An Interview with Ebenezar Wikina — The revolutionary journalist.
Let’s start with a litmus test…. type Ebenezar Wikina into your google search bar. What did you find? Well, that’s the young man I have the privilege of interviewing today. An interviewer once called him ‘Young Kofi Annan’
Liza: tell me something about you I can’t find online
Ebenezar: Haha, thanks, Liza. These days the Internet seems to know too much, so I’m not quite sure. Well, I think one basic thing Google might not pick is that despite what it might look like, I’m a naturally lazy person, with Phlegmatic being my primary temperament and Sanguine being my secondary temperament. It might not be obvious online that I’m in an equal relationship with rice and bread and I’m learning to ensure I eat other classes of food so that I can remain a healthy human being. Finally, the internet many times shows only our successes but you wouldn’t know that I wrote JAMB and Aptitude test, as we used to call it, four times between 2008 and 2012 with no success at all — it was one of the darkest periods of my life.
At what point did you decide not to go to a conventional university? And how did your parents take that news?
I wouldn’t say a point came that I decided, I just decided to keep moving forward looking for the next best program to do to keep growing my educational portfolio and keep improving my chances since I didn’t have a Bachelor’s degree. While I was struggling with JAMB and Aptitude tests, in 2010 my parents asked that I register for an Electrical Engineering Diploma at the Rivers State College of Arts and Science. You know how in Nigeria we make Colleges and Polytechnics the place people go when they can’t secure admission? Yeah, so I went there for 2 years, and then after that, I joined a 4-month Broadcast Presentation program at Alpha Institute of Broadcasting — which remains one of the best learning experiences I’ve had so far studying under veteran journalist and legend, Late Bernard Graham-Douglas.
After broadcasting school, I knew I needed something in journalism so I joined a Diploma program in Journalism at the International Institute of Journalism, Abuja, and then paused for a while after IIJ in 2016. I was mostly at the stage of trying to figure out what to do next, before sojourning into the world of virtual learning in July 2019 when I got accepted to an Executive Program at the Harvard Kennedy School plus a $2,000 scholarship from the Harvard Committee. My mind was blown by the Harvard experience and it opened a new spectrum for my education which is why I am currently attempting an unconventional education challenge that no one has taken before called #LearnwithEben; I’m studying for a Bachelor’s degree in Business Administration at Nexford University, a MicroMasters (which has a blended pathway to a Master’s degree) in Data, Economics and Development Policy at MIT, and during the last one year I have also completed another Diploma in Internet Journalism at the prestigious London School of Journalism and also another executive program from Stanford University’s School of Earth, Energy, and Environmental Sciences.
My plan at the moment as part of these learning self-experiments is to complete academic or professional programs at the Top 10 Universities in the World within the next 3 years and all of this will happen online which further makes a case about the power of virtual learning in the future. Hopefully, this will help to make up for all the years of writing and rewriting JAMB and most importantly show people that there are alternative paths to acquiring tertiary education.
I think one of the main reasons my parents have been able to survive this ‘abnormal’ education path is that although I am currently still figuring our tertiary education, I have been working for over 10 years. I have never viewed my life as a straight line; finish school, do NYSC, and then start looking for a job — nope. As far back as 2010, I was already freelancing online and volunteering or interning with organizations I wanted to work with in the future; radio stations, NGOs, Startups, and the likes. I also joined communities like TED, where I organized the only TEDxYouth event in West Africa in 2014 and the Global Shapers Community to mention but a few. In fact, by the time I was completing that first journalism diploma in 2016, I was already a consultant and Technical Committee member at the Rivers State Government SDGs Office. I spoke at the 25th Anniversary of the World Economic Forum on Africa which held in Cape Town about the future of media along with other media experts and I was a Global Investigative Journalism Network fellow in 2017 and recipient of the Future News Worldwide offered by the British Council Scotland. All of this was happening side-by-side with me trying to figure out my schooling so I guess it helped to pacify my parents because they kept telling our relations, “don’t worry he knows what he is doing” but between me and you, I had no clue. I just knew what I was passionate about and kept looking for platforms to express it.
Why journalism? You could have gone anywhere else and excelled.
