Sade Onabowale has a lot of opinions. Following her on Instagram is characterized by her expression of her thoughts on the topic du jour in long form. That desire to shape discourse has also now resulted in its own media universe of sorts: a Substack newsletter, a podcast, and a recurring event series. This is how she uses Obasanjo’s internet.
Who are you? What do you do?
I work in tech, mainly in process optimisation and product management. Outside of that, I run a few side quests that aim to create a space for curious minds to unite. I run a book club called SBC Bookclub, where we read mainly women authors, and I have a podcast called Bridging The Gap that focuses on socioeconomic and political discussions about Nigeria. And when I’m not doing either of those, I’m making video essays on TikTok that analyse pop culture happenings in Nigeria through an internet anthropological point of view (with my only credentials being that I’ve been chronically online since the days of Starcomms dial-up internet and I’ve studied a bunch of humanities modules over the years).
What’s the first thing you do when you wake up?
It really depends on what time of the month it is. At the start of the month, I do a social media cleanse, so I’m more likely to start my day praying, reading a book, and taking my dog out to pee. However, when the cleanse wears off mid-month, I typically start the day scrolling through emails/chat as I work with people daily in APAC and AMER, and their messages come in when I’m asleep.
What’s the last thing you do on your phone before bed?
Scrolling on TikTok because Nigeria is so hard, I need to laugh before I go to bed, and I’m always guaranteed to laugh on that app.
Would you say you have an online persona? What’s it, and how did you arrive at it?
I definitely do. My persona online is generally educational but in a non-condescending way (I hope). I think most of the content on Obasanjo’s internet is generally low-level discourse, so I try to show up in a way that aims to contextualise everything happening in the world in a bite-sized way that hopefully leads people on to be curious and dig deep into things. We don’t have enough curious minds in Nigeria.
What rules do you live by on the internet?
This is a very good question because I have some very strict rules.
Rule number one is I don’t argue with strangers on the internet. I set this rule from the days of Twitter when one of my tweets went viral, and it’s saved me ever since. I can’t think of one tangible life-changing value of arguing with a stranger who is very likely a bot or a troll about anything. I only save my back and forths for people I know.
My second rule is to never share anything that I don’t want people to pass commentary or judgment on. In this age where people are putting their entire private lives on the internet for some perceived shred of relatability, but it’s not about being relatable, deep down it’s about attention. How much can you relate to someone whom you only consume 0.5% of their entire lives online weekly?
Lastly, a more serious one is to always check the source of your news. We’re in a global disinformation war, and reposting or repeating false rhetoric can be the thing that lights the flame. Before you share an infographic, go to any search tool to corroborate the story. If you see a stat, look up the report the stat is coming from and check that it’s not being taken out of context
What moment or episode in your life would you say captured the essence of the internet?
I would say living through the global pandemic of 2020. The world slowed down or completely shut down for many of us, and it forced us to grapple with the way we show up in the physical world and figure out how to translate that online. From lives to increased sharing of hobbies to virtual meetups in one way or another, we got to see people in a different light than we’d previously seen before. Dare I say the internet felt more humanised? For those of us in Nigeria, we got to witness in our lifetime Nigerians coming together across age, gender, class, ethnicity, religion and sexuality to speak in one voice against injustices that the nation state was allowing in what we’ve come to know as the ENDSARS protests. While it came to a peak in October 2020 with the killings at Lekki Toll Gate, and with it, killed a lot of hope for Nigerians, I personally left with a lot of hope. I saw that Nigerians can come together and rally behind a clear goal and shared value on the sanity of human life. In our everyday lives, we are constantly being bombarded with messaging that says otherwise, but I see now that we ourselves have underestimated the trauma of centuries of being told “your life does not matter”, and to undo that will take centuries of work, and you have to keep going. The instant version of the world we’ve come to be used to via the power of the internet has not translated online. Even the technology that allows for instant replies from AI chat platforms to online Payments to Instant Delivery took centuries of cumulative work to get here. I try to keep that in perspective now when I think of Nigeria, and I know that it is a privilege to even have, but that even more motivation not to waste it.
Do you remember the first time something you posted went viral? What was it, and how did it make you feel?
I don’t remember my first time because it’s mainly been on X (Formerly Twitter), and the app is such a shadow of itself since “that man” took it over, so I’ve blocked out the memories.
However, I joined TikTok 2 years ago, and my first viral video was the “Yahoonization of Lagos” video, where I unpacked how Lagos is kept alive through fraud/corruption money. Till today, people still come up to me and talk about how much they liked the video and my videos since. It’s bizarre for me because, as I said, I’ve had viral moments on Twitter, but on there, all people can go on is a random profile picture of you, and most of us have these profile pictures that kind of show your face but not really. However, on TikTok, your face is on blast all the time. It was scary at first, but people come up to me and genuinely engage me on things like politics, psychology, and pop culture, and it’s all good vibes. I like it. It’s refreshing to know everyone on the other side of my screen isn’t just 1’s and 0’s but rather real people who care about similar things. I still get a bit scared when my videos go viral, but so far, they’ve been generally received well.
