Ifechukwu Elechi is a final-year Law student at the University of Ibadan, a public speaker, multiple essay competition winner, and the erstwhile President of the Great Independence hall literary and debating society. He speaks with the Indy Press Correspondent Gbayesola Samuel about his journey into public speaking, resilience, communication, and building a life on your own terms.

If someone meets you for the first time and has five minutes to form an impression, what do you think they will say about you?

My name is Ifechukwu Elechi and I am a public speaker and writer. Currently I am a final year student of Law here at the University of Ibadan. The thing that defines me most is my love for expression, be it public speaking, writing, or psychology, because I understand how important communication is. When you look at wars, industries, relationships, marriages, so much of what goes wrong boils down to how people communicate or fail to.

Over the years I have worked in PR, strategic communications, and corporate communication. At some point I was President of the Independent Students’ public speaking. But if there is one thing anyone should know about me, it is that I am resilient, especially in the things I am passionate about. I talk about my life openly. I will tell you about how food insecurity has affected me, how I have gone three days without eating, because it is a real problem in this university. I will tell you about my wins and I will tell you about my losses. I have more losses than wins, and I think that is what defines me most significantly.

Your name, Ifechukwu. What does it mean and how does it speak to your story?

Ifechukwu means “nothing is hard or impossible for God.” And the representation of that name runs through my lived experiences. I do not come from a well to do background, and many times when I consider where I started, I realize that Ifechukwu has been at play. From secondary school to university, to the things I have been able to do here, I would not have imagined any of it from where I was back home. I think that speaks to providence.

There was a public lecture I once came across titled “Spirituality and Spiritual Capital as Factors in Nigeria’s Post Colonial Redemption.” I like to tweak that title and apply it to my own story, spirituality and spiritual capital as factors in Ifechukwu Elechi’s redemption.

You attended Government College Ibadan. How did that shape you?

GCI was my first stage. That was where I joined the Literary and Debating Society and the Press Club. I was Press Club President in secondary school and a debater. But more than the titles, GCI gave me a space to make mistakes and fail without being condemned for it.

The UI public speaking space is a great space, but sometimes ego gets in the way. You hear things like, “Oh, you have not won JAW WAR competition before,  you are not as good as you think.” I have heard that. But at GCI, the culture was different. You could just express yourself. I represented my school in several competitions, an oratory contest in 2019, Innovators 2019, St. Annes at 50, a JDPC Quiz and Public Speaking Competition. I also wrote essays. I remember winning my first Samsung tablet through an essay competition. GCI prepared me significantly for everything that followed.

How did you find your way into public speaking?

I always knew I would get into L&D. My government teacher at GCI, Mr. Stephen Olaniyan, told me to study Law because he thought I was good at argument. And so I knew the direction I was heading.

What pushed me toward public speaking specifically was meeting Tiolu. There was a conference, ELC, organised by GSI , and I did not have the five thousand naira registration fee. A friend, Goodluck, kept encouraging me to register. Then they opened a giveaway on Instagram: write about a leader who inspires you and the best entry gets a spot. I wrote about Martin Luther King Jr. I framed it as though I was in the audience the day he delivered his famous speech, looking for my mother but too captivated to care. I saw the other entries and honestly thought my chances were slim. But they selected me.

At the event, Tiolu delivered a spoken word poem and I fell in love with his craft immediately. I went to introduce myself afterward and discovered he lived one room away from me. He stayed in B27, right next to my B26. He was in the Indy L&D and he was the president. I told him I wanted to become good in the public speaking world, and he handed me contacts, Georgina Ruben, ogunsanya Goodness, and others. From there it grew. I joined the Indy L&D, was made Acting PRO in my first or second year, then PRO the following year, then Vice President, and then President. That has been the journey.

Who do you look up to in the public speaking space?

The first person, significantly, was Martin Luther King Jr. I heard his “I Have a Dream” speech on Christmas Eve, 2013. I had goosebumps. I was hearing him speak about a great American who had signed the decree, and then his vision of what America could still become. It just moved something in me. That was the spark.

In the UI space, I look up to Tiolu and Eriomala John. Tiolu was my first president in the L&D and he gave me opportunities to speak even when I was not the best. Eriomala John is someone whose intellectual capability I deeply admire. He always told me, “You lose some, then you begin to win.” That has stayed with me. Yes, I lost this competition, but it does not make me a terrible speaker. It only means there is something I need to learn and do better.

Public speakers at UI seem to move in a particular circle. How has that network shaped your path?

The old saying holds, your network is your net worth. When you are trying to grow in a field, you cannot do it alone. What I realized is that when you find yourself in a circle of excellent people, others outside that circle gradually begin to see you in that light too. If the people I move with are known as strong speakers, people begin to associate me with that quality as well. And within the circle, opportunities circulate, competitions, essay calls, programmes, because you are inside the network.

But I want to be clear: this does not mean cutting off everyone who is not a public speaker. I am beyond a public speaker. In my 200 and 300 level, I sold fish. “Ife’s Fish” I sold to lecturers, to students, to almost everyone on campus. I am in the choir. I play guitar, keyboard, drums, and talking drums. These relationships exist across all of those spaces. Everyone eventually finds a circle they call home. You should not look at a group of public speakers and assume they are proud or exclusive. They are simply in that space because they want to grow, and growth tends to cluster.

How do you balance Law, L&D, and other activities?

I think that the more commitments you have, within reason of course not to an extreme—the more you begin to realize that one hour is just as significant as two minutes. When you are someone with limited time and resources, you learn to value time differently.

