ENTERPRISE54 – Nigerian blogging sensation and multimillionaire Linda Ikeji is in the news again. This time, not for her mouth watering gossips but for her mouth-watering hand-out. This week, the 34-year old entrepreneur kicked off her empowerment initiative for young girls, dubbed: ‘I’d rather Be Self-Made’.

Photo Credit: Linda Ikeji Blog

She first disclosed the entrepreneurship initiative and her intention to personally mentor young girls with dreams and aspirations in 2013 but has taken her almost two years before finally fulfilling her promise.

Linda Ikeji struck gold through blogging, running the new media platform for 8 consecutive years amassing a jaw-dropping audience of 600,000 daily readers and topping the 2014 Google trend – Most Searched in Nigeria. She is known for her regular cash giveaways to her readers ranging from N25,000 to N250,000 but this time around would be giving up to a million naira each with mentorship, networking and marketing support to the beneficiaries of the project.

In her words:
“I’d Rather Be Self-made’ is not a foundation, or an organization (I can’t handle that – blogging takes too much of my time), it’s just me and some young ladies meeting whenever we can, inspire each other, exchange business ideas, and if I feel someone has a great business idea and it’s not going to cost too much to start the business, I will personally finance it. Not as a loan, it’s 100% to the person. I’m looking at N250k to N1million per person… I’ll also use LIB to promote your businesses. All I want in return is for you to work hard, make a success of your business and pay it forward…i.e help others.”

I’d Rather be Self-Made is a personal crusade aimed at reducing the number of young girls resorting to prostitution of their bodies in a bid to survive the odds; and to drive home the point that women can become accomplished in life without laying on their backs to get there.

Since becoming a celebrated blogger making waves on the news in recent years, Linda Ikeji has used mediums available to her (primarily her highly thronged blog www.lindaikeji.blogspot.com) to share her entrepreneurship story to inspire young Africans to be more and to do more. Recounting her grass to grace story and how she did not stoop to degrade her feminity under pressure, she declares, “All that ‘I don’t have a choice’ is BS. Trust me, I’ve tasted poverty like some of you will never know and I never sold my body”.

Females between the ages 18 and 26, seeking wings for their businesses or ideas, are encouraged to call the number 07051229040 by January 24 to get the address and details of the first meet-up to hold over the weekend.

The philanthropic move is not limited to these provisions, as Linda has promised to keep it going for as long as she can, releasing more money as the project evolves.