Steven Ndukwu is a travel and real estate content creator on YouTube who tells stories about people, culture, destinations, and real estate in African countries. He was in the 2022 class of the Black Voices Fund. While speaking with David Ijaseun, he discussed his experience in the program and his perception of Africa’s travel and tourism industry. Excerpts:
How was your experience with the YouTube Black Voices Fund?
When I started the class, I had about 50,000 subscribers, but now I have almost 200,000, and I have also been able to hire two assistants. I got three things out of the YouTube Black Fund that helped me a lot: information, especially about algorithms; access to a partner manager; and funds that will let me travel more and buy more gear.
It was great and I really wish I can apply again. If you are in the class of 2023, stick with the classes and try to do the practical works. Trust me, it will help you.
Tell us about how you started your journey and exploration into Africa.
I have a background in filmmaking. Before, I used to make videos to teach people how to shoot and edit content, but then I thought, why not just show people how to do these things? I started to travel and make very nice documentaries about the places I visited.
It has been great so far, but leaving your home and your job description, to visit places, as glamorous as it may sound, gets stressful. But I am always up for it. I do not have to sit behind a desk working from 9 to 5, because I have to do this full-time, travelling to meet different people, and places every time, so it’s really interesting. It is really fun and being self-employed is just very nice.
The tourism industry in Nigeria is really poor, as a matter of fact, West Africans are doing a terrible job when it comes to tourism
There is a general perception that travelling within African countries is difficult. What are your thoughts on this?
Absolutely, very true. And as a matter of fact, it is unfortunate for me. I am from Nigeria, and my passport is so weak that we have less than 50 countries we can visit visa-free. It is a very big challenge, and I don’t know what the government wants to do about it. But for me, I have just gotten to the point in my life where I am considering second citizenship right now because there’s a whole stereotype about the Nigerian passport.
Once you are at the immigration desk in any airport and you bring out your passport, they have already stereotyped you, “oh you’re from Nigeria, and they start to treat you differently.” I mean, I have travelled to some African countries, and they’re like “look, you are a Nigerian, Nigerians are not welcome here.”
They dig deeper, asking, “What are you here to do?” And when you tell them you are here for tourism, they will say “don’t you have lions and trees in your country” or something like that.
You have to prove that you’re not there to “japa” in the sense that you are relocating, you are actually here to do something and leave. They check into your statement, check into your itinerary, etc. It is very hard, but it is a sad truth that we have to deal with now.
Just how do you avoid that, or make do with that?
I am a bit fortunate. I have a platform, and I have a lot of followers, so most times, I just have to show them what I do. “Look, these are the kinds of videos I’m here to create, and this is what I’ve done in other countries”. Obviously, they will look at your passport, and you have several stamps, that kind of help mitigate it a little, but sometimes you can get unlucky and still get deported.
And then I try to speak to people in the country and just try to get help from there as well. So there’s someone on standby waiting for me just in case there’s any issue, the person would come in and help me out.
From your experience, what are the similarities and semblances between cities in Nigeria and other African cities?
It is different. By that, I mean the cityscape in Capetown, South Africa, is very different from Lagos, and the way they build in Southern Africa in general is also different. They kind of have a lot of land to build on, and I noticed that most of the time they do not just have two cities that are dominant; they have up to six or seven. South Africa probably has like six cities that are all doing well, not unlike Nigeria, where it is only Lagos, Abuja, and maybe Port Harcourt.
And I have noticed that the population in Southern Africa is still small and growing. I was in Namibia, which has 2.5 million people and is twice the size of Nigeria. You are driving on a highway, and you drive alone for 30 minutes before you see another car pass by.
Which of these countries stood out for you?
For me, it is Namibia; trust me. I love the country because you literally do not have to queue for anything. You get to a traffic light and it’s just your car; you go to a bank and you are number one or two, and then you can travel in peace; you can camp along the way; if I had to live anywhere, that i probably where I’d live. You should check Namibia out; it is really nice, but they might deport you at the airport, so be careful because you are a Nigerian and they don’t like Nigerians.
Which countries have been the friendliest and which have been the most hostile?
I have never really had a hostile experience, aside from dealing with immigration. Once you get in, you get to let people know what you do, and most times, most people are willing to help. You are not there for an evil mission; you are there to actually help promote something.
What can you say about Africa’s young population and how to make the most of it?
For me, I will say it is access to information because most young people are not intentionally out there looking for information that could be life changing. You will see most people are either clubbing or partying and they just settle for the barest minimum which is finally retiring to a 9 – 5 job.
If you are a young person reading this, there is a lot of opportunity out there, not just on YouTube but content creation in general. You see what YouTube is doing, TikTok is doing the same thing. They are giving out funds to people to create content for their platform, and the competition is there for Instagram as well.
There is an emerging market, and now brands are beginning to trust content creators to say, “Take 3,000 dollars, put my ad on your video, and you know they see results and they’ll come back.” I see that in the future, people are not going to spend money on Facebook ads or YouTube ads, they will simply go work with the creator in the niche they want to target. So there’s a lot of opportunity out there.
If you are a young person, even though you have a 9-5 job, even though you are a lawyer, you can just have a YouTube channel talking about law, it goes a long way with that. The exposure is crazy because I have a huge diaspora audience now. I am not even known so much in Nigeria, but I’m known in the US and in the UK, see how crazy it can be.
Are there any challenges that you experience?
The challenge for me, for my niche, and for my industry is just travelling. I think the only way I can get past this is if I have a second citizenship that gives me access to more countries; I do not have much of a problem when it comes to financing.
How would you describe Nigeria’s hospitality or tourism industry?
The tourism industry in Nigeria is really poor, as a matter of fact, West Africans are doing a terrible job when it comes to tourism.
Tourism is only flourishing in the Northern and Southern parts of Africa. Some East African countries are also trying; like Kenya, Tanzania, Rwanda, etc. I think the Northern, Eastern, and Southern parts of Africa are doing well but, in the West, we are just left behind.
What are the indicators that tourism in West Africa is poor?
I do not know where I saw that information, but I looked at the most visited countries in Africa, and obviously, those people visiting are foreigners, they’re coming as tourists. Egypt was there; South Africa was there; Zimbabwe was there. Namibia, Tanzania, and Kenya were all there, and maybe Ghana was somewhere down the list, but Nigeria was not even on the list.
What can we do to change this situation?
The country does not have regard for it, and I don’t even know if the leadership does as well; you just need to have someone who really understands tourism and put the person in charge.
I made a video some time ago about when I went to Calabar, Cross River State, which used to be the capital of tourism in Nigeria. I went there to make a travel video, but I did not see anything. I changed the story around and talked about abandoned tourism. I posted that video and it kind of went viral. I got like a hundred thousand views in a day, and the comments were from people that really resonated with what I was saying.
They were like, “This place used to be gold.” Donald Duke came and did carnivals, but all of that does not exist anymore. For two years now, they have not held a carnival. All of these things are dead now because new leadership came in and messed everything up. Everybody comes with their own agenda, and nobody is taking up the previous person’s project.
