Africa

Nigeria’s top tech reviewer sketches a path to global attention

THE FACTS

A haul of nearly 600,000 subscribers places Fisayo Fosudo among the top bracket of YouTubers in Nigeria, and makes the 28-year-old arguably the most popular West African tech reviewer generating up to 5 million views a month across platforms including TikTok, Instagram, and Twitter. His coverage ranges from smartphones and TVs, to money lending apps, broadband subscription plans, and portable back-up battery packs.

Fosudo runs his channel as a full-time operation with a small team. His business model is based on independent reviews running alongside promotional content paid for by brands. As an early mover in 2016 he’s seeking to maintain his advantage in Africa’s fast-growing creator economy as new entrants gun for a share of digital ad dollars.

💡When did you know there was real demand for tech reviews in the Nigerian market?

I quickly realized this early on. Making reviews of devices was a passion project I felt I had to start, and it took investing my life’s savings, having almost zero earnings for around six months, and pitching to companies about what I did. I started making the kind of videos I wanted to watch and that brands could easily partner with. For one of my early reviews I was loaned a smartphone from Tecno, and that video quickly reached over 20,000 viewers at the time.

💡What does the perspective of a tech reviewer in Nigeria add to the global conversation around tech’s impact on society?

Many global brands like Apple and Google don’t launch their smartphones in Nigeria at all, so we don’t get any early review units. We buy them at full price, out of pocket and sometimes at exorbitant amounts, to create informative content that the Nigerian audience can relate to. But companies like Transsion (who make Tecno, Infinix and iTel), Xiaomi, and Samsung prioritize this market with high-end and affordable smartphones. We can get review units from these brands quite early and shape opinions early on.

💡 Do you have a magic sauce that guarantees virality for your videos and what’s success for you?

I don’t always have viral videos, but whenever we unbox new gadgets in the silent, ASMR-style, we almost always strike out at the local audience and get viral pretty quickly. Our last video on Meta’s AI Smart Glasses had over 27 million views on Instagram just a few days ago, and they cross the 1-million mark frequently. In terms of success, though, connecting with the audience matters more to me. If the video can make them feel something, learn something or feel a change, it’s a success.

💡 Have you considered moving to TikTok full time?

YouTube remains the best platform to consume high-quality, long-form content. But we leverage other platforms — TikTok, Instagram, Twitter — to share short-form, bite-sized videos that appeal to audiences that love those platforms. YouTube helps us connect more with the audience, and there’s more context to a long-form 10-minute video than something that is rushed in under 1 minute or 90 seconds.

💡 Where would you take business partners visiting Lagos to enjoy authentic Nigerian food?

I’d say Circa in Lekki mainly because of the ambiance but their jollof rice and plantain is really great.

💡 What Nigerian song is burning up your phone right now?

Bloody Samaritan by Ayra Starr

The inaugural Global Black Women’s Non-fiction Manuscript Prize will be launched by Cassava Republic Press this week. The new prize has been set up to give a voice to women from across Africa and its diaspora whose body of work bridges a gap between creativity and theory.

Cassava, which was founded in Nigeria, announced the panel of judges for the prize — open for submissions until Mar. 31 — which will be chaired by the 2019 Booker Prize winner Bernardine Evaristo (pictured). Joining her in selecting the manuscripts and picking the winner will be Ugandan scholar Sylvia Tamale, African-American author/film-maker Natalie Baszile, Caribbean-American literary scholar Carole Boyce Davies, and Zimbabwean-South African novelist Panashe Chigumadzi.

The winner will be awarded a publishing contract with Cassava Republic and a $20,000 advance. Two runners-up will each receive a $5000 advance and a publishing deal. It is sponsored by Alitheia Capital, the largest Black woman-owned impact investing private equity firm in Africa, and Open Society Africa.

Cassava Republic’s co-founder Bibi Bakare-Yusuf told Semafor Africa the prize recognizes Black women as “powerful knowledge-makers and critical thinkers” beyond just fiction.

