₦airaland Forum

During a conversation with a well-respected friend of mine a few weeks ago, we had so much to talk about largely based on the fact that we haven’t seen each other in a very long while and we both were trying as much as possible to impress each other on the who’s we had come in contact with in our quest to become a successful entrepreneur.

I give it to him apparently – he was quick to start his entrepreneurship journey at a time I was still battling academics years back. He has met a lot of people whom I admire from afar and I was quite jealous. I got jealous ONLY because of the wealth of knowledge he would have gotten directly from the feet of these great persons which I am pretty sure would is quite an asset.


In the course of our discussion, we talked politics, entertainment and the future of technology where he offered his kind advice based on the opinion he had about publishing. In a bit to score another point over me, he mentioned Toyosi Akerele was a better leader as oppose to Debola and Chude of Red Media and that’s where the battle begun. For those that know Toyosi, she has done a lot for the youths of this generation through her Rise Network platform and I am a great admirer of her every accomplishments but putting her above Debola or Chude is a bit disrespectful to the word – “entrepreneur”.

However you might choose to view it Debola and Chude pioneered the entrepreneurship spirit in this generation. I know lot of young entrepreneurs who are very well successful and even started during the time The Future Award was birthed but the difference was the impact Debola and Chude had over these individuals. The Future Award hit Africa so big and youth awards started springing up in every nook and cranny of Nigeria. Moving on, this set of entrepreneur penetrated the political world and got recognized by the government under the PDP administration; to me that scored a major point for them over every other person who had the word – entrepreneur attached to their name.


They grew their brand together and now 10 years old, Red Media is unarguably one of the leading youth platforms with easy access to government officials and handled some of their campaigns. I have seen youths who have worked and some who are currently in government but their impact or influence hasn’t been felt compared to the heavy influence these two young have created.

From being a relevant name is in the PDP administration, they crossed paths and pioneered youth related events for the APC till they got into power and they are still very relevant in this current administration! That’s genius if you ask me.

I have been fortunate to meet Debola on two different occasions and if you have met him one-on-one, I’m pretty sure you can’t classify the level of confidence and eloquence he has, I threw the question to him why he chose to support an opposition party when they were fielding an older candidate and his answer threw me off balance – a topic I would discuss for another day. On the other hand, I have only seen Chude speak at two or three forums and he is quite a speaker with great knowledge.

Chude and Debola both stirred a revolution in 2005 many young entrepreneurs are currently enjoying and I would say they are worthy being called “Leaders of our Generation”.

Listing their many achievements might come off as a bit of me worshipping them but truth be told, these guys have come, seen and conquer.

http://www.tushmagazine.com.ng/debola-chude-true-leaders-generation/

I concur! the future award all d way(African recognition they've got) but toyosi was okay in her own way too

Toyosi did well, no doubt but Debola and Chude created a milestone

Ademat7:
I concur! the future award all d way(African recognition they've got) but toyosi was okay in her own way too