Featured

How Toks Aruoture Created a Leading Luxury Nursery Brand in UK

Published

10 months ago

May 8, 2025

Eric

When Toks Aruoture opened The Baby Cot Shop in Chelsea, London, she was not just starting a business. She was rewriting her own story, one that began in Nigeria, crossed through the United States, and returned to the UK at rock bottom.

Long before she became the woman behind one of the UK’s most exclusive nursery brands, Toks lived a life many would describe as ordinary. Born in Nigeria and raised in a home where excellence was expected, she later moved to the UK and began working as a medical rep. It paid the bills, but it did not feed her spirit.

Then came her third child, and a request for flexible work hours that was swiftly denied. That “no” did not just close a door. It cracked open the question: What am I really meant to be doing?

She picked up a book that asked something simple: What do you do so naturally that it doesn’t even feel like work? For Toks, it was interior design. She was not the friend who needed Pinterest to style a room, she was the Pinterest board.

So she leaned in.

She enrolled in a design course and started doing interiors for residential clients. Then came a family move to the United States, and with it, a new opportunity, she bought a baby furniture boutique. That is where she found her niche: luxury nursery design.

But life does not always follow a straight path.

The 2008 recession came crashing in. Toks and her family lost everything. Pregnant with her fourth child, she returned to the UK with no savings and just $75 in her pocket. The kind of moment that forces you to choose to either retreat or rebuild.

She chose to rebuild.

She noticed something in the UK market, an absence of the kind of elegant, high-end nursery pieces she’d worked with in the U.S. With no showroom and no team, she taught herself to build a website from scratch. She worked from her flat, answered every email, managed every order, and slowly started bringing in artisans from around the world.

The Baby Cot Shop was born quietly. It did not explode onto the scene, it grew, deliberately. A slow, steady rise fuelled by patience, excellence, and word-of-mouth. Celebrities came. Royals came. But for Toks, each client mattered, famous or not.

In 2021, she launched her in-house collection. And in 2025, The Baby Cot Shop entered Harrods.

Harrods.

The same woman who started with $75 was now running a luxury brand inside one of the world’s most iconic department stores.

From $75 to Harrods, Toks Aruoture did not just design a brand. She designed a new beginning.

Culled from Businessday.ng

Featured

Tinubu Nominates Oyedele As Minister of State for Finance, Moves Anite-Uzoka to Budget Ministry

Published

1 day ago

March 3, 2026

Eric

A statement signed by the Special Adviser to the President on Information and Strategy Bayo Onanuga, has announced that “President Bola Tinubu has nominated Taiwo Oyedele as the minister of state for finance, replacing Doris Anite-Uzoka.

“Mrs Anite-Uzoka will now move to the Ministry of Budget and National Planning, as the Minister of State, her third portfolio in the administration.

“President Tinubu has today conveyed the nomination of Mr Oyedele to the Senate for confirmation in a letter to the Senate President, Godswill Akpabio.

“Until President Tinubu nominated him as a minister, Mr Oyedele from Ikaram, Akoko, Ondo State, was the chairman of the Presidential Committee on Fiscal Policy and Tax Reforms, which overhauled Nigeria’s tax system.

“Mr Oyedele, 50, is an economist, accountant and public policy expert.

“He attended Yaba College of Technology, where he obtained a Higher National Diploma (HND) in accountancy and finance. He attended Oxford Brookes University and earned a BSc in applied accounting.

“He also completed executive education programmes at the London School of Economics, Yale University, the Gordon Institute of Business Science, and the Harvard Kennedy School.

“Mr Oyedele spent 22 years of his working career at PwC, joining in 2001 and rising to become the Fiscal Policy Partner and Africa Tax Leader.

“Mr Oyedele is also a professor at Babcock University in Ogun State and a visiting scholar at the Lagos Business School.”

Featured

Defection: Atiku’s Son, Adamu, Resigns As Adamawa Commissioner

Published

2 days ago

March 3, 2026

Eric

Adamu Abubakar, the first son of former Vice-President Atiku Abubakar, has resigned as Adamawa State’s commissioner for works and energy development, days after Governor Ahmadu Fintiri defected from the Peoples Democratic Party to the All Progressives Congress.

Abubakar’s resignation letter, dated 2 March 2026, was addressed to the governor through the Secretary to the State Government. He gave no reason for his departure.

The timing is pointed. Fintiri announced his defection to the APC in a statewide broadcast last Friday, saying his cabinet and the PDP’s state structure had moved with him. Within 24 hours, 22 commissioners and special advisers publicly announced they were following suit. Abubakar, whose father remains one of the PDP’s most prominent national figures, was not among them.

In a statement issued Monday night, Abubakar’s media aide Abdulaziz Jauro said the former commissioner thanked the governor for the opportunity to serve and pledged continued loyalty to the administration’s developmental agenda. He also expressed gratitude to his father “for granting him the moral support and blessing to serve the people of Adamawa State” — a line that, read in context, suggests Atiku was consulted on the decision.

Abubakar said his resignation was not a withdrawal from public life. “This does not mark the end of his commitment to public service,” the statement read, “but rather the beginning of new avenues for developmental collaboration.”

The resignation leaves unresolved the question of whether it reflects a political break with the governor over his defection or a personal decision unconnected to the broader party realignment now reshaping Adamawa’s political landscape.

Featured

DSS Nabs Man over Assassination Attempt on Peter Obi

Published

2 days ago

March 3, 2026

Eric

Nigeria’s Department of State Services (DSS) has detained a man in connection with the recent attack and alleged assassination threats targeting Labour Party’s 2023 presidential candidate, Peter Obi.

According to AIT, the shooting incident took place on February 24, 2026, in Benin City, Edo State, during a political gathering attended by Obi and several figures from the African Democratic Congress (ADC). The meeting was hosted by former APC National Chairman, John Oyegun. Gunmen reportedly opened fire at the venue, causing panic and forcing attendees to disperse for safety.

According to security sources, shortly after the attack, an individual identified as Udeme Monday Stephen allegedly took to social media claiming responsibility and issuing additional threats against Obi, warning of further violence.

Intelligence officials reportedly initiated swift investigations, employing digital tracing and forensic tools that led to the arrest of the 26-year-old suspect in Rivers State. He is said to be a teacher at a private secondary school in the Eliozu area of Obio-Akpor Local Government Area.

The suspect remains in DSS custody and is expected to face prosecution. The agency reiterated its commitment to responding to credible threats and safeguarding lives and national interests without bias.