From Fugar to AfriPresence: My Story

I was robbed of everything I owned once. It wasn’t the last time I had to start from zero.

My name is Yahya Mujahid Imhonighe. I’m 24, from Fugar, Edo State, Nigeria, and this is my story, the real one, not the polished highlight reel.

Where I Come From

I’m the last of three children, with two brothers. I grew up in Ebonyi State, where I attended the School of Arabic and Islamic Studies (SAIS) in Afikpo from Primary 1 to JSS3.

It wasn’t an easy stretch. I was bullied there, mostly because of who I was. I loved exploring, loved being free, loved having fun, and that didn’t attract many friends. It attracted the opposite. But a few people stood by me anyway: Amar, Najib, Faruk, AbdulRasheed, and a handful of others I could always count on.

My grades suffered too, not because I lacked ability, but because I lost interest in the school system early. Twenty-one subjects in JSS1 will do that to a kid. Eventually, I told my family I couldn’t stay.

On October 6, 2016, we moved to Edo State, and I started fresh at Pioneer Comprehensive High School. New people. New environment. New perspective.

Turns out I was never the problem. The environment was.

My grades improved almost immediately once I found a place that felt engaging instead of exhausting. A few years later, I was appointed the school’s Senior Prefect, my first real taste of leadership, and my first real lesson in accountability, patience, and balance.

Life After High School

Graduation changed something in me. I’d spent my childhood dreaming of joining the Nigerian Military. I admired the bravery. But after high school, that dream quietly gave way to a completely different one: websites, and crypto.

I got curious about the digital world. How are websites even built? How does information stay ready for anyone who needs it, anytime? I went looking for answers, found platforms like Wix and WordPress, and figured I could build entire websites from my phone.

I was wrong. So I paused.

I needed income, so I started teaching at a secondary school and saved toward a crypto journey instead. I joined a crypto community and eventually became known as a vendor. Business was good, until it wasn’t.

My dad sent me to pick up a device. I came back with nothing.

On that errand, I got into the wrong vehicle and was robbed. My crypto wallets, my assets, even the backpack I was carrying, all gone. Back to zero, just like that.

It didn’t stop me. I kept teaching, kept saving, and a few months later, applied to study Mechanical Engineering at Auchi Polytechnic.

College

I got into Federal Polytechnic Auchi in 2021, a field I knew almost nothing about. In my first year, my dad gifted me a laptop, and my website design dream came roaring back. I bought an online WordPress course, and that’s really where it all started.

Around the same time, school lost whatever grip it had left on me. I also had a real passion for football and tried to chase it, but pushback from my family ended that dream too. Between the two, I barely made it through my National Diploma, three carryovers in my first year alone.

How do you recover from that? One decision at a time.

The Idea That Became AfriPresence

My mindset shifted again when I met someone who pushed me to think bigger than what was right in front of me. Whenever I wanted to quit, she gave me a reason not to. That mattered more than I can fully explain here.

One evening, sitting outside, a quote landed on me: “The fastest way to make money is to provide a solution to an existing problem.”

What problem could I solve to go global?

In Nigeria, and across Africa, most businesses lean entirely on local customers. Few think about building a real online presence or professional brand. That gap was the answer. That gap became AfriPresence Studio.

With fear and doubt still very much in the room, I started anyway: building, researching, registering the business, and delivering real work for real clients.

What AfriPresence Studio Actually Does

AfriPresence Studio isn’t just a website design brand. It’s built to give small and large businesses the professional presence they need to compete globally, not just locally. Based in Auchi, Edo State, we understand local business behavior deeply, which means we know where a business is weak, where its competitors are weaker, and how to turn that gap into an advantage.

A good online presence is more than a beautiful website. SEO, keyword-rich content, an optimized Google Business Profile, and active social media all matter. That’s a free tip from me.

The Part Nobody Tells You About

Finished work always looks pleasant. Nobody sees the trial and error behind a single blog post, the pressure of getting a site structure exactly right, or the stress of matching a client’s exact taste. Running AfriPresence has shown me the unglamorous process behind every polished result.

I was reminded of that again just recently.

I was migrating DiWeWo, a crypto and trading education platform I run, to a new hosting server on Namecheap, restructuring it into a new academy-style layout at the same time. Before switching servers, I downloaded a full backup from the old host, the responsible move before any migration.

The backup was corrupted. I didn’t find out until it was too late.

To complete the migration, I had to cancel the old hosting plan. The moment I did, every file under that account was gone. Years of work, wiped out in an instant, because of one point of failure I never saw coming.

I called Namecheap support immediately. They could recover the files for a $15 fee, so I paid it without hesitation. Then came the harder part: telling the client the truth, exactly as it happened.

That’s entrepreneurship. Not the wins. The moment something breaks and you own it anyway.

Let Us Carry the Weight

This is exactly what we don’t want business owners to go through. Leave the dirty work to us. Let AfriPresence handle the mess behind the scenes, so your business only has to enjoy the finished product and the results that come with it.

Got an idea, or want us on your business? Reach out: [email protected] · [email protected] · [email protected] · +2348156019163