Exclusive: How Azolibe Oscar is Transforming Awka's Tech Landscape with Apex Tech Hub

Hello guys, and welcome to another exclusive interview hosted on this website!

[Read: Exclusive Interview with Swayvee—the hot & bubbling, crooner of US, here]

Today, I have the pleasure of sitting down with a truly dynamic individual—Azolibe Oscar, a graduate of Mass Communication, the 30th SUG Public Relations Officer of Nnamdi Azikiwe University, and the founder of Apex Tech Hub, one of the biggest tech hubs in Awka.

His journey is fascinating: from media and communications to becoming a major player in the tech space. What led him here? What keeps him going? And what does the future hold for him and Apex Tech? Let’s find out.

Oscar, first things first—your background. You studied Mass Communication, a field deeply rooted in storytelling, media, and public relations, yet here you are, leading a major tech hub. What was the turning point that made you venture into tech?

Yep, I studied Mass Communication. I feel like it was just the right course for me because now I do more communications in business. I have learned a lot of things in Mass Communication that are helping me currently.

The turning point for setting up a tech hub was to provide solutions, provide solutions to different problems, especially the solution to the problem we are facing currently: instability in the working environment and lack of skills amongst youths.

I have this vision of making sure that everybody around me are innovators. I'm always looking for the next problem to solve.

So, Apex Tech Hub is just us trying to push the solutions that we have, so a vast majority of people can be able to sustain themselves with the tech skills they have by getting access to a very conducive and productive workspace. To make sure that we are leading in tech solutions, we want to provide as many solutions as we can to education, businesses, agriculture, religion, every sector of the economy. So that's what made me venture into tech.

From the outside, it seems like a big leap. Was there ever a moment when you doubted if you made the right decision? How did you navigate that uncertainty?

Nope. The answer is no. There was never a time I doubted myself. I knew that I was heading somewhere, but I didn't know exactly where I was going. So even now, the journey is not very clear, but I know for a fact where I am heading towards. The whole directive might change while I'm going; I believe it's part of the journey. So I always believe anywhere you find yourself, just do something, just do something.

Carve out a vision? Walk towards it. Your real purpose in life would fall into a place where you are trying to change that vision, and that's the belief I've been using to build things. My first vision was to create a global team that provides solutions to everybody, in tech and out of tech, and training myself and building myself so we'd be the best tech team in the world.

As time went on, I started seeing problems that needed solutions. I started solving them, and gradually those solutions were carving out a new vision for me. So there wasn't a time that I said to myself I might be on the wrong path. I already told myself it's either I do tech or I do tech; I'm never going to leave this field. As a matter of fact, I've always been in the tech field, maybe different verticals, different skills, but still in the tech field.

Apex Tech is now a household name in Awka.
What was the vision behind it? Did you always intend to build something this big, or did it evolve over time?

Household name in Awka? I don't think I'm there yet. I don't think I'm even halfway there. There's still heavy pressure. Right now, it's easy to think it's a household name in Awka, but I want it to be a household name in Nigeria; I want it to be a household name all over the world. I always intended to build something so big that provides the biggest solution to the biggest tech problems that would evolve. So, I didn't just start. I knew this was going to happen one day. I worked, I saw the plan, and I was not sure about how it's going to end. I'm still not sure about how it's going to end, but I've always known that I wanted to do something big.

I didn't just want to do the ordinary. I came to the game. I know what others are doing; I've seen what others are doing. I just don't want Apex Tech to be regular. I want to take it with my hand. I want to lead the company to a position where everybody within the team is able to be successful. I want everybody to dream within the company.

I want everybody to have a goal, a lifetime goal inside Apex. So I think it's left for me to continue building, continue growing, and, you know, helping people reach their goals as well within the team.

Leadership is never easy.
You were the PRO of Nnamdi Azikiwe University, which meant you handled a lot of public-facing roles. What lessons from that experience have helped you in running Apex Tech?

