The Iyalode

Reposition Ibadan is a project of Ibadan Business Hub.

The hub commenced on this journey in 2019, to change the perception about Ibadan. Ibadan is generally associated with low quality/ substandard products; backward thinking people; zero fun; and old fashioned houses (popularly referred to as the ‘red roof city’).

As insignificant as it might sound to keep referring to Ibadan only as the ‘red roof city’, we realized it was a reflection of the biased thought process of people about the city. Unfortunately, this also influenced their perception of businesses resident in Ibadan.

As a matter of fact, businesses experienced a period of being underpriced, if they wanted to make sales at all. It was commonplace to hear comments like “aha, why is your product so expensive? Are you not in Ibadan?” Meanwhile the products/ services being referred to have standard prices that these clients wouldn’t dare underprice in their own immediate environment e.g Lagos/ Porthacourt.

There were cases when prospective clients would deliberately look beyond their immediate environment (usually Lagos), just because they felt they would get a better deal from Ibadan, considering it’s a ‘backward’ city with business owners who ‘shouldn’t know competitive prices beyond the shores of Ibadan’.

Out of frustration, many businesses had to enlist online as existing in Lagos or anywhere else but Ibadan.

After the Ibadan Business Festival of 2019 held therefore, the hub decided to commence on this journey to reshape the image of the city; howbeit it had already passed as a bill with the board, since June 2019.

An event was scheduled to hold in March 2020 to launch the project, Reposition Ibadan. Unfortunately, covid struck and shortly before March, the lockdown process was announced.

As a result, Reposition Ibadan had to commence as an online drive.

It was fairly easy to commence on the journey because the previous Government had established some structures that made the city attractive for multinational businesses to flock in.

It can boldly be said that Ibadan right now, has a lot of beautiful places and especially standard businesses, that it can boast of. And the task of Ibadan Business Hub under this project, is to present these businesses/ places/ people to the world.

To rightly Reposition Ibadan, two main objectives have to be pursued:

1. Encourage Ibadan businesses to pursue more of standardisation and move beyond mediocre ways of running business.

2. Disabuse the minds of people who reside outside Ibadan, about the old perception of Ibadan, and gradually replace their beliefs with the new reality of the city.

This page will show you, one business at a time, what the new Ibadan is like.