Foundation ambassador talked about starting from nowhere to becoming a business guru; his humble beginnings and the challenges he encountered while trying to build his multimillion naira hotel business. Excerpts:
How did you start?
Mine is a long story of
suffering and you may not appreciate it if I don’t tell my story from the
beginning.
I was not born a
millionaire or with a silver spoon. It’s a long way for me to get to where I am
today. For starters, I am a native of Owoh in Ondo state. I did my primary and
secondary school in Owoh.I attended Methodist Primary School Owoh, while my
secondary education was at Imade college in Owoh.After my School Certificate, I
came to Lagos to stay with my elder brothers but they told me that I should
have written to notify them before coming to stay with them, that I couldn’t
just wake up and decide to come and visit someone. By then, I have made up my
mind to stay in Lagos.
This happened in 1983 and I
told myself that going back to the village would be a very big shame for me
since I had told them in the village that I was going to Lagos to stay. I moved
out of my brother’s house and became a labourer to be able to feed myself while
still searching for job.
I had no money to get an
accommodation and had to stay in an uncompleted building while I worked to
survive. I used old planks to make a bed to sleep at night and in the day time
I went about searching for jobs.
While I was staying in the
uncompleted building, some people went and told the landlord that it appeared
someone had taken over his house. This was after I cleared the bush surrounding
the house. So, one afternoon, the landlord of the building drove into the house
in a Volkswagen.
When he came down, he asked
who I was and I told him my name. He asked where I came from which I told him.
He asked if I was not scared of staying in that house and I told him I was not.
He asked if I did not have a family and I told him that I have but they told me
that I should go back to the village which I did not want to do. He told me
that some people informed him that someone had cleared all the bushes
surrounding the house that it seemed the person wanted to take over the
property and that was why he came.
He also said that he didn’t think I could do
that but he took a precautionary measure and gave me a receipt as a tenant
living in the house. I did not pay any rent for the receipt and he even gave me
money for feeding saying that, he has been spending money to clear the bush
but, I had done that free for him. He
encouraged me to be doing that and also promised to help me secure a job in any
nearby company.
Meanwhile, I planted many
things in the house to support my feeding.
While I was there, I found it very difficult to buy cooking pots. So, my
first cooking pot was an old Bourvita tin which I washed. I used to cook four
times in a month. I depended fully on ‘smoking’ garri at that time.
At times when it rained,
because of the leaking roof, the water would spoil my garri which made feeding
very difficult at the period. Sometimes, I had to cover myself with polythene
to be able to go outside to find what to eat. Some of the people staying in the
area at that time took time to study me. They found out that I was not a thief,
that in the morning I would go out to hustle for food and come back in the
night. So, when some people said that
they should send me out of the area, some other landlords disagreed.
They said, ‘why must we
send him away? He was not a thief but only hustled to make ends meet; in the
morning, he would go around to look for work’. Some suggested that they should
find a way to get me a job since I have never been arrested for any crime in
the area.
Were you able to get a job
eventually?
Yes. I got job in one
company then as a clerical staff. The American who owned the company liked my
punctuality to work and asked me to come and live with him in GRA Ikeja.
I started living with him
and he was providing me with some money for my up-keep. I lived with him until the end of my job with
them and I now asked myself, what else should I do, bearing in mind that I have
always loved trading right from childhood. I decided to gather some money and
started trading on garri. I would travel
to Benin and bring garri down to Lagos. I was supplying it to some market women
around. I did that for some time before I decided to go further with the
business.
That was how I started
traveling to some neighbouring countries like, Benin Republic, Togo and some
other African countries to supply them the garri. And on returning to Lagos, I
would buy under wears for ladies from these countries to sell in Nigeria. I didn’t
have a store then. They used to come and buy in my apartment then. I later went into property business that is,
selling and buying of estates and property. I went for the training to know the
ethics of the business. When I knew I was competent enough to do it I
established my own as SKYPOWER PROPERTIES .
When people knew I was very
honest in the job, I started having a lot of customers. After that, when I was opportune
to get a land of my own, I started using it as a car wash. But I soon realised that all the land in the
area where I bought the land was in dispute until the sellers assured us that
the land belonged to them that we should not worry or panic. We eventually won
the dispute at the high court, the appeal court and the supreme before they
gave us our land back. During that
period, I had financial setback. When they finally released the land, I had no
money to develop it. I had used all I had to purchase the land so; there was no
money with me then. We spent the rest of the money on the land dispute. I never
had any intention to run a bar or hotel business.
There was a time I had only
N200 and my wife said that I should give her the money to buy nylon. When I
gave her the money, she bought nylon and started selling ice blocks. We had a deep freezer at home. She did that
for three months. Later, I started selling drinks on that land with little or
no seat for customers to sit on. The
first drinks I bought were a crate of beer and a crate of soft drinks. But when
people kept coming and demanding that we add other things to the beer and soft
drinks, we decided to do that. We
started first with a bar where I was the bar man while my wife was in the
kitchen preparing fresh fish pepper soup for customers. We popularised the
fresh fish pepper-soup called ‘point and kill’ and when we saw that customers
were too many, we employed workers. So, I started with a bar before going fully
into hotel business.
How much did you use to
start the bar business then?
I cannot really say the
exact amount. All I know was that I brought my deep freezer which I was using
in the house and I gave my wife N200 for nylon which we used in selling ice
block for three months. It was from the money we realized from selling the ice
blocks that I purchased one carton of Gulder which we sold then. That was how
we started. When the customers started
coming, all these people who are selling cigarettes gave me umbrella which I
used then as a shade for my customers.
hardwork good
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