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Rhoda Olorunfemi, a Mass Communication graduate of Olabisi Onabanjo University, Ago-Iwoye, Ogun state, is a child and human rights activist with spirit of entrepreneurship and perseverance. Refusing to let moments slip, Rhoda leveraged her spare time to launch a financial services business, popularly known as Point of Sales (POS). 

By Eberechi Obinagwam

Rhoda Olorunfemi, a Mass Communication graduate of Olabisi Onabanjo University, Ago-Iwoye, Ogun state, is a child and human rights activist with spirit of entrepreneurship and perseverance. Refusing to let moments slip, Rhoda leveraged her spare time to launch a financial services business, popularly known as Point of Sales (POS). 

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Undeterred by initial challenges of facing low patronage, she introduced Zobo drink, a medicinal formulation to her hustle. This is aside her job as a child and human rights activist focused on child protection and family safety, especially for girls and women against gender-based violence.

“What inspired me into the line of business was just because I didn’t want to be idle. I needed to survive and meet people’s needs,” Rhoda said, recalling how she started in 2023 while working on child protection and family safety.

Rhoda’s unwavering work ethic also became a source of motivation for other women who, seeing her doing POS business, decided to find a side hustle to get by, especially in an economic environment full of uncertainties. 

Starting with N20,000

It was 2023, and the location was around Cement Bus Stop, Lagos-Agege expressway where Rhoda started with her POS machine, a desk, a table and N20, 000.

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“Even sourcing the N20,000 was a challenge. Sourcing for capital was not that easy at first. I remember starting with N20,000 that time. I had the challenge of having enough to meet demands of large amounts of transactions and having to visit bank severally in a day. That continued for a while until I added zobo and table water. Along the line I had the support of my siblings which aided me and also raised some money from my consultancy role as a Communication Manager with a nonprofit organization in 2024”, she explained.

Unexpected challenge

Rhoda’s POS business was making headway until she decided to change location. This decision came with an unexpected challenge, which tested her patience and consistency.

“The new location was a very tough place because I met lots of competitors who abused the business to frustrate upcoming ones like myself.

“The person beside me wasn’t around when I got the place. In the first week I made 15% profit and I was hopeful that it would continue like that. Suddenly the person appeared and everything changed.

“At first, I didn’t understand what was happening but I noticed customers suddenly dropped, leading to loss in profit that week. I could barely make N1,000 in a day. This leads to about 5 to 6 months of resilience. I had to manage transportation, feeding and tickets (levy from government). We were also buying money because banks were not giving cash. At a point I became bothered because my capital had reduced drastically”, she recalled.

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Rhoda was at a loss on why all of a sudden, she was having bad business time while her neighbour’s business was flourishing. She later found the trick. Her neighbour had crashed her charges below cost price to create trouble for the new competitor, Rhoda. 

She explained: “During that period, I discovered the competitor (beside me) would not come out with cash, and when she eventually got cash it finished quickly, I became worried, and frustrated.

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“I became so bothered but hell was let lose one day when a customer sent me money (transferred) and I removed the normal charges.  Before I handed over his cash over, he lashed out and started yelling why I deducted that amount and it caused little uproar with other POS operators there, who stood up for me challenging the customer for being rude.

“To cut the long story short, the customer spoke out of anger that the operator beside me does lesser than the normal charges. From findings we got to know that those who had much customers did that to get more customers and they also had much people bringing cash for them. And the trend is still ongoing till now. At a point I lost part of my capital which made me to almost start all over in June 2024.” 

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Temptation roars

Rhoda’s financial predicament left her with some confusion on how to navigate her way back to business. As an activist, donor funds were with her to carry out some advocacy work. ‘Why not put some away for yourself,’ a nasty thought crept into her thought. But she resisted it.

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She narrated how it happened: “I had some fund on me which was donated for the organization’s advocacy campaign against abuse, and mental health challenges for the boy-child. I became devastated because my business was almost crashing before me. I got tempted to divert the money, but I stood my ground and eventually the program went well.”

Rhoda advises upcoming entrepreneurs to be wary of spoilers whose interest is to ruin other people’s effort. She said: “In any line of business or profession, there would also be spoilers or snitch, who would do it just to frustrate other people especially upcoming ones. From experience, they do such to remain in control.”

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Japa?

Rhoda says Japa is not for her because Nigeria is green enough. She explained: “Let’s just say, I choose to be me, not everyone would japa, the land is green everywhere depending on how you handle it especially through God’s help. I carry the mentality of a global entity and personality and sure it’s a matter of time.”

Rhoda the activist

Rhoda in a session

Rhoda Olorunfemi is a child and human rights activist, with focus on Child protection and family safety especially for girls and women against gender-based violence. She has eight years plus experience in journalism (including communication, content creation, blogging and social media), marketing and sales, public relations, project management.

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In 2022, Rhoda got a recognition (Certificate) from Impact Her Initiative, for her wealth of knowledge in advocacy, rights and protection. Rhoda holds BSc. Mass Communication from Olabisi Onabanjo University, Ago-Iwoye, Ogun state.

She started her early career and a trainee writer with M2 Magazine a weekly publication on business and marketing, and was later with The Nation newspaper, in 2010. Ms. Olorunfemi was born into the family of seven. She is the third child of her parents.

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