Nigeria needs to be innovative with agriculture
Is this your first time in Nigeria?
I have come to Nigeria before. I have been here a few times about 10 – 15 times. I was asked before what my favourite country in Africa was and I said Nigeria is one of my favourite countries. I love Nigeria.
Why?
The energy, the people, the enthusiasm, they are amazing people. The amount of potential they have. The amount of drive people have. You can just feel it the minute you land. So, it is a place I really enjoy.
I understand that you started your entrepreneurial journey when you were in high school…
Yes, I quit high school when I was 15 years old to set up this business. My family needed support; so I had to do what I had to do. I set up the IT business and slowly it has grown. I haven’t been back to school since then. Entrepreneurship has always been my passion. It has always been the thing I love.
I gathered that when you started your business, you borrowed $6,000, where did you get the money? Because here in Nigeria, one of the challenges entrepreneurs face is access to finance. How was it easy for you to get the fund?
It was about $5,500. It wasn’t easy, but what I did was that I borrowed it from three people. I took small amount from everybody and I gave them a confidence that I was very passionate about what I wanted to do. I gave them the comfort that I know what I’m doing; that I thought it through and that it is not something I just came up with and all of a sudden I wanted to do it. It wasn’t that kind of thing. It was something solid because I actually thought it through and I explained to them. When you are asking for a loan or when you are asking somebody to fund you, it is very important to give them that comfort that, one, you know what you are talking about. Two, you are very passionate about it, and three, u have really thought about it. If you come to me with a business plan today, and if I ask you three questions and you don’t have answers to two, then I’ve lost confidence. But if you answer them, even if you are trying to answer them in the right way, I can tell if you have really thought about it or not. So, in that sense, I think they believe in my passion, they believe that I really had thought about it. You know, I was dreaming about it and I really wanted to make it happen. And I was doing something that I loved which was IT. Technology just fascinated me.
Did you get any knowledge of IT when you were in high school before you dropped out?
IT wasn’t taught in my school. I was going to a very small school. Technology just fascinated me that you could tell it was going to be the next big thing, but that time it was such a rare commodity. Computers today cost $300, as at that time it used to cost $2,000. So, I couldn’t afford to start buying and selling computers. I started buying and selling computer parts since it was cheaper thing to do. Remember I started with $5,500, but part of that money went towards my first month of rent for a small shop, some small furniture, a ticket to go to Dubai to buy goods and only had about $2,500 to buy goods. So when I think about it, I started with very little in the business itself. But I appreciate the fact that when you start with something like that, it makes you realise the value of it. It makes you realise that it is possible, that it is doable. The whole point is that it took me 17 years to reach where I am today. How do we create an enabling environment for our young ones in Africa to actually get there quicker? I did trial and error. I learnt the hard way. From the learning I got, I want to help young people to do it in a quicker way.
Mara Group has presence in 19 African countries, how strong is your presence in Nigeria?
We will have presence in 22 African countries by the end of this year. We have 2,000 employees in Nigeria with four organisations – three businesses, including a glass manufacturing that we are building in River State, and we have a foundation.
On the glass manufacturing plant, what is the total investment you are putting into it and when do you expect it to come on stream?
The total investment over time will be $210 million. We have started already. We have started construction. I think it will take 18 months. It is a big factory and it does not exist anywhere in Africa apart from South Africa and Egypt. It is the first in the whole of sub-Saharan Africa.
Why did you choose Nigeria?
Like I said earlier, I love Nigeria. I am very confident of the future of Nigeria. I want people to realise that this is an amazing place. The people are excellent; the energy is fantastic; opportunity is great and there is a huge population.
You are in Nigeria for a conference in Calabar and the theme is ‘Driving innovation through transformational leadership and sustainability’ and incidentally, Nigeria’s president, Goodluck Jonathan has a transformation agenda for the country. If you had the opportunity to meet him, what would you tell him?
I actually met him a few months ago in Davos at a conference. And I had a conversation with him. And I am very happy to see that the president is taking youth empowerment very seriously. In my opinion, we need three things to help young entrepreneurs and women entrepreneurs. The answer to unemployment is not going to be in getting foreign direct investments, but the answer is going to be nurturing small and medium enterprises. So, in my opinion, we need to create an enabling environment. We need to create an empowering environment. We need to inspire them. Enabling them meaning let’s give them mentorship, guidance and advice. Empowering them meaning let’s give them access to funding, let’s give them the credibility they need at the incubation stage. And inspiring them by giving them the hope that it is possible, by showcasing certain people who have achieved it. These three things are extremely important I’m glad to see that Nigeria as a country and as a government is taking that very seriously, but how to go about it in the right way is always their learning process and a journey.
