I grew up in a separated home, and it really affected me. It was hard for me to love.

I was afraid of having a broken marriage, so I didn't care about breaking up my relationships. I just didn't want a broken marriage. I was scared of being heartbroken and I was looking for perfection, not knowing that I wasn't giving myself as well. I was also abused by an aunt. It's not only girls that people take advantage of. Boys are victims too. 

I lived in the ghetto area of Ogudu, where I woke up in the morning to carry sand from the water into the boat around Iyanoworo.

One day my mum told me she had to beg someone on the road for transport fare to return home. My heart broke and I promised myself that whatever it takes, I would succeed. My mum has played a huge role to make that happen and I really appreciate her. My dad too did his best, in his own way. 

Right now, I am standing strong and blessing lives with my music. 

I remember a time when my wife and I lived in a room in my brother's 3 bedroom apartment. I couldn’t afford to pay rent, because I’d just been transferred to Abuja. Work was challenging because of internal politics. 

I had some friends who were using a rare fragrance they called OUD. I asked a friend in Dubai to bring some for me and I really loved it. So the idea came to me to start selling perfume. I did a lot of research on what OUD was and I also started advertising on social media.  I'd learnt certain principles about seed sowing. So the first sale of perfume I made was a seed. 

In 3 months, I had made about a million Naira at my desk from the sale of perfume. After that, I had an online store on Konga. When I made my first online sale; I sowed a seed.

My pastor called me and said I should expand the perfume business, travel and meet with manufacturers. I just looked at him and laughed in my mind. Before I knew it, he wrote me a cheque of a million naira. I wanted to faint.

I travelled to Dubai and found some perfumes. When I returned to Nigeria everything changed. Business changed and Sapphire scents was born.

After a while, God instructed me to start a distributorship chain and so I did. We now have over 140 distributors across Nigeria, UK, US, Ghana, Cameroon. We have created 7 fragrances and are now selling perfumed candles, car fresheners and industrial diffusers.

When you honour God and are faithful to him, your life will change forever.

I was born with sickle cell anaemia and I went through a lot of pain growing up. 

I remember a time in secondary school when I was sweeping. I fell and couldn't move. I was taken to the hospital and couldn’t go back to school until after 2 months. The amazing thing is, despite the hassle of being a sickler, I would still finish top of my class, I was either 1st, 2nd or 3rd. 

When I wanted to go to UNILAG, I did a series of tests, including a genotype test. Before that time, I'd believed God for my genotype to change. I remember one time in church, I came out be prayed for and I felt the hand of God. 

When it was time for me to submit my medicals at UNILAG, I did a genotype test at the lab. The result came out as AA. I told the woman to do it again, that it's not possible because I'm a sickler. She redid the test 6 times and it came out as AA. I no longer had sickle cell anaemia. 

I'm a medical lab scientist and I know it's not possible for someone's genotype to switch medically. Therefore, what happened to me is a miracle and I thank God.

It was the year 2010 on a Sunday evening. I got a call from my elder sister for me to go see my dad because he was a bit ill. 

On Monday morning at 5am, we set out early to avoid the long queues at the general hospital. We saw the doctor and my dad was referred to LUTH. The doctors were on strike and so we went to the teaching hospital in Ogun state. They were also on strike. We had to go to UCH Ibadan. There, we slept in our bus and didn't see the consultant until the 3rd day. 

A scan was done for my dad and we were told one kidney was cancerous and the other was badly damaged. His diabetes had also gone up. Twenty tests were recommended and the least of the tests was about N60,000. The only thing we knew to do was to pray. We had no money; we had gathered all we had for his treatments. However, money started coming in.

While on his sick bed, my dad would tell me, "I know there is God and he has everything sorted. All I would like you to do is pray."

We eventually got the results of the last test and it was revealed that there was no kidney failure, no cancer and everything was intact. My dad was discharged after 3 months and we went back home. 

In 2015, my dad was admitted again at Igbobi Orthopaedic Hospital because of the diabetes. His leg was infected and it was eating up his veins, so his leg had to be amputated. People really supported us financially and God provided. 

I remember on one occasion my dad died in the hospital but he came back after 2 hours. Every night before leaving the hospital, I would hold his hands and we would pray. 

As if my dad knew he was going to pass away soon, he kept thanking all of us and prayed for us. 

 

Eventually, my dad passed away. I just know he’s in a better place now.

I grew up in the ghetto, Ajegunle to be precise. Looking at me, you'll never know.

My parents played a huge role in protecting my sisters and I. They limited our play times and guys weren’t allowed to visit us. Life in the ghetto was interesting. 

Growing up, the word of God also kept me. I took to the word of God voraciously. 

