Nonso Azazi: Succeeding where peers fear to tread
Nonso Azazi is the chief operating officer of Posh Potties, which specialises in providing toilet facilities to Nigerians during big events.
Trained in Public Health in the United States, Nonso came back to Nigeria in 2010 and found an untapped opportunity the following year.
She attended a big event at the Tafawa Balewa Square (TBS) in Lagos but could not find a toilet when she needed to.
She was forced to leave the event, which, at that time, hurt her badly. However, she returned to do something about the situation, finding opportunity in the midst of the problem.
This is a lesson for young Nigerians who often look down on an industry like that, while running to popular areas they think can give them easy ride.
It is also rare to find young Nigerians who returned to the country dirtying their hands to provide solutions to societal problems.
“I came back to Lagos from the United States and realised that entering the public office was not as easy as it seemed. So I thought I should do something in the interim. I got to a wedding in early 2011 at Tafawa Balewa Square (TBS) in Lagos. It was a very big wedding, a Lagos wedding. I realised it was so crowded, but when I wanted to use the bathroom, I noticed there was no toilet. So I had to leave the wedding,” she tells to Start-Up Digest.
“I asked, how can we be in such an advanced society and we didn’t have a toilet? I realised that the plastics ones were there but nobody liked them. So, we thought we needed to bring the nice ones, the luxury brands into Nigeria,” she says.
To take advantage of the situation as an entrepreneur, Nonso and her partner decided to import one set of bathroom facilities, spending about $40,000 to do so.
For Nonso, it is hard to believe that a country like Nigeria with over 180 million people do not have a good public toilet system.
From one unit, her business has grown to three and is expanding.
Demand for her services is rising as the number of people she serves has risen from 200 in the whole of 2010 to 20,000 per day, today. But she needs to procure another set of the facilities to serve more Nigerians better.
Succour has come to her through the Lagos State Employment Trust Fund (LSETF), which recently gave her N5 million for expansion.
“I appreciate Lagos, because they see you adding value and they are willing to support it. I am happy that it was a seamless process,” she states.
Nonso believes that if more entrepreneurs are supported with cheap funds, Nigeria will transform into one of the world’s most creative economies.
She expects to procure fabrication facilities locally, but laments that there is still lack of skills and personnel to do these.
“Every day, I go out looking for engineers to do it to the quality and standards that I want. They say they could do it but would later run away. I won’t like to lower my standards as that would be a slap on me, my clients and my company,” she says.
She stresses the need to upgrade technical education in Nigeria to produce quality personnel that can meet the needs of the world.
She points out her services have touched the lives of many people in Lagos.
“I am really convinced that if you could do what we are doing on a bigger scale, you would even be happier. When I go out normally, I see a lot of people urinating on the road. It is common culture now. When I was growing up, I never saw these things,” she says.
The entrepreneur says there is a huge need for her services in the country, saying that she often provides water, generators and air conditioner to satisfy her clients.
She further says that she will create tens of jobs as her business expands more.
ODINAKA ANUDU