The Booming Boomer

In Episode 7 of The Booming Boomer Podcast, Hadiza Isma El-Rufai sits down with Lola Shoneyin, Nigerian author, poet, and founder of the Aké Arts & Book Festival.Known for her novel The Secret Lives of Baba Segi’s Wives, Lola has played a central role in shaping contemporary African literary conversation. In this episode, we discuss writing, cultural leadership, institution-building, and what it means to create platforms that outlive individual success.This is a conversation about literature not just as art, but as infrastructure.Guest: Lola ShoneyinHost: Hadiza Isma El-RufaiPodcast: The Boomin BoomerNow streaming on YouTube, Spotify, and Apple Podcasts.

In Episode 6 of The Boomin Boomer Podcast, we sit down with Maryam Bukar Hassan, also known as Alhanislam.In this episode, Maryam talks about her journey as a spoken-word poet, how her work moved from private expression to public life, and what changes when your voice begins to carry weight beyond yourself. We discuss visibility, responsibility, pressure, and the realities of being listened to — on and off the stage.This is a grounded conversation about voice, work, and navigating public space with intention.Guest: Maryam Bukar Hassan (Alhanislam)Host: Hadiza Isma El-RufaiPodcast: The Boomin BoomerNow available on YouTube, Spotify, and Apple Podcasts.

In episode 5 of The Booming Boomer Podcast, we sit down with Hafsah Jumare, Founder and CEO of CoAmana, an agri-tech company operating across Nigeria and Kenya to strengthen and digitize traditional and informal agricultural markets.Hafsah breaks down how informal markets really function, why farmers lose produce when buyers and pricing are unclear, and how CoAmana supports market leadership and participants with tools like farmer and retailer registration, price discovery, and access to services such as financing and insurance. She also shares the real startup journey behind building in agriculture, including analysis paralysis, pivoting based on market reality, raising financing locally and internationally, handling policy shocks that caused losses, and managing people and talent challenges while scaling.If you’re interested in agri-tech in Africa, entrepreneurship in Nigeria and Kenya, startup lessons, and what it takes to build real infrastructure in complex markets, this episode is for you.Guest: Hafsah Jumare (Founder/CEO, CoAmana)Host: The Booming Boomer PodcastTopics covered: • Agri-tech and informal agricultural markets in Nigeria and Kenya • Reducing produce losses through better market access • Digitising market systems, leadership structures, and trade workflows • Starting late, learning by doing, and overcoming analysis paralysis • Pivoting, raising funding, and scaling across borders • Managing risk, policy shocks, and internal team challenges#TheBoomingBoomer #AgriTech #Entrepreneurship