I grew up in the same neighbourhood as Pita, David Nkennor and Chika. All of us were music freaks. We were all balling those days in the ghetto. We knew what we wanted and I'm really happy that when we see ourselves now, we are like, "Oh you remember those days?" and we laugh. 

People now want to be part of what God is doing in our lives. They want to use our platforms and that is a miracle. 

One of the thing that helped my friends and I was that we saw the end result. We knew there was more to us. We are about changing lives and reaching out to the world with our music, the word of God, our lifestyle, self-image and personality.

Wherever you are, know this, you can change the world. 

My boss once told me I would never make it in broadcasting. 

At another radio station I worked with, my Head of Programs called as I was about to write a test in school. I told him I had a test and he told me to pick one, my education or radio. I chose to stay in school, but I thank God I didn't lose my job. I graduated with good grades even while I was on radio. 

After a great career on radio as an undergraduate and as a corper, I just couldn’t get a full time job on radio. Instead, I got a regular 9-5 job.

I sent proposals to radio stations with my ideas, but got no feedback. At a point, I got tired but the Holy Spirit told me, "You don't need a proposal to start a Facebook Page, a Twitter account or a blog." And that was it.

In January 2012, I opened a Facebook account and started to share the content I would have shared on radio. A week after I started a blog and people began to send their songs to me to publish. It was small, but I was fulfilled. 

On June 1, 2012, Praise World Radio emerged.

When I started to sing, it wasn't all that easy. 

I joined a mass choir when I was 16 going to 17, at a church in Ilorin. During my audition, the choir director told me that my voice wouldn’t sing, and he asked how I even got into the choir. He also believed I was tone deaf, so whenever we ministered, I was placed at the back. 

I started working on myself, learning the theory of music, solfa notations, etc. But whenever I was given an opportunity to score a song or to lead praise and worship, I would shy away, until God told me that if I continued to shy away from things, I wouldn't grow. That day was a defining moment for me. I told myself whether I can or can't, I'm going to attempt it. 

People that knew me and are still in touch with me now, marvel at how much I have evolved. I relocated to Lagos and joined a church that was just starting. I became the music director and still am, 5 years later. We started the choir from scratch and everybody that's been to our church knows that our music is more than average, thanks to God who inspires us. 

No matter what people say about you, know that what's important, is what you say about yourself. 

I was in a cult in secondary school. 

Because I had an innocent look, I was bullied. I got to a point where I got tired of it. In my 3rd year in secondary school, someone very close to me introduced me to a cult. I remember the day of my initiation. I was blindfolded and the process was a grueling and painful one. 

Something happened during our inter-house sports. A cult group came from another school to attack my group and in the process, one of our top members was killed. The person who introduced me to the cult and I were able to escape. That was how I left the cult. After the incident, there was a long holiday, and we got born again, thanks to my sister. I held on to God and became very committed in church. 

I got into university and things were not happening the way I expected them to. I didn't have money. In my 200 level during the strike (3 months), I was introduced to internet fraud aka Yahoo Yahoo. The cash started coming in, but I was not settled. I was living large at school but I couldn't support anyone at home. They would wonder where I got the money from. My conscience haunted me.

In my early 300 level, the Holy Spirit told me if I didn't stop it, it would become a problem. Meanwhile, my sister had a dream and told me in the presence of everyone during our morning devotion, that she had a dream about me and she had a feeling I was already doing fraud. She told me, “If you're actually doing this, you're eating from your future.” That’s what got to me. 

I stopped doing Yahoo Yahoo. My friends laughed at me and said I would run back to it after a month. I didn't. I won't lie, it was difficult, financially. But God's word kept me going. 

Today, I'm living a beautiful life. Who says God cannot do it for you? You don't have to make money through illegal means. You can make good money when you trust in God. 

I grew up with just my mum. I didn't know my dad until I went looking for him when I was 10. 

I was abused by my cousins from age 7 till 13. It stopped because they moved. I couldn't tell my mum because we didn't have a mother-daughter relationship. 

Since then, I've looked for love in the wrong places. I did many things to boost my self-esteem. I didn't know the things I was doing were because I had a lot of anger and unforgiveness inside of me. I just thought I was getting through life, until 2015. A guy wanted to date me, and at the time, I had started a purity journey. I told him if we were going to date, we wouldn’t have sex. He asked why, and I told him I didn’t want sex, but while I was saying it, I sounded really angry. He noticed and told me to stop. He asked, "Who did this to me? Who messed me up?" He said he noticed a lot of anger inside of me and I was acting really defensive. 

