Lagos Goes Vegan – and beyond
Rewriting the narrative of veganism in Nigeria

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Overview
In April of 2019, Joshua Borokinni hosted the Lagos Goes Vegan Conference. It began with an upbeat, “green carpet” atmosphere and featured interactive talks, artistic performances, food sampling, networking, and music. This high-energy, media-friendly event was the first of several vegan outreach events that Joshua has organized.
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.

Nigeria is primarily a non-vegan region, with less than 0.2% of its population being vegetarians … In Lagos alone, an estimated 164 trailers come in daily with 6,000 cows slaughtered for various purposes. The statistic goes up to 8,000 during weekends and festive periods.
Joshua Borokinni, VegFund Grantee

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
446
attendees across three events so far
349
non-vegans
310
vegan pledges signed
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.
Top Tip
Maximize the time and resources that you invest in organizing one event — by repeating what works! If you replicate a successful model, as Joshua did, one event can snowball into a series. Joshua advises understanding what will resonate with your audience and customizing your approach to drive your desired impact — film screenings, vegan food sampling, speakers, artistic performances, etc.
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.

The initial acceptance was overwhelming. Selling out the event seats and having to create more spaces for Lagos Goes Vegan was really surprising and a big boost to the team. The event itself was a huge success as it initiated a strong vegan conversation on social media and real life in Lagos.
Joshua Borokinni

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.

After the screening of Vegan: Everyday Stories in Benin, a participant walked up to me and opened me up to a gap. She explained how she lost touch with the movie at some point due to its U.S. setting. She advised us to look into more African-centered movies on veganism, which would drive the message way deeper as the audience will be able to relate (more) to it. This stirred our decision to commence a documentary project to highlight the life of African vegans.
Joshua Borokinni

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.

Don't be reluctant to push for whatever change you desire. Be the change you want to see — be confident enough to stand up and initiate the conversation!
Joshua Borokinni
