The Average Nigerian Is a Copycat
Let a Nigerian see someone successfully selling roast corn on a street corner, and by next Thursday, that same street corner will resemble an international summit of corn roasters. No market research, no geographical differentiation, no attempt to offer butter or extra pepper. Just pure, unadulterated duplication. If one person unearths gold in a backyard, fifty neighbours will arrive with spoons, convinced that the same dirt will yield the same fortune if everyone digs hard enough.
Nigerians do not merely observe success; they rush to reproduce it. A social media format strikes a chord, and within forty-eight hours, timelines are full of variations of the same idea. A musician develops a distinctive vocal cadence, and suddenly, a generation of emerging artists seems to have discovered the same flow. Someone opens a successful business, and before long, the market is crowded with people selling the same thing in almost exactly the same way.
The average Nigerian, when confronted with a winning formula, can be a relentless copycat.
Rachel Ojuromi and the Lagos Street-Style Catwalk Trend
Consider the recent attention surrounding Rachel Ojuromi. Working alongside her best friend and stylist, Debby Fashina, Racheal Ojuromi turned the streets of Lagos into a runway, stepping out in striking fashion looks that transformed familiar surroundings into something worth paying attention to. Their recreation of CHANEL’S MÉTIERS D’ART collection attracted international attention, and Rachael Ojuromi eventually got the opportunity to walk in a Chanel show.
The project had more going on than a woman wearing beautiful clothes and walking down a street.
Debby Fashina styled the looks and explained their references, colors and inspiration. Together, they developed a creative identity around fashion, styling and the everyday scenery of Lagos.
Then came the aftermath.
Other Nigerians began recreating the street-catwalk format. Suddenly, more people were putting together outfits, calling videographers and walking through Lagos streets with the hope of catching some of the same attention.
There is nothing wrong with that format in itself. Rachel did not invent street style, and nobody needs permission to experiment with fashion in public. The problem begins when the only lesson people take from another person’s success is the most obvious part of it.
What made Rachel and Debby’s project distinctive was not simply the equation of woman, clothes and street. It was the thought behind the styling, the way they presented the looks and the identity they built around the project.
Copying the walk without understanding the vision misses the point entirely.
Why Nigerians Rush to Copy Successful Ideas
This tendency does not stem from an inability to create. Nigerians are remarkably resourceful. They can identify opportunities, improvise solutions and build businesses under circumstances that would discourage people elsewhere.
Why, then, does that ingenuity sometimes give way to imitation as soon as someone else’s success becomes visible?
Part of the answer lies in the attraction of a proven formula. Starting from scratch is difficult. Testing an unfamiliar idea carries the risk of failure, wasted money and in some cases, public embarrassment. Someone who has already succeeded appears to have done the hard work of proving that an audience exists and that the idea can work.
When an entrepreneur sees a pepper seller doing roaring trade, opening another pepper stall may seem like a sensible decision. There is a market, customers are already spending money, and the business model is familiar. Competition itself is not the problem. People should be free to pursue opportunities that make economic sense.
The more interesting question is why so many people feel compelled to reproduce the same approach rather than consider what else they could bring to the market.
The temptation is understandable. Why risk being misunderstood while developing something unfamiliar when an existing formula has already attracted attention?
The trouble is that the shortcut can become a dead end.
Inspiration vs. Imitation: What Is the Difference?
Creativity has always involved influence. Artists borrow ideas, study their predecessors and build on work that came before them. No creative person exists in a vacuum.
The problem is confusing inspiration with imitation.
Inspiration asks what someone else’s achievement makes possible. Imitation asks how closely that achievement can be reproduced.
When Hilda Baci completed her record-breaking cooking marathon in 2023, her achievement demonstrated what could happen when someone pursued an ambitious goal on an extraordinary scale. That kind of achievement can inspire people in entirely different fields.
Consider Nora Awolowo and her team’s work on Black Market, which set a record for attendance at a film screening. Their achievement belonged to a different creative field, with its own challenges and ambitions. The value of the comparison lies not in suggesting that one project directly caused the other, but in showing how audacity can travel between industries without requiring people to recreate the same feat.
That is what inspiration can look like: one person’s achievement expands another person’s sense of possibility.
Originality is not always about inventing something entirely new. It is about showing people possibilities they had not considered. Fisayo Longe’s styling content around the NAO Tank Top, for instance, demonstrates how a familiar piece of clothing can be worn in different ways. The value lies in the ideas she brings to the product and the usefulness of those ideas to her audience.
The goal should be to understand what makes a great idea work, then figure out what those lessons mean for someone else.
Nigerian Creatives Need to Find Their Own Lane
The same applies to fashion, music, content creation and business. There is nothing wrong with admiring another person’s work or learning from their success. The problem is stopping at imitation instead of using that influence to develop something distinctive.
Rachel Ojuromi and Debby Fashina found an approach that worked for them and committed to it. The lesson is not that everyone should start catwalking through Lagos. It is that there is room for more people to find their own thing and do it well enough for others to take notice.
Nigerians are too resourceful to keep mistaking imitation for innovation. There is nothing wrong with learning from people who have figured things out, but at some point, the borrowed ideas have to become something of their own.
The average Nigerian might be a copycat, but surely, a country this full of talent can do better than endlessly reproducing its own successes.
At some point, somebody has to stop following the trend and become the reason everybody else is scrambling to catch up.