Hmmm, I’ve never thought of it that way. My secondary school background is in the Sciences and I had an okay WAEC result with some As, Bs and Cs. Remember the Electrical Engineering Diploma I did? I never went back for graduation after my final exam because I felt like the program was a waste of my time. I still graduated top 2% of the engineering class back then so I guess in some way you’re right about being able to survive anywhere else, but that has nothing to do with me. The fact is God made the human mind so powerful that anything we set our minds to will succeed but to remain successful over the distance, one needs passion and consistent growth. I wasn’t passionate about anything else besides journalism and writing. That is the only thing I remember being good at as far back as childhood. I was that kid who wrote on the wall and the fridge and will tell himself stories and my dad’s friends used to call me ‘Professor’. If I did anything else, I think I would have just barely survived. When we work in the centre of our purpose, the little efforts we make take us far beyond our greatest imaginations. This is the secret behind all that has happened to me in the past decade.
Tell me about your childhood (the fun part, the annoying part, everything you can remember)
Do you have enough time? Lol. My childhood stories are so long but I’ll respect the time of our readers and summarize it. My Childhood happened in two phases I like to think. In the first phase, I was aged 0 to 4 or 5 years old and at that time I lived mostly with my parents. I was the only child for a bit so I was flexing like the Prince of England; custard, tins, and tins of custard, a lot of milk and toys, and my Mom carried me like an egg. I was told though that I used to have a lot of convulsions as a child and it even happened on my 2-year birthday.
The second phase was mostly with my paternal grandmother who also lived in Port Harcourt. Omoh, the spoiling and discipline were amazing. I had cable TV all to myself and because she loved to cook, I was eating every 3 hours or something. It was mad, Lol. Her biggest contribution to me was ensuring that I watched the 9 pm news every night for so many years when I stayed with her and at the time she would make me write new words and find the meaning in a dictionary, etc. At the time I didn’t understand it, but it surely contributed to my cognitive development. My Uncles and Aunts used to always spoil me with video games and books and lots of school supplies. I was blessed to grow in a loving and supportive family.
How did your parents inspire you as a child?
My parents sacrificed a lot and I picked that up from them. Way before MTN and Nokia 3310 my dad used to write us letters from his base offshore where he worked as a Chef. He was very thoughtful and in my opinion, still has the best handwriting in the World. Just like me, my parents also had ‘abnormal dreams’. My Mom’s mates are the Civil Service generation and so most people studied secretarial studies or something more white collar-related. My Mom loved flowers and studied horticulture, how absurd? But guess what? Her organization, Rosie Gardens, is one of the top horticulture organizations in Port Harcourt and she has landscaped several parts of the city and the premises of many top organizations as well because she dared to dream. My dad is from that Biafra war generation and he was merely a boy at the time his dad died during the war. He pretty much became a daddy as a pre-teen by helping to raise his 4 siblings with his mom and he had to do everything from fishing to trading in Onitsha market to doing several odd jobs. My dad is your typical super-workaholic and just like my mom, he also dared to dream. In the years before football was a billion-dollar industry, Dad used to play for the Nigerian Ports Authority (NPA) in the Nigerian Premier League and because they didn’t have medical insurance or any financial covering at the time, he had to stop his career in his prime when he sustained a knee injury. After that, he went on to reinvent himself by training to be a chef and baker, a career he worked in for close to 15 years before he retired. Truth be told, growing up, we didn’t have everything we wanted and I still remember that my siblings and I were sent home for school fees drive a couple of times but the important thing is that my parents worked very hard to provide all we needed and that selfless effort motivated by love is a lesson I have carried on through my life and it’s something I hope to also give to my kids and the next generation.
Did you ever struggle with self-esteem or identity issues as a teenager?