You reside in Dubai, how long have you been there?
17 years now. I had to set up a base in Dubai for my Uganda business because nobody was giving me credit in Dubai because I was from Africa. They told me if I set up in Dubai, then I can get credit. So I got credit for my business, then I started supplying to Nigeria, Ghana, Kenya, Tanzania, Ethiopia, DRC, Zambia, Mozambique, Malawi and South Africa in 1996/1997.
You have been residing in Dubai for 17 years, and I hear electric power supply is superb there, what can Nigeria learn from Dubai to improve its power supply?
We are in an emerging market. Our power requirement is also growing because we have more people and more industries coming on stream. The power requirement that was there 10 years ago is different from the power requirement that we have today. I hear, Nigeria has a clear roadmap in terms of how to go about it. You can see a lot of more power generation coming on stream and which is why the fact that we as Africa has 75 terawatts of power, and as sub-Saharan Africa has 800 million people, Spain has 40 million people and has 75 terawatts of power. That’s not a problem; it’s a huge opportunity. So, I think we are working towards it. I think we are all trying hard to really gear up in that respect. So, I don’t see a challenge in that.
You said you didn’t see a challenge in that, but when you ask many entrepreneurs in Nigeria why they are not growing or why they are failing, they would mention power supply as a big contributory factor.
Look, but it is a challenge not only for them. If I come to Nigeria and I want to do business and you have power coming into your business, but I don’t have power coming into mine, that means you have a competitive advantage against me. But if we all are in the same environment, the solution, for example, though not a good solution, is generator. A generator is going to cost me money. It is going to cost you money. So, it is a market issue. When it is a market issue, we can’t use that as an excuse. Yes, we need power to become better. The minute power comes in, and we are no more using generator, our cost comes down. It means our selling price will come down and the end consumers will benefit. Absolutely, we should expect power to get better, we want to get infrastructure better, it will happen. You know as citizens, we always want things to be done quicker. So, when it is a market condition, then I don’t think we should use that as an excuse. There are one thousand and one excuses I can get as to why a business didn’t work. That’s not what we should be focusing on; we should be focusing on how we can make it work. Don’t give up. Don’t look for the easy way out. Don’t justify it in your mind. You have to succeed. You have to make it work, no matter what. You should not focus on the negativity like power and this and that. If you focus on the positivity, your mind will work inevitably to find the solution. It’s all a mindset shift. And this why Mara Mentor, mentor.mara.com, our mentorship platform, is trying to help by giving advice and guidance for free to a lot of young and women entrepreneurs across Africa. We are partnering with the government of Nigeria through our mentorship programme to get access to more people. We want to give them mentorship on mobile phones.
I hear that you are not just a successful entrepreneur, nut also an astronaut-in-waiting, but I was wondering why you want to go to space.
Like I said earlier, I want to try and change the poor perception that we have. By going to space to represent Africa, it is one of those things where you are showing the world that we have vision and the ability. I think it just helps generally to improve our global reputation.
So, when do you see yourself achieving this feat?
Hopefully as soon as the testing of the spaceship is done, this is very important because we want to ensure that it’s a return trip, not a one-way. Hopefully by the end of this year or early next year. I think realistically, next year.
Mara group is diversified conglomerate with interests in real estate, tourism, technology, renewable energy, and agriculture, among others, what is your take on Nigeria’s high dependence on its crude oil?
I think there is need to diversify. Nigeria should not only be known or focus on oil alone. I think we need to be focused on many other sectors.
Nigeria has the ability to leapfrog in terms of technology as there was no legacy system in it. We have seen what the West has done; we can copy, paste and implement them. Agriculture is very important. The largest cassava producer in the world is Nigeria. That is a huge stake. There is a lot we can do with that, there is lot of processing and value adding we can do. We need to be innovative with agriculture.
You are Africa’s youngest billionaire, according to Forbes Magazine. How does it feel?
I don’t want people to think success should be measured by wealth. Success should be measured according to the kind of impact you are able to make; how many lives you are able to impact. I don’t think success should be measured by wealth. And I would really like to pass this message to our youths in Nigeria as well: Don’t focus on the wealth factor only, focus on how you can make a difference; how you can really make a change. That’s the key. Money should never be the measurement.
In your opinion, how can people create wealth?
People can create wealth by doing things the right way. If you do things that you love; if you are focused on it; if you think through it carefully, and if you are very passionate about it, it will work. But you are going to work hard because it is not going to be an overnight success. You are going to be ready for challenges. You should not give up. Think big, dream and start small. Be practical. Success will come. It took me 17 years to get here. Now, I still work very hard. I still spend a lot of time on the Foundation. Our mission is to make Mara the most exciting African brand globally.