I also do not have the kind of “glamorous” background where, after school, there are ready-made structures or opportunities waiting for me. So when I join associations or build my competence by participating in organizations, I do so with a clear awareness that I don’t have those advantages to fall back on.

That realization helps me protect my time. It makes me intentional. If I’m doing something, I’m fully present in it. I take the hard way when I have to, even when it’s painful to show up. Sometimes I think, “If I just had a little more support, things would be easier,” but then I remember there are still people who believe in me and help me when they can.

My commitments are quite selective. If you see me in the public speaking or writing and communications space, it’s because I love it. I also sing because I enjoy singing—I’m in the choir. That’s my commitment to church.

 Which do you prefer: public speaking or writing?

Writing, clearly. It’s the safest place to do your thing and stay chill. However, they go hand in hand.

As someone who won Best Overall Speaker at a bilateral competition. What goes through your mind in the first ten seconds on stage?

If I am honest, sometimes I get on stage and I think, “God, I do not want to fail these people.” Because there are people who come specifically to hear me speak, and that weight is real.

But the way I overcome that feeling is by shifting my mindset entirely. When I am giving a speech, I become a teacher. And a teacher, even an imperfect one, is still in front of the room with something to give. The minimum of what I say is authoritative enough to teach someone in that audience. Because I know what it took to get there, the research, the writing, the internalizing, the literature, the years of accumulated experience managing stage fright. I give myself credit for all of that. So on stage I remind myself: there is a compound of abilities already inside you. Regardless of how it turns out, you are not less of yourself.

Stage fright still comes every time, by the way. But you tell yourself, “Listen to me, I am your teacher right now.” And somehow, you become big enough for the room.

You served as Under Secretary General of Communication at UNMUN 2025. What did leading communication at that level feel like?

It was a big event, and I knew we needed more than just WhatsApp broadcasts to pull in delegates. I led a team of designers, video editors, and researchers. It was about PR and making people realize that advocacy is worth their time and money. I actually developed “WhatsApp anxiety” from that event because of the sheer volume of messages I had to handle. But thankfully, we hit our delegate targets and had great publicity. In the UI environment, that was a significant win.

You also volunteer with the Black Girl’s Dream Initiative. What drives that?

I work as Director of Communications at Greatness in Simplicity Initiative, and the Black Girl’s Dream Initiative runs an Ibadan Schools Debate Competition annually. Before the competition, we go into public and private secondary schools to train the students who will be competing.

The reason I do it connects directly to my own story. One of the reasons I accessed so many opportunities was because I was allowed to speak from secondary school. I want to pass that down. The state of expression in our secondary schools, particularly public secondary schools, is genuinely troubling. We do not have enough students who can articulate themselves, who want to write, who see public speaking as something available to them.

When I look at Nigeria and ask what would change things, I keep coming back to expression. Writing and speaking do something to how you think, how you see situations, how you interrogate the world. If we had more holistic educational systems, ones that were not just forcing children through mathematics and physical education, we might have a saner public discourse. That is what drives the volunteering.

Do you see yourself as an advocate?

I think I am becoming one. I write on my LinkedIn and Facebook, but I have not yet made many large scale public commentaries. I am still discovering what exactly I want to say and how I want to say it. In my small space, yes, I am advocating for a better Nigeria, for better students in public speaking, for more conscious people. Maybe not in the sense of Falana or those who operate at that level. But I am working toward it.

Do you want to practice Law?

Many people do not ask me that. Honestly, I do not know. I will go to law school but I think I will pivot from legal practice. Something like tax law or intellectual property is possible, but generally I see myself moving further into communication. I already coach CVs and cover letters, I write speeches, and I write every day on LinkedIn. What I am building toward is Africa’s biggest communications hub, a space where we teach writing, speaking, and psychology together.

One area I keep thinking about is people with special needs. How do we help them communicate better? What does that even look like in our part of the world? If I were in a room full of people who could not see or could not speak, how well would I serve them? That is a space very few people are thinking about, and I want to.

Your peers in 500 level are largely focused on exams and law school applications. What version of yourself are you building?

I have never been the “where do you see yourself in five years?” kind of person. Let me just eat tomorrow. We will talk about five and ten years in a while. That pressure makes people not realize how many things they could still become, how many directions are still available to them.

What I know is that I am building a personal brand centred on communication. And I am keeping my options deliberately open. To become a Senior Advocate of Nigeria is a possibility. To become an entertainer is a possibility. What I am certain of is that expression is important, that I want to build something in the communications space, and that I want to graduate with a strong grade while continuing to grow everything else alongside it.

How do you manage it all without breaking?

It would be dishonest to claim there is such a thing as a perfectly balanced life. There is not. What helps me is clarity, knowing exactly what is on my plate on any given day and being selfish about my time. Not selfish in the sense of refusing to help people, but selfish in recognizing that some things can proceed without you. Prioritize. When someone asks for your time, fix it on your terms, not theirs.

Beyond that, sacrifice. You sacrifice sleep, you sacrifice comfort, you sacrifice leisure. Today I was awake at 3:30 in the morning finishing essays. Some people were sleeping. I was not. That is simply the cost. And the more commitments you carry, the more you understand that one hour is significant. Two minutes is significant. Time stops feeling abstract when you have very little of it.

Ten years from now, what do you want people to say Ifechukwu Elechi stood for?

I want to be remembered as the person who helped people realize that nothing is impossible for themselves, just as my name says nothing is impossible for God. I want my story, the failures, the rejections, the days I questioned everything, to be a lesson to someone else that as long as you are alive, it is not over.

I want people to say that Ife told them to believe in themselves. Even when every other voice said they could not.

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