Not self-esteem because I grew in an atmosphere of love. It was more like self-identity challenges that came from the early failures with JAMB and the societal pressure of not being able to secure admission that I previously mentioned. I was about 14+ going to 15 years old when I wrote WAEC back in 2007 so I was barely a child, to be honest, and because I was sort of developed intellectually everyone thought I was a big boy even though I was dying with depression and confusion. The turning point for me was when I turned 17 and started to grow closer to God as a result of many supernatural encounters I had. I became born again when I was 10 years old and baptized a few years after at Newlife Baptist Church, so it wasn’t like I was just knowing God for the first time. Although this time, amid adversity it was different because I eventually started to ask the important questions like “Why am I here on earth? Does God have a plan for my career? Does God even know I exist?” and this led me to read widely. I read more than 120 books between 2011 and 2013 and one of the most impactful was ‘Purpose Driven Life’ which helped me rethink many things about my life and led me to the path of purpose I am currently on. Every day is a discovery.
Was there a time when you were ever stage shy? How did you handle it knowing your job would always put you out there?
My dear, I am still shy even up until today. Lol. I am naturally an introvert so my brain sort of finds the best ways to avoid human interaction, that’s why I prefer texting to calling or even virtual learning to physical learning. I think with having to speak before audiences like the World Economic Forum in 2015 or the Global Youth Economic Opportunities Summit in 2018, that sort of skill is cultivated from practising with small groups. I joined a voluntary paramilitary organization under the Nigerian Baptist Convention called “The Royal Ambassadors of Nigeria”. I started when I was 10 years old and grew in that organization until I became a regional leader at 23. The RA will put you in front of your peers and even seniors all the time. Whether it’s in taking exhortation or addressing a business meeting, I was forced to come out of my shell and this helped me greatly in building public speaking skills that became a treasure in the future.
Even when I speak today, I still feel those butterflies in my tummy but I think it’s normal and you can either allow that energy in your tummy make you fail or channel it to give a fire talk where your listeners can feel that fire in their belies too.
Right now sitting here… what do you wish you knew as a teenager? Why do you have this wish?
I wish I knew my purpose early enough perhaps I would have achieved more global feats by now. I feel like starting at 16 to consciously develop my writing skills was a bit late, but my consolation is the fact that God is the inventor of time and space and because there’s a time for everything, what the human mind considers late is right on time for God. So, that’s what I wish I knew and to Teenagers out there, you’re in a very pivotal time in your life and what you do now can go far in determining your future. It’s never too early to start working towards your dreams.
Whose journalistic works have inspired you the most? Five is a good number (smiles)
Late Professor Donald Murray had one of the earliest influences on my writing through his book, Write 2 Learn (8th Edition). All I know today about basic composition and creative non-fiction is owed to him and his genius lecturing style. He maintained a column in the Boston Globe for so many years and always embodied relatable writing free from all the jargon and supposed grammatical sophistication.
My Uncle, Blecyn Wikina, inspired me growing up as well. At some point in his career, he worked as Press Secretary to the Governor of Rivers State and was famous for his professionalism and how he treated those whom he managed at Government House. He still inspires me till today with his boldness and humility and I used to always read his magazine articles and listen to his commentaries on the radio. When you have someone that close to you achieving amazing things at that scale, you can’t even afford to live a mediocre life.
Millicent Nnwoka was more than just a mentor to me. She was like a big sister and mother at the same time and I feel so blessed to have learned — and continue to learn — from her. She works at Channels Television these days but she has done everything from print to radio to TV and in those years when I was still trying to figure out this writing and media thing, I could hop by her house at Nigeria Info FM Port Harcourt and gist with her about life in general and ask all the questions I had about a media career and how much salary she makes and everything. To help me raise some money, she even made me manage her blog and she would pay me at the end of every month, so I pretty much had a salary.
Femi Oke is such an amazing person too. Her work across the three biggest broadcast media houses in the world, BBC, CNN and now Al Jazeera speaks for her. I first met her in 2011 in Port Harcourt when she facilitated a writing workshop at the Garden City Literary Festival. Since then we have kept tabs on social media and when we had a reunion in 2018 in Washington D.C she was happy to take me around the D.C bureau of Al Jazeera and I continue to learn and follow her work on AJ Stream.
Jake Effoduh keeps raising the bar for me and everyone that knows him. I first became a fan of his work on ‘Talk Your Own make Naija Better’, a nationally syndicated show by BBC Media Action which he hosted for almost a decade. He made me believe it is possible to major in two things or more and still be successful in all spheres seeing how he combines Law, Academia, and Media. It’s amazing how he does these great things but still preserves his humanity and remains down to earth at the same time. It takes a lot of humility to do that and thinking about it keeps my shoulders in check.
