Mr Eazi’s Choplife expands into Itana Digital Special Economic Zone

Choplife, the entertainment and technology company founded by Nigerian musician and entrepreneur Oluwatosin ‘Mr Eazi’ Ajibade, has expanded its operations into the Itana Digital Special Economic Zone.

This is as it seeks to build and scale African creative and technology businesses from Nigeria to global markets.

The move positions Choplife within Itana, described as Africa’s first digital special economic zone, and reflects the company’s broader strategy of bringing its entertainment, media, gaming, technology and intellectual property businesses under a more centralised operational structure.

Choplife has interests spanning music, events, gaming, sports and other forms of intellectual property.

According to Mr Eazi, the company began as a music business through Empawa Africa before expanding into events, gaming and sports.

“Since 2021, we started with music as a company via Empawa Africa, and as that progressed to the broader sort of line of entertainment, which has gone to events with Dirty Rave,” Mr Eazi said during an interview.

He said Choplife subsequently moved into gaming, where it initially acquired and licensed intellectual property before developing its own brands and technology.

The company has also expanded into sports through One v One Africa, creating what Mr Eazi described as a broader platform for African entertainment intellectual property.

“We are not just creating tech IP. We’re creating digital gaming technology, media and in real life, very important in real life, IP,” he said.

Why Choplife chose Itana

Mr Eazi said the decision to establish Choplife within Itana was driven by the need to reduce the administrative and operational friction associated with running a Pan-African business from multiple jurisdictions.

He said that while African businesses have traditionally considered offshore jurisdictions such as Delaware and London when setting up global operations, Choplife wanted a structure that allowed it to remain firmly rooted on the continent.

“For us, coming to Itana was the logical step, in the sense that we then have this sort of centralised, sovereign, digital-first operational hub that is very important to us directly on the continent,” he said.

Mr Eazi said the choice was particularly relevant because most of what Choplife creates is produced on the continent, even though its products and intellectual property are consumed globally.

He estimated that between 80 percent and 99 percent of the company’s activities are created in Africa and distributed across the continent and beyond.

“It’s an opportunity for us to leverage and centralise our operations, and very important to us that it’s on the continent,” he said.

Itana offers a digital-first business environment, simplified cross-border operations, streamlined compliance processes and access to a growing ecosystem of technology companies.

Businesses can complete incorporation remotely, potentially within two weeks, while benefiting from the incentives and operating framework of its free zone.

Tackling cross-border business friction

For Mr Eazi, one of the biggest advantages of the Itana model is its potential to address the friction involved in moving capital and operating businesses across African markets.

He said businesses operating across countries often have to navigate different banking systems, foreign exchange rules, tax structures, licensing regimes and corporate regulations.

“One of the issues around capital lock and cross-border capital friction is when you are a business that has to operate with our accounts, we have to move money from different jurisdictions and we are very digital-based,” he said.

He added that Choplife’s operations would benefit from having a centralised digital regulatory hub rather than repeatedly dealing with different regulatory and corporate structures in each market.

The challenge is pronounced in Africa, where businesses can face substantially different requirements even when operating between geographically close markets.

Mr Eazi cited the example of Nigeria and neighbouring Benin Republic, noting that a company seeking to operate in both markets can encounter completely different processes.

“If I want to do my tech business in both countries, it’s an entirely different process, and I have to do it every time,” he said.

According to him, this can prevent entrepreneurs from taking advantage of opportunities because regulatory processes may take so long that the opportunity disappears before the company can enter the market.

He argued that greater regulatory cooperation and licence passporting across African countries could help create a more integrated digital economy.

Choplife already employs Nigerian engineers

The expansion into Itana is not purely a future plan as Mr Eazi revealed that Choplife has already begun building its local technology operations.

He said the company currently has more than 21 engineers working from Nigeria.

“I think we already have over 21 engineers working out of Nigeria and building locally,” he said.

Mr Eazi said he sees an opportunity to create a physical campus at Itana where engineers, entrepreneurs, creatives and other members of the Choplife ecosystem can work and interact.

He compared the idea to the energy he experienced at technology campuses such as Facebook’s, where people from different backgrounds can work in the same environment.

He also said Choplife could use its presence at Itana to develop film, media and other creative content.

“Being able to come in and out and feed into the energy  because I am very big on energy and I think that is the next one,” he said.

Mr Eazi calls for more creative infrastructure

Beyond technology and regulation, Mr Eazi said Africa’s creative economy needs significantly more physical infrastructure, particularly smaller and mid-sized entertainment venues.

