There tends to always be a bias towards motivational speakers, who give the “follow your passion, and money will follow” advice and they are mostly chided for giving advice that is not applicable to all climes.

But then comes Shola Animashaun, multi-award-winning visual storyteller, who proves that even in Nigeria, it is possible to follow your dream and make a lot of money out of it.

While serving out his youth corps year in 2002, Shola discovered his love for visual storytelling – an art that keeps memories and tells stories using still and motion pictures. He had gotten a camera while working in Ilorin, Kwara state before going for the service year, but then discovered that there were people willing to engage him to capture their memories in pictures and videos, and pay for it as well.

After the year in Ilorin, he abandoned the hobby which he regarded as a pastime and started the job-hunt, hoping to clinch some white-collar job with mouth-watering remunerations, but over the next three years, it became an endless search until he eventually got a job with an accounting firm based in Abuja.

Recounting his experience in the Nairametrics Business Half Hour show, Animashaun said; “I was offered employment and I was supposed to travel to Abuja to start work there. By the time I got home, I packed my bags to leave Lagos for Abuja. But one of my siblings held me back. He said if I don’t end up pursuing the passion I had in visual storytelling as a business, I may never end up doing it.

I listened to him, the next day I went to return the N5000 I had been given to take night bus to Abuja to start work as an accountant. At the time I turned down that job, I was 25 or 26 years old, and once you can’t get into a white collar establishment in your early 20s, it would be hard for you to do that. so when I was turning down the job, I knew that I had burnt my bridge literally. I knew that the decision would be difficult to take back, so I had no option but to be successful. ”

Turning down an employment offer at 25, to take a gamble on one’s passion is not what many would advise their siblings to do, but it did pay off.

Over the next few months, Shola focused on building a portfolio of editorials, documentaries, videography and related productions, and within three months, Animashaun’s income had quadrupled the offer he got from the accounting firm.

With referrals, he soon got his first big offer – the Globacom campus storm – which took him travelling around the country with the likes of Basketmouth, Jimmy Jatt, and Ruggedman.

“It is very important to have a portfolio because even when people refer you for the right jobs, they would always want to see what you have done before then. A little talking and more showing, and the results that you seek will come,” he said.

Animashaun also focused on building a good interpersonal relationship with his clients, to build more rapport and attract more referrals to sustain the business. He also got a deal as the in-house photographer for Nigeria’s number one urban lifestyle and music magazine, Hip Hop World; and has since then worked with several concerts, magazine covers, blogs among others.

At different times, Shola covered the Eyo Festival, Lagos Carnival, Nigerian Tourism Expo in Atlanta Georgia and Barbados respectively.

Any regrets?

None at all, Shola says.

“There was never a time I regretted my decision. I love the freedom of time, the freedom to take up a job I want. I am always excited but when I was looking for a job for years, that excitement died totally and I started feeling like I was not good enough. Returning to the camera brought back the excitement and that is what I need to fuel my energy.”

Awards

The accounting graduate, now turned visual storyteller, has churned out hundreds of productions over the years and gotten several awards and recognitions. Despite starting out as a neophyte and learning through multiple trials and errors, Shola has now become one of the most notable names in the industry. He has executed several jobs within and outside the country and continues to stun the world with better and better productions every single time.

He was recognised Best Model Photo of the year, Nigeria Photography Awards 2011, and again in 2012. Shola also won the Best Wedding Photo of the year, and the Best Event Photo of the year, Nigeria Photography Awards 2012.

Shola Animashaun was 2nd runner-up, EyeEm We Are One FIFA14 World Cup Int’l Competition 2014; and the Visual Art Winner, Creative Industry Awards 2015.

If you have ever heard of someone being defrauded while trying to get a land or home in Nigeria, then you are not alien to the kind of problems Bongalow seeks to solve in Nigeria. However, the company has evolved into a lot more than this since it started.

Bongalow started in 2019, as MyAwayHome, to help Nigerians in diaspora who wanted to get homes in Nigeria with a secured and entirely digital process to access home loans, mortgages at competitive prices and without the risk of being defrauded.

At the Nairametrics Business Half Hour Show, Bongalow founder, Kelechi Nwokocha noted that the company rebranded into Bongalow in December 2020 as a way to accommodate a larger market and move from providing diaspora mortgage solutions for African immigrants living in the US and the UK, to become an all-encompassing, Africa-focused, digital mortgage platform.

Nwokocha recalled that the inspiration to start the company came years ago when his mother lost some significant sum to fraudulent agents in Nigeria while trying to get a home in the country.

“I thought that if she had suffered this, then there could also be others going through the same challenge. So, I decided to come up with a platform that would help them source the property they need safely, and where necessary secure the right mortgage that suits their needs,” he explained.

With a simple application on Bongalow, clients both in Nigeria and diaspora access no less than 16 mortgage offers from different banks, and can then make a choice based on the available information. This cuts out the length of time that would have been spent walking into the different banking halls in search of the best rates and creates a transparent and entirely digital process that ensures that applicants get the best terms possible

Bongalow operates an asset-light business model, with about 15 staff in its Lagos office, and makes money off commissions. The applicant simply needs to tender a credit report, and also prove his income source, alongside other documents to get started.

Challenges for the mortgage business in Nigeria

While European countries are probably well adapted to the mortgage business and terms, the same cannot be said for Nigeria.

According to Nwokocha, the first challenge for mortgage business in Nigeria is affordability. Many families cannot own a home because of their income, and the same income further restricts the size of mortgage loans they can access for the purpose.

“To secure a mortgage, the individual needs to have up to 30% of the value of the property to cover the initial costs and the closing costs, and this means we are talking about N15 million if we have a property worth N50 million. Most people cannot afford this, not just because of the living standard in Nigeria but because of a poor savings culture.

No mortgage bank will give you a loan size that will put you in a position where you have to spend more than 33 % of your monthly take-home in repaying the loan. That means the income level also affects the loan size one can access, and it is a challenge for a lot of people who wish to own their homes,” he explained.

To resolve this challenge for clients, Bongalow is set to roll out the “rent to own” product that will allow clients start with as low as 10%, and raise another 10% of the property value within the first 2-3 years before they are moved into the traditional mortgage plan with the mortgage banks to gradually pay off the rest.

This eases off the burden on the clients, allowing them achieve their housing goal at their pace.

In subsequent years, the company aims to build a mobile banking app to allow people save for a property and shop for a mortgage. “We want to be the number 1 name in the mortgage market. We are excited about making affordable home financing more accessible for every African.”