According to the International Labour Organization (2024), 96% of working women in Nigeria are engaged in informal employment. Behind those numbers are women building businesses every day, often from the ground up.
But building a business takes more than having something people want to buy. It takes knowing your customers. Knowing your market. Knowing when to take a chance. And sometimes, knowing when it is time to think bigger.
Mrs. Ifeoma Iwaeze knows a thing or two about that.
She runs Chris Pratt Enterprise, where she deals in braided wigs. But before she became a business owner, she was a banker.
She had always wanted to build something of her own.
Today, that ambition has become a business shaped by years of experience, customer relationships, and the simple belief that when people trust what you sell, they come back.
But then came a conversation that would make her think differently about what it means to grow a business.
It started when UCEE walked into her shop. Mrs. Ifeoma was not exactly looking for a bank. Then came the question: “Are you ready to build?”
Something about the question stayed with her. Maybe it was because building a business is different from simply running one. Maybe it was because every entrepreneur eventually reaches a point where the next step requires more than ambition. Or maybe it was the answer that came after.
Click here to Watch Mrs. Ifeoma’s full story and hear the answer that changed everything.
