Nnewi stood still for business leaders and entrepreneurs

The summit could not have come at a more appropriate time. It came amid most countries’ growing engagement with entrepreneurship and private businesses. It came at a time when the complexions of even world’s leading economies are changing, and leaning heavily on private conglomerates for survival. It came at a time when all efforts are geared towards making Nigeria one of the world’s emerging economies by the year 2020.

At the end of the two days that the fourth edition of the Nnewi Economic Summit and Exhibition lasted, August 29 and 30, 2013, the consensus was that the event had been long overdue. Throughout the duration of the summit, speaker after speaker inspired the audience with their zero-to-hero stories but left no one under any illusion that entrepreneurship is a path paved in gold and roses.

“It is not an easy road,” Sir Chika Okafor, Chairman/Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of Chicason Group, told the enraptured audience. “There are no two ways to success in business. Success in business, as in other aspects of life, comes only through hard work, perseverance and uprightness.”

Chief Chika Emenike, Chairman/CEO of Kotec Group, manufacturers of Tummy Tummy Noodles, concurred, declaring that sincerity and trustworthiness were the hallmarks of success in business.

Mr. Humphrey Ngonadi, President of Nnewi Chambers of Commerce, which co-sponsored the summit with The Sun Publishing Limited, set the tone for the two-day event, held in Conv-Aj Event Centre, Nnewi, with the theme: The Entrepreneur in the 21st Century.

He gave a brief history of Nnewi, which he said, was a renowned industrial hub in the country. He explained that the primary objective of the summit was “to expose our youths to opportunities available to them, prepare them to learn the rope to economic independence and avail them the secret to entrepreneurial success.”

Prominent among the wide array of speakers at the event were: Mr. Peter Obi, Governor of Anambra State, who was represented by Mr. Robert Okonkwo, the state Commissioner for Commerce and Industry; Alhaji Muhammad Badaru Abubakar, President of the Nigerian Association of Chambers of Commerce, Industry, Mines and Agriculture, NACCIMA; Mr. Tony Onyima, Managing Director/Editor-in-Chief of The Sun Publishing Limited; Sir Chika Okafor, Chairman and CEO of Chicason Group of Companies; Mr. Kingsley Nworgu, a renowned motivational speaker and lecturer at the Imo State University, Owerri; as well as Chief Chika Emelike, the Chairman/CEO of the Kotec Group.

Apart from motivating the youths to learn to create wealth instead of scrounging the streets, looking for non-existent jobs, the speakers also discussed issues that are germane to the social and economic development of the nation.

Declaring the summit open, chairman of the event, Engineer Linus Ilozue, told the youths not to submit themselves to the get-rich-quick syndrome that has destroyed the lives of many. He advised them to engage in positive ventures that would make them useful, first to themselves, their families, their states and their country in general.

In his incisive paper, which he delivered on Day 1 of the event, titled: “South East and the Future of Family Businesses,” Onyima held the audience spell-bound as he gave a critical and comparative analysis of family businesses in Nigeria, Africa and across the globe. He stressed the need for such businesses, and underscored the reasons they succeed or fail.

Emphasising that economies across the world were tilting towards entrepreneurship, The Sun MD said that family businesses often compete effectively with non-family businesses, granting the same playing ground. “When it comes to family businesses,” he espoused, “a company’s strengths and weaknesses are usually the opposite sides of the same coin.”

He named eight major areas where family businesses differ from typical businesses. They include: infrastructure, roles, leadership, family involvement, time, succession, ownership/governance and culture.  He also identified informal infrastructure and quick decision-making process on which family businesses hinge as “a great advantage.” That “great advantage”, he added, is possible by the absence of red tape or bureaucratic bottleneck.

Onyima flipped the other side of the coin and proceeded to identify some factors that could induce failure for family businesses. These include: bad management, inadequate funding, lack of solid structures, haphazard execution of policies, conflicting interest by some family members, and failure to keep overhead cost low.

Other factors that fuel failure in family businesses, according to The Sun boss, are polygamy (unwieldy family size), contentious Wills, inability to adapt to a changing marketplace, underestimating competitors, lack of interest by children of business owners, and poor succession plan.

He, however, noted that the future of entrepreneurship and family businesses in the South East was bright as government was expected to create an enabling environment for their smooth operation.

“All these show that if well managed,” he continued, “family businesses and entrepreneurship could provide the much-needed key for Nigeria’s economic salvation, particularly in the South East, which parades the largest number of small and medium-scale family-owned businesses.”

In their respective contributions, both Okafor and Emenike used the stories of their lives to counsel youths in the audience on how to make impact in business as aspiring entrepreneurs.

Okafor fired the first salvo, tracing his humble beginning in business, describing those early periods as “full of challenges”, which he had to surmount to climb the ladder of success. He identified the major problem facing young entrepreneurs as their unwarranted haste to make it.

“Nobody wants to cultivate before reaping,” he said matter-of-factly. “Everybody just wants to make it overnight. Yet, there is no gain without pain, and there is no treasure without pressure.”

