He is a television personality and business entrepreneur. He runs Virtual Media Network. He is also Nigezie’s CEO, Femi Aderibigbe, popularly known as Kwame. In another interview with him in his office, he spoke on his family, career and business.
How do you manage Nigezie as an empire and as a family man?
I don’t know if I have an empire, but I just deal with challenges as they come everyday. Everyday, there is a different drama and issue; sometimes lots of it. But then you just attend to the most important one first and then you scale it down like that until you are finished with them. Even before you finish with them, new ones come up. So, you just do the best you can. You can’t try more than you can or you just kill yourself. It is better you try and attend to the most important ones and then go to the lesser ones as time goes on.
What do you think makes a good entrepreneur?
A good entrepreneur or rather a great entrepreneur has to be one of the closest things to a mad man. The guy has to be someone who people think is crazy, because he has guts. He is going against what everybody believes is the way. He is going against popular opinion, trying to make an in-road in a place where nobody has gone before or nobody is trying to do anything there. So, everybody will look at you as a “mad man” and start to reason, “what is wrong with this guy? How can he attempt something like this?” So, that is the effect a good or great entrepreneur will have on individuals surrounding him, especially during his debut. Unlike others, he sees business in situations where everybody else doesn’t see it. So, he must be someone who can spot trends before they become trends and then move quickly to try and get a share of it before everybody else notices.
To what do you credit your success in the entertainment industry?
I don’t want to say I am a success yet, though we have achieved visibility overtime. Yes, and we thank God for all that. However, there are still lots of territories to conquer and a lot more things to do. I know focus, vision, persistence, courage, tenacity will get us there. And that has been my mantra for about ten years now. Especially courage, tenacity and vision, because when you try and do something in this country, especially in this part of the world, everybody comes at you. The government, the authorities, your village people, so you must have the courage to be able to withstand all that onslaught. And as for tenacity, you just have to keep going, no matter how many times they slam the door on your face, reject you; you have to keep going. Five years you are still there, ten years you are still there, fifteen years you are still there, twenty years you are still there. That is tenacity for you. The vision; you must have something that when you cloze your eyes you can see because you have a direction you are going. So, for me, it is courage, tenacity and vision.
Did you always know that you would do television or what gave birth to your company?
I didn’t always know. I just moved around. After my university education at Ogun State, I started at OGBC FM and I was there for about 4 years. Then, I went to Star FM and spent four or five years. So, I put in like ten years on radio before I moved to television. I didn’t always know I would be in entertainment, but I knew that I was born to be an entertainer. I just stumbled on it really. It is what it is today because of my creativity, essence. And for the record, I was the social prefect during my secondary school days and when I was in the university, I was organizing shows here and there. When I finished and went for my service and came back, I was doing singles and other stuffs for radio stations and for on-air personalities. After a while, I said to myself that I can do what they are doing. If I am doing jingles for them, if I am raping and doing all these stuffs, let me also give it a try. So, I tired radio and it worked. After doing radio for a while too, I felt I was becoming a big fish in a small pond and took a risk to see if I can jump and survive in a bigger pond. That was how I jumped into television. So, it was just gradual. There was no master plan actually. But as opportunities come, you just jump on it.
Nigezie was the first 24-hour entertainment channel, what do you feel still distinguishes you from the rest?
For me, I compete with myself. Most of my competition is internal. I am not to sit down and watch what others are doing and see how to copy them with my own version. Most of the time, it is the other way around. People come and check what I am doing and imitate it. My competition is myself. I criticize myself a lot. I look at it and say to myself that I can do something better than what I just did. I am always reviewing and revisiting things and checking it and updating it again and again to improve what I do. So, it is a constant battle with myself and that is what brings out the creative juice. I really don’t respond to what I see other people do that much.
What has been your toughest challenge?
There are plenty tough challenges. There is man-power. The average entrepreneur in Nigeria has issues right now because young people don’t want to work. They just want to make money. They want to go from zero to 60 in five seconds. They went to go from the university to a 2 million Naira per month job and start using a Range Rover the very next year. They don’t see things as a process and that you have to move from stage to stage. So, that has really thrown up some really bad work ethics which a lot of businesses are suffering from right now. Also the issue of finance. I’m competing with the likes of MTVBase, the Viacoms and the rest of them. Those people are coming from places where they get grant from government. They get access to loans for single digits, five percent, four percent, three percent, seven percent, while we are getting loans at 27, 28 percent. So, how do you compete with that. The interest rate on the loans alone is enough to wipe out any profit that you have. So, the environment is harsh. It’s just that you have to persist. That is when tenacity comes in.
Why is Nigezie only on Startimes and not on GOTV and DSTV?
We like to be on other cables if they would have us. We are content people definitely, we are not platform owners and contents can be advertised on as many platforms as possible. So, when the opportunities come, we would look into it.
Your time as a judge in Project Fame helped to produce superstars like Iyanya and Chidinma, do you miss it?
Yeah! I miss the fun. I miss the excitement. I miss the whole environment. It was a great time. You work with a lot of fantastic people and you get to meet a lot of exciting talents.
Any reason why you left?
Well, the contract was over. So, it was a mutual exit. There was no bad blood or disagreement because we still do stuffs together. I still do things with MTN, so it was a mutual agreement.
Which one was your best season?
Season 1 was tough. It was exciting. At the time, it had never been done before and it was tough putting people on probation and having the crowd come at you with so much venom. People will see you in the bank, on the road or office and they leave what they are doing and come and scold you for putting their favourite contestant on probation. It was new and fresh. Being the first one, it had that crazy impact. It was new grounds. It was massive shock right from beginning to the end. After that we slipped into the rest nicely and made it further to season 2,3,4 and just cruised along. And we all loved every minute of it.