I’ve seen a few of your work and I’ve seen your profiles show you’re a Christian. If you could ask God one question about yourself and one question about the world… what would you ask?
That’s an interesting one. One question I’ll like to ask that I’m still trying to figure out is what God wants me to do within the public policy space? As I continue to work with him, I feel like the ideas get clearer but I still have so much to uncover. As much as I do not think I am the panacea to Nigeria’s leadership challenges, I believe that I am part of a new generation of young leaders who will like to stop complaining and start acting to bring about the desired change in our country. I’m not in a hurry though because I have learned from my personal experience that things get beautiful in their time but if at all there’s a question about myself that I need clarity on, it is that. By the way, I recently founded an open-source platform, www.policyshapers.com, where I curate policy ideas from passionate policy analysts like myself proffering solutions to the biggest challenges facing the world today. The ideas are licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.
How has technology revolutionized journalism in the last five years and what drastic evolutions do you see?
I wrote a paper on the World Economic Forum Agenda in 2015 about what is to come in the media space in Africa and just a few weeks ago I was reminded that all my predictions came through. In this talk, I gave at the South-South Media Week last year Media and Industrial Revolutions, I share most of my thoughts on what we should expect in the future of media. In summary, the Fourth Industrial Revolution will impact the future of media through the following trends; Virtual Reality and Augmented Reality, Automated Social Media, Fact-Checking, and Journo Bots. Some of the trends we are currently seeing in the media world will continue to expand and receive more acceptance: Live Social Video, Micro-Influencers, Mobile Storytelling, and Podcasting.
Your online profiling game is super amazing; from Muckrack to Disha etc… How do you find online platforms that represent you so well?
Well, I believe that if someone claims to be a storyteller then the least you can do is at least you can do is to write your own story well. We are living in the era of Personal Branding where everyone must tell their story powerfully and passionately. Disha.page is made by young people in Nigeria that I admire so I’m a huge fan of the platform. How do I find them? I am online most of the time and I believe the entire magic on the internet happens on Twitter so I mostly get to stumble on stuff like that.
How did you enter the world of fellowships such as Global Shapers and the likes?
My friend and sister, Grace Ihejiamaizu, set up such an amazing platform called Opportunity Desk where you can learn about the latest scholarships, grants, fellowships, internships, etc. As far back as 2013/2014 when we started to talk, I’d been seeing how she applies for stuff and then travels because of them. Being a typical Nigerian kid, I’ve always thought that every opportunity/job has to be through ‘connection’ so I didn’t believe that it could be possible. Long story short, from applying to be a TEDx Organizer in 2013 and learning the craft of telling my story from peers and mentors, 5 years later I have travelled to about 10 countries for fellowships, conferences, and the likes…and here’s the interesting… I haven’t had to spend a dime on aeroplane tickets or Hotel Accommodation and other travel or event-related logistics. Isn’t that insane? I mean, now I can afford to travel to one country a year or something on my terms but in 2015 when I went to Cape Town for the World Economic Forum, my first trip out of Nigeria, I definitely could not have been able to afford it. So what’s the moral lesson of the story? Explore. These opportunities are out there waiting for you and in the entire history of man, more than ever before this has to be the most amazing time to be a young person because there are so many resources you can leverage to make your life better.
Ebenezar, what is your selling point? What differentiates you from other journalists?
Do I have a selling point? I don’t think so, Liza. I know that one thing people talk about a lot is that I can achieve a lot with little resources. This is something you’d notice from using my Nokia feature phone to interview over 100 world leaders from more than 30 countries; Putting 6 broke friends together to organize TEDxYouth@OrdinanceRoad which turned out to be West Africa’s only TEDxYouth event that year, or guest lecturing an ordinary class at Ken Saro-Wiwa Polytechnic and trying to turn them into media superstars, or even now more lately not having a regular tertiary education but ending up with degrees and executive certificates from the top-10 schools in the world. Scientists have a term for this kind of work, frugal innovation which is pretty much a rare skill in the world today because anyone can do great things with abundant resources and some people can do great things with a few resources but only a handful in the entire 7 billion people on earth today can continue to do great things for one year, two years, three years, consistently with little or no resources. Is that a unique selling point? Well, I don’t know but I always like it when my work speaks for me as opposed to me trying to describe my qualities by myself.
