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Adanna Madueke is a digital creator whose natural hair tutorials and cultural commentary have amassed over 1.5 million followers across YouTube, Instagram, and TikTok, earning coverage on major international outlets like CBC News, CityNews, and ELLE Canada. But behind the digital numbers lies a deliberate, multi-layered business strategy.

For Madueke, social media was never the end goal; it was the proof of concept. Over the past decade, she has systematically converted digital trust into a diversified cultural and economic ecosystem. Her brand, OurHairitage, now spans product lines and wellness platforms across North America, the UK, and Africa. Through Stop the Cut, she leads a growing movement advocating against institutional pressures on African women to alter their hair, while her original entertainment format, Date My Hair, brings unscripted African beauty narratives directly to mainstream television.

Now, Madueke is anchoring her global reach back home in Lagos. With the upcoming launch of the OurHairitage Academy in Lekki, she is establishing physical infrastructure to train young women in natural hair care, certifying their skills, and equipping them to treat beauty as a formal, high-value trade rather than informal labor.

In this exclusive interview with Ifeoma Okeke-Korieocha, Madueke speaks about transitioning from creator to founder, navigating the operational realities of building physical assets in Lagos, advocating for hair policy reforms, and why the future of diaspora enterprise relies on turning online influence into long-term local ownership.

You built a digital footprint reaching over 1.5 million people across platforms. At what exact moment did you realize that this community wasn’t just an audience, but a proof of concept for a broader cultural and economic ecosystem?

Honestly, this whole journey has felt spiritual. It just happened. I’ve loved hair since I was six, but I’m a Nigerian first-born child, so you already know how that story was supposed to go. The plan was medicine, full stop. My father was already proud of ‘Dr. Adanna’ before I’d even finished secondary school, and ‘hairstylist’ was not an option anybody was entertaining in that house. Then I moved to Canada, where I didn’t look like anyone around me. I struggled with my confidence and my identity, even with how to style my own hair.

So I went back to the interest my family had tried to shut down and started doing my hair myself. Classmates began asking how I did it, and soon they wanted me to do theirs too. Once university got busy, especially during exams, I couldn’t keep up. So I started recording myself doing my hair on YouTube so my friends could follow along. Those videos took off out of nowhere. People asked how I parted the back and which products I used. They asked how to make their natural hair look flawless, and whether there was a salon near them that understood their hair. Then the messages started. People told me I’d changed how they felt about hair they had grown up hiding, hair they’d been made to feel was inferior or ‘local.’

That’s when it clicked for me. People weren’t just watching. They trusted me enough to ask where to spend their money, and they deserved businesses built for them, not just videos. So in a way I did end up treating people. Just not in a hospital, and my father has made his peace with it.

Many diaspora creators build audiences globally, but you are specifically channeling that reach back home through the Lekki-based OurHairitage Academy. What are the unique operational and strategic challenges of converting diaspora influence into physical infrastructure in Nigeria?

Online, I can reach a million people in a day. On the ground in Lagos, everything takes longer, and anyone who has tried to get anything done in Lagos traffic knows exactly what I mean. You have to find the right space, build the right team, set standards and earn people’s trust in person. The hardest part is consistency. People know the quality they see online, and they expect the same thing when they walk into a classroom. What’s made the difference is working with people who really know the market. Our Lekki flagship has a founding operator who understands Lagos deeply, and we bring the brand, the curriculum and the audience. My reach can open the door, but it’s the team on the ground that keeps it open.

As a creator who transitioned into an entrepreneur, how do you balance the authenticity required for community building with the discipline required to build sustainable, revenue-generating businesses like OurHairitage?

I’ve never seen them as opposites. My community has been with me for years, and trust me, Nigerians will tell you when something isn’t real. So I only put my name on things I’d use myself, whether that’s the Hair Growth Journal or our training programmes.

The discipline is in the structure behind it: pricing, margins, operations, and having the right people in the right roles. If the business can’t sustain itself, I can’t keep showing up for the community. For me, building something profitable is part of being authentic to them.

With Date My Hair, you are taking African hair and identity into mainstream unscripted entertainment. What inspired the format, and how do you leverage media IP to alter mainstream beauty narratives on a global scale?

