Lagos Goes Vegan – and beyond

Joshua has leveraged his broad network of fellow journalists and students to capture media attention for veganism in Nigeria. By using powerful marketing strategies and engaging a mostly non-vegan audience, he has drummed up enthusiasm in his community while rewriting the narrative of what it means to be vegan in a modern African society.

The success of Lagos Goes Vegan generated demand for similar events in nearby cities. Joshua obliged by hosting the Benin Goes Vegan Movie Night in June and a similar event for Ogbomoso in July. Each event surpassed the success of the previous one. What’s more impressive is that Joshua has sparked curiosity around veganism in a country with a meat-centric culture.

Activist Background

Joshua Borokinni is an environmental journalist and activist in Lagos, Nigeria. He is the executive director of Naija Goes Vegan, a movement with a goal to make veganism widely adopted in Nigeria. It centers on evidence-based vegan diets and their role in environmentalism. Joshua’s background includes four years of experience in wildlife conservation and natural ecosystem restoration. He holds a bachelor’s degree in environmental physiology from the University of Benin and is currently an MBA student.

Joshua is also one of the young delegates at the International Congress of Youth Voices asked to write about their fight against the climate crisis for an article in The Guardian.

Goals

• Rewrite the narrative of what it means to be vegan in contemporary African societies via thought-provoking conversations about evidence-based vegan diets and lifestyle, cost-effectiveness of vegan meals, animal rights, and more
• Address misconceptions about veganism
• Give Nigerians a first-hand vegan experience
• Stir up massive social media discussion around veganism
• Influence food choices and government policies in the long run

Approach

Joshua utilized a VegFund grant to support marketing, venues, vegan food, and literature for all his events. For each event, he formed a team that:

• partnered with leading environmental advocacy outfits, individuals, and PR specialists to promote the event
• leveraged sponsored ads, paid promotions on social media, radio and television tours, rallies, and door-to-door campaigns
• invited community members, including nonprofit and religious organizations, research and academic institutions, student bodies, government officials, cultural and royal heads, entrepreneurs, manual and unskilled personnel, chefs, restaurants, nutritionists, and dietitians
• engaged multiple media channels, including social media influencers who live-streamed the event and drove the conversation online
• planned and cultivated a fun, green carpet atmosphere
• provided reading material on veganism to attendees

Lagos Goes Vegan Conference

Publicity for Lagos Goes Vegan began 25 days before the event. Due to long-standing cultural norms, community reception to veganism was not immediate. However, through marketing efforts, and because this event was the first of its kind in Nigeria and across the West Africa sub-region, Lagos Goes Vegan became a sensation for media outfits. As a journalist, Joshua partnered with several media channels to help promote the event. Social media influencers counted thousands of engagements on Twitter and Instagram. Mainstream media also covered the green carpet sessions and interviews before and after the event.

The conference began with a keynote by Hakeem Jimo, founder of VeggieVictory, Nigeria’s first vegan food company. Jimo took the audience through his 26-year vegan journey.

Charlie Uldahl Christensen, a clean water advocate, shared his experience of being vegan in 16 different countries. A short poetry performance entitled “Save Me” received “unending applause,” and a conservation veteran addressed animal cruelty and mass extinctions as reasons to go vegan. The day’s Q&A sessions facilitated an exchange of ideas addressing religious and cultural concerns surrounding food choices. At the end of the conference, attendees enjoyed vegan food and networked while jazz music played in the background.

Benin Goes Vegan Movie Night

In June, Joshua’s team hosted a screening of the movie,Vegan: Everyday Stories. The screening was followed by a Q&A session and an a capella recitation of “Wipe My Tears: Mother Earth.” The event ended with vegan food sampling, a post-event survey, and networking accompanied by live jazz music. Attendees enjoyed vegan asun, vegan nkwobi, and vegan burgers.

Ogbomoso Goes Vegan Movie Night

Five team members replicated the successful approach of the previous events for a July screening of Vegan: Everyday Stories. Elder Awoseyi, who has been vegan for 50 years, gave the keynote speech. A Q&A session began before screening and resumed after the film, followed by a musical performance entitled “Earth Song.” The event ended with vegan food sampling, a post-event survey, and networking with music. Attendees enjoyed vegan shawarma and vegan burgers.

Results

Lagos Goes Vegan

Joshua’s first event sold out of tickets and succeeded in capturing media attention. A total of 94 people attended, of whom an estimated 68 were non-vegan.

Benin Goes Vegan

This event hosted 251 attendees. Of these, 229 were non-vegan and 213 attendees took the vegan pledge. Overall, the event recorded an 84.8% success rate, which surpassed the Lagos learning event by 13.6%.

Ogbomoso Goes Vegan

Of 101 attendees, 90 were non-vegan and 97 attendees took the vegan pledge. The event recorded a 96% success rate, which surpassed both the Lagos learning event and Benin movie screening. This event also offered paid-per-view (PPV) featuring a 2-minute video entitled, Through the Eyes of a Pig. PPV outreach provides an incentive, such as a vegan cupcake or one dollar for watching a short video on the realities of animal life. At Ogbomoso Goes Vegan, participants were offered one dollar to watch the video.

At both film screening events, several attendees commented in their post-event survey that while the movie was nice, a film that reflected veganism in the African context would have resonated more. This feedback has prompted the organizers to consider producing an African documentary on veganism in the near future.

Building Momentum

By replicating and expanding on the successful model of previous events, Joshua continues to build momentum. Two additional events took place in October of 2019.

The Ife Goes Vegan Conference collaborated with the Association of Campus Journalists (Obafemi Awolowo University). Participating journalists are covering the event and furthering the conversation around veganism across Nigeria.

Ibadan Goes Vegan Movie Night screened Vegan: Everyday Stories, hosted a Q&A session, and offered vegan versions of asun, kilishi, vegan burgers, and smoothies.

What’s Next?

In November, Joshua plans to hand out 1,000 vegan food samples in honor of World Vegan Day.

There are also future plans for a Lagos Goes Vegan Boat Cruise. The cruise will set sail from Fiki Marina on Victoria Island and head to Tarkwa Bay. On arrival, cruise members will engage the community to try sample delicious vegan food, experience PPV, and take a vegan pledge. This innovative event has been designed to be fun and appeal to young people. Conversations on the return trip will focus on engaging health and environmental institutions on mechanisms to foster veganism.

We’re excited to follow Joshua’s future projects, including the documentary on vegan life in Africa, and to see how the vegan community in Nigeria continues to grow thanks to Joshua’s efforts.

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