My Story of Grit, Growth, and Purpose
I’m Solomon Eko: the guy with the German nitty-gritty and Nigerian grit.
I grew up on the busy streets of Lagos, Nigeria, with big dreams. My first dream of becoming a footballer started at Command Children’s School in Bonny Camp, Victoria Island. I had a burning desire to become the next great Nigerian footballer. I grew up watching legends like Finidi George, Jay-Jay Okocha, and Kanu Nwankwo, and I wanted to be like them. Every kick of the ball was a prayer. Every goal was a promise I was making to my family, to my community, to myself.
But life, as it turns out, rarely follows the script we write for it.
It was my older sister who first nudged me off the pitch and toward the page. She encouraged me to focus more on school, perhaps not fully aware of how lucrative football would one day become. I honoured her wisdom and redirected my fire, but I never stopped playing. I kept hoping circumstances would shift. They didn’t. And slowly, painfully, I had to face a question that shook me to my core. If not football, then who am I?
That question would become the most important one of my life.
The Many Lives I Had to Live
What followed wasn’t a straight line; it was a sprawling, beautiful, humbling web of reinvention. I tried music. I tried acting. I tried engineering at the University of Lagos, only to walk away when I realised it lacked the practical soul I was searching for. I then transferred to study Geography still at the University of Lagos. Throughout it all, I felt the quiet sting of being lost, pouring time and hope into paths that kept forking.
The doubts were loud. Was I chasing shadows? Did I have what it took?
But there was something in me that wouldn’t lie down. Curiosity. A restless, relentless hunger to understand the world and my place in it. And so, in those uncertain years, I turned to creativity as a lifeline. I taught myself photography. I taught myself graphic design. I taught myself to write. These weren’t hobbies; they were rescue ropes. They opened doors to freelance gigs, to photojournalism assignments across Lagos, to a slowly forming sense of purpose.
Through the lens of a camera, I discovered the power of a story told visually. Every image I captured was a window into someone’s truth. That discovery changed everything. It didn’t just give me a career path; it gave me a calling.
Finding My Voice in Media
As a photojournalist, I worked with outlets and organisations across Nigeria, documenting life in all its rawness and beauty. I began to see media not just as a profession but as a force for change. I broadened my skills to include digital media, copywriting, and content development, which led to work as a writer and photojournalist at multiple organisations.
That passion for storytelling eventually carried me across the ocean to Bonn, Germany, where I pursued a Master’s degree in International Media Studies at the Hochschule Bonn-Rhein-Sieg and the University of Bonn, deepening my craft at the Deutsche Welle Akademie. I sat in workshops at Westdeutscher Rundfunk in Cologne. I built friendships with journalists from Sudan, Kenya, and across the world. I was no longer just a boy from Lagos trying to find himself. I was a storyteller with a global perspective and a continent’s worth of stories to tell.
The Project That Proved Impact Was Possible
In 2015, something shifted. I led an environmental communication project called WeSeparateWaste and it changed me as much as it changed the young people it reached. In partnership with the U.S. Department of State, we brought waste recycling knowledge and environmental education to over 1000 Nigerian students. We didn’t just teach them facts; we ignited creativity, turning trash into art and awareness into action.
The project was covered by Deutsche Welle and Nigerian press organisations. The University of Cambridge featured my photojournalism work documenting the stark realities of climate change. For the first time, I felt the full weight of what I had been building all these scattered, seemingly unrelated years. It was proof that one person armed with curiosity, a camera, and conviction could transform a community.
WeSeparateWaste became the seed of something larger. In 2016, I founded Retink Media, a communications-for-change company rooted in the belief that a sustainable environment requires storytelling at every level of society. Over time, it evolved into a marketing tech and AI startup harnessing the power of technology to help startups and small businesses create quality, on-demand content that drives results. Today, as its founder and Chief Vision Officer, I am proud of how far it has come.