On how he started his business, he said he began working life as a newspaper vendor and a local poultry farmer in Nnewi, having come from a poor family. Later, he became an apprentice trader for some years in Onitsha without the traditional ‘settlement’ by his master. However, he said his journey to successful business life began when his indigent mother raised N1, 300, prayed fervently over the money, and tearfully gave him to go into the world, trade and prosper. He revealed that his mother prayed, blessed and assured him, with tears, that the money would so multiply and would become countless as the sand.

He, therefore, said that sincerity in his business dealings was the secret of his success. The story of Chief Chika Emenike, the Kotec Group boss, whose father was a carpenter, was not significantly different from that of Okafor.

Emenike told the audience the story of how he hawked bread, served as a trade apprentice and before beginning his own business with a paltry N3, 000.

Speaking on the subject, Youth Empowerment: Taking the Self-Help Options, Nworgu observed that critical issue in the saga of youth unemployment in Nigeria today is that most of the teeming population of jobless young people in the country do not possess the requisite qualifications for the jobs the seek.

Although he acknowledged that there were few job opportunities to engage the graduates churned out every year by Nigeria’s higher institutions, the major problem, according to him, was that most of them were “either half-baked or not baked at all,” making them to roam the streets.

He blamed the ugly situation partly on the proliferation of tertiary institutions of learning in the country without commensurate learning facilities and conducive learning environment. “The unemployment

situation is worsened by the proliferation of higher institutions of learning in the country,” he said. “The number of youths graduating from Nigerian universities, polytechnics, colleges of education and other specialized institutions, are higher than the job openings available.

“Again, the educational standard within the last two decades is getting very low.  These days, our higher institutions of learning are churning out graduates with no practical experience.  Hence, we have unemployable youths who are ill-prepared to face the challenges of the 21st Century economic realities. Therefore, we have a critical and hopeless situation of our higher educational institutions producing either half-baked graduates or unbaked graduates.  No basic skills. Even those who have basic skills don’t have requisite experience.”

He also identified wrong choices, lack of basic training, wrong value system, corruption and poverty, as dome of the other factors obstructing youth empowerment in the country.

Abubakar, the national president of NACCIMA, observed that this year’s summit was not only timely and all-embracing, but was also a brilliant initiative on the part of the organizers, considering the mono-cultural nature of Nigeria’s economy.

An ostensibly happy NACCIMA president also enthused that the event was crucial in that it offered an opportunity for aspiring and new indigenous entrepreneurs to have a brand new mindset, which he said was a necessary condition for success. He was optimistic that the summit would help reshape the thinking of the youths, and, indeed, Nigerians, in the emerging business world.

“It should influence them and them make positive difference,” the NACCIMA boss reiterated. Rising from the summit, he added, there ought to be a paradigm shift among unemployed school leavers, from depending on successful business people for employment to generating their own employment and becoming entrepreneurs in the 21st Century.

Abubakar also believed that the diversification of the Nigerian economy with emerging indigenous entrepreneurs remained the only essential ingredient to reposition the economy on the path of sustainable growth and development. He, then, advised the governments to continue to work in close partnership with the chambers of commerce and organized private sectors to achieve the ideals.

When these speakers were done with the job at hand, we sought the views of the youths on the two-day event.

For Jideofor Okafor of the Ibeto Group, the time of the summit was apt as the country was in dire need of socio-economic development. Specifically, he said he learnt that it was always good to develop one’s capacity through hard work.

“The story of the humble beginning of the chairman of Chikason Group has challenged me to work harder towards achieving my own potentials,’ Jideofor further stated, adding that “one day, I will be the chairman and chief executive officer of my own conglomerate. And I will, among other things, go around to motivate other youths to know that success is not the exclusive preserve of the rich. Success is also guaranteed for those who work hard.”

In his own reaction, Stanley Nwanya, another youth in the audience, said the summit had encouraged him to attempt to do the things he never knew how to do, disclosing: “I never knew that some of these big men we see on the roads also passed through the trying times we are facing right now as youths. The only difference is that it appears that they had more opportunities than us. That is evident in the story of how they survived because one or two of them will always tell you how they got in contact with white men. But in our days, it appears the chain has been broken. That is why we have been facing these challenges.

“One other thing I have learnt from this summit is that it is not always good to continue to follow the certificates which we have acquired from our respective universities but to put into practice those things we have learnt and studied. This summit has opened our eyes to why we are unemployable. From today, I am going to practice what I have studied because.”

Ngozi Nkama, a student, promised to carry the message she had at the summit to her friends, and was full of praise for The Sun and Nnewi Chambers of Commerce, Industry, Mines and Agriculture, NCCIMA, for organizing the summit. “For me, it is indeed a great thing,” she said, “and I must tell you that I am very happy.”

Ngonadi, NCCIMA president, the pillar behind the summit, brimmed with smiles of satisfaction as he reviewed the entire event. He thanked The Sun Newspapers for partnering with the chamber, saying that he now knows the power of The Voice of the Nation. He also thanked members of the chamber for their contributions to the successful staging of the summit, particularly the convener, Dr. Cletus Ibeto, Chairman/CEO of the Ibeto Group.

Ngonadi promised that next year’s summit would be bigger and better even as he said that his chamber had lined up other activities that would be beneficial to its members. He advised members to seize the opportunity provided by its summits series to advance their businesses by coming to rub minds with experts as well as teach the young ones how to excel in life.