One of the biggest lessons being a PRO has taught me is to be yourself. People will trust you more if you are authentic, if you are not trying to be a shady person, if you are not trying to pose as who you are not because there was a time I was newly elected as the PRO.

I was beginning to think of how to hide my other self. Like, how was it going to be like when I'm walking on the road? What image would people see me as? I want people to see me as a leader. I don't want people to see me as just a regular student. Then, I was very bothered about what people thought about me, how people saw me, how people would think about the things I say when I speak, how people perceived me, and at some point, I was trying to be that person, but deep down, I knew I wasn't because of the public, and I thought it was just good PR. I thought it was the right way to go, but no, that's, from my experience, the most stressful way to live your life because at the end of the day, you are living for yourself, and whatever brought you to that position you're in is because people saw something in you that you yourself might not even be seeing, so what's the need of trying to be someone else when people already know you're acting it up? So one of the biggest lessons I learned from being UNIZIK's PRO is to be yourself. Always be yourself, be natural, be authentic to yourself, be authentic to people. I also learned everybody has a flaw; every single person has a flaw, and that flaw is what makes us who we are. So, sometimes I was bothered about the most little things that, right now, when I look back at it, I would say, why was I bothered about that? But I was able to scale through then because I understood that everybody had a place they were not doing better in.

What we just have to do is to recognize our strengths and invest more in it, take care of your flaws, and make sure that your strengths are bigger than your flaws.

   

Let’s get personal for a second.
Who is Oscar outside of work? How do you unwind, recharge, and stay grounded?

Honestly, I am just starting to unwind; I'm just trying to do it, but I don't think it's time for it. Oscar outside of work? I'm not anybody outside work. I'm still the same person. All my friends are people I work with.

I was having a conversation with someone this morning, similar to this question, and they were like, where do you go to after work? I was like, bro, I go out with the people I work with.

My life revolves around my teammates; like, these are people that I want to grow with, these are people that are intentional about their life, and they are the only people that I want to be around. Unless you are intentional about your life, I can't joke around with you.

So there's not really been a time I said, okay, let me go off the radar. I'm always in the circle. If I'm going out to take a drink, I'm going out with my circle. If I am going out to watch a movie, I'm going out with my circle. If I'm playing games, I'm doing so with my circle.

So all these things are the way I catch fun, but while I'm having fun, I'm still maintaining my circle and putting limits to how much fun I have.

Tell us about your family.
How has your upbringing influenced your ambitions and the way you approach life?

Whether you like it or not, as an individual, your upbringing plays a huge role in who you currently are. No matter how you want to redefine yourself, how much you want to develop yourself, there is always going to be something that speaks about you from your upbringing, from your background. For me, I would say the situation of my family motivated me to start growing and start being a man from any age.

My family, we are not poor; we were never poor. I'm saying we are average. We are not rich, we are not poor; we're just there. We were able to provide for everybody's need throughout nursery school to secondary school, and I guess this might just be my personal mentality, but I hate not being able to get what I want to get, and as a child, I was deprived of a lot of things that I really wanted to get because of lack of funds or discipline or whatever it was. So it propelled me to do more for myself.

I want to enjoy my youthful age, and I don't want my family to lack at any point.

Then secondly, I'll say my bank account motivated me. But most importantly, my mom. My mom is an industrious person. I will give it to her; she's always ready to take things to the next opportunity. She's a disciplinarian; she's always out to shun evil behavior amongst children. So, I'd say that discipline brought and groomed my conscience. It's groomed my conscience.

 Apart from my mom being a disciplinarian, I also went to a Seminary for six years, and most of the virtues I have, because I feel like institutions like the Seminary, the Monastery, or Religious secondary schools, or just living around people who were trained like priests, live life differently from others in society, so the Seminary affected my upbringing as well like that. It's why, when people see me, they think I'm religious or something like that, and I also did well in leadership positions there, and I lived with grace, so I'm just unconsciously living that life, to be honest.

