Business
Nigeria’s Mo Abudu launches Africa-wide entertainment Television network
Once her children were in their teens, Abudu, a former executive with the oil giant Exxon-Mobil, abandoned a 20-year career in human resources in 2006 to become a self-taught television talk show host. “Moments with Mo” became the first syndicated daily talk show on African regional TV and also is aired in Britain on a Sky TV channel.
She has interviewed politicians, celebrities and sports personalities from Hillary Rodham Clinton, former African presidents F. W. de Klerk of South Africa and John Kufuor of Ghana, former England soccer skipper Rio Ferdinand, musician R. Kelly and American fashion icon Diane Von Furstenberg.
A telling moment for Abudu came she was standing at London’s Marble Arch and decided, on a whim, to ask people what came to their minds when they heard the word Africa.
The answers ranged from Robert Mugabe, Zimbabwe’s long serving leader of 33 years, the British charity Oxfam and famine to babies with flies on their faces. “The nicest thing I heard was ‘sunshine,'” said an appalled Abudu.
Years later, she is setting out to transform that vision by shining a bright light on the so-called “dark continent’s” riches – its super-talented young entrepreneurs, fabulous art scene, up-and-coming fashion designers, provocative authors and sassy musicians.
One program is hosted by rhythm and blues artist Banky W and singer-songwriter Tiwa Savage. Their first program discusses why more and more Nigerian women are bleaching their skins and whether men prefer lighter-skinned black women.
So the network will not ignore some of the darker sides of Africa’s realities, though Abudu promises “a different reality.”