How has your family helped your dreams?
In addition to inspiring me with their personal stories, careers, and pretty much hustling to see that my siblings and I had a great basic education, my parents are also some of the most patient parents in the world. I mean, they were very worried when I kept writing JAMB and couldn’t secure admission just like every parent should be but in the long run, they remained patient with me right from the days I was volunteering at several organizations without a salary for almost two years up until the years I started getting fellowships to travel the world. That was pure love mixed with patience, and I can’t wait to see that they enjoy the fruits of that labour for the rest of their lives.
Mentoring is a huge one these days and considering your lecturing job as well. How have you been handling the crowd that comes to you for mentoring?
This is an area I still need to work on, I can’t even lie. It gets very overwhelming because many people want your attention and help and as much as I want to help everyone that reaches out (I mean, later get around replying most messages after a few months) the problem is that my day job and other personal engagements wouldn’t make it humanly possible to reply everyone and still have a job. Do you understand? This is one of the things that inspired me to write my memoir because I realized the questions were mostly similar and had to do with my life and my story; with a book, I can reach more people at the same time than I would normally have been able to. That being said, I have two foster daughters and my baby sister who believes it is well in her rights to demand one new thing every day. (Lol) All of it makes me see every day that I didn’t appreciate my parents enough for all the great things they did for us and I also hope to pass down that sort of love and support to the next generation.
Are you in a relationship?
How do they say it on social media again, God when? (Haha).
Let me guess… you’re too busy for love (laughs) … So, what is stopping you?
Not really, this is an aspect of my life that I prefer to keep private out of respect for my partner because I’m usually not a fan of Relationship Counsellor Twitter who feel like they can teach you how to do your relationship with tweets… Whether at the moment I am single or not can still be a mystery but one thing is certain though, when I get married I’ll be serenading my wife on social media every day in everyone’s face…but let’s wait till then. Also, marriage is something I’m thinking about a lot more than I have thought and prayed about that phase in the past two or so years. It’s very serious and scary at the same time because it’s not nairabet or rock paper scissors or something. It is real life and you can’t afford to gamble with your future that is why my advice to every young person out there is to ensure that they take it seriously and get into it intentionally and prayerfully because all those transient factors people consider like money or body shape or booty (pardon my French) will always fade. I feel like I sound like Relationship Twitter at the moment.
Do you ever get depressed, tired, and desire to just drop everything? What keeps you going in such times?
Believe it or not, I do actually. It’s easy to get overwhelmed and feel defeated by the 10 to 20 things I have on my list to do every day with no time for fun and plenty of personal sacrifices. Sometimes I’m like, what am I even doing? Listening to a Harvard zoom class on a Friday night when people are out there chilling? What always carries me through times like this is allowing the Holy Spirit to fill me up and most times it happens when I begin to miss my quiet time or no longer pray daily.
What do you do for fun?
Uhmm…. I play PES 2020 on Play Station with my brothers. Uhmmm… maybe watch football videos or TED talks on YouTube. Maybe even laugh at skits by Lasisi, Taooma, or Maraji, and sometimes I’m even able to watch some live matches with my Dad, but that’s about it. Oh yes, I remember, sometimes I go to the cinema too, maybe once in three or six months but yeah… that’s it. I surely need to find a way to create more balance in my life, which will be almost impossible at least for the next two years because of the #LearnwithEben challenge, but I plan to find more time moving forward because it’s not good to “tighten your chest every time” as Falz will say.
What sacrifices do you make to be and grow where you are?
Not enough fun, of course. A lot of strict time management. A lot of financial sacrifice because for close to five or seven years I have had to inherit bills and because money doesn’t grow on trees one has to keep earning and sacrificing. Sometimes I even forget to buy clothes for myself, like genuinely forget. Also, just maintaining strict personal values and generally just trying to be a Christian Young man who has flaws in a generation where people can’t wait to judge you the next minute.