Building Bridges: Kampus Konnekt49 and Beyond
When I moved to Germany in 2017, I noticed a gap that was personal to me, the sheer complexity of navigating German study and career opportunities as an African. The administrative maze was exhausting and discouraging. I had lived it myself. So I built a solution.
Kampus Konnekt49 was born out of my own struggle, designed as a one-stop service from pre-application to post-admission to lift that burden from others. What started as a consultancy has grown into one of the fastest-growing study consulting companies in Africa, with deep relationships with institutions and companies across Germany and expanding reach across the continent.
I also serve as a partner and senior consultant at Europe Africa Solutions, based in Bonn, a company dedicated to meaningful value exchange between Europe and Africa through knowledge and labour transfer. Every day, I work to build bridges where none existed.
And then there is German for Girls, perhaps the project closest to my heart. I am a passionate German language trainer, and I spend time teaching the language to people who want to work or study in Germany. But I started German for Girls specifically to empower young African women, to give them an international language that opens doors, expands horizons, and offers real economic opportunity in Germany and Europe. It is not just language instruction. It is hope. It is dignity. It is the transformative power of a single new skill in the hands of someone who deserves every chance the world has to offer.
Beyond all of this, I work as a business strategist, content consultant, and personal development coach, having helped over 20 young business owners build their ventures from idea to execution, entirely pro bono. Because I believe in paying forward every lesson that was ever given to me.
The Generalist’s Revelation
For years, I saw my varied path as a weakness. A lack of focus. A sign that I hadn’t figured it out yet, the way others seemed to have.
But one day after connecting the dots between football and journalism, between photography and tech, between Lagos and Bonn, I finally saw the truth. I wasn’t scattered. I was a generalist. And that was not a flaw; it was a superpower.
Each experience had quietly been handing me a tool. Each failure had been sharpening my resilience. Each pivot had been expanding my empathy and my ability to see problems from angles others couldn’t. I wasn’t a failure who kept starting over. I was a pioneer, learning by doing, willing to try and fall and rise again and again.
My guiding mantra through all of it has been simple: “Be simple with principle.” Simplicity is not about doing less; it’s about clarity of purpose. It’s about staying true to your values even when the road is confusing. It is the anchor that has kept me honest with myself through every reinvention.
My Story Is Still Being Written
I believe every person has a life story worth telling. Something to give, something to share, something the world genuinely needs. My mission now, through my businesses, my coaching, my teaching, and my storytelling, is to help others find and voice that story, especially young Africans who have been told, in a thousand subtle ways, that their stories don’t matter as much.
They do. We do.
From the football fields of Lagos to the conference rooms of Bonn, from a boy chasing a ball to an entrepreneur building companies that cross continents, my journey is proof that a winding path is still a path forward. Every chapter, even the painful ones, has been part of something greater than I could have designed for myself.
And I know for certain that my best chapters are still ahead.
To anyone walking their own uncertain road right now, I say to you, keep going. The path may not always be clear. But every step, forward or backward, is bringing you closer to the person you were always meant to become.
Your key to success is E: Excellence.
I’m Solomon Eko: the guy with the German nitty-gritty and Nigerian grit.
About me
Philosophy & Principles
“be simple with principle.”
Solomon Eko
What I Believe
- Do unto others what you want them to do to you.
- What you give is what you get
- There’s enough to go around everyone; you only need to change your frequency
- A good name is better to be chosen than riches. Proverbs 22:1
- Do unto others what you want them to do to you.
- What you give is what you get
- There’s enough to go around everyone; you only need to change your frequency
- A good name is better to be chosen than riches. Proverbs 22:1
Solomon Eko
Certifications, Degrees, and Experience
My journey has never followed a single lane, and neither has my learning. From the streets of Lagos to the lecture halls of Bonn, every credential I have earned and every role I have held has been part of a deliberate pursuit of depth. I believe that real expertise is built at the intersection of formal knowledge and lived experience. What you find below is not a list of qualifications; it is the evidence of a life committed to showing up, doing the work, and never stopping at good enough.