How a Lagos teenager turned a JSS2 fascination with a classmate’s handmade shoe into Adeze Footwear, the leather business he’s run since his school days.
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The 22-year-old who started a shoe business in junior secondary school
Most people don’t think about starting a business until well into their twenties. Adekoya Ezekiel was still in junior secondary school. Today, at just 22, he is the owner and chief executive of Adeze Footwear Ltd., a Lagos-based leather-making outfit — a business he says he has been running, and employing others through, for around eight years.
His story stands out not for scale but for how early it began and how ordinary its spark was: a classmate, a homemade shoe, and a question. It’s a small, genuine example of youth entrepreneurship in Nigeria, the kind of grassroots success that rarely makes headlines but says a lot about ambition starting young.
Quick facts
| Name | Adekoya Ezekiel |
| Age | 22 |
| Nationality | Nigerian |
| Based | Lagos, Nigeria |
| Business | Adeze Footwear Ltd. (leather/footwear) |
| Role | Owner and CEO |
| Started | In junior secondary school (JSS2) |
| Business philosophy | “Value and quality” |
How it began: a classmate and a homemade shoe
The origin of Adeze Footwear is refreshingly simple. Speaking with the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN), Ezekiel recalled that the journey began back in his junior secondary school days, in JSS2. A classmate was sewing his own shoe, and Ezekiel — curious — asked him how it was done.
That single question set him on a path. What started as a schoolboy’s fascination grew, over years of what he describes as “learning, failing, building, commitment and believing,” into a registered footwear company. By his own account, he has been an employer of labour for roughly eight years, meaning the enterprise took root while he was still very young.
The business today
As of early 2026, Adeze Footwear is an active, growing operation. The company appeared at a Woman of Substance (WOS) conference in Lagos held to mark International Women’s Day 2026, where it ran an exhibition stand showcasing and selling its handmade products — a sign of a business actively seeking visibility and customers rather than operating purely informally.
Ezekiel has framed his approach around a single guiding idea: value and quality. He told NAN that this focus has given him an edge, explaining that when customers get genuine value for their money, demand follows. “People now get value for the money they spend on my products,” he said, adding that proposals and quotations the business has sent out since 2025 have been receiving positive responses from schools, organisations and individuals placing orders.
His current project reflects that business-to-business direction: he is working on customised school shoes for different schools, a move that would give Adeze Footwear steady institutional clients rather than relying solely on individual buyers.
Conclusion
Adekoya Ezekiel’s story is an early-stage one, and it’s worth telling honestly as exactly that: a young Nigerian entrepreneur who turned a childhood curiosity into a real, functioning footwear business before most of his peers had finished school. There isn’t yet a long public record of awards, revenue figures or expansion milestones — and it would be misleading to invent one.
What there is, is a clear and credible foundation: a registered company, a stated focus on quality, an emerging push into the school-shoe market, and the rare distinction of having built it all starting from JSS2. Whether Adeze Footwear grows into something larger will depend on the next few years. For now, Ezekiel’s value is as a genuine example of the kind of grassroots, youth-driven enterprise that Nigeria’s economy quietly runs on — and his journey is one worth watching as it develops.
This profile is based on a March 2026 News Agency of Nigeria report. As Adekoya Ezekiel is an emerging entrepreneur with a limited public record, details here are confined to what has been publicly verified.
