Nneka Abiakam-Madunatu: Entrepreneur mass producing made-in-Nigeria clothes

Nneka Abiakam-Madunatu is the founder of NMA Garment Factory, a one-stop shop for made-in-Nigeria clothes. This firm has continued to gain traction for the quality and affordability of its products.

Despite being a graduate of Law, her love and passion for designs and creativity inspired her to start the clothing business in 1999.

“I always loved creating things, cutting up pieces, sketching and designing. I started doing this mass market strategy when I had my son. I was abroad for six months and I employed people in Yaba and Mushin in Lagos. When I came back, I went to these places and saw a lot of them smoking because there was no job.

“So I thought to myself that if I properly engaged the people, they would be engaged. That was when I decided to structure my factory and buy more machines. A factory work is one that you come, work and get paid,” the entrepreneur says.

The entrepreneur, who currently has 14 outlets in Lagos and others in Abuja, Awka and Enugu, says she will soon commence operations in Calabar and Ghana.

She discloses that her vision is to employ 1,000 Africans both directly and indirectly by 2020. She currently employs 25 workers directly and 55 workers indirectly.

“I believe I am going to be in the Dubai Mall. If I am there, I want to make my dresses affordable. Even if you are taking African culture to western world, let it be affordable. If it is affordable, then we can tell our story better,” she states.

Speaking on the focus of her business, she says, “NMA Garment Factory is about promoting made-in-Nigeria clothes. My goods are made locally and we have a capacity of 2,000 dresses every day. If we expand our capacity, we can actually employ more people and produce more. Our target is to make made-in-Nigeria cloths really affordable.”

She stresses that when she started making her clothes affordable, everyone started buying from her, including the domestic workers and girls in school.

“I have a skirt for as low N1, 000, and I have a target to sell 300 skirts every day,” she says.

Abiakam-Madunatu says she currently exports to Ghana and Kenya.

“The more expensive things are, the less you sell them. Apart from the fact that it is a business for me, I am also providing employment because I have a factory and people that use different kinds of machines.

“The value chain of manufacturing is really long. We have models, accountants, auditors, quality control personnel, industrial ironing and people that do the buttonholes, among others. For my kind of business, the person that cuts is different from the person that joins the materials; another person will label; another will iron and on and on. That is how we can meet the target of 2,000 dresses every day,” she explains.

She states that her target is to have a big garment factory and store in Balogun, Lagos, so that when people think of going to China, they will first come to her store and pick what they want.

On how she sources raw materials, she says, “I still import, but I want to stop importing if I can make everything in Nigeria, which is what I am working on now. Some of my shoes are still produced in China, but all my garments are now made in Nigeria and people are encouraged by this,” she elucidates.

Answering questions on the challenges facing the business, the entrepreneur says that people are yet to believe in Nigerian-made products and there are excessive overhead costs to pay in the country.

On her success stories, she says, “When I was selling on Jumia, we were one of the most loved brands there. People started understanding that products of the same quality were cheaper in Nigeria than they were abroad. Times have changed a lot, people are really promoting made in Nigeria.

“When people walk into my store, what we have, can meet international standards and they are half the price.”

She encourages entrepreneurs across the country to be patient to achieve their dreams, adding that her business did not give her the life she wanted in one year but that she had to grow the business first to make money later.

Ifeoma Okeke