I kept noticing that people have strong opinions about hair that they rarely say out loud, and those opinions show up everywhere: in dating, at work, and at family gatherings where an aunty will ask when you’re ‘going to do something’ with your hair. Date My Hair puts all of that on screen in a way that’s fun to watch. You laugh, you react, and then you catch yourself questioning what you believed. Owning the format matters to me. When the IP is ours, we decide how our hair and identity are shown, instead of waiting for someone else to tell our story. People will sit through entertainment when they’d never sit through a lecture, and that’s how minds start to change. The show premieres this December.

Your project Our African Hairitage explored hair traditions across Nigeria, Senegal, and Kenya. How did filming across these distinct regions change your perspective on how hair functions as living history, survival tools, and identity?

Going across Nigeria, Senegal and Kenya showed me that hair on this continent has never been only about beauty. It told people your age, your status and where you came from, and at times it was even a tool for survival.

Seeing those traditions in different places made me realize that the pressure to cut or relax our hair isn’t a small cosmetic choice. We’re losing a piece of living history. That experience shaped everything I built after it, especially Stop The Cut and the way the Academy teaches hair as heritage, not just a skill.

Having been featured on outlets like CBC News, CityNews, and ELLE Canada, do you feel Western mainstream media understands the distinction between ‘natural hair as a trend’ versus ‘natural hair as economic and cultural infrastructure’?

It’s getting better, but it still mostly gets covered as a trend. What people miss is the economy underneath it: the products, the training, the salons, the jobs, and the billions women spend every year on hair care that wasn’t designed for them. I’m grateful for the coverage I’ve had from CBC, CityNews and ELLE Canada, and each time it gives me a chance to push that conversation a bit further. I’d love to see natural hair talked about in the

business pages, not only the beauty pages.

The Stop the Cut movement directly challenges the institutional pressure placed on African women to relax, alter, or hide their natural hair. How do you move this conversation beyond personal beauty choices into addressing corporate policy, school dress codes, and professional grooming standards across Africa and the diaspora?

It starts with the individual, but the pressure comes from institutions: school rules, workplace expectations and grooming standards nobody writes down but everyone feels. Many of us remember being told at school to cut our hair low or relax it to look ‘neat.’ So that’s where we’re taking the conversation.

In August, we brought leaders together for a Stop The Cut roundtable at Capital Club Lagos. This month, we started our school tour, which takes the conversation straight to students and teachers, with a petition that gives young people a voice. What we want is simple: schools and workplaces where natural hair is accepted as professional, full stop.

You’ve often spoken about how certain salons and beauty standards perpetuate the myth that 4C or natural hair is ‘hard to manage’. How is OurHairitage actively rewiring that narrative through education and product access?

4C hair isn’t the problem. The problem is that so many stylists were never trained to work with it.We’ve all sat in that salon chair while someone combs your hair like they’re settling a personal grudge, then tells you it’s ‘too strong’ and suggests a relaxer.

So we work on both ends. Through the Academy, we train stylists and young women to care for natural hair properly, and our Hair Growth Club gives our community access to a trichologist. On the product side, tools like the Hair Growth Journal help people understand what their hair actually needs. Once people have the knowledge and the right products, ‘hard to manage’ stops being true.

The OurHairitage Academy in Lekki focuses on equipping young women with practical, income-generating skills. What does the curriculum look like, and how are you positioning hair care and styling as a high-value trade rather than informal labor?

We have three levels: Foundation (6 weeks), Certification (10 weeks) and The House (8 weeks). Each one builds on the last. We keep class sizes small at our Lekki flagship so every student gets proper hands-on time. Hair is one of the biggest consumer markets in Africa, yet the people doing the work are often treated as informal labour. We want to change that. We train to a professional standard, certify students’ skills and teach them the business side too, so they can charge what their work is worth.

Our top graduates from The House are positioned for investment to start businesses of their own. The Lekki flagship opens on November 1.

What is your message to other young Africans in the diaspora who want to build global brands while anchoring their investments, operations, and long-term impact back on the continent?

Don’t let your reach stay online. Build something you own, and bring at least part of it home, where it can create real jobs and opportunities. Start with the people who already follow you. If you listen, they’ll tell you what they need. And partner with people on the ground who know the market better than you do.

And to my fellow first-borns: it’s okay if the path doesn’t look like what your parents planned. Build it well enough, and they’ll come around. Mine did.

