Nigerian car influencer Waris Akinwande Olayinka, popularly known as Ola of Lagos, has opened up about the financial struggles he endured before becoming a prominent car content creator.
Gatekeepers News reports that Akinwande recalled surviving on a monthly salary of N18,500 while working in Lagos, saying the income was barely enough to support himself and his family.
He spoke in a recent interview with the Key to Keys Podcast, where he recounted how he took on several menial jobs to supplement his income.
According to him, he washed clothes, did laundry, cleaned houses, scrubbed floors and washed cars for wealthy residents in Ikoyi and Lekki.
He also recalled trekking from Ikoyi to Lekki in search of people who might offer him work.
“So I’m like, okay, let me look for a side hustle, and I used to trek then from Ikoyi actually to Lekki, you know, looking for big men and big women to talk to and like, sir, ma, I can actually clean your house,” he said.
Akinwande said he left his hometown for Lagos because he was determined to improve his family’s financial situation, despite having no relatives or established support network in the city.
“I need to make it out of my family. I’m not sure anybody else has really rise from my family. Yeah, so I’m like, no, no, no, I have to change this whole story,” he said.
“Then I left home, my hometown. I left there to come to Lagos to come and seek greener pastures. Mind you, I don’t have anybody here.”
The car influencer also disclosed that he once slept under a bridge in Lagos during the most difficult period of his struggle.
He said his experiences in Lagos eventually inspired the name “Ola of Lagos” after he came across the Lekki Bridge while trekking to Lekki.
“So when I used to walk from Ikoyi to Lekki, one day I was walking, and I saw this Lekki Bridge, and I’m like, oh, I love Lagos, Ola of Lagos. So that is how the name Ola of Lagos came up,” he said.
Akinwande said his journey into car spotting began out of a passion for luxury vehicles rather than a deliberate plan to become a content creator.
“So I didn’t plan to become a car spotter. I started spotting cars out of passion, and I don’t stand by the roadside, you know, remember I mentioned earlier that I have this big dream. I had big dreams then till now,” he added.
He said he initially did not own a phone capable of recording videos, but eventually acquired one and began documenting the exotic cars he encountered.
