The WordPress Ecosystem has received contributions from different regions of the world and Nigerians are not left out in these contributions. There are many Nigerians that are either working in top WordPress companies, have written plugins, contribute support in the WordPress.org forum or organize WordCamps.
This list contains those I was able to discover at this time. I will update the list as I find more Nigerians that are making impacts in the WordPress space.
In addition, the list will also serve as a motivation for other Nigerians who want to pick up a career with WordPress. Across the profiles, you will see some elements recurring. You will also see that there are no limitations to being relevant in this space as some people who even studied English or Accounting are excelling with WordPress. In other words, this will guide you to becoming successful with WordPress by seeing how others have achieved success.
All the information on this page is accurate as of the date of publication.
1. Adetola Adeniran
Adetola Adeniran works as a Technical Support Engineer at Yoast – a WordPress SEO plugin that is used on more than 5 million websites. The plugin is arguably the best WordPress SEO plugin, the closest competitor to Yoast is ‘Rank Math SEO‘ which has only 1 million active installations. So, Adetola is one of the teams that daily contribute to the success of this plugin.
Adetola studied Electrical and Electronics Engineering at the University of Ilorin, Kwara State Nigeria. He also has a Master’s degree in Mechatronics, Robotics, and Automation Engineering from Saint Petersburg State Electrotechnical University.
Before joining the Yoast team, he worked briefly at Automattic as a Happiness Contractor.
Outside work and education, he loves to listen to music, watch football and spend time with his family.
2. Abiola Ogodo
Just like Adetola, Abiola Ogodo is also a Support Engineer at Yoast. Abiola is an unrepentant fan of WordPress who fell in love with WordPress after creating his first post without code.
He has a Bachelor’s degree in Industrial Mathematics from Adekunle Ajasin University, Akungba, Ondo State.
He is a Microsoft Certified Trainer 2020-2021 and also a cloud specialist. Abiola is one of the reasons many users of Yoast all over the world are happy every day.
Abiola loves playing console games and enjoying drinks with friends.
3. Onu Abah
Onu Abah is Software Engineer at Automattic. Automattic is the parent company of Woocommerce, WordPress.com, Jetpack and several WordPress plugins. Even though WordPress is an open-source CMS, we can say that WordPress is largely supported by Automattic whose founder Matt Mullenweg also founded WordPress.
Working in this company means that you are directly impacting WordPress globally since most of Automattic’s products are used on millions of websites all over the world.
Onu has a B.sc in Computer Science from the Ahmadu Bello University, Zaria. He also has a Master’s degree in computer science from the same university.
Interestingly, he speaks both English and French.
4. Mary Job
Mary Job works as a Support Engineer at Paid Membership Pro Plugin. She has been featured on WordPress TV, HeroPress, Namecheap, WP Professional and other platforms.
Mary’s contributions to WordPress show her commitment and desire to see Nigerians and Africans successful in the use of WordPress. Mary organises monthly meetups for Nigerians regularly. She has organised both physical and online meetups.
Her first encounter with WordPress was in 2012. At first, WordPress was just a medium to express herself but it later turned out into a passion on which she has also built a business.
She is the founder of How Do You Tech, a company that empowers Africans with digital literacy skills. She is also the owner of WP Slay. She is a co-founder of Gbefunwa – a hosting company founded by Tunbosun Ayinla.
Mary volunteers to the general WordPress community but she also has a special interest in women and teenage girls which inspires her to volunteer at the Uwani Foundation.
5. Sunday Ukafia
Sunday Ukafia has been volunteering in the WordPress community since 2018. Just like Mary, Sunday has been an active organiser of WordPress Meetups in Nigeria. He pioneered the Uyo WordPress Meetup and organizes Lekki WordPress Meetup in Lagos.
Sundays is also the Regional Mentor for the African WooCommerce community, providing support and mentorship for WooCommerce community leaders across Africa.
Apart from WordPress and Woocommerce Meetups, Sunday also organizes Elementor Meetups where attendees are trained on how to design better.
He has immensely contributed to the growth of WordPress in Nigeria.
Sunday grew up in a riverine area and he enjoys travelling; He is happily married.
6. Victor Wilson
Victor Wilson is Happiness Engineer at Automattic for Woocommerce. One year into studying Political Science & Government at Caleb University, Nigeria, Victor decided to leave the school to focus on web development full-time.
Since then he has been building WordPress websites and also writing on technical subjects.