A friend once questioned: ‘Do they learn leadership?’ At first, I thought about my own education. During my degree in Business Administration, I remember taking a course titled Leadership, that lasted eight weeks. I wrote, on average, about ten essays, completed two graded quizzes, and sat for an examination.

And yet many still walk around expecting social conditioning to somehow produce leadership behaviour. But my own experience of leadership did not begin with social conditioning because people immediately imagine that being the firstborn meant I was inherently leadership material. Ask my siblings; I was too fragile for that.

How did it happen then? At 22, I was seeing schools with dilapidated libraries and thinking, these children need books; perhaps I should do something about it. And I remember nailing a partnership with Heinemann Books. I had also been the child who was a Brownie, who genuinely thought she could save the world. Perhaps I did.

But what I did not yet understand was that the responsibility of a calling is only the beginning of leadership. Business Administration-and that leadership course in particular-began teaching me something my enthusiasm could not: that wanting to solve a problem is not the same as knowing how to lead its solution. You need judgement. You need strategy. You need to understand people, institutions, resources and incentives. You need to make decisions when the answer is not obvious. You need to stay when the excitement wears off. You need to persuade people who do not already agree with you. And sometimes, you need to carry responsibility for an outcome that does not go according to plan.

The Problem with Relying Solely on Conditioning

As I earlier explained, it was quite counterintuitive for me to be a leader. You can ask my primary and secondary school peers. And that is the thing about relying on social conditioning alone to reproduce leadership behaviour: people are not always equally socialised or given equal opportunities to practise agency, risk-taking, confrontation or decision-making.

We hold boys to a different set of expectations. They are often encouraged to be bold, take risks, speak up and take charge. Girls, on the other hand, are often encouraged to be caring, polite, accommodating and protected. Over time, these expectations can shape the behaviours people practise and become comfortable with. Assertiveness, agency and independence become more strongly associated with masculinity, while care, deference and receptiveness become more strongly associated with femininity.

There is nothing inherently wrong with either set of qualities. The problem begins when we treat them as opposites, or assume that one belongs in leadership while the other does not. A good leader needs both. You need the courage to make a difficult decision and the empathy to understand its consequences. You need the confidence to speak up and the humility to listen. You need the ability to take charge and the willingness to collaborate. You need firmness without becoming domineering, and care without becoming conflict-avoidant. When social conditioning gives people unequal opportunities to practise these different capacities, however, we can end up reproducing stereotypes rather than developing leaders.

Make Leadership Healthier, Not Easier

Some people have argued that, in our effort to make workplaces more inclusive, we are simply trying to make things easier for women. No. We are trying not to reproduce trauma. We are trying not to codify harmful norms. We are trying to build workplaces where women do not have to endure dysfunction or unnecessary hardship simply to prove that they belong. But there is an equally important conversation we need to have. If we have spent years challenging leadership models built around aggression, emotional suppression, constant competition, and the idea that exhaustion is evidence of commitment, we must also be careful not to swing to the other extreme. We cannot prepare women for leadership by protecting them from everything that makes leadership difficult. Because leadership is difficult.

Leadership sometimes means making a decision when everyone will not agree. It means delivering difficult feedback, disappointing people, holding someone accountable, and making an unpopular call. It means sitting with ambiguity, taking responsibility when the outcome is uncertain, and having conversations you would rather avoid.

It means withstanding criticism. It means carrying the consequences of a decision. It means saying no. It means making decisions with incomplete information. And sometimes, it means choosing what is institutionally right over what is personally comfortable. These are not male qualities. They are leadership capacities.

The objective, therefore, is not simply to get more women into leadership. It is to prepare women to exercise leadership. Getting women through the door is representation. Preparing them to make difficult decisions, exercise authority, navigate conflict, withstand pressure, and carry responsibility is leadership development. And perhaps that is the balance we need to find: remove unnecessary hardship, but do not remove necessary challenge.

A Real World Example

Perhaps this is why I think of Dr. Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala. In an interview about taking on the leadership of the World Trade Organization, she was asked about what she described as an ‘impossible job.’ Her response was revealing: ‘maybe I’m a masochist, and I like challenges.’