What’s the most outrage you have ever generated over something you posted? How did you react to it?
Last year, leading up to Detty December and IJGB season, I made a TikTok saying diasporans should be more careful about sharing videos showing the route to their house, house tours and their expensive wardrobe, as there had been an increase in insider theft and violence in Lagos. In that year, we’d had multiple cases of cooks/maids/drivers robbing or killing their bosses. Abroad, we’d also seen vloggers in other parts of the world being robbed or attacked in their homes by stalkers. Security is a delusion in Nigeria, and I was simply warning about how everyone from your staff to people down the road to the people who do your hair to nails to your vulcaniser has access to TikTok and can watch your videos and use it in a negative way to harm you. At the time I also made the video, austerity was growing all over Nigeria, including Lagos, so people had to be careful of flaunting wealth because anyone could be watching and use this as a way to bring harm to you. Anyway, loads of people argued back at me, saying Nigeria is so safe and that I was fear-mongering.
Now that I think about it, I wonder if I should go back and revive that video and ask if they still believe in this stance, given the current state of the nation with insecurity.
What’s your favourite social media platform? Why?
For me, it’s still Instagram. It doesn’t have everything in one place. I use it for catching up and keeping up with friends and family. It also doubles as my Pinterest board for hair/clothing/nails inspo, my community channel manager, source of news, and shopping search engine. It does all. As much as people are calling for it to go back to chronological order, I barely spend any time on my feed. I catch up with what my friends are up to via stories, and when I’m not doing that, I’m scrolling through explore for inspo.
YouTube or TikTok? Which do you prefer and why?
This is a hard one, but it has to be YouTube. I’ve been a day zero YouTube babe since it was only cat/funny dog videos to Music acoustic covers that gave rise to some of the musicians we have today to bloggers era (Zoella, JacksGap, Jenna Marbles OG days) to makeup tutorial days (Jackie Aina, BeautybyJJ etc) to random history videos to VEVO days to now where I mainly use it to watch vlogs and video essays, I love it. I really enjoy long-form well well-produced videos, which TikTok vertical videos stand no chance against. My favourite vloggers at the moment are Moya, Claudia Sulewski, Alia Zaita and Eloise. I sadly don’t watch any Nigerian vlogs because whenever I try to get into them, you can tell people are being performative or holding back (which is a product of our sociocultural environment conditioning), but the joy of a vlog is openness and once the audience doesn’t feel that, there’s no point watching. For video essays, I currently enjoy Anna Howard (Wild Geese) and Shannon Kim. They both do the type of videos I would love to do more of myself.
What is your guiltiest online pleasure?
Dog Videos. I have a dog, and every day my family members and I just send each other dog videos we’ve come across throughout the day.
What was the last rabbit hole you fell into?
Shannon Kim whom I mentioned previously, does these video essays examining the role of art in the world and its intersection with everything else. One of her recent videos was on the impact of philanthropy and charity on the arts, as most of the arts funding comes from art charities which have patrons of the richest people in that society or the world yet a lot of those people have made their money in dubious ways and go on to use their investment in arts and culture to white wash their image. A lot of my friends work in the arts in Nigeria or abroad and the consistent complaint I get from them is that funding is drying up due to obvious socio-political and economical changes but it made me go on a deep dive into how the arts is supposed to be this radically separate thing of society but artists have to eat so how do they all find the balance to serving capitalism and serving their soul in their work. Her video essay is titled “The Reality of the Art Girlfriend Finance Boyfriend Trope: Gentrification & Its Correlation to Art”.
What’s the most interesting thing you’ve learned online recently?
That “severally” is a made-up Nigerian word. When someone says they’ve called you severally or when your parents say “I’ve warned you severally”, it doesn’t mean multiple times, severally means one after the other. Shout out to Oxford Dictionary for including the Nigerian English meaning, though. It’s so fascinating to see how language evolves in previously colonised countries such as Nigeria.
Which Nigerian creator do you think the world needs to see and hear more of?
Fas (@fasthebaker) on TikTok. He’s a chef who has spent a large part of this year backpacking through Nigeria and highlighting local foods and culture. Recently, we’re seeing more photographers or skit makers pivot into making these travel videos in Nigeria, but it tends to be over-edited drone shots with zero substance. I’ve learnt so much from watching his simple videos, from understanding transport links in the country to how far 10,000 naira can take you in one state vs the other and how location influences what people eat eg more South- South people eating seafood and vegetables due to easy access and soil, vs Northerners being more scratchy and meat-related foods.
What is your favourite Nigerian podcast?
Mine, Bridging The Gap by Bridging The Gap Media. Shameless plug. It seeks to bridge the age and knowledge divide in Nigeria by bringing together Nigerians of different generations to talk about our problems and propose solutions. We talk about everything from the impact of Pentecostalism on our politics to Waste Management in Lagos to Language Preservation and more. Season 2 is out soon, so this is a good time to binge season 1.
Five people you’d love to see answer these questions.
Adesuwa Giwa Osagie, Morinsola Reis, Feyikewa Aiyegbusi, Tomi Adesina and Fadekemi Ogunsanya.
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