Before working at Automattic, Victor also worked at Brainstorm Force for a short while. Brainstorm Force with headquarters in India is one of the leading developers of WordPress plugins.
7. Tunbosun Ayinla
Tunbosun Ayinla is a prolific WordPress programmer who has developed more than 15 WordPress plugins that are available for free. Personally, Tunbosun’s Paystack Gateway plugins for Woocommerce and Easy Digital Download had been a solution out of a dead end. Hardly will anyone using Paystack on WordPress not use any of his plugins. The Paystack WooCommerce Payment Gateway currently has 20, 000+ active installations.
If not for Tunbosun’s plugins many Nigerian WordPress sites would have been stranded, some years back.
He currently works with Awesome Motive, a top WordPress company founded by Syed Balkhi. Awesome Motive is currently listed on the NASDAQ Times Square. He has also worked as a Web Developer at Godaddy, and a Senior Developer at Sandhills Development before it was acquired by Awesome Motive in 2021. Sandhills Development was the creator of the Easy Digital Downloads plugin.
He has been a WordCamp Speaker, WordCamp Organizer and Meetup Organizer.
Apart from the free plugins on the WordPress repository, Tunbosun has also written some paid plugins that make online payment easy for Nigerians.
He owns ‘Jusibe’ – an API service that enables users to send SMS via their websites and applications. Tunbosun Ayinla is also the founder of Gbefunwa a managed WordPress hosting company.
Tunbosun is proudly Nigerian, and that is evident in the name he gives to his brands. ‘Jusibe’ and ‘Gbefunwa’ are both Yoruba words loosely meaning ‘throw it there’ and ‘give it to us’ respectively.
With a Bachelor of Science from the University of Ilorin, Tunbosun has blessed the entire WordPress ecosystem with his skills, creativity and passion to help others solve their problems.
8. Kingsley Unuigbe
Kingsley Unuigbe is an automattician working as a Happiness Engineer. Kingsley has a degree in Mechanical Engineering from Ambrose Alli University, Edo State.
Kingsley starts each day hoping that he can make a difference and make someone’s life a bit easier. This is one attributes most of the contributors to the WordPress open source project have.
His first role with Automattic started as a WordPress Technical Support Agent in 2021. Since then, he has been with Automattic and striving to make WordPress easier for everyone every day.
9. Oluwaseun Olorunsola
Oluwaseun Olorunsola is Software Engineer a Senior Software Engineer at Automattic. He had an HND in Computer Engineering from Lagos City Polytechnic, Nigeria. Ouwaseun has worked with several tech companies as a Software Engineer. Working now with Automattic has allowed him to contribute to the WordPress community and he has been doing that since 2021.
Oluwaseun has an Interest in helping others build their dreams with the aid of modern technology.
10. Sodiq Akinjobi
Sodiq Akinjobi is a WordPress evangelist. A WordPress teacher with many years of experience. Sodiq has contributed to WordPress as a Translation Contributor, Translation Editor and WordCamp Speaker.
He has been featured on WordPress TV, CMS Africa, and Techcabal amongst others. Sodiq has been credited as a tech revolutionary during his final year at the University of Lagos while studying Systems Engineering. He also has a degree in Mechanical Engineering from Yaba College of Technology, Lagos.
Sodiq has organized several WordPress meetups that have been beneficial to WordPress users across Nigeria.
He has been a facilitator at several WordPress events in Nigeria and internationally. Sodiq contributes 1 hour per week to the WordPress community.
11. Collins Agbonghama
Collins Agbonghama is the founder of Proper Fraction, a company that specializes in building WordPress plugins. 3 of the plugins developed by Collins are MailOptin, ProfilePress and LoginWP. These plugins are used by thousands of WordPress websites internationally, LoginWP (Formerly Peter’s Login Redirect) for example has 100, 000 active installations. Collins has been featured on several platforms including People of WordPress.
His writings have been featured in top blogs such as SitePoint, Tuts+, DesignModo, SmashingMagazine, Hongkiat and Medialoot.
Collins has an HND in Computer Science from Auchi Polytechnic. Collins’ story reflects the resilient and determined Nigerian spirit.
Being a very inquisitive person, I wanted to learn how the web works as well as have my own website. I was able to buy a classic mobile phone through the menial jobs I did after school.
Collins Agbonghama
Collins does not only make a living from WordPress, he makes it easier for other WordPress users to have a better experience with their websites.