But the point is not that women should enjoy suffering. It is that leadership will sometimes place you in situations where there is no easy option. Okonjo-Iweala has had to navigate those kinds of situations precisely. As Nigeria’s Finance Minister, she led the country’s delegation in the 2005 Paris Club negotiations, at a time when Nigeria’s public-sector debt stood at about $36.2 billion, including roughly $30 billion owed to Paris Club creditors. Later, during the COVID-19 pandemic, her work with Gavi involved confronting another kind of difficult problem: how to secure access to vaccines in a world where supply was scarce, and countries were competing for doses.

These are not simply stories about a woman occupying an important position. They are stories about judgement, negotiation, strategy, uncertainty and consequence. They remind us that preparing women for leadership cannot mean preparing them only to be visible, collaborative or inspiring. We have to prepare them to carry responsibility when the answer is unclear, the stakes are high, and somebody still has to make the decision.

Final Thoughts

So, do they learn leadership? I think we have to stop treating leadership as something that people simply absorb from their environment and start treating it as something we intentionally develop.

Social conditioning matters. It shapes what people believe they are capable of, the risks they are encouraged to take, the authority they are comfortable exercising, and the behaviours they get to practise. But conditioning is not leadership development. If anything, relying on it alone can reproduce the very inequalities we are trying to change.

We should give girls opportunities to take risks, make decisions, disagree respectfully, solve problems, manage resources, fail, recover and try again. We should teach women not only how to enter rooms, but how to use their voice when they are in them. And perhaps this is where the conversation about women and leadership needs to mature.

We should not have to make women suffer to prove that they are capable of leading. But neither should we confuse a healthier leadership environment with an easier one. The goal is not to protect women from every difficult experience. The goal is to ensure that they encounter necessary challenge without unnecessary harm because leadership will always ask something of us.

And sometimes, as Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala’s example reminds us, to walk towards problems that other people might reasonably consider impossible.

After more than a decade of promoting Nigerian and African fashion in Los Angeles, organisers of the Ankara Festival Africa are turning their attention to Nigeria, with plans to establish Lagos as the starting point for a wider expansion across the continent.

The festival, which began in Los Angeles in 2010, was created to promote African culture in the diaspora through fashion, music and entertainment. Organisers now say the growing global visibility of African fashion and music presents an opportunity to bring the platform back to where its cultural story began.

Peter Efezokhae, convener of Ankara Festival Africa, Los Angeles, said the festival had initially focused on Nigerian designers before expanding to creatives from other African countries.

‘We started with Nigerian designers, we had to open it up to other African designers,’ Efezokhae said at a press conference ahead of the Lagos edition.

According to him, the festival’s original mission was shaped by the limited visibility of African culture in Los Angeles and Hollywood when the event began.

‘At that time, African fashion wasn’t popular where we are in Los Angeles and in Hollywood,’ he said, noting that African music and fashion have since gained significantly greater visibility internationally.

Efezokhae said the organisers now believe that part of their work in the diaspora has created an opportunity to bring the platform back to Nigeria.

‘I think it’s important for us to now bring it back home where everything started,’ he added.

The Lagos festival is expected to go beyond a conventional fashion show, incorporating music, food, art, interior design, hospitality and other creative activities.

Laura Udoh, co-convener of the festival, said the Lagos edition would create opportunities for creatives and businesses to connect, collaborate and showcase their work.

‘Aside from the fashion show, which definitely has to be there, the food, the culture, and the place would form part of the experience,’ she said.

Udoh added that music would also be a major component, alongside games and opportunities for participants to network and do business.

Isi Atagamen, who is also a co-convener of the festival, said the aim of the festival is to look beyond fashion to create a broader platform for the creative and hospitality industries.

The plan, she said, is to bring together art, music, fashion and hospitality in a single space where practitioners can showcase their work, build connections and access new opportunities.

‘We want a space where the art and hospitality industry can come together,’ Atagamen said.

The organisers also want the Lagos platform to serve as a bridge between African creatives and the diaspora.

According to Atagamen, the festival will provide an avenue for talent from West Africa to gain visibility among audiences and industry players connected to Los Angeles and the wider diaspora.

The expansion into Nigeria comes as Ankara continues to evolve beyond its traditional use as clothing material.

The festival’s concept document describes Ankara as a cultural medium that has moved across generations and social classes, appearing in fashion, art, design and other forms of creative expression.

