Air Force officer dreams big for Aba shoes industry through Gada Africa

Ben Chiobi, a retired Air Vice Marshal, is the chief operating officer (CEO) and founder of Gada Africa, a marketing and logistics firm. The firm recently launched an online platform in Aba, the commercial hub of Abia State, to promote made-in-Nigeria products. He spoke with GODFREY OFURUM. Excerpts

How did you get into entrepreneurship, having served in the Air Force for 33 years?

It runs in the family. I come from a family of entrepreneurs. Let’s say it is in my DNA, but I had this vow right from when I was in secondary school to Nigeria. And I was given that opportunity in 1982 to attend the Nigerian Defense Academy (NDA) and I was privileged to be commissioned on June 22, 1985, and thereafter, I said I was going to dedicate myself to serving the country. I was privileged to fly different aircrafts in the Nigerian Air Force, up to the moment I retired.

However, I decided to unveil the interest that I have in different areas, particularly in entrepreneurship and the burden was on how to promote made-in-Nigeria.

Serving the Nigerian Air Force gave me the opportunity of traveling to various parts of the world. And each time I visited any of those locations, what often agitated my mind was to find made-In-Nigeria goods on shelves of the shopping malls, but often I didn’t find them.

So, I said to myself that when I finish from public service, I was going to do my best to promote and market Nigerian products. So, the advent of internet made it easy for me to get that done, but I said, ‘where should I start’ and naturally, it is Aba, because all the referrals kept saying, ‘go to Aba, that I will find the people that are productive in Aba clusters’.

And when I came, I truly saw that it was the case and decided that, as part of our market entry strategy into the e-commerce industry in Nigeria, we are going to interface with Aba people, not to exploit them, but to choose an avenue of a seminar to ask them to come with samples of their products.

Interfacing with them gave us an opportunity to see their products and right in their presence take shots of those products and put them on our website and that is exactly what we have done in the course of this programme and we will continue to do that until we have at least one-thousand different products from Aba on our website, then we will move to Benin.

From Benin, we will move to Kano and from Kano, we will go to Lagos. And once we’ve done all that, we’ll create what we call ‘Gada Africa Made in Nigeria Hub’ in each of these locations. And we will now be able to have what we call ‘a Fulfillment Centre’, where people can walk in with samples of their products and have an opportunity of hosting them on our website for free.

And like we said, the service charge and other things will begin to come once they begin to make money through our platform. So, our concept is to bring our services closer to the people and get them understand that we are here to unveil a win-win approach.

Once we are done with Nigeria, we will move to other African countries and I’m sure once we are able to do that, I will become a fulfilled man, because Nigeria has done a lot for me.

I served the country for 33 years in the course of my military career, so I just feel that the greatest thing I can do is to give back to the society. And that is why we are not asking anybody to pay us any fee to enroll on our site, we are not asking them to pay us any fee before they can host their products on our site, but subsequently those fees will come. We will leverage on just commission based on what we have on each site, ranging from 10 to 20 percent. We have what we call service level agreements with each individual person that will be on our site and that is what it is all about.

Apart from hosting these products on your platform, you also promised that Gada Africa will handle the distribution of the goods, which, to me, is unique. Do you have the capacity to do both marketing and distribution of the goods?     

That is what we call ‘Logistics value chain services’. It will not be enough for us as an e-commerce company that is running an online-mall to just sell without bothering about how the products will get to the end users and we are already building the structure.

Let me give you an example. In Aba here, we are going to have our Made-in-Aba Logistics Hub or what we call Gada Africa Hub. What we will be doing there is that any manufacturer in Aba that brings his/her products, he/she will put them on our display stand. Then if anyone orders a product from our site, it will also be from our hub that we will ensure that the product gets to the customer that has placed order for it, through the partnership that we have built.

We have built partnership with local and some international logistics handling companies, which I may not mention now until we tidy up all the arrangements. This is to ensure that for every product people order, they want door to door service that will happen. But the capacity will be built over time, but for now, the capacity that we have developed is that effective from December 1, 2019. If you place any order from our platform, that order gets to you if you live in Lagos or Abuja. The idea is to see that products that are made-in-Aba are pushed from this end. We have a hub here, and in the next one month, the office will be ready for business, so that by December 1,  if an order is placed on our site for a product that is made in Aba, all that the manufacturer needs  to do is to drop it in our office and we will now ensure that whoever placed order for the product will get it and in good time.

Overtime, we will be able to share with our customers the timings for other destinations. We have built a structure and we will be unveiling them as time permits. And that is why I said that we have the capacity. However, we do not have the capacity to send products to everywhere in the world, as I speak with you now, but we want to see that structure overtime is developed. But what I am assuring you now, is that if you live in Abuja or Lagos and you place an order for any product made-in-Aba on our site, give it a maximum of four days, you’ll get the product.

Aba artisans need capacity-building to improve the quality of their products. Does Gada Africa have plans to fill this gap?

I need to let you know that our services are supported by the Nigerian Export Promotion Council (NEPC), the Standards Organisation of Nigeria (SON) and the National Agency for Food and Drug Administration and Control (NAFDAC), because what we have worked out with them is to see that it is only products that are certified by at least SON and NAFDAC that would be sold on Gada Africa and that is one pledge that we have made to these very important stakeholders.

However, that does not leave out people that their products are not certified. Gada in this outing will not be able to share all our plans. As I speak to you, we have packaging sample for every kind of product you can think of, but we decided that we should not unveil that here.

When you come to our office, you’ll see different packaging samples, because we are preparing these products for export. Beyond export, we are preparing them to be placed in proper locations in shopping malls around the world and so in that case it means beyond packaging in bulk, we are also talking about how to package for retail. So, what that means is that for any of these people that are in any of these production clusters, when they visit our hub, they will see the different samples and look at how that fits into their production cost. It is not binding that they must use a particular one, but we will only share with them that the difference between bottled and sachet water is in the packaging.

So, if you make your product presentable, definitely customers will ask for such products. So, we are working on that and beyond that we will continue to educate them.

By the grace of God and God giving me life and resources, I intend that every year, we will be organising ‘Ndi Ahia’ seminar and exhibition. So, this is Ndi Ahia seminar and exhibition part-one, where we organise free seminars and exhibitions for everybody that is in the production cluster in Aba, so that they can see the opportunities that are out there.

In the second edition, we intend to bring in people with different kinds of machines for production. In this case, as I speak with you, Gada is also discussing with a Korean firm that is also talking out investing in Aba, putting automation machines for shoe production. And the good news is that as I speak with you, the Aba Chamber of Commerce, Industry, Mines and Agriculture just hinted us about an investment forum that is about to hold in Aba and we intend to invite the Korean company and others to see exactly where the gaps are.

If Gada is filling the e-commerce gap, we will need someone who can fill the automation process gap. Gada is there also to fill the gap of packaging, to ensure that their products are shipped to customers within and outside the country.

What is your last word to Aba artisans?  

My advice to Aba artisans is to take it one step at a time. You are in business today and you think that your problem is funding. It may not necessarily be funding. It might just be that you need to understand the processes of getting your products to international standards, so that you will not only meet local consumers, but also meet the requirements and needs of international consumers.