Linda ikeji

She is young, though in her early thirties now, beautiful, talented. She has risen to one of the most enviable heights, if not the best, every Nigerian blogger dares to dream about. She has received numerous awards for her accomplishments both at home and in the international arena as well. She is Nigeria’s pride—she is no other than Linda Ifeoma Ikeji.

At first, when I came across the name “Ikeji” sometime in 2010, I thought she was of the Yoruba ethnic extraction in Nigeria. However, I became convinced that she is Ibo when I took the bold step of moving from an ordinary blog visitor of hers and rose to one of her favorite fans. What about Linda Ikeji that makes everyone go gaga? Who is she?

Linda is one blogger that has continued to dominate and rule the Nigerian blogosphere for some years now. She is an asset who has risen to become the richest and most popular blogger in Nigeria. She started from a very low beginning; she was not born with the proverbial silver spoon. At a very tender age of 17, she was left to shoulder the financial responsibilities of her family.

“I recalled that I had to hop from one menial job to the other in order to survive”.  She said. At a time, she took to modeling with the hope that it would bring home the bacon and help finance her education in the University of Lagos. But alas, it was too difficult to survive on that one! “Sometimes, I would have just enough to eat and at other times, I could remain practically hungry for days”. Drinking Garri was even more like a luxury her modeling career could hardly afford some other times. So, she had to quit!

She started blogging full time in 2010. It wasn’t paying off at that time. She could barely enjoy up to 250 visits daily. No money was forth-coming and she could hardly live off it or pay bills through her new “venture”. But she wouldn’t give up on blogging like her past “businesses” for one reason—it provides an avenue for her to rub minds with her audience, people she has never met before; even though that didn’t pay the bills!

In the early days of blogging, Linda took it as passion not as business. Because of her unique flavor of turning news information into friendly gist, her blog started getting more followers and interested advertisers. Today, Linda Ikeji’s blog receives hundreds of thousands of visitors on her blog daily, and millions monthly. She now makes more than five million naira every month. Google Nigeria awarded her the most searched term in 2014. So, who says you will fail as a blogger?