Entrepreneurship in Nigerian universities is booming currently and this is as a result of confluence of some factors ranging from introduction of entrepreneurship in the curricula to growth of technology.

As a result of these factors, some undergraduates have started businesses that are addressing societal needs. Amongst them are:

Chibuzor Kingsley Ofulue

Chibuzor Kingsley Ofulue is the co-founder and director of Africlaim, a start-up business dedicated to enforcing airline passenger rights which are usually neglected within the African continent and Nigeria in particular.

Chibuzor is a final year student of International Business at the Loughborough University, the United Kingdom. He co-founded Africlaim with his friend Ifeanyi Ezechukwu after a not-too-good experience from an airline.

Ifeanyi’s flight from Nigeria to the United Kingdom was delayed and eventually cancelled yet there was no form of compensation given to passengers despite the fact that the flight disruption was within the control of the airline.

In trying to ensure that Ifeanyi was compensated by the airline, Chibuzor (and his friend) began to do a lot of research on global aviation laws. In their quest, they discovered that there was a European regulation which was drafted in 2004 and passed into law in 2005, stating that passengers were entitled to a financial compensation when they were denied boarding or the flights were delayed or cancelled if the cause of the fight disruption was within the airline’s control.

The law also states that passengers are not entitled to any form of financial claims when it is out of the control of the airline such as in cases of extreme weather conditions, war, natural disasters and the like.

As a result of the information and determination to fight for compensation, Chibuzor’s friend was finally compensated by the airline and to change this for other passengers who would encounter similar issues, Chibuzor and his friend established Africlaim in 2016.

“So to change this for other people, we were inspired to establish Africlaim. The air passenger rights are usually neglected in Nigeria and Africa. We have been learning a whole new thing and still trying new things to ensure that people get their claims,” Chibuzor said.

Both founders of Africlaims went into partnership with some lawyers to be able to effectively and efficiently speed up the claims recovery processes for their clients.

According to the young entrepreneur, their initial start-up capital for the business was obtained from personal savings, which was used in designing the organisation’s website to create a platform for customers to submit applications for their compensations.

“We started the business with our personal savings. We spent the money on building our website and making sure it was running promptly. Our website was to create a platform where customers can check their eligibility without making any upfront cost and submit their claim forms online,” he said.

The undergraduate stated that the company had been able to recover over 40 claims since starting operations last year with hundreds of claims still under processing. He told Start-Up Digest that Africlaim did not charge its customers upfront until the claims were recovered.

“The process is free until the claims are recovered. This motivates us to chase the claims harder because we don’t get paid until the claims are fully recovered. And so far since starting last year, we have recovered over 40 claims with many still in the process,” Chibuzor said.

Chibuzor told Start-Up Digest that the biggest challenge confronting their business since starting was the attitude of the Nigerian airlines. He stated that their process of requesting a claim was cumbersome and very slow. He also stated that the lack of passengers’ protection law was also a big challenge to their business.

“The response time of Nigerian airline is four times the response time of an EU carrier. There are no laws protecting the Nigerian passengers,” he said.

He likewise stated that the organisation was yet to start processing claims for domestic flights owing to the lack of passenger’s protection law in the country.

Chibuzor called on the government to put in place a policy framework that would ensure that passengers were protected and also to bridge the infrastructural gaps in the aviation sector in the country, stating that this would ensure efficiency and effectiveness in service delivery in the sector.

He said that the organisation currently had 10 employees and also outsourced some of its work, disclosing that the company was planning to start helping passengers with issues of missing luggage to be compensated by airlines through the luggage tracker. According to him, the tracker would help passengers trace their luggage all through their flight.

When asked how he was able to grow his business despite recession, Chibuzor said that despite the economic downturn in the country, Nigerians were still travelling and that the cost of the flight ticket did not determine their charges but the duration in which a claim could be recovered.

He stated that the business had grown tremendously since starting.

“We have plans to start looking into missing luggage. We are planning to manufacture baggage tracker which will make it easy for passengers to monitor and track their bags to know where they were before eventually being lost in transit,” said Chibuzor.

Oke Victoria Onyekachukwu

Oke Victoria Onyekachukwu is the founder and chief executive officer of Vickkypearl Cakes, a start-up that specialises in the production of fresh cakes in Lagos and its environs.

Oke, who is also the founder of Pearlie Fashion, a fashion business that produces and sells both female and male accessories, has over five years of experience in baking and catering.

The 500-level undergraduate of Federal University of Technology, Akure, was inspired to establish Vickkypearl Cakes by her strong passion for designs and creativity. Oke likewise had a passion for recreating beautiful cake decorations seen in parties and events she attended.

According to her, she had been baking cakes for family and friends for free before making it a business in 2015 after undergoing company registration procedures.

“I believed in my artistic, creative mind. I believed I could make cakes as beautiful as those ones seen at parties and events and I could make exactly what others wanted or dreamed about. Entrepreneurship, for me, is in-born as I never did it basically to augment my allowance,” the baker said.

Before establishing her business in 2015, Oke had attended a catering school to learn designs and gain more knowledge of cake-making from professionals. After some time, she started taking online courses to learn global trends in the two areas.

Most clients prefer to pay upfront for cakes, which often enables her to buy the ingredients needed for baking and decoration.

When asked about challenges confronting her business, the young entrepreneur said the country’s huge infrastructural gaps had remained a major impediment to her business.

“Bad road is really a big challenge to my business. It is really affecting delivery. Where I could have taken a taxi, I will, sometimes, walk for fear of pot-holes that can cause cracks on the cake,” she said.

“Poor power supply is also a big challenge to my business. I do most of my baking at night. The poor power supply has affected my business and increased my production cost because most times I have to make use of a generator or lamps.

“Another challenge facing my business is the rising cost of baking items in the market and the unwillingness of customers to pay more. Most of them want good cakes for cheaper prices despite high cost of production,” the young entrepreneur said.

She urged the government to provide critical infrastructure such as steady power supply and good roads, stating that Nigeria cannot drive its industrialisation strategy in the absence of infrastructure.

Oke said that despite the challenges, her business had grown since starting, as patronage from new customers increased tremendously.

“Overtime since starting, I have got contracts to supply cakes at the places I buy ingredients to make cakes for my customers. The business has grown dramatically such that I now have enough resources to buy modern baking equipment for the business.

When asked how the country’s low consumer purchasing power had impacted on her business, she said, “The business at a point had a decline because customers couldn’t afford to buy the size of cake they wanted. So they ended up requesting smaller sizes or cupcakes but this period happens to be my good moment because I suddenly became the cupcake mistress.”

“I made more cupcakes than ever. There was a time I made 300 cupcakes and sold them in less than a week. During Valentine period last year, I was wowed. Most orders now are cupcakes. I now remind people that I still make eight, ten and twelve inches cakes,” she further stated.

 

Josephine Okojie