When it comes to the business of solid gold and diamond jewelry, one name seems to be doing everything right. That name is BOZ Jewelry. And the beautiful face and passion behind it is none other than Okene-born woman called Sherifat Mohammed.

She started the business in 2016 and made it official in 2019. She started like a greenhorn but has become a czar when it comes to anything gold and diamond. In her recent interview with VANGUARD, Sherifat Mohammed opened the window of her life, taking us through every room and corner that defined her life.

On how she started :“I never felt fulfilled with 9 to 5 jobs. I  guess the corporate world wasn’t just for me. I always felt like something was lacking and getting up to go to work was a struggle. I had little or no enthusiasm. I had done some business on the side while in school and working and I can say the feeling was different and I enjoyed it. Luckily  for me, I got dismissed from my last corporate job and that was it for me, I was done feeling unfulfilled. You see, that dismissal was the motivation and the push I needed to go into business fully and it’s been wonderful,” she revealed in a recent interview.

READ ALSO: How I turned gemstone, jewelry dealer—Amb. Edzuwah

Sherifat Mohammed, who had BSc in Accounting from Bowen University, Iwo and a Masters degree in Human Resources Management from the University of Bradford in the UK worked with an engineering company called Global Ocean in 2010 and moved to British Council in 2013 till September 2015.

After she got the gate from the British Council, she started her journey into the jewelry business in 2016. And has smugly established herself as a top jeweler of choice for both the middle and upper income earners.

Reminiscing about how it all started she said, “ I was home with a newborn after my dismissal and started selling fabrics which was introduced to me by my husband’s cousin. We were 3 partners and profit was shared into 3. The fabrics business introduced me to Facebook for business and marketing which I never knew existed. This knowledge gained was one thing that really helped me when I eventually ventured into jewelry.

Like I mentioned, the profit was shared into 3 so at the end of the day I really wasn’t getting much. It happened that my wedding rings had become too small for my fingers after childbirth, so I surfed the web to see if I could get something low priced to manage with the hopes that my finger size would return to normal later.

I did find some low priced silver rings and on arrival they were more beautiful  than imagined and looked more expensive than the price I got them. I decided to put them up for sale on Facebook and to my greatest surprise I got a buyer the next day. I was so happy after my first sale and bought a few more rings. I used the same platform to market and sell and within a few days the little stock I had was also sold out.”

Sherifat Mohammed is happily married with kids and from Okene in Kogi State. She was born on September 26 1985 in Lagos, Nigeria.

Her BOZ Jewelry company which was officially registered with Corporate Affairs Commission in July 2019 operates from three outlets, namely; Lekki and Yaba, in Lagos and the Federal Capital Territory in Abuja.

The name, BOZ was derived from the name of her first son, Benjamin Oshoneh Zekeri (BOZ) who passed away in 2017.

Vanguard