Chowdeck, a technology company that provides logistics services to both vendors and consumers, recently shared a post containing a video of an interview with Hajia Amoke Odukoya, the owner of AmokeOge, one of the vendors on its platform. As part of the post, it also shared the milestone that inspired the interview: the business had hit 500,000 orders on the platform, becoming the first woman-led business to cross that threshold with an average order price of N4,600, inferring a revenue of approximately N2.3 billion.
Not surprisingly, the revenue figure caught most people’s attention. Nigeria has been battling multi-month stifling inflation, a perennially high poverty rate, and declining purchasing power. The fact that a business as old as selling food, and local food no less, could generate such revenue was a natural curiosity. This curiosity motivated me to watch the interview video, and as I watched, something caught my attention regarding the nature of thought leadership that exists in the Nigerian business climate and how culture influences it.
Interview conversation snippet:
Femi Aluko, Chowdeck CEO: What advice would you give to other entrepreneurs trying to enter a similar business as yours?
Hajia Amoke Odukoya (AO): Put God first. In all things and in the midst of the challenges, always put God first. Sometimes employee issues can be very tense, but in those instances I pray to God, and it gets resolved.
It is a cultural norm for the average Nigerian to attribute success to God, saying things like “God did it”, “the secret is God”, or “God came through for me.” I respect this cultural norm and do not wish to change it. Rather, I hope we can improve our ability to understand and accept this cultural context while also developing the aptitude for extracting practical business insights from successful Nigerian business leaders, despite our common reliance on divine explanations.
Now back to Hajia AO. Clearly, she knows more, could share more with the right prompt, and has done more than pray for God to “take the glory” when facing tough business challenges that have crippled or bankrupted other businesses. What didn’t happen in the interview with her, and with most interviews that default to similar lines, is the interviewer failing to ask specific questions about how she addresses these challenges beyond attributing success solely to divine intervention. Instead of simply accepting statements about God taking the glory, interviewers could ask more probing questions:
Specifically, what actions did you take after praying for a resolution?
What was the intense employee issue that you are referring to, and what did you do to get it resolved… with God’s help?
If this happened — a hypothetical scenario — what would you do… with God’s help?
Will asking probing and specific questions resolve the thought-leadership gap among Nigerian business leaders? It would be naive and an oversimplification to think that alone is sufficient, but it would certainly uncover another layer of issues that was recently highlighted by Abubakar Idris, an ex-journalist for The Information. Reflecting on Tony Elumelu’s recent interview at the Qatar Economic Forum, Abubakar noted, “I watched the panel session of UBA’s Tony Elumelu and Tan Su Shan of Singapore’s DBS Bank at the Qatar Economic Forum. It was fascinating to see how these two banking executives approached the same questions. One gave actionable insights. The other was bland and basic. Fundamentally, I think more Nigerian executives need to fix up and get more sophisticated when they speak.”
In this instance, Elumelu’s interview lacked insightful responses, not due to the interviewer’s questions, but because his answers were basic.
In a country where over 39 million SMEs contribute nearly 50 percent to GDP and employ over 80 percent of the workforce (according to SMEDAN), the need for strong, reflective business leadership is not optional—it’s existential. Emerging entrepreneurs and managers are watching, learning, and modelling their behaviours from today’s business leaders. If all they hear are vague platitudes about divine intervention, they are denied the practical insights needed to build resilient, scalable businesses. Thought leadership isn’t about sounding elite; it’s about making experience useful. Nigeria’s economy doesn’t just need capital—it needs wisdom that can be passed on. That requires both business leaders willing to open up and interviewers equipped to ask the right questions. If we want better business outcomes in the future, we must start by demanding better conversations today.
David Alade, ACA, is a Data and Public Affairs Analyst. @DavidAlade__ on X (formerly Twitter).
