Once a marketing maven and mixologist, Titilayo Oshodi is now one of Lagos State’s loudest voices for sustainability. As the Special Adviser to the Governor on Climate Change and Circular Economy, she continues to reinvent herself with every season, channelling her trademark drive into a greener, more sustainable future. Vanessa Obioha writes
Since the E1 Lagos Grand Prix wrapped up last weekend, Titilayo Oshodi has barely caught her breath. Between meetings, briefings, and follow-ups, the Special Adviser to the Lagos State Governor on Climate Change and Circular Economy hardly had a moment to pause. But she isn’t complaining. For Oshodi, idleness makes her fidgety. While people may call her a workaholic, being productive is what makes her tick.
That restless energy has long defined her. Years ago, when her husband’s frequent travels left her with long stretches of time alone, Oshodi began channeling her curiosity into new pursuits.
“I remember during COVID, it was very difficult for me to be idle. So I got three certifications online from Harvard Business School,” she told me at a recent meeting at the Lagos Jetski Riders Club in Ikoyi.
Her diligence paid off when one of her online courses was sponsored, a stroke of luck that would eventually lead her to the Lagos State Office of Climate Change and Circular Economy (OCCE). She admits she initially knew little about the field, but today, she speaks about sustainability with the clarity of a scholar and the conviction of a convert. At the Grand Prix, her depth of understanding earned glowing remarks from Governor Babajide Sanwo-Olu. It’s hard to believe that just a few years ago, climate change was nowhere on her radar.
Oshodi’s versatility has always been her superpower. Before public service, she cut her teeth in marketing communications — first as a Mary Kay Cosmetics marketer, and later as a business development manager at the experiential marketing agency Towncriers Limited. It was there that her interest in consumer behaviour was piqued.
“I realised that when we went for these activations, the communication and the purpose, the vision for driving events, was totally different from what everybody else was saying,” she recalled. “It was easy for me to look at an event as a drawing board or as a canvas. Every person, every supplier or every process, every item, was specially curated to achieve the communication objective of that event. So it was a joy for me to see how we could curate concepts to get people to buy caller tunes, to see how we could induce people to port from one network to another. We could study consumers and create competition such that on impulse, they commit themselves to what we want.”
That knack for understanding people’s impulses would later shape her entrepreneurial streak. When she left paid employment to raise her son, Oshodi launched a mobile bartending outfit called The Nook Café. She hired a mixologist to create cocktails for events, but one day, just before a major gig, he demanded higher pay. Cornered, she conceded but decided it would never happen again. True to her word, she flew to Las Vegas to study the art and science of mixology. By the time she returned, she was running her own bistro and confidently crafting cocktails behind the counter. Business was thriving until the pandemic hit, forcing her to shut down operations.
As fate would have it, her pivot came through her side passion: training and development. During one of her corporate training sessions, she met Sanwo-Olu, who, at the time, had not yet become governor. Some years later, while Oshodi was at her bistro one evening, he called to ask if she would manage his campaign office. She accepted without hesitation. By the time he won the elections, she was invited to be his Senior Special Adviser on Administrative Matters.
“I was seconded to the Office of the Chief of Staff.”
Working in the public sector was a new terrain. “It was tough at first,” she admitted. “Coming from the private sector, where there are structures, performance indices, key indicators that you work with.”
Oshodi had to make some adjustments to fit into her new space.
“I learned a lot about public service, interpersonal relationships, negotiations, balancing and trade-offs. I have to understand the nuance and culture, because the nuance and culture in a place like the secretariat is a totally different kettle of fish. They are very hierarchical and structure-based.” Still eager to learn, Oshodi continued to build her skills, immersing herself in public communication and development strategy. When the opportunity came to head the OCCE, she hesitated.
“There were some industries that I was particularly interested in, but climate change was not one of them. I was interested in orientation, communication, strategy and development, sort of mind shaping, because when the campaign started for the second term, I developed a PR vehicle to shape the minds of young people about Lagos and the government. So I was willing to go into things like civic engagement but the governor believed that OCCE was the right place for me.”
Her husband couldn’t agree more. Such was the confidence in her performance that Oshodi was left with no choice but to embrace the opportunity with both arms.
Oshodi has since embraced the role fully, and even fashionably. Her signature green-rimmed glasses are not just an accessory but a statement of identity. “We live and breathe climate change,” she said. “We must make decisions guided by the tenets, the fundamentals, because the ideology is very amorphous. There’s no industry that is not affected by the change in our climate.”
She is quick to connect the global to the local, referencing the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) and the Paris Agreement as she explains how Nigeria fits into the worldwide effort to reduce carbon emissions. While Oshodi does not yet see a climate change apocalypse she warned that: “If we do not make concerted efforts to look for alternative options in reducing the emission of carbon, we will be on the precipice of a disaster.”
But the good thing is that she sees a lot of economic opportunities to do things differently. These opportunities, she explained, span energy efficiency, aquaculture, green technology, and climate-smart agriculture and healthcare. With developed countries seeking new markets to offset carbon taxes, Africa, in her view, stands as the next investment frontier.
“Africa is the next destination to mitigate the carbon tax,” she stressed. “Because they (developed countries) are looking for what to invest their money in, Africa must begin to create projects and pipeline projects such as different pillars of climate action projects, for instance, waste management. We are one of the biggest underutilised countries in waste management.”
For Oshodi, one of the state’s biggest challenges — and opportunities — lies in waste management. “Lagos generates about 13,000 tonnes of waste daily, and only nine per cent is utilised,” she notes with concern. “That’s alarming.”
With a population of over 20 million, the reason for this is not far-fetched. She identified poor climate literacy as one of the bottlenecks of waste management.
“If, for instance, in Lagos, we have collection centres, where people know that they can go and drop their waste, whether PET bottles, cartons, textiles or electronics and they can make money, because there will be people who aggregate all of that in the value chain, they will do so.”
Other contributing factors include a lack of infrastructure and an altruistic mindset.
However, through initiatives such as Eco Circulate, the OCCE is turning that challenge into community empowerment. The programme rewards residents with phone credits, healthcare discounts, or transport vouchers in exchange for recyclable materials.
The programme has so far been implemented in eight communities including Badagry, Ayobo and Trade Fair.
“These are places that are densely populated for us to test the readiness or the preparedness, or the interest indicators you know from these community members, and also institute a collaboration between ministries, departments and agencies of Lagos state to help them achieve their mandates.” By doing so, Oshodi is not only teaching people how they can exchange their waste for value, but also how they can begin to be more learned. Waste today, according to her, has become a measure of exchange for value for a better, sustainable life.
Oshodi believes there is a high level of awareness of the circular economy in Lagos today because the strategy she and her team have adopted is to work with communities, but through business entities.
“Because if a business entity sees an opportunity for profits, you don’t have to teach that business to continue in it.”
Already, the OCCE’s Economy Business Network has linked over 700 environmentally conscious enterprises, helping them access markets, funding, and technical support. She pointed to a group of informal waste aggregators or “urban miners” who now earn up to N500,000 monthly from gathering and reselling recyclables to companies.
A graduate of economics, Oshodi views climate change through a marketer’s lens. Climate literacy, she believes, is everything, and cuts across all strata from households to businesses to government. Their understanding of climate change is vital in achieving sustainability.
Her communication background has also helped her to see the bigger picture. “What climate change has taught me as a marketer is to see it as a new market and drive it into the mainstream,” she concluded.
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