Bowale Odukale: Why Education around Online Safety, Fraud is Urgent

By Salami Adeyinka

Bowale Odukale’s work sits at the intersection of communication, technology, knowledge transfer and national development. He is not simply a digital communicator or development specialist, but a practitioner who builds systems that help institutions earn trust and help citizens make sense of complex information.
“I define my professional identity as a data-driven strategic communication and digital literacy practitioner who builds communication systems that increase trust, adoption, and civic understanding,” he says.

For Odukale, communication is not about noise or visibility. It is about infrastructure. His approach spans audience insight, message architecture, channel strategy, content governance, and performance measurement. Across higher education, development finance, and fintech, his focus has remained consistent: translating complex institutional information into simple, actionable public knowledge.

At the heart of his work is a response to structural problems that go beyond branding. He points to a persistent trust deficit, weak digital literacy, and low adoption of beneficial services driven by unclear messaging and misinformation.

“Many Nigerians struggle with navigating digital platforms, evaluating information credibility, and understanding products or programs, especially in finance and public institutions,” Odukale explains. “My work reduces confusion, improves clarity, and strengthens confidence.”

This orientation toward outcomes, rather than outputs, has shaped his career trajectory. Rather than operating as a generalist, Odukale has repeatedly been positioned in roles where systems had to be built and results delivered. At Covenant University, he helped establish a structured social media function that contributed to the institution’s recognition as a leading social media friendly university. He also served as an early digital marketing instructor, teaching over 1,000 students.

In fintech, the stakes were even higher. Leading growth and trust messaging, he supported the scaling of a digital platform to roughly 40,000 users within about six months, with reported outcomes including over N150 million in value associated with platform usage.

“Those results did not come from hype,” he notes. “They came from analytics, funnel design, audience education, and institutional credibility.”
Odukale argues that this kind of strategic, data-driven digital communication is critical for Nigeria’s democratic, economic, and institutional development. In an environment where attention is fragmented and trust is fragile, communication must be fast, credible, and measurable.

“Data-driven strategy helps institutions understand what people need, what they fear, and what prevents adoption, then respond with clarity,” he says.

Weak digital communication infrastructure, he warns, creates information vacuums that misinformation quickly fills. In governance, this leads to disengagement when citizens cannot find or understand services. In financial inclusion, unclear communication increases fear and slows adoption, especially among first-time users.

“This is why digital literacy-centered communication matters,” Odukale adds. “People must understand the how and the why, not just hear promises.”
His contribution, however, goes beyond individual organisations. Through his work under Verdant Zeal, he has supported initiatives tied to the Development Bank of Nigeria, including the DBN Annual Lecture Series, MSME engagement across geopolitical zones, and the DBN Entrepreneurial Programme.
“These interventions matter at a systems level,” he says. “They expand access to knowledge, opportunities, and institutional credibility.”

One of Odukale’s key innovations is what he calls a Digital Trust and Adoption Framework, which treats communication as infrastructure rather than promotion. The framework integrates audience segmentation, message architecture, digital literacy content, funnel planning, and measurement dashboards. In practice, it means content calendars tied to objectives, review workflows, brand voice standards, and basic social listening.

“Traditional publicity often prioritises reach without tracking understanding or outcomes,” he observes. “My model is evidence-led and education-centered.”

The measurable outcomes of this approach cut across sectors. In education, he strengthened institutional digital presence and built human capacity. In fintech, he supported rapid user growth and trust-driven adoption. In mobility marketing, his targeted acquisition strategy helped onboard more than 70 drivers.
“In fintech, trust is the product,” Odukale says. “You cannot separate adoption from clarity.”
His research interests reinforce this perspective. His work on online political participation among Nigerian youth highlights how civic engagement is shaped by authenticity, identity, and source credibility in digital spaces. Access to information alone, he argues, is not enough.
“This is why media literacy and strategic communication are central to democracy,” he says. “Citizens must be equipped to evaluate claims and resist manipulation.”

As a scholar, Odukale’s publications link African realities to strategic communication theory, emphasising infrastructure constraints, trust dynamics, and informal networks. His teaching and mentoring efforts have similarly focused on scale, training more than 1,000 students in digital literacy foundations, analytics basics, credibility checks, and responsible digital behaviour.
“In a country where digital skill gaps limit institutional performance, workforce development is a high-impact intervention,” he says.

Odukale identifies misinformation, low digital literacy, consumer protection, and responsible data practices as pressing challenges requiring expert intervention and policy attention. As digital finance adoption grows, he sees education around online safety and fraud as especially urgent.
What ultimately distinguishes his contribution, he believes, is his framing of communication as development infrastructure.
“I build systems that outlive roles,” Odukale says. “When communication improves trust, adoption, and literacy, institutions perform better and citizens benefit long after a campaign ends.”