Not NGOs. Not incubators. Creators. 

We will be the first investor in bold, superstar individual creators that deeply understand the audience and are on a clear path to becoming unicorns. 

This $500,000 personal investment will be managed by Joy, Inc. under its newly appointed chief executive officer, Jennifer Mairo—who moved in from Dallas to Nigeria to make this vision happen. That company is also next year launching a “record label” of creators—not a podcast network or an incubator, but a company that takes the traditional record label model and builds a stable of creator stars, alongside the standalone creators it will be investing in. 

Achebe and Heinemann once built a canon of African literature that shaped the world through the African Writers Series. We are doing the same for digital creators – it will be an Avengers-style collective. 

We have mapped the talent—East Africa, West Africa, Southern Africa. We know where the next Mark Angel, Linda Ikeji and MrBeast will come from. And now we are going in to do the due diligence and the capital injection. 

Why? Because creators need capital, not handouts. They don’t need permission; they need belief. They need infrastructure. They need someone or some people betting on them in a systematic, institutional manner.

We need to harness the organic brilliance and make it into a sustainable financial ecosystem. We need to build this movement deliberately. No more scattershot individual success stories; it’s time to energize a creative community that has the potential to truly change our continent and the world. 

If the tech ecosystem had the CcHub and Future Africa; music has Mavin Records and Chocolate City—today, creators have 4ML. 

It’s time to move beyond analysing and predicting and mentoring and supporting to investing. I am putting my money where my mouth is. 

This is not about help-me-abeg. This is about secure-the-bag. 

This is not about waiting for brands. This is about owning your masters, your IP, your relationship with your audience. 

This is about owning your power. 

Part 5: Why This Matters 

Some of you may be asking—why does this matter? Why should investors, policymakers, or institutions care? Why should you care? 

Because this is the last cheap asset class in Africa. 

We have models here, and not just in tech. In 2024, UMG acquired a majority stake in Mavin, with analysts valuing it at between $150–200 million. In my 30s, I saw the same when my company was valued for millions of dollars by a major institutional investor—and I ultimately said no, because I saw a future, now validated by the new CEO at RED, where I would own the upside of those multiples. 

But the good news is, whatever model you choose to follow, RED or Mavin, individual creators can easily match these valuations—and even more—if they can create the systems that make it possible. 

MrBeast is reportedly now valued at $1bn—and the majority of his valuation is based on his content on YouTube. With our home-video audience taste, our low-cost naira expense and the same platform enablers, we have the real possibility of building a billion-dollar creator or a billion-dollar creator company within the next 10 years. I want to help ensure that. 

Because without the UMGs, our creators are already building digital empires—on their phones, in their rooms, to their audiences. 

They are not spending time and energy “telling African stories to the world,” struggling for the endorsement and validation of foreign tastemakers and gatekeepers. They are doing what I

have always asked storytellers to do: They are telling African stories to Africans – in Africa and the Diaspora – and they are seeing the world come along for the ride. 

Africa must not miss this train. 

And we don’t have to. Because creators are already here. They are already doing it. They just need acceleration. 

And why else does this matter, beyond the money? 

Because independent media is the bedrock of a healthy society. 

When gatekeepers control the narrative, they control the people. They can hide corruption, silence dissent, and perpetuate inequality. 

But when power shifts to individual voices, to creators who are accountable only to their audience, the truth has a better chance. 

David Hundeyin and Fisayo Soyombo are not just journalists; they are a check on power. Adeola Fayehun is not just a commentator; she is a voice for the voiceless. Opeyemi Famakin is not just a food blogger; he is holding the line for consumers, one meal at a time. 

These creators are building trust at a time when trust in institutions is at an all-time low. They are creating jobs. They are driving innovation. They are shaping culture. 

They are showing the world a new Africa, an Africa that is not waiting for permission, an Africa that is overtaking. 

So that this is more than an economic revolution; it is a social and political one. 

Thank you to the technology companies – we need them to help build the platforms for the stories to spread faster and dig deeper and to make it easier for the monies and incentives to flow more efficiently. And thank God for Artificial and Generative Intelligence, which makes it easier for creators to focus on soul while algorithms do the grunt work. But the stories the tech platforms enable are the more important thing. 

Because fin-tech and transport-tech companies will not change any country. It’s stories that change civilizations – stories about power, identity, ownership, enlightenment, freedom, change. 

But I talk about the money potential first because in a market-driven global economy, money – real money with proof of outcome – makes people pay attention. 

And thankfully, there is a lot of money here. 

That is why I’m here. To underline this good news. And then to lead the charge by putting my money where my mouth is for this ecosystem.

Others can join me to increase or operationalise this fund. I welcome them if they do; it doesn’t matter if they don’t. Like I did with my show as we pioneered the explosion in interview podcasts, and with my event—with which we are about to pioneer another wave—I’ll go ahead and do it, and then others can come on the ride. 

This train is moving—with or without you. 

If you believe in the future of independent African content—invest. Collaborate. Co-Create. 

Overtaking is allowed. 

In Lagos, it’s a warning to other drivers. In Africa’s creator economy, it’s an invitation. 

So, to creators in this room: Keep creating. Keep building your audience. Keep charging forward with clarity and courage. 

To the investors and funders: The data is clear. The opportunity is massive. African creators are the fastest-growing creative economy in the world. Bet on them. 

To the brands and advertisers: Stop waiting for the old gates to reopen. Stop thinking you’re the one with the power. Get with the programme. The audience is with the creators. Partner with them properly. Collaborate with them and listen to them. Not those that make the loudest noise at Lagos parties. But those building real connections and real communities. 

One Fela shifted culture. 

One MrBeast changed global media. 

One Chude redefined Nigeria’s interview economy. 

Now, we are building the next generation of global voices. 

We are betting on Africa’s future. 

We are betting on freedom. We are betting on wealth. We are betting on power. It is a new kind of power. It is an endless well of possibilities. 

Ladies and gentlemen, overtaking is not only allowed – it is now the only game you are permitted to play. 

Thank you, and God speed.