‘We plan to turn street beggars to shoemakers’

With a population of over 160 million, Nigeria is no doubt a choice market for a shoe manufacturer. However, fierce competition from foreign-made shoes and several other challenges make the market a challenging terrain. But in spite of these, Edet Iniobong, after 25 years of manufacturing shoes and other leather works in Nigeria, says the shoemaking industry has even greater potential in this interview with  OLUYINKA ALAWODE.

Business

Dusco Designers engages in manufacturing of shoes, bags, belts, hats, caps, artworks, and so on. We are also into training, mostly of youths and women. I started about 25 years ago with 35 kobo. We sell the shoes in major markets in Nigerian cities and take some outside the country. Quite a number of our productions are custom-made, some people want their names or the names of their organisations in scripted on the shoes, or they may want a design that no one has worn yet, so they would be the first to ever wear the designs.

Challenges

There are several challenges, apart from infrastructure, that is common to all businesses; the machinery needed for production are not easily available.

Employment

Shoemaking is a strong employment generation business. It is a business that even the physically challenged can do. So, we are planning an exhibition for the physically challenged nation wide to exhibit their products here in Lagos. I am the chairman of the local organising committee for the exhibition and it will come up in a few months’ time. Apart from helping the physically challenged, it will also boost our economy and reduce or eliminate street begging. Begging is demeaning, but they feel it is only the means of fending for themselves. But we are going to get them to see there are more honourable ways for a physically challenged to earn a living.

We shall also emphasise the need for quality. When one has a good product, it does not matter whether the person is physically challenged or able bodied, it is the quality that would sell the product. So, being physically challenged is not an excuse to produce poor product expecting people to buy out of pity.

Competition

We still have problems of competition from foreign-made shoes, but Nigerians are now imbibing the culture of using our local products. A top government official approached me to make some pairs of shoes for him. He wears only Italian shoes but he is impressed with the Dusco Designs and plans to wear more of Nigerian shoes. It takes people of great minds to know the kind of product they want to buy. N10, 000 may buy five pairs of shoes from another country but there are good quality shoes made in Nigeria that are more durable and more prestigious, but a pair may cost that N10,000.

To really boost our economy, the government should either ban or increase the tariff on foreign-made shoes, making them expensive so as to give the Nigerian shoe industry a chance. The reason Nigerian-made shoes are expensive is due to infrastructure challenges, which is the responsibility of the government.

Quality

At Dusco, we do our best to protect the interests of our customers. I have some suppliers that by virtue of our long standing relationship are willing to tell me the truth about any raw material. But sometimes they also are not aware. Some materials might have been in the store for years in a foreign country but it has just been recently shipped to Nigeria. Soon after use, it starts decaying. So, I do market survey before making purchases.

A shoemaker may take N5,000 to the market and spend 10 minutes buying all the raw materials he needs. But before I make any purchase, I always go round to assess all the raw materials to see the latest quality, I ask questions from different people, by the time three or four people at various times and different places say the same thing about a product, it helps to make informed decisions.

Prospects

We still want a larger share of the Nigerian market. Our label is in all our products, we intend to strengthen our brand. We also want a situation that when one looks at the feet of any Nigerian, it is Dusco design they would see in-scripted on the quality shoes they are wearing. We hope to do more training and empower many more Nigerians.