Nigerian Food Revolution - Hakeem Jimo of Veggie Victory and ProVeg Nigeria - Sentientism 196 Sentientism

Hakeem Jimo is co-founder and CEO of Veggie Victory, Nigeria’s first plant-based food tech company. Hakeem and his partner, Bola Adeyanju, also founded Nigeria's first vegan restaurant, V Café, and now run the VChunks meat alternative product company - designed to help veganise Nigerian cuisine. Hakeem is also country director for ProVeg Nigeria.

In Sentientist Conversations we talk about the two most important questions: “what’s real?” & “who matters?”

Sentientism is "evidence, reason & compassion for all sentient beings." The video of our conversation is ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠here on YouTube⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠.

00:00 Clips!

00:36 Welcome

01:59 Hakeem's Intro

- Nigerian father, German mother, growing up in Germany, now in Nigeria

- 10 years of veganism and vegan entrepreneurship

- Establishing ProVeg Nigeria

03:45 What's Real?

- Not much supernatural thinking in small-town Germany "there were more cows than humans"

- Lutheran evangelical protestant society but "we went to church twice a year... it was not a very religious background"

- Nigeria: "A completely different ballgame... the spiritual, religious world plays a much bigger role in Africa... religion is everywhere here... and I like it... In Africa I started to pray... you don't have that sense of control."

- Christianity, Islam as well as natural / traditional religions from the pre-colonial era

08:33 What Matters?

- "Every day I see these two sides", Germany (enlightenment, studying philosophy) and Nigeria (travelling as a journalist in W.Africa: "a completely different way people see the world")

- Only recently exploring the Bible (via podcasts) "just to understand historically"

- Finding references to treatment of animals in the Old and New Testaments

- Nigeria: "Religion is much more taken... by the letter" vs. the German way "it's just a parable"

- "If you're coming from a western background you just
shape your belief system" vs. "people are handing over authority to another level"

- "How do we actually convince people... whether I'm in
Germany or Nigeria?"

- "I walk through the streets here... it's funny... even though everybody is black and in Germany everybody is white I see features... very similar behaviours"

- "I see really the universal parts... that's where things come together... trying to change the world and not just a few enlightened people"

13:16 Who Matters?

- Step-father in Germany was a farmer "neighbours got
together and bought a pig... the butcher coming to the farm"

- Hearing stories about factory farming "they were
using nicotine to disinfect the chickens... there's something wrong here"... overfishing... foot and mouth disease

- "Nobody in rural Germany was talking about sentientism or veganism "

- University in Hamburg "there was an alternative meal
in the canteen"... a vegetarian partner aware of history of US colonialist animal agriculture

- Travelling to West Africa and eating #streetfood
"when I'm on a #vegetarian diet I don't get sick!" vs. getting typhoid fever from a road-side meat barbecue

- "You start learning... what's the implications... I realised... this is good... let me become vegetarian"

24:35 A Better Future?

48:41 Follow Hakeem

- https://www.linkedin.com/in/hakeemjimo/
- https://veggievictory.com/ “We are winning with the veggies!”

- https://proveg.com/ng/...and much more. Full show notes at ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Sentientism.info⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠.

Sentientism is “Evidence, reason & compassion for all sentient beings.” More at ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Sentientism.info⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