That was how my journey to healing started. We didn't date, but he's still my very good friend. He introduced me to his friend who is a therapist. I was able to talk to her about everything, including my childhood, as I cried. 

It took me close to 2 years to heal and I thank God. I told my mum about everything that happened, this year. I had gotten to a stage where I could talk about it without crying. The last 2 years have been very interesting. I became very paranoid. I couldn't stand the sight of a guy playing with a little girl or putting her on his lap. I would just shout. My therapist said it was normal for me to react that way.

I was familiar with the streets, as I had to sell bread before I went to school.

I felt like education was my ticket out of poverty, so I gave it everything I had. I worked really hard and was always top of my class. Learning was difficult in public schools. There were no books and the conditions were terrible. I would say, I'm a product of self-development. I studied Civil Engineering in Yaba Tech and graduated tops. I then moved to Yobe State in 2008, for my Youth Service.

I thought I had it bad in Lagos, but I was shocked by Yobe State. There were kids who had never seen the four walls of a school. I was in a local government called Nangere in a village called Degubi. I was crying at the state of things and the people were just carefree. I decided I was going to make a difference, even if it was in the life of one child.

I started a community school under the tree at the village square. I visited most of the parents and told them I was a corper and that was what I intended to do. I started with about 5 children. In the space of 3 months, we grew to about 60 children. The children became too many for me to handle so I had to ask other corpers to help. A few did. By the end of service year, there were over 150 children. I felt like I'd found what I was born to do. I got a state award for community development.

I returned to Lagos after NYSC. It was hard to stay back because Boko Haram was really brewing at the time. When I got back, I was torn between finding a regular 9 to 5 job or doing community service. I volunteered at an NGO, but my focus was education. I later started a community based initiative called TEACH (Transforming Education and Championing Health). We focus on public primary schools and see how we can use community resources to identify and solve the education and health needs of community schools. So far I've worked with 4 public schools.

I believe you’re not in control of the family you are born into, but you are in control of the decisions you make and can take responsibility for your life. I didn’t have a good start but I’m committed to having a great end. 

I recently had an issue with the police and was locked up for 4 days for a crime I didn't commit. I was picked up randomly on the road during my prayer walk.

My experience with the police changed me, but in a positive way. I used to be very impulsive. I could get a call from Abuja and take off the next minute. Now I don't do that again. I have become calmer. If I want to travel, I don't do so abruptly. I plan. In general, I am now more security conscious.

The experience didn’t dampen my passion, it increased it. I could have languished in prison but because God had used me and I'd been a blessing to so many people, they noticed I'd gone silent on social media. Several people started calling my numbers. My friend broke into my house, found my phone and saw about 200 missed calls. That’s how a “missing person’s” post of me went viral on social media. If I was living a self-focused life, who would have remembered me or asked questions?

People look at me and they are like, “Despite challenges, you are still able to do what you do.” Well, God has been faithful. I've started a TV show. I'm a speaker, trainer and small business consultant.

I want to encourage every youth out there to look within. There's something on your inside that the world is supposed to benefit from.

I grew up in a dysfunctional home. My parents separated when I was a baby. 

Before my mum remarried, my siblings and I had some neighbours who would play with my butt and do ridiculous things. I was really young. I didn't understand what they were doing until I was abused by someone else. And then it all made sense. 

My stepdad was really strict. We couldn't go out or talk and we had a very firm upbringing. So, when I got into Uni, it was like I had my freedom. I did the worst things I could have done in my life during this period, from messing around with guys to clubbing and occasional drinking. Honestly, I didn't see it as a big deal back then.

My sister became a Christian before me and then she introduced me to Christianity. It was quite hard because we were Muslims. Even though I wasn't a serious one, I just didn't fancy being a Christian either. 

I've been a Christian for about 9 years now and it has really been worth it. I can say that even though there are troubles here and there, there’s a huge gap between where I'm coming from and where I am now. I'm thankful that I found God when I did. If not, I most likely would have become a runs girl. Lol. 

I've always had a funny sense of humour right from childhood. In secondary school, I would crack jokes in the midst of my female seniors and they would give me their food at the dining hall. 

Although I started comedy so many years ago, I became better in 2008 when I got into university. I took it up as a profession in 2012 when I graduated from school.

At university, I was always anchoring one program or the other. It was more of a hobby, but comedy eventually became a product and Saco the comedian is now mentoring me. 

I try to inspire people through my content and I also try to make people see that beyond the funny side of life, comedy can also make you think.

The twist is, I also lecture in the University. Beyond being a comedian, I'm an academician, a scholar and a researcher. I lecture in Osun State University where I graduated with a first class degree in Political Science. I also have a master’s degree and am hoping to do my PhD as soon as possible.