xCNN) -- Oprah, if you're reading this, for goodness sake return this woman's calls. Ask your assistants if there's a box of yellowing fax messages lying yellowing fax messages lying around somewhere in Harpo Studios -- she sent you one daily for a while.
Track down the ton of letters asking -- pleading -- for your help starting a Winfrey-style talk show in Africa. Because this isn't just another eager fan. Her name is Mosunmola Abudu, and in the last eight years she's done it
With no TV experience whatsoever, Abudu has become the "Oprah of Africa" -- it's impossible not to read an interview with the glamorous 49-year-old without the moniker cropping up. And with good reason.
Breezing into CNN's London studios, electric blue dress clinging to her slim figure, glossy pink eye shadow and lipstick to match, Abudu is in her element, the sound bites coming thick and fast.
And why wouldn't the mother-of-two be comfortable in front of the camera? This is the face of "Moments with Mo," the hugely successful talk show Abudu founded in 2006, attracting such high profile guests as Hillary Clinton and IMF chief Christine Lagarde.
The manicured Mo and her guests lounge in plush apartments, chat over coffee, contemplate tasteful visual cues. Africa's first syndicated talk show was so slick that people initially questioned whether it could actually have been created in Nigeria.
Abudu assured them it was. There was more to come. Nine months ago she started ebony Life TV -- Africa's first global black entertainment network. Oprah who?
"When I started my journey into television, there was nothing that I didn't try, to reach this woman," says Abudu about her early attempts to contact Ms Winfrey.
"We sat for days on end, would send daily faxes, would send weekly faxes. At some point, when we didn't get a response, we realized that Oprah wasn't going to save us, she wasn't there to help us to get this talk show of Africa started. And then I just basically got out there and said 'let's just do the very best that we can.'"
Mo's big moment
Winfrey or not, in less than a decade Abudu has built a TV network creating 1,000 hours of programming yearly. And there are plans to make even more channels -- all under the Ebony Life banner.
At some point, when we didn't get a response, we realized that Oprah wasn't going to save us
Mo Abudu
Mo Abudu
But what makes Abudu's story remarkable is not that she conquered African TV -- but that she did it without any prior media experience.
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