Drawing from his experience as an artist, he said smaller venues played an important role in his development before he began performing in major arenas.

“The lifeblood and what brought me to global notoriety was this sort of small venues,” he said.

According to him, Africa needs more venues with capacities ranging from about 250 to 1,000 people, rather than focusing predominantly on large arenas.

He argued such venues would enable Nigerian and other African artists to tour their home markets more consistently while also giving international African artists spaces to perform.

He also called for investment in professional sound stages where films, music videos and other productions can be created with appropriate lighting, security, changing rooms and production infrastructure.

“There’s still the opportunity to build smaller, mid-size venues in Nigeria across Nigeria where artists can tour internally,” he said.

“I’m hoping we see people invest in that, not just the big headline ones, but the smaller ones that are really the lifeblood of the industry.”

Itana sees Choplife as a proof point for Nigeria

For Itana, Choplife’s expansion is also an opportunity to demonstrate that creative companies can build globally from Nigeria.

Victor Famubode, Itana’s business and compliance director, said Choplife fits the zone’s target profile because it is both locally rooted and internationally focused.

“One thing that is critical is thinking about how to build locally and also think globally,” Famubode said.

He said Choplife’s presence could provide evidence that companies in the creative economy can establish operations in Nigeria while scaling into international markets.

Itana also sees the company as a potential contributor to job creation and foreign investment.

Famubode pointed to Choplife’s more than 21 Nigerian engineers as an example of how global-facing businesses can contribute directly to the local economy.

“We want to be able to tell that story. How does all of this come back to the average Nigerian? How does everything come together in terms of creating jobs, bringing FDIs into the economy and just improving the overall economic competitiveness within Nigeria?” he said.

Itana targets African creative economy

Famubode said the creative economy is becoming an important part of Itana’s long-term strategy because of Africa’s growing exports of culture and intellectual property.

He said creative businesses need jurisdictions that can provide certainty around incorporation, licensing and other post-incorporation requirements.

“For us, it becomes really critical how that sort of aligns to our own strategy. We are looking at a long-term strategy that ensures that we can increase value by ensuring that local domination can also increase at the same time,” he said.

According to him, Itana is positioning itself as a one-stop platform that goes beyond incorporation to provide access to services and partners required by companies as they grow.

The zone’s offering includes digital incorporation, access to multicurrency banking arrangements, cross-border services and connections to regulatory and licensing partners.

Minimum share capital and foreign ownership

Famubode said companies seeking to establish themselves within Itana must meet incorporation and regulatory requirements, including a minimum share capital of $100,000.

Businesses are also required to submit documents such as a feasibility study as part of the incorporation process.

For foreign-owned companies, he said, the framework permits 100 percent foreign ownership, while businesses in regulated sectors such as fintech would still need to meet relevant sector-specific licensing requirements.

Itana’s model is designed to help companies navigate those requirements through its network of vetted partners and access to regulators.

Choplife and the possibility of an NGX listing

Mr Eazi also expressed openness to eventually listing Choplife or one of his companies on the Nigerian Exchange.

Responding to questions about calls for Nigerian technology companies and unicorns to list locally, he said, “The answer would always be, yes, why not? But there’s always a sequence.”

He said older generations of Nigerian entrepreneurs had demonstrated that it was possible to build companies in Nigeria, expand globally and eventually give Nigerians an opportunity to invest in those businesses through the local capital market.

Mr Eazi, who said he already invests in the Nigerian market, described a future local listing of a technology or intellectual-property company as potentially significant.

“It would be beautiful to be able to do that, and I think I’m just at the beginning of that process,” he said.

He added that the timing would depend on the development of the business.

“It will be a pleasure to do that when the time is right,” he said.

Building an African company from Africa

Mr Eazi said his immediate focus is not on where Choplife will be in 10 years, but on building an African company with global standards.

He said he wants Choplife to be “truly African from top to bottom” in its operations, registration and composition while maintaining high standards of integrity.

For Itana, the Choplife expansion represents more than the arrival of another company. It is a test of whether Nigeria can become a credible base for globally oriented African creative and technology companies.

For Choplife, the move is an attempt to consolidate a diversified business while keeping its operational base close to the market, talent and intellectual property that underpin its growth.

The company joins other businesses operating from Itana, including Reliance Infosystems, Circular Energy, MasteryHive, Udu Technologies and Yamify.

Itana is backed by the Africa Finance Corporation, which is providing development funding and leading financing for the first phase of the project, with a stated project value of $100 million.