What advice do you have for young Nigerians who are pressured to conform to the status quo like conventional universities?
I’ll say choose what works for you. I really cannot tell everyone to abandon University and go on this random learning journey like I’ve followed so far because it won’t work for every profession like law or medicine where you have to be a certified professional, I guess, but as much as possible my advice to them is to ensure that they continue to learn for themselves. Many people go to school for their parents or society because they’re afraid of people saying they’re not graduates or stuff like that. Until people begin to learn due to their curiosities and passion, then they will only be schooled not educated. Find your purpose and develop your natural gifting and continue to learn and grow in your path. We get our uniqueness from mixing our passions at various intensities. The sad truth, that we need to fix ASAP, is that school in Nigeria at the moment focuses heavily on theoretical knowledge, which is great for academic excellence, whereas the labour market out there needs people with skills, ability — experiential knowledge.
If you could speak to the AU and the NUC what would you say to them on behalf of young Africans?
To the African Union, I’ll say: Africa has all it needs to be the most powerful continent in the World — Human resources, natural resources, wit, ancient wisdom, community, energy, determination, and of course young people — with more than 226 million youth. We need to move beyond meetings and discussions to find solutions to our region-specific challenges. Rwanda is not a perfect country but I like to think that they’re like a prototype of what can happen to our continent when we become intentional about economic growth and development. It’s always good when our leaders come up with frameworks and plans but how are we evaluating our progress and even staying accountable to people? A good example is the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCTA) agreement. We were so excited last year when that was agreed upon but between January and March, I didn’t see much information about progress and that is what I mean by being accountable to the people during the implementation process.
To the Nigerian Universities Commission: With Youth Unemployment and Underemployment rate of over 55.4% we really cannot afford to treat higher education in the Post-COVID world just like business as usual. No Nigerian University is in the top 1,000 in the World according to the latest QS World Universities Ranking. How do we expect our young people to compete internationally? Do you wonder why Nigerians go abroad in a system that works and thrive? That’s because contrary to what most people believe, young people in Nigeria are industrious and hardworking. Most of the frustration and vices we see is because they are stuck in a dysfunctional system that isn’t let them have a shot at life. My friends and I took part in the Stanford COVID-19 Policy Hackathon last June and we found out that Nigeria hasn’t invested more than 8% of its budget in education for the past 10 years. Education is expensive and we need to invest in it to get the desired result. The NUC needs to be leading advocacy for higher quality education in our public and private Universities. We just cannot continue to treat education with kid gloves, the rest of the world has left us behind. Imagine if all the money we lose on education tourism is spent in Nigeria? Imagine if our politicians didn’t have the option of sending their kids abroad? We won’t achieve that without quality.
Say something inspiring to fellow millennials
We are the ones we’ve been waiting for, guys. We cannot continue to remain left out on the issues that concern us. We must be active and bring our ideas to the fore. It’s not enough to complain about social media guys. What are you doing to make Nigeria better? The least we can do is ensure our ideas are structured in a way that can be useful for policymakers which is why we have set up www.policyshapers.com. I say it again, we cannot afford to remain quiet while decisions are made on our behalf and then we come on Twitter to complain. We must get involved, not in 2023, not next year, but today, now. Thank you!
Before we round off your interview, tell me about the world you dream of dying in — the world you want to live for your unborn fourth and fifth generation.
As a biomimicry scientist in training, I want a world that is sustainable, designed to mirror the intelligence of God in our food systems, clothing and architectural designs. I want a world that is just and fair, where people are educated on the basis of their giftings and purpose not just for numeracy and literacy. A world where humans are able to break the threshold of reasoning and bring about inventions that we can only imagine and see in Sci-Fi movies. I want a world where race and tribe are only an identity, not a limitation. A world where the value will be exchanged easier than the current money system. A world that is tune with God and nature. That is the world I want for my children and their own children.
Ebenezar, this has been an invigorating session listening to you talk about family with such endearment and switching to earnestness as you speak of work; I greatly celebrate your journey.