Tech and Mass Communication—two seemingly different worlds.
Do you ever find ways to merge them? Does your background in communication give you an edge in the tech industry?

Yeah, it gives me almost all the edges because in mass communication, right? It's not just about knowing how to be a good communicator, in mass communication, you learn about PR, in mass communication you learn about business management, in mass communication you learn about how to manage a company, you learn about administration, you learn about international relations. There are alot of things that I learned from mass communication as a course that is helping me currently.

 Now I know that it's not the best product that sells but the best marketed product. I don't joke with my PR wherever, wherever I am, whatever I'm doing, I would look for the most unexpected way to give my business good PR. That's one of the things that I've learned in mass communication that's keeping me in the industry.

 As a Public Relations Officer from mass communication department, when I contested the election, I had the largest votes in the history of Unizik, nobody is yet to beat that history and nobody is going to beat that history, because they don't know the secret of PR. Mass Communication helped me a lot to gain publicity, it helped me a lot to strategize in business, it helped me to understand how business worked. So I'll say Mass Communication in every way is giving me an edge in the tech industry, also in mass communication there are a lot of things that has to do with tech, because communication is now digital, nowadays you can literally not communicate with someone without the aid of a tech device. 

It's how we're speaking now, through the help of technology, which is one of the crucial sources for news and information, so we can say mass communication has everything to do with technology and giving people an edge in the tech industry.

The Nigerian tech space is growing rapidly.
What excites you the most about this shift, and where do you see Apex Tech fitting into this evolution?

I wonder where you got this question from, but it's so, so good because right now, not only am I excited about the shifting technology in Nigeria, but I am so, so happy to be part of the big evolution that is happening in my hometown. I found myself in Awka; I went to the Nnamdi Azikiwe University, and while I was in the university, I noticed one thing: this place is not developed. Development has not come to Awka, so if you should start something with a solid foundation that will stand the test of time, you will be able to make it big in Awka.

I saw tech as one of the untapped resources in Awka, and I went into it. Not only did I go into it, I went into it with a unique solution, and what was that unique solution?

Provision of internet facilities and browsing facilities, which includes electricity, conducive workplace, and internet connectivity, and up till today, there is no tech hub in the entire Awka that beats how fast Apex Tech Hub is. We use different combinations of private networks, not only Starlink, and you can confirm any day; our network beats them all.

We ran a market survey, and we found out that we were doing very well. We will continue to maintain that standard and make sure that we are always at the apex of things.

I'm so, so happy that I'm a major contributor in the tech space in Awka because I know that in like three to five years from now, the people who are consistent in this tech hub industry will be the pillars and leaders of industrialization and evolution in the tech space in Awka and Nigeria as a whole.

You’re a leader, a builder, a visionary.
But what’s next? Where do you see yourself and Apex Tech in the next five to ten years?

In the next five years, I see Apex Tech dominating Anambra State, realistically, and in the next not less than five years, I see us going nationwide, and that's where I see myself in the next five to ten years. I see us having the most impact on empowering youths in tech-driven skills and providing opportunities for employment for the vast majority of Nigerian youths, surviving global issues, and having systems that can accommodate the vast majority of individuals anywhere we're situated at. That is my five-to-ten-year goal, but I have a one-year goal of training three thousand students in different tech skills, and we're trying to hit it.

Speaking of dreams and aspirations. If money, time, and resources weren't a problem, what's one dream project you'd love to execute?

If money, time, and resources needed were not a problem, I would have built a standard tech academy that would be able to compete with federal, private, and state universities. I would want to build academies across different states in Nigeria that support students getting tech skills as opposed to getting literal knowledge.

I would want to be a major competitor to contemporary education. I want everybody to know that education—four years, six years, ten years in the university chasing a degree—will not get you anywhere.

I want to be a major threat to academic institutions. I want to be able to provide affordable opportunities for youths to delve into and at least have a tech skill because then, if you're looking at the broader picture, if everybody has something to contribute to the society, if everybody is being rewarded for having a degree in practical skills, our economic challenge, there will be a lot of solutions; there will be a lot of people trying to do new things, and we would grow fast as a nation; we would grow fast as individuals in this world.