The organisers say their ambition is therefore not simply to stage an annual fashion event but to create a platform that documents cultural stories, creates opportunities for creatives and encourages new interpretations of African heritage.

According to the organisers, they are not interested in preserving culture by putting it behind glass. ‘We believe culture stays alive when people continue to use it, question it, reinterpret it and make something new from it.’

For Efezokhae, the festival’s origins were also linked to a desire to change the way Nigeria and Africa were represented in the diaspora.

He recalled that when he moved to the United States in the early 2000s, stories about Nigeria in the diaspora were often dominated by negative narratives around fraud and poverty.

Rather than ignore those realities, he said, the festival sought to put greater attention on the music, fashion and films coming out of Africa.

‘We can’t change everything, but we start in our own little way,’ he said.

Over the years, the Los Angeles festival has featured designers from several African countries and attracted entertainment acts, according to the organisers. Its most recent edition also brought together designers from Burkina Faso, Kenya, Sierra Leone, Nigeria, Senegal and Ghana.

Efezokhae said the event had recently completed its 16th year in Los Angeles, with Hollywood celebrities and media organisations attending the latest edition.

The Lagos expansion is now intended to become the next stage of that journey.

The festival’s organisers say they eventually want the platform to move beyond Nigeria into other African markets and, ultimately, connect African creativity more directly with the global diaspora.

Peter Obi is not the godfather of any of Governor Chukwuma Soludo’s children, the Anambra State First Lady’s media aide, Daniel Ezeigwe, has clarified.

Ezeigwe issued the clarification on Saturday after a comment by Obi at the 22nd Conference of the Nigerian Guild of Editors in Enugu generated public interest.

Obi, a former governor of Anambra State and presidential candidate of the Labour Party in the 2023 election, had said he and his wife were godparents to Soludo’s children while dismissing reports of a rift between him and the governor.

‘People might not know, my wife and I are godparents to Soludo’s children. Yes, we are that close. So we are not quarrelling, and we will never quarrel. If I see him any day, me and him will hug and everything. If they say anything, I’ll answer them,’ Obi said.

The comment was subsequently circulated widely on social media, prompting questions about the nature of the relationship between the two families.

In a statement, Ezeigwe said Obi’s claim was incorrect and provided details of the actual godparent relationships involving the families.

‘The attention of the First Lady of Anambra State, Dr Nonye Soludo, has been drawn to a viral video in which the former Governor of Anambra State, Mr Peter Obi, claimed that ‘he and his wife are godparents to Soludo’s children’,’ he said.

‘Following the widespread circulation of the video, we have received several calls and enquiries seeking clarification on the claim.

‘We hereby state clearly that the claim, as presented, is false. For the avoidance of doubt:

‘Mr Peter Obi is not a godfather to any of the children of Professor Chukwuma and Dr Nonye Soludo.’

Ezeigwe said Dr Nonye Soludo serves as the confirmation godmother to Obi’s daughter, while Obi’s wife, Margaret, is the baptismal godmother to one of Soludo’s daughters.

‘Dr Nonye Soludo, First Lady of Anambra State, is the confirmation ‘godmother’ to Peter Obi’s daughter,’ the statement said.

‘Mrs Margaret Obi, wife of Mr Peter Obi, is the baptismal godmother to one of Prof Chukwuma Soludo’s daughters.’

‘Neither Mr Obi nor Professor Soludo has served as a godparent to the other’s children,’ it added.

The aide said Obi may have misspoken while making his remarks but said the widespread circulation of the video made it necessary to clarify the relationship.

‘It is possible that Mr Peter Obi simply misspoke in the course of making his remarks. However, given the widespread circulation of the video and the enquiries it has generated, it is important that the record be set straight,’ he said.

He added that the relationship between the two families remained cordial despite their political differences.

‘The relationship between the two families is cordial and there is no need to misrepresent it in any manner,’ the statement said.

Obi had also described Soludo as a close associate, recalling their relationship from his time as governor and Soludo’s career in banking.

‘Me and Soludo are close. As a banker, he was my customer. And we have not changed. If I see him, I greet him, I respect his office he’s the governor,’ Obi said.

‘So, we’re not quarrelling! And we will never quarrel! If I see him any day, me and him will hug and everything.’