Mr. Azeez Lamina, an entrepreneur with over 18 years experience, is the Chief Executive Officer of Waves Media Ltd, a media company that publishes Waves Magazine, an all glossy pages magazine. The company also hosts Waves Gist Zone radio programme, a talkshow on Unilagfm and Wavesplus TV show, a youthful entertainment TV show on Lagos Television every Saturday. Under his belt also is a foundation in the business name, Waves foundation. The foundation is centered on youth advocacy and mentoring programmes targeted at secondary schools pupils. In this chat with GBENGA SALAU, he spoke on his journey into entrepreneurship.
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How did you come into the media space?
I entered to the media industry first as a student in 2005 when I gained admission to study Mass Communication at the Lagos State Polytechnic, Isolo Campus. It was during my ND II days that I founded my media company, Waves Media Limited publishing the all-glossy pages Waves Magazine. I published the first edition of the magazine in April 2007 and ever since then we have not looked back. I published the magazine for over 12 years before the internet came to disrupt the then booming media industry.

I was fortunate enough that the internet wind that blew away most media organisation didn’t get to me as I was quick to innovate to create another brand under the company. I founded a radio programme called Waves Gist Zone which airs on Unilagfm every Friday evening. After three years of managing both brands, I founded the TV arm known as Wavesplus TV on Lagos Television to cement my stay in the media industry. Cumulatively, I have had over 17 years experience traversing both the print and broadcast media industry.

You traverse all the genre of media, print, broadcast and online. How are you able to combine it considering they require some specific skills at some points?
Well, the truth of the matter is that whatever has been ordained for man by God would seem like a miracle. What is most funny is the fact that I transitioned into each of these fields so gracefully. I remember when we wanted to start the radio show, I went to visit some professionals back then to seek for their advices. Some of them offered their advices while some declined saying that it took them years to gather those experiences too.

I aggregated the once we got and went online to read up some more. And of course, my background is in Mass Communication, it was quite easy for me to blend and make sure my brands are doing very well. Beyond all the rhetorics, I want to return all praises to God for granting us the grace to have done everything we did so far in the media industry.
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How has it been as an entrepreneur and what made you go into entrepreneurship?
The reason for my entrepreneurship journey is very simple. It is the need to be more focused and independent. I was fortunate to have a clear head as a young man to ask myself the salient question of how can I be more as early as age 22. It was while finding the answers to the question – How can I be more? that I came about the idea to start a media company since I am studying Mass Communication at 22. Becoming an entrepreneur early enough in life is the best thing that happened to me. I was able to make all the mistakes, fumble and womble and go through the teething stage while no one was expecting too much from me. As at the time I was going to start thinking about marriage or bearing responsibilities, the business was already over five years or more. Things had started looking up gradually. If it is true that the deceased come back to the world again, I would still want to be an entrepreneur on my second coming. It hasn’t been a tea party from inception till this moment. However, I can assure you I have every reason to thank God for His mercies over my life and that of my business. Entrepreneurship is tough and it is for the tough ones. At the same time, it is the best form of employment if you ask me.

Can you tell us about your foundation and its impact?
The Waves foundation is my new love. I came about founding the foundation in the course of my business first as a Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) and later I decided to officially make it an arm of the business. The Waves foundation is a youth focused advocacy foundation. We go to schools to mentor students, buy books for their libraries, organise quiz, debating competitions and generally make sure they are doing better among other things.

At Waves foundation, we believe if the younger ones know better, they would do better. For so many of us that are out of the university, we would do so many things differently from the way we did them back then in secondary school because we know better now.

It’s the same for the younger ones of nowadays, we have a role to play to ensure they don’t make some of the mistakes we made. It is for this reason we visit schools to share some of these experiences with them so they can do better. It has been two years and we are growing stronger. Our visit to Ikorodu Technical College is the most inspiring for me. No one remembers to visit the technical colleges. There is a lot of w
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