I would want to make sure that everybody knows the truth: education has limits, but having a skill has no boundary; it has no limits.

So if I could, I would want to build at least ten tech academies in every locality I find myself.

Many young people look up to you. What's one piece of advice you'd give to students or graduates who feel stuck, uncertain, or afraid to take risks?

I'll say feeling stuck and uncertain are two different things. Then being afraid to take risks is a whole different thing altogether. So when you feel stuck, it means that you are progressing, as ironic as it may sound.

If you're feeling stuck, it means that you've realized you are in a position, and after feeling stuck, you either progress or you regress. So if you feel stuck, it means that you are actually taking the right steps.

Continue doing those things that made you realize that you are stuck, and you won't be in that position forever.

If you are very uncertain, my advice for you is: just keep on going. Nobody is too certain; everybody walks with their heads up, their ties knotted up, with their belts tied up, and everybody looks like they know what they are doing. Bro, nobody knows what they are doing.

You know, once you realize that everybody doesn't know what is in front of them—because it's either too blurry or they are very uncertain—you'd be very comfortable in your space and your growth pattern.

Just have something you like doing; find something you can give your life for, and you don't really have to like it at first. Find something you will tell yourself, I'm going to do this to the very end.

It is not that thing you will end up doing, but it will lead you to what you will definitely want to do for your lifetime. So if you are uncertain, just keep on doing what you're doing; you don't have to be right.

As a student, you're either right or you're wrong, but in life, it doesn't matter. If you're wrong, people will support you. If you're right, people will still support you.

If people can support someone that hawks fish pie and make him who he was a thing of the past, what about you that have this crazy dream? That's not even as crazy as selling fish pie, shouting and disturbing people?

That's to tell you that there is no right or wrong in life. Whenever you do and you do it well, people will always support you. So just keep on doing what you are doing; don't bother about how much it's going to fetch you. If it's worth it, as far as it's something that you want to give all your heart, do it.

Then if you are afraid of taking risks, I heard a sermon from Femi Lazarus, and he was like, have you ever wondered why that particular lady in your street or that particular man in your street is still where he is ten years before now?

I can think about various friends to my mom that are still in the same shop that they were in from like ten years, twelve years, and twenty years ago, and the thing is, they don't have any reality outside what they've created for themselves. They've failed to see that there is something beyond the life that they are living is. I can say at this point, they are the box; they're not in the box; they are the box.

They don't believe that there is something more than sewing shoes; they don't believe that there is something more than stitching clothes. There is always something more out there, but for you to see what's out there, you need to step out, and for you to step out of the box, you need to get cold; you need to get hot; you need to face the harsh reality.

Growth is very uncomfortable; taking risks is very scary, but at the end of the day, it's not as big as you think it is. When you start doing the things you have been scared of doing, you'd just realize that everybody else does it.

Final words. Anything you'd like to share that we haven't touched on? A message to your supporters, to future collaborators, or even to your younger self?

A message to share across to my supporters? I'd say, one thing is certain, right? If you continue supporting, you would end up with supporters.

The reality you make about a person is what forms your own reality. So if you're always supporting, you're telling the universe, look, I'm a supportive person, and I chose to care about being supportive, and the universe will always bring people to support you.

So whatever vibe you give to me or anybody out, that's how you want your life to be. You're gradually telling nature this is the type of person I am, and these are the type of people that I want around me. So I appreciate everybody supporting out there, reposting flyers, telling people about Apex Tech Hub, and pushing the dream.

I really thank you. Thank you, Awelekume, shoutout to you and the brand. I hope to see you up there. I hope to always see you win, and I'd be happy to support back in any way. Thank you.

This was a lovely interview, Oscar. Thank you for your time, and thank you, lovely readers, for reading up to this point. Don't forget to share with anyone looking for even a drop of the motivation this interview thoroughly dripped out.

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