12. Adejoke Haastrup
Adejoke Haastrup is a Software Engineer at Sendbox.ng. She is the convener of an initiative called ‘Kids that code‘ that has taught children how to code and use WordPress since 2018. Adejoke was a speaker during Social Media Week (Lagos) in 2020. She also spoke on “Combining the power of WordPress and React” on JavaScript for WordPress Conference. She has also been featured on WPSessions, Wordsesh, and Lagos WordCamps amongst others.
It is quite interesting that Adejoke is not just achieving success for herself with WordPress but she is also helping many children all over the world build a career in WordPress.
Her favourite thing to do is make pancakes and berries.
13. Precious Omonzejele
Precious Omonzejele is the developer of the plugin ‘Phone Validator for WooCommerce‘ – a WordPress plugin with more than 4, 000 active installations. Precious has been a co-host and facilitator of the WordPress Community in Nigeria. He has been featured many times as a Speaker at Lagos WordCamp.
Precious has also been a part of the Kids that Code Initiative by Adejoke Haastrup. This shows his passion to impact children and help them become skilled even at an early age.
14. Damilare Shobowale
Damilare is a PHP & WordPress Expert. Damilare contributes 10 hours per week to the Core & Support teams of WordPress. He has been featured at The JavaScript for WordPress Conference where he spoke on “Extending The WordPress REST API“.
He has worked with Proper Fraction – a plugin development plugin owned by Collins Agbonghama. He also works as a Web Developer at The Guardian
Damilare has a degree in Computer Science and Engineering from Ladoke Akintola University of Technology, Ondo State.
Damilare has demonstrated some expertise with WordPress which has earned him some international recognition.
15. Adedayo Adeniyi
Adedayo is the founder of Jibi Tech. She is the first West African Lead for CMS Africa. She has also been featured as a speaker on Social Media Week. She has also been a speaker at Abuja WordCamp.
She has a degree in Computer Science from the University of Lagos, Nigeria.
Adedayo enjoys volunteering and preaching the power of CMS even though she has over 10 years of experience with coding. She also worked as Customer Success Manager at Orion Origin, a WordPress company in the Benin Republic.
She enjoys reading, swimming or writing short stories for kids.
16. Toyin Ogunseinde
Toyin Ogunseinde is a Support Engineer at Yoast. Toyin’s story is quite unique, unlike many other people on this list, Toyin doesn’t have a computer-related degree; He has a degree in Accounting from Joseph Ayo Babalola University. Before joining Yoast, Toyin worked with some well-known WordPress companies like LifterLMS as a Technical Support Specialist and Happiness Buff at WP Buff.
Toyin started his web journey with Microsoft Frontpage but quickly found it restrictive as he wasn’t so good with codes, he discovered WordPress which was a turning point for him.
Toyin is an incredible wealth of knowledge when it comes to WordPress and LifterLMS. His customer service skills are first class. Toyin is very talented and knows how to help others (at all skill levels) find their way. Very talented technically and a great person to work with.
Chris Badgett, founder and CEO at LifterLMS
Toyin has shown that not only Nigerian programmers are showing relevance in the WordPress space but Nigerian WordPress enthusiasts are also doing great things.
17. David Towoju
David is one of the few WordPress Developers who have accounts on Toptal and Codeable. These platforms have a tough process of admitting freelancers onto their platforms. Towoju’s expertise was excellent enough for him to be enlisted on both of them. He was not just listed for the sake of it. He has worked with top WordPress companies in the US as a Senior Developer and also provided enterprise WordPress solutions to Fortune 500 companies.
David has written at least 5 WordPress plugins which are available for free on the WordPress repository of plugins.
After more than 12 years of experience with WordPress, he founded Figarts LLC – a web development plugin. Apart from the free WordPress plugins, David has also developed some other amazing plugins at Pluginette, a product of Figarts LLC.
Willing to help in sustaining WordPress, David Toju not only develops problem-solving plugins but also donates financially to the WordPress Foundation every year.
18. Sam Adekunle
Sam Adekunle started the WordPress community at Ile-Ife. He has contributed to the WordPress community immensely that his work has been recognized by Yoast. Interestingly, Sam has a degree in English Language and Literature/Letters from Obafemi Awolowo University. He has also proven the boundlessness of Nigerians by the discipline of study.
Sam Adekunle has been the organizer of WordPress meetups in Osun State since 2016.
Conclusion
This list is in no particular order and it is not exhaustive.
Even though many Nigerians have a wrong opinion about WordPress, there are a few Nigerians who are upholding the pillars of WordPress globally.