The Nigerian entertainment industry is one of the most exciting, yet also one of the most complicated spaces a woman can choose to play in. But for Nigerian reality star Ojoma Sule, professionally known as OJ Posharella, the “Incredible Minister of Happiness,” it is an exciting time to make music.

She said: “When I started out, the entertainment industry in Nigeria was already evolving at a pace that made your head spin. Music was going global, Nollywood was gaining international recognition, and reality television was opening up new kinds of visibility for a new generation of public figures. It was an exciting time. It was also a time when the rules governing who got to participate in that excitement, on their own terms, were still very much being written by other people.

“I entered that space as a musician, an actress, a spoken-word artist, a public personality, and a woman with opinions and ambitions that extended well beyond what anyone had scripted for me. And I quickly learned something that every woman in this industry learns at some point—usually the hard way.”

She said the entertainment industry loves a woman’s talent but is considerably less comfortable with her authority.

“The moment a woman in this space begins to make decisions, negotiate seriously, say no when saying no is the right answer, or build independently rather than waiting for someone to build with her, the energy shifts. Suddenly, she is difficult. Suddenly, she is too much. Suddenly, there are questions about whether she is really as talented as everyone thought, or whether she was just lucky—and the luck has run out because she has gotten too big for her boots.

“I have heard every version of that story, and I used it as information. If my presence in a room made certain people uncomfortable, that told me I was in the right room. If my refusal to be managed the way they wanted to manage me made certain people nervous, that told me they understood, perhaps better than I did in those early days, exactly how much power I actually had.

“The resistance was a map. It told me where the value was, and I followed it.

“Appearing on The Real Housewives of Abuja was one of the decisions that crystallised this understanding for me. The show gave me access to a national audience on a scale that very few platforms in Nigeria can match. But more than the audience, it gave me something rarer: the opportunity to be seen as a full human being in front of millions of people, not a character, not a performance, but a real woman with real complexity, real warmth, real opinions, and real flaws.

“That kind of visibility is not just good for a personal brand; it is transformative for a career. People do not connect with perfection. They connect with truth. And I have always been willing to bring my truth into the room, even when the room was not sure it was ready for it.”

Speaking about her music, she said:
“My music has always been the purest expression of that truth. Songs like Soyayya and The Mother did not come from a desire to be commercial, though I am not ashamed of commercial success, and I think any artist who pretends not to want it is not being honest with you. They came from a need to say something real about love, about strength, and about what it means to be a Nigerian woman navigating a world that has very strong ideas about who you should be.

“And now there is EKO, a love letter to the city that holds all of us who have ever arrived here with a dream and refused to leave without making something of it. That song is for Lagos. But it is also for every Nigerian who has ever been told that where they come from is not enough. It is a counterargument. It is a declaration. It is me doing what I have always done; using my voice to say something that needed to be said.”

Addressing young women in the industry, she said: “I want to speak to the young woman who is trying to find her footing in this industry right now. The one who is talented, and she knows it, but who keeps running into walls that have nothing to do with her talent and everything to do with her gender. The one who has been told to be patient, pay her dues, and wait her turn, while watching men with half her ability move twice as fast simply because the industry was designed with them in mind.

“I see you. And I want you to know something important. The industry will not change itself out of goodwill. It changes because people with talent, courage, and stubbornness refuse to accept it as it is.

“Every woman who negotiates her own rate shifts the market. Every woman who builds her own production company changes what ownership looks like in this space. Every woman who refuses to disappear after the age of 35, who keeps creating, evolving, showing up, and demanding to be taken seriously, rewrites the story of what a career in Nigerian entertainment can look like for the women who come after her.

“That is the work I am doing; not quietly, not apologetically, and not alone. The Power Woman Initiative International exists because I believe in the power of women pulling each other forward—not competing or tearing one another down, but building the kind of solidarity that actually changes industries rather than merely commenting on them.

“Nigerian entertainment is at an extraordinary inflection point. The world is watching us in a way it never has before. Our music, our films, our fashion, and our storytelling are influencing global culture in ways that even five years ago would have seemed improbable.
“This is the moment. And I refuse to let this moment pass without the women of this industry being fully seen, fully compensated, fully credited, and fully in charge of their own narratives.

“We built this culture too. We sing in it, we act in it, we style it, we promote it, we host it, we survive it, and we keep choosing it. And it is time for that contribution to be recognised in every way that matters, at the negotiating table, in the boardroom, on award stages, and in the bylines of the stories being written right now about where Nigerian entertainment is going.

“I intend to be in every one of those conversations. Not as a guest. As someone who belongs.”