— Muchira Gachenge

🇳🇬 In an essay for The Republic, Ayoola Oladipupo — with photography by Toyin Adedokun — pays ode to amala, the yam flour meal typically eaten with a vegetable soup called ewedu and gbegiri, made from beans. The essay explores the noteworthy role of amala in the culture and turbulent politics of Ibadan, the southwestern Nigeria city. Oladipupo, who has lived in Ibadan most of his life, claims with unwavering certainty that there are more amala eateries than schools in West Africa’s fourth largest city: “Much like a doctor might prescribe medicines, Ibadan people can eat amala for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. The delicacy is widely prepared across and beyond Nigeria today, but Ibadan remains its Mecca.”

🇸🇩 The ongoing crisis in the Horn of Africa can be linked to a violent transnational extractive economy that links the Horn and the Gulf States, argues an essay from The Review of African Political Economy. The authors note that Sudan and Somalia, two countries that have suffered sustained violence in recent years, were together supplying 90% of the animal protein consumed in the chronically food-insecure Gulf States before Covid, earning an estimated $1.4 billion a year. But this increased demand for meat in the Gulf has led to the rise of militarized ranching in the region, and a shift from subsistence to commercial modes of production, intensifying conflicts over water and land among farmers and herders.

🌍 More African countries, including Kenya, Rwanda, The Gambia, and Seychelles are implementing visa-free access for all Africans, with the aim of creating a borderless continent. The move is in line with the African Union’s policies that support freer intracontinental trade, investment and movement of people to promote the continent’s economic, social and political development. While progress has been made on the aspects of the African Continental Free Trade Agreement that deals with trade and investment, Alan Hirsch writes in The Conversation that there hasn’t been much progress on the free movement of people. And yet the success of the trade agreement requires freer movement of people.

🇬🇭 The history of the transatlantic slave trade and domestic slave trade in West Africa has largely been subjugated, with many sources indicating only Europeans participated in it, writes Yoku Shaw-Taylor in African Arguments. He points out that the redacted historical narratives being taught in Ghana’s schools today fail to tackle the central questions of cultural acceptance of slavery and the collective memory that represses it. “The memory of slavery cannot be exorcized and the transmission of the false history of slavery is how the past continues to haunt West Africa. The telling of the whole and complete truth about African complicity and African cultural brokenness” is key to the process of healing from the tragic past, Shaw-Taylor writes.

🗓️ The 3rd International Conference on Public Health in Africa (CPHIA 2023) organized by African Union and Africa Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) will be held in Lusaka, Zambia. (Nov. 27-30)

🗓️ South Africa tech and media behemoth Naspers will report its half-year results. It is expected to see a jump in its topline earnings with improved profitability at its ecommerce businesses and investments, in particular China’s Tencent. (Nov. 28)

🗓️ Zimbabwe Finance Minister Mthuli Ncube will present the 2024 national budget. It comes amid concerns over the country’s weak global economic growth, El Nino and depressed metal prices. (Nov. 30)

🗓️ Angel Fair Africa at 10 will take place in Cape Town bringing together entrepreneurs to pitch investors with a focus on dealmaking and to celebrate a decade of innovation. (Nov. 29-Dec. 1)

🗓️ The Africa Early Stage Investor Summit will gather investors in Cape Town to discuss increasing investment capital available for early stage startups. (Nov. 30-Dec. 1)

🗓️ The United Arab Emirates (UAE) will host COP28 in Dubai. More than 70,000 delegates are expected to attend from business, science, governments, and academia to address the climate crisis, and achieving net-zero emissions by 2050. (Nov. 30- Dec. 12)

• For people who worry about AI destroying the world, “the last few days have been confusing and alarming,” Tom Chivers wrote.
• Renewable energy companies are lobbying U.S. financial regulators over proposed rules they fear would hammer their businesses and slow the rollout of green power.
• Eight weeks out from the first presidential primary contest, Donald Trump is doing only what he has to, while three far-behind rivals are trying everything.

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— Yinka, Alexis Akwagyiram, Alexander Onukwue, Martin Siele, and Muchira Gachenge