Nigerian music star David ‘Davido’ Adeleke has announced he will give out N20 million to 20 Nigerian entrepreneurs as the most populous black nation in the world grapple with rising unemployment, inflation and economic crisis.
Davido Story
“Country hard right now sha… let’s give ₦20m to 20 people on Friday. Send in your business ideas or startup ideas,” Davido wrote on Twitter on Wednesday afternoon, barely two weeks after his second sold-out concert at the O2 Arena in London streamed to his fans in Nigeria via the Udux platform, courtesy of telecom giant MTN Nigeria.
Nigeria is battling an unemployment crisis that the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) said rose to 33% in the last quarter of 2020. In over a month, the country has also been battling fuel shortages. The NBS also announced on Tuesday that the consumer price inflation rose to 15.70% in February as fuel shortages across the country increased transport and other costs.
Many young Nigerians, who make up about 70% of the country’s over 200 million people, have taken to the informal sector to find a livelihood source due to the country’s high unemployment rate as the government’s social investment programmes are not solving the unemployment crisis.
In a now-deleted tweet on Wednesday morning, Davido had lamented the hardship and rising cost of living in the country after revealing the high cost of clearing his new car at the Nigerian port.
“Government don fail us, nah to dey help each other we dey now,” Davido, who is presently in Qatar working on his new album, wrote in another tweet.
Davido
He has asked young Nigerians on Twitter to send in their business or startup ideas ahead of the donation on Friday.
The planned donation is coming barely a month after the music star announced how his ₦250 million globally-acclaimed birthday fundraiser was distributed to orphanages across Nigeria. The fundraiser landed him an ambassadorial deal with Nigeria’s digital bank ALAT by Wema in December 2021, after using an ALAT account to raise the fund in November.
In his first-ever documentary, ‘We Rise: The Davido Story’, released by Netng in January 2022, Gbemi Olateru-Olagbegi, Obi Asika, Eromo Egbejule, Tosin Ajibade and others, told Netng how Davido has continued to leave his mark not only on his peers in the industry but also on his fans with his ‘We Rise By Lifting Others’ mantra