The Rest of Us - Olatunji Olaigbe
Introducing our new newsletter where we profile Inkstick creators.
The Rest of Us is a series about, well, the rest of us. It’s where we celebrate the community of writers and creators who make up Inkstick, especially the sides of us that wouldn’t normally make it into our stories.
Olatunji Olaigbe is a columnist at Inkstick who reports on cybersecurity in and from the global south. His latest explores disinformation around the coup in Niger.
Who are you?
I’m Olatunji Olaigbe, a 23-year-old Nigerian with full hair and a huge affinity for music. I enjoy making unusual connections and doing things in a slightly different way from how they’re usually being done. I am a serial volunteer, journalist, and storyteller.
Where are you?
I’m currently based in Nigeria, where I shuffle between Lagos and Kwara State.
What keeps you up at night?
Most of the time, it’s just good music. In Nigeria, songs usually come out by 12 a.m. on their release date. If it’s an artist I like or a song I’m looking forward to, I’ll stay awake until it’s out and give it a couple of listens before going to bed.
On a more serious note, there’s a multilayered dearth of stories and information from and in Africa. I’m always thinking about how people are tackling different layers of this problem, and how best I can contribute to that effort. My work in cybersecurity reporting started as just trying to tell a story about a broader theme of economic dysfunction, and then I realized how deeply connected cyber and information security are to young, growing Africans. We have a unique predisposition to the abuse of cyber and information systems, and right now, most of my work is trying to figure out a better way to understand these issues, document the stories that intersect with them, and figure out (and document) solutions.
What side activities do you do that seemingly have nothing to do with your work (yet, perhaps have everything to do with it)? What are the links between these aspects of yourselves and how do these other sides of you contribute to/frame your global security work?
Music! I enjoy music a lot, and honestly, it's mostly the only thing pushing me through heaps and heaps of work. I also take a lot of storytelling inspiration from just listening to music. I have a way of categorizing how a song is being sung and then trying to replicate similar elements in text, audio, or even video storytelling. But also, music is an important peek into culture and understanding of the sociopolitical feel of young people.
Music has also been crucial to my work in understanding cybercrime across Africa, There’s a class of music in many African countries that — akin to gangster rap — tends to “highlight” cybercrime in communities. These songs date back decades. The earliest reference for such a song in Nigeria dates as far back as 2003. There are similar strata of songs in Ghana, South Africa, and across a host of African countries with a heavy presence of cybercrime.
These songs are a — I dare say — beautiful intersection of crime, socioeconomics, political history, art, and proletariat Africa. And maybe greed too.
What do you wish we were talking more about?
I wish we talked more about people who are left out of the conversation. The conversation is a — very small — bubble, albeit a bubble that affects everything outside it. I wish we talked more about everything outside that bubble, especially the people who do not have access to that conversation yet are very much affected by it. That, good food, and cats.
Check out some of Olatunji’s favorite pieces on Inkstick! And keep up with Olatunji on X (Twitter) and Linkedin.