Since then, what has kept you busy?
I started Orisun, it is a Yoruba channel airing 24 hours and we are working on other channels too. So, we are doing a lot of things. But you know, in Nigeria, if you are not making a lot of noise, people believe that you are not in the game anymore, but there are lots of quiet people or people quietly doing things, massive things, in the background that you never know. Until recently, they didn’t know the richest black man in America. They just discovered the richest black man for years and nobody knew him. All of a sudden, they just discovered him. It is not about how much noise you make. Only Oprah, the black woman was richer than him. He was a billionaire in Dollars and nobody knew him for years, so what is more important is how much impact you can make in this industry, not how much noise you make.
Do you hang out at your Uptown Lounge in Ogba?
I hang out there from time to time, we host celebrities, we host everyday people. It is a fun place to be on the Mainland here.
What is the greatest lesson you have learnt in the entertainment business?
I have learnt several lessons, but the greatest lesson is to never give up. To never give up! To keep at it. The only person that can stop you is yourself. No godfather, no clique, nobody can stop you. The only person that can stop you is you because giving up, you are only stopping yourself from achieving your goals, your dreams, your entire future. So, it is crucial you keep going, keep grinding. One day it will happen.
You have dealt with a lot of Nigerian artistes, who would you say is your favourite?
I get plenty favourites. Though when I first started on radio, my biggest artistes then were Blackky, Daniel Wilson, Ras Kimono and the rest. We’ve come a long way to the days of Daddy Showkey, Daddy Fresh and others. The days of Remedies to Paul Play to Plantashun Boiz, 2Face, Trybesmen. So, a whole lot. We have been there all these while. There are a lot of them, but the ones that we connect with the most are usually the most humble ones among them. You know, 2Face is super humble, Daddy Showkey is a great guy. A few of them like that. Some lose it with fame and let it get to them and in that instance I pull away, because I like people who are down to earth. I am pretty much a down to earth myself, so the guys that are down to earth, we connect most. You know, I have found out that the older guys are still a bit more down to earth than the newer guys, maybe because they had to go through more pain and more struggles and most of the new guys had things handed down to them. So, they really don’t understand the value and the culture of respect that is behind the whole game.
Would you say you have accomplished all that you ever wanted?
No! The road is still far. There are still plenty, plenty roads to take. We are not where we used to be, but we are not where we should be. So, it is still a long journey. We thank God. From OGBC in 1999, we came with 12,000 in the bank. So, yes, we have come a long way, but we are not where we should be. Still legion of things to be done.
Do you have any regrets?
Losing some good fund along the way through ego, through mis-communication, through distance, through a lot of other things basically. But whatever, the good, the bad, the ugly, everything served its purpose. So, no regrets. Not really.
Who would you consider your role model?
I have plenty role models in Nigeria, outside Nigeria, and for different reasons. In enterprise, broadcast, entertainment, I have role models. In different fields, I have role models. Spiritually, I have role models as well. So, they are a whole lot. I can’t mention all of them. Some of them I never got to meet like Dr. Martin Luther King. They are all people who against all odds were able to make something happen. People who were able to create something out of nothing. People who were persistent and stood the course of time and were able to breakthrough.
If you were not doing this, what else would be doing?
I really don’t know. I have thought about it myself too and I really don’t know. I have worked only one year in my life, as in 9-5 and it was probably the most miserable year of my life and after that I just ran away from the job to radio. I used to rap too, so I might have been one of the very first rappers in town. But it would have scaled toward entertainment one way or the other.
Away from work, how do you relax?
I try to sleep, I read and write a lot of stuffs. These days I write a lot of proposals than any other thing. But I just love to create stuff. Creating more channels. It is like a hobby to me. It is also relaxing for me. It is not work per se. I also like to play with my kids. That is actually the most relaxing thing for me because I get some real laughs, not fake laughs. No hidden agendas, but sincerely. They don’t want anything from you, you don’t want anything from them, we are just genuinely enjoying each other’s company. I also like to go to the beach, not the noisy ones, like we have all over. But a serene one, somewhere where I can sit down calm, set up a camp and watch the ocean waves from morning till night. So, for me, it is just chilling.
What gives you peace of mind?
Most times, it is that I have given it my best shot. I am at peace with myself when I have tried all that I can, whether I succeed or not, it is not my problem. At least, I gave it my best shot, so I am at peace with myself that maybe it wasn’t meant to happen. Sometimes even when it collapses, I still try again to be sure that I have given my all. Another thing is that I don’t have cliques, I don’t have camps. I belong to everybody and I belong to nobody. Moreover, I am straight forward about life, with nothing to hide. I don’t like that and so everything is at peace for me.
What tips can you give upcoming entrepreneurs?
First, like I said from the onset, are you a “mad man”? Are you a creative lunatic? Are you a sucker for punishment? Do you have courage, vision and tenacity? Because most people who are entrepreneurs can be very erratic. They are very passionate about stuffs. They could slap or fight you over what they believe because they are intensely driven. You will see them vibrating over something they believe in. They never lose that passion even when they don’t see profit for a whole five years. Never lose that enthusiasm. Never get discouraged even if others don’t see your future success. You need to keep up your strong will and have the self assurance that even if the house falls, you will still stand. You need to have the guts, the courage, the lion heart to thrive. It is not always a bed of roses, but with determination, anything can be possible.