Your journey from starting ‘The Stroll’ with just a mobile phone to interviewing over 120 global leaders is remarkable. What inspired you to begin this initiative?
As a teenager, I was fascinated by information and often listened to the BBC World Service on my shortwave radio every evening after school. It gave me a global perspective on the world around me.
In 2013, when I founded the interview series The Stroll, it came from the realisation that, at the time, there was no dedicated media platform that discussed the United Nations Observances (e.g. World AIDS Day, International Day of Education, etc.). I was 21 years old and all I had was a Nokia Xpress Music phone and some spare cash for cyber café time.
I started writing to several world leaders from my phone, whom I wanted to interview on my blog. I got rejection emails from the White House, the UK Deputy Prime Minister’s office, and the Russian Prime Minister’s office. I’m sure they wondered, “Who is this guy from Port Harcourt with such guts?” Out of the many emails I sent from my phone, some people started to say yes to my humble interview blog, over 100 of them, including the late Babatunde Osotimehin (Ex-UNFPA Executive Director), Amina J. Mohammed (Deputy United Nations Secretary-General), Michael Møller (Director-General, United Nations Office Geneva), Elsie Kanza (Head of Africa, World Economic Forum), Rt Hon Ken Macintosh (Presiding Officer, Scottish Parliament), Crown Prince Haakon Magnus (Crown Prince of Norway), Richard Wurman (Founder of TED), to mention a few.
I grew in confidence as I progressed and was invited to write a column for The Huffington Post. As they say, the rest is history. Speaking to these world leaders directly shaped the way I saw the world, and I better understood the power of public policy to shape lives.
As the founder of Policy Shapers, a civic startup that empowers young people to shape public policy, what challenges did you face in establishing this platform?
My founding team members and I started Policy Shapers during the COVID-19 lockdown. As the pandemic was unravelling, we noticed that young people were not part of the decision-making that was happening—decisions like how schools should operate during lockdown or how youth-led businesses could continue to function.
During the pandemic, as a team, we participated in the MIT/Harvard COVID-19 Policy Hackathon, where the international judges scored us 45/50 for our ideas on how Nigerian schools could continue to deliver content amidst the lockdown, directed to the Minister of Education. We also participated in the Stanford University Open Datathon, where we represented Africa and emerged 3rd globally.
These experiences motivated us to start Policy Shapers and devise ways to mainstream youth voices in policymaking at the local, national, and global levels. One of the projects we started in 2022 is the Naija Policy Hackathon, which has now been attended by over 800 young people from across Nigeria, collaborating to develop policy ideas that address development issues in Nigeria.
Your advocacy against English proficiency tests, particularly the #ReformIELTS campaign, led to policy changes in several universities. What motivated you to take on this cause?
#ReformIELTS is one example of how we mainstreamed youth voices and wishes into a policy advocacy campaign that went viral and mobilised over 82,000 supporters across the African continent.
The story goes as far back as my great-grandfather, Pa Samson Wikina-Emmah, who served as an interpreter for the colonial masters. He was instrumental in translating the Holy Bible and the Methodist hymnal into the Khana language, my native tongue. Growing up and hearing his story always left me amazed at how someone with no English education was able to interpret in broken English back in the day. It also made me think that if, as far back as over 100 years ago, Nigerians could understand the English language with limited education, how much more now? Why should we be made to write a test that costs as much as three times our minimum wage, and whose result expires every two years?
This is why, in 2021, I started the movement seeking reform to this global policy, which mandates Anglo-Africans to write English proficiency tests while seeking study or work opportunities abroad. We have used digital advocacy tools like a petition, policy briefs, and the media to lead conversations on this issue.
We engaged over 15 policymakers, including the former Vice President, Prof Yemi Osinbajo, the UK Home Office, the British Council Programme Board, the Association of Commonwealth Universities, and the UK’s Nursing and Midwifery Council, to mention a few. We recruited a Task Force of over 70 young Africans studying in universities around the world, and they became ambassadors for the movement by engaging their respective schools on this issue. So far, up to 32 universities worldwide have announced changes to their admission policy as a result of our campaign, exempting Nigerians and other English-speaking Africans from writing IELTS/TOEFL.
The Rivers 2050 Vision aims to co-create a 25-year development blueprint for Rivers State. What prompted the initiation of this project?
In my previous work at PIND Foundation, I was part of long-term development planning projects in Cross River, Abia, and Edo States. Being a son of Rivers State, I have always wondered why the state doesn’t have a long-term vision to guide sustainable development. The last time Rivers State had a plan was in the 1970s. The Rivers State Development Plan was part of Nigeria’s Third National Development Plan from 1975–1980. It was launched by Commander Alfred Papapereye Diete-Spiff, the military governor of Rivers State, in May 1975.
The birth of my son, Sean Kisi Omiebi Wikina, last year got me thinking a lot about the future and the kind of state and country he would grow up in. By 2050, I will be 58 years old and my son will be 25—at the twilight of my career, while he will be starting his. I need to be able to leave a legacy for him and for posterity.
This is what motivated me to convene this project, and after presenting it to my team at Policy Shapers for approval, we launched the project in February 2025. This was before the state of emergency was declared in Rivers State. Now that the state is in a leadership crisis, I think the project is even more important because it puts the people at the centre of the conversation, which I believe is much more important than any single person or interest at this time. The government must work for the good of the people.
With over 100 young professionals involved in the Rivers 2050 Task Force, how are you ensuring diverse representation and inclusive participation across all 23 Local Government Areas?
Yes, we recruited the Task Force via social media, just as we recruited the #ReformIELTS Task Force back in 2022. We have representation on the Task Force and steering committee from young people within and outside Rivers State, as well as from the diaspora.
We have just launched the project website, Rivers2050.org, to house information relating to the project and to document our process. We are not funded by any political group or individual. This is a youth-led initiative by youth and for our future.
The Task Force members have formed working committees and elected their committee chairs to lead their key deliverables across the stages of the project.
The project emphasises citizen engagement through surveys and town hall meetings. What mechanisms are in place to ensure that the voices collected genuinely influence the final vision document?
The way we have designed the project across five stages, each stage feeds into the next. The data collected from the statewide survey and the insights gained from Focus Group Discussions with experts and Key Informant Interviews will naturally feed into the final vision document.
Through our website, citizens also have an opportunity to send us their insights, thoughts, and additional ideas to be included in the book.
Of all the long-term development plans and visions that I know of globally—even in places like Dubai, Qatar, or countries in Europe and North America—this is the first development blueprint I know of that is fully youth-led and citizen-driven. It will be the people telling the government what they want for their future.
Given the challenges of implementing long-term development plans in Nigeria, what strategies are being considered to ensure the sustainability.
This is a very important question and one that we have grappled with as a team. It is important to note that the vision book is not a development plan. It is a broad aspiration of where the citizens want the state to be and how experts and key leaders feel we can get there.
As part of the next steps for the project, we plan to engage the state government to use this vision book to develop a concise plan that brings all ministries, departments, and agencies in the state to the table. This vision project we are conducting will reduce the cost of the planning session by almost 50 per cent.
Once that plan is completed, the State Assembly will legislate on it so that it becomes state law, binding on successive administrations. Therefore, in the future, the people can take a governor to court if he or she doesn’t implement budgets and projects in line with the long-term plan. Through the Rivers 2050 Vision Project, we are taking the first important step to set the ball rolling, which we hope will set the state on a path of sustainable development.
