Nigerian woman launches EbonyLife TV network

A new cable channel hit the television landscape in Nigeria. EbonyLife TV Network premiered to million homes on Sunday night. Nigerian woman Mosunmola "Mo" Abudu launched EbonyLife TV to inspire Africans and the rest of the world, and change how viewers perceive the continent.

Mosunmola 'Mo' Abudu

 Abudu, the 48 year old British born Nigerian has been considered Africa's Oprah Winfrey. The TV channel can be found on DSTV 165. The Editor-in-Chief of Forbes magazine as well as president and chief executive officer of its publisher, Forbes, Inc. was received with excitement by Mo Abudu and other members of the EbonyLife TV crew at the Eko Hotel on Sunday for the launch.

Steve Forbes with Mo and crew

"Not every African woman has a pile of wood on her head and a baby strapped to her back.We watch Hollywood as if all of America is Hollywood,” she said. “In that same vein we need to start selling the good bits of Africa. Everything you think you know about Africa is about to change,’” Abudu said.

Months of work to provide original content includes the flagship program “Sistaz!” about two Greek-Nigerian sisters and a British-born Nigerian friend who check into the Eko Hotel for a holiday reunion and rediscover the passion of sisterhood and the vibrant city of Lagos.

“It helps show that you can go to Africa for a holiday, you can go to Nigeria on holiday, you can go to Lagos” and enjoy a vacation, Abudu said of the much-maligned Nigerian financial capital that is much improved since the country transitioned from military dictatorship to civilian rule in 1999.

Abudu, a former executive with the oil giant Exxon-Mobil, abandoned a 20-year career in human resources in 2006 to become a self-taught television talk show host. “Moments with Mo” became the first syndicated daily talk show on African regional TV and also is aired in Britain on a Sky TV channel.

She has interviewed celebrities from Hillary Rodham Clinton, former African presidents F. W. de Klerk of South Africa and John Kufuor of Ghana, former England soccer skipper Rio Ferdinand, musician R. Kelly and American fashion icon Diane Von Furstenberg.

One program is hosted by rhythm and blues artist Banky W and singer-songwriter Tiwa Savage. Their first program discusses why more and more Nigerian women are bleaching their skins and whether men prefer lighter-skinned black women.