I stopped waiting to be ready. Then everything changed!

On building a creative career in Nigeria — without a map, without permission, and without giving up.

No one tells you, when you start out, that the hardest part of being a creative in Nigeria is not finding your talent. It is surviving the gap between having something and being able to build something from it.

I picked up video editing in 2018, not because I had a plan, but because I needed a way to express ideas that words alone could not hold. By 2022, that had grown into cinematography. Today, I work across storytelling, production, and creative direction. But what the job title does not capture is the years I spent figuring things out in real time, trusting instincts over blueprints, and moving forward even when I could not see the next step clearly.

There is a specific kind of frustration reserved for creatives in Nigeria: the experience of being talented, consistent, and hard-working and still feeling like you are standing still. I lived in that space longer than I would like to admit. I was showing up, putting in the work, and improving, but the results did not match the effort. That kind of sustained invisibility does something to your confidence if you are not careful.

“Creativity alone is not enough. You need structure. You need positioning. You need to learn how to turn what you do into something valuable that people will actually pay for.”

That shift in thinking, from being good at something to being strategic about it, changed my trajectory. But understanding something in theory and having the environment to apply it are two very different things. That is where TAFTA, a Mastercard Foundation programme implemented by Terra Kulture, entered my story meaningfully.

Recently, being part of the Women Kreative Connect Summit (WKCS) was not simply another industry event to attend. It was the first time I found myself in a room designed for people like me – young women navigating the Nigerian creative economy without the traditional advantages of capital, connection, or inherited opportunity. WKCS gave me visibility. It gave me a community. And perhaps more importantly, it gave me belief: a reminder that the challenges I was navigating were not signs of inadequacy but of a system that had not yet caught up with the talent inside it.

At the event, I received content creation tools from Ulanzi. Some people might read that detail as minor, a footnote in a larger story. It was not. Tools are not accessories for creatives; they are infrastructure. The gap between having an idea and being able to execute it at a standard the market recognises is often a tools gap. Closing that gap, even partially, changes what is possible.

This is what platforms like TAFTA do when they are functioning well. They do not simply offer support; they alter trajectories. They insert practical resources, human connection, and visibility at the exact points in a creative’s journey where the absence of those things would otherwise cause someone to quit.

My focus now is not only on creating work but also on building systems that help other creatives grow and access opportunities. I believe deeply in storytelling that connects emotionally. But I am equally clear-eyed about the fact that passion, on its own, does not pay rent, staff a team, or sustain a business through a dry season. Creatives need income infrastructure just as much as they need creative freedom.

As we mark World Creativity and Innovation Week, if I could reach back and speak to the version of myself who was talented but stuck, I would say this: do not just focus on being good; focus on being valuable. Learn how to articulate what you do and why it matters. Build the business around the gift, not just the gift itself. And stop trying to do it alone. Community will save you years of unnecessary doubt.

There is no perfect blueprint for this journey. There never will be. What exists instead is the choice to keep moving, keep learning, and keep adjusting — which is exactly what I intend to do.

Victory Ajaja; Creative Director, Rhyme It Ltd.