Daniel Damilola Nejo is a Nigerian born, London based tech entrepreneur who started his early years in Lagos Nigeria. He was born in Ajegunle, Lagos on May 22 1993 to his father Segun and Funke. He is the 5th child in a polygamous house of 11.
At an early age, his parents split and Daniel had to grow up with his Father, 3 stepmothers, and 10 other siblings in Ajegunle. Ajegunle is known for its slum and rugged neighborhood with popular native musicians such as Daddy Showkey, and African China singing about the hardship faced there.
Polygamous homes in Nigerian are known to be filled with drama and feud among the husband, wives, and children and this contributed to Daniel growing up with a speech impediment and he stammered all his early life. He was the only child among his other 10 siblings who did not have the support, guidance, and protection from his mother and this had a toll on him.
He spent most of his primary school summer holidays with his grandmother in Abule Egba and would always return back to Ajegunle after his holidays were over. On his holidays with his grandmother, he lived a life filled with motherly love and a much more cultured environment. He would always cry when it was time to go back to Ajegunle and this was one of the things that influenced his grandmother’s decision to request full custody of him from his father.
She explained to his father that he was not getting the motherly love that a child needs compared to his brothers and sisters who had their mothers with them and she bargained a custody agreement that involved him living and schooling with her and him returning to Ajegunle for his summer holidays.
So, Daniel moved to Abule Egba to finish his primary school education at Tofek Preparatory School in Oko Oba, Lagos. He was a very bright student and was part of the drama and music group for his class. His secondary school education started at Fagba Secondary school, Agege Lagos, he then moved to Elias International School, Iyana Ipaja, Unlike most students, Daniel spent only 4 years in High school instead of 6.
He was able to gain admission into Ajayi Crowther University at the age of 15, this was due to him passing his WAEC, GCE, and JAMB exams in flying colors. So, while his mates were going to spend 2 more years in high school, he already gained admission into University.
In 2009, Daniel started his University journey at Ajayi Crowther University studying computer science. While in Uni, he was notably known as “Chaplin” which is the title given to the priest in an Anglican University. He was dubbed this name because he led the morning devotions of his hostels and was a key member of the school’s church ushering department.
Daniel was a bright student in his class and was a class clown as well. In his 3rd year, he started showing signs of talent and interest in music, this was when he came up with the name “Owoyapalapo” as his stage name. He ran with this name for a short time and performed in most school events before he then changed it to “RainyMilli” because the latter has more “freshness” to it.
During this time, he released his first mixtape titled “Not Yet Ready”, this mixtape was an experiment for him, he wanted to explore his talent and also wanted to ensure his grades were not affected by his music, so Not Yet Ready was a way to show he was not yet ready to fully commit to music.
In 2013, when he was about to graduate from University, he released his second mixtape titled “Almost Ready” as a follow up to his previous one, the story behind this mixtape was him showing his interest to fully pursue music after his graduation from University.
After graduating from University at the age of 19 in 2013 with a 2’1 in Computer Science, Daniel quickly figured out that the music industry requires funding to create good music and most importantly to get heard. This then made Daniel decide to learn a digital skill which could be a source of income for him to support his passion for music. He decided to take a break from music and he learned web and graphics design on his grandmother’s dining table online through courses, videos, and blog posts and this was when he founded his company “Presidential Ideas” and his lifestyle blog brand “The Presidential Hustle”.
He found success as a web and graphics designer early on by leveraging freelance platform “Fiverr” where he met and worked with numerous businesses overseas because he was earning in dollars and pounds whilst running his business on his grandmother’s dining table in Nigeria, Daniel was able to save enough money to be able to move to the UK to get a Masters.
After rounding up his NYSC in Osun State, Nigeria, he moved to London to get a Masters in Business Information Systems Management from Middlesex University in 2015. During this time, Daniel expanded his operation in Presidential Ideas by making the company into a one-stop-shop for Digital branding. He provided services such as web design, graphics design, digital branding, SEO, digital marketing, and business strategy consultations.
Whilst schooling, he started creating content for his blog “The Presidential Hustle” and these content started to reach millions of Nigerians due to his unique approach and angle of topics he covered. Daniel started to build a name for himself and was sometimes dubbed the “Gary Vaynerchuk of Nigeria”.
Upon completing his Masters in 2017, Daniel had to move back to Nigeria but this was for a short time because he then got endorsed as an “Exceptional Talent in Digital Technology” by the UK Government under the recommendation of Tech Nation, the UK due to his profile, the impact of his tech work and potential growth the UK digital economy will gain from having Daniel in the UK.
As of 2017, this Tech endorsement was only given to 200 people across the globe and it is an endorsement scheme created by the UK Government to attract creative, intelligent, and forward-thinking techies and entrepreneurs to the UK. The endorsement comes with a 5 years UK visa.
Now fully back to the UK as an Exceptional Talent, Daniel had the freedom to be creative both on the Tech side and on his musical side. He returned back to his first love – music by releasing his official debut single “Eko to London” which was a follow up to his viral video where a white girl ran away from him when she found out he was Nigerian. The video gained tens of millions of views and was also a shared major.
He continued to do music and tech simultaneously. In the music scene, he released follow up singles such as “Check Your Balance”, “JJC”, “Jeje” and CompatiBoo while on his tech scene, he launched his free online University – NejoUniversity.com where he teaches tens of thousands of Nigerians and Ghanaians practical digital skills, co-founded Ebonado.com which is the world’s first Afro-Centric stock photo marketplace and he appeared on various Tv shows in the UK.
Daniel Nejo has grown from the kid who started off as a graphics and web designer into a walking creative bomb who uses his knowledge, experience, platform, and content to educate, empower and guide hundreds of thousands of people to the route of entrepreneurship by leveraging the internet and social media marketing.