It’s raining heavily the morning Oluchi Orlandi arrives at the Nike Art Gallery in Lagos for the photo session with FORBES WOMAN AFRICA. The Nigerian-born supermodel has traveled from New York, where she lives, and the rain-soaked welcome has lifted her spirits.
She steps in and instantly fills the room with raw energy. There is a moment of quiet reservation, the lights and camera go on, and then there is magic.
It is clear Orlandi, 33, has faced the camera for years, she is a natural in front of it. She struts, sways and smiles for the lens, embodying grace, all six feet of her.
She was only 17 when she first came face-to-face with the camera – and became an instant sensation.
This was in 1998, when ‘Oluchi’ became a household name in Nigeria following her win as M-Net’s Face of Africa. The popular show on the South African TV channel brought her success and fame, and a life she never dreamt of.
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From the fashion runways of New York to Milan, showcasing lingerie to haute couture, this African beauty has traversed the globe, gracing billboards and the covers of international magazines such as Elle and Italian Vogue. She has been the face of campaigns for Victoria’s Secret and Gianfranco Ferre
More recently, Orlandi has added another feather to her cap. She now owns rights to the reality television show Africa’s Next Top Model, a show she brought to Africa in November 2013. As the African version of the globally-televized America’s Next Top Model show hosted by Tyra Banks, it has successfully completed its first season on the continent. The next season is currently being filmed. Orlandi is Executive Producer, head judge and host of the show.
Supermodel. TV hostess. Businesswoman. She has donned many hats. Orlandi says she has had an entrepreneurial streak from childhood.
Ordinary childhood
Growing up in Lagos with four siblings, raised by her mother, a nurse, and her father, a civil servant, Orlandi recalls being a tomboy who loved to play ping-pong in the street with the boys.
It was an ordinary childhood. “We had a normal routine of home, school and church. I remember being very entrepreneurial at a young age though. I’d generally sell and think of ways to bring additional income home. It was entirely my initiative and I wasn’t pressured into anything by my parents,” says Orlandi.
Continuously seeking new projects to invest in, she bought her first property, as an investment, at the age of 23. She recalls not sleeping for a month, worrying about the mortgage she had to pay off.
When the first season of Africa’s Next Top Model was aired, following young supermodel hopefuls from across the continent, it enjoyed note-worthy ratings, creating an appetite for more in viewers, and quelling Orlandi’s long-felt desire to create a better understanding of the modeling and fashion industry in Africa.
For this, she had to step out of herself, and reexamine the industry she had been a part of for almost a decade-and-a-half.
“I have seen this industry grow and metamorphose over this time. It is progressing at a fast rate but the general public has such a limited view of it. There is minimum insight to the enormity of this industry and its existing opportunities. I had a small team that worked day and night to bring it all together. We had designers, fashion editors, creative directors on the panel. It was a joy to put faces to names people had known and introduce their craft to the continent on a different platform. I wanted to bring all of these elements to television and bring the industry to people’s screens.”
Orlandi’s ambition is two-fold: to create awareness about fashion and also a platform for women. It is to modeling that Orlandi owes everything to. After all, it thrust her into the limelight and opened doors for her.
“I’m forever grateful to a corporate platform like M-Net that provided an opportunity like this to young African women, as I believe the continent doesn’t do enough for our women and their aspirations. Today, I appreciate this platform more than anything. For me and many other young girls that were given that opportunity, it is indelible and has shaped my views differently today. As the years go by, it has become my driving force to make a mark in the industry. All I ask myself these days is: ‘How can I give back?’ I don’t think I’ve done anything at all in comparison to what I should and could be doing and this quest has become my unrelenting drive.”
Though tall and slender, Orlandi never thought she would become a model. As a high school student, she wanted to be a banker, or an air hostess.
“I had a stronger banking aspiration though. I just thought it was glamorous. I loved the professional, powerful look of women in suits.”
But it was a family friend, a fashion designer she had become close to, who influenced her. The friend talked her into taking part in the modeling competition that was to change her life.
“I didn’t know what to expect. She took me to the auditions and my life took a 360-degree turn from there. It was a room of over a thousand girls all gunning for the title of Face of Africa. I was lucky enough to progress from stage to stage, eventually winning the title.”
Orlandi represented West Africa at the finals in Zimbabwe – and when she won, there was disbelief, and tears.
“I remember the night before the final stage, I just couldn’t sleep. I knew I had two other strong competitors. When my name was called, it took me a few minutes to believe it and I just broke down.”
Culture shock
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That was the launch of a sterling career but it was no cakewalk. Orlandi’s parents didn’t buy into it instantly as there were reinforced stereotypes about the modeling industry they weren’t comfortable with. They soon warmed up to the idea as time went by. This wasn’t all. It was time to face a world alien to her in many ways. Getting used to it was not easy.
“I suffered a real culture shock when I arrived in New York and was very homesick. I had never lived away from Lagos. I missed everything about home and wanted to be there. I went back home after a few months and was later convinced to return to New York for the sake of my career. Things got better from there and I learnt to make [New York my] home.”
While her career flourished and her calendar brimmed with bookings, Orlandi couldn’t miss the fact that her studies suffered. She had only completed high school when she made the move.
“My life had taken a very fast pace and my education had been affected. One thing I learnt from New York is that you can have anything you want if you work really hard. My education was still important to me and so I enrolled at New York University and started taking weekend classes for an associate degree in business. I later went back for two years to earn another [degree].”
She managed to juggle her studies and career, but starting a family threw a new set of challenges.
“I really struggled. I went through some emotional ups and downs and depression as I had to make a decision between my career and building a family. I was at the top of my career, working on Victoria’s Secret and pregnant with my first son – they had no idea at that point. This posed a threat to my career. I went through it all however and when I had my son, I had to say to myself, ‘you have to keep it going, there are women who have gone before you and have survived the patch’. I adjusted my view.”
Today, Orlandi is married to Italian fashion designer Luca Orlandi and is the proud mother of two children, aged seven and three. To upcoming models, she has a word of advice.
“Take advantage of every single minute. Don’t be culture-blind. Use fashion as your platform to see the world. Have a voice and understand the woman that you are. Don’t be scared to take risks.”
Orlandi is taking new risks now and constantly challenging herself.
“Back then, as a fledgling model, I was just focused on myself. It was all about me. Now, I am my biggest critic. I punch myself everyday saying ‘there must be more you can do Oluchi’,” she says.
Orlandi is very optimistic about the future of African fashion.
“I talk a lot about South Africa as they have been more structured and highly consistent in their approach than any other country on the continent, using magazines and varying portals to showcase the strength and magnitude of this industry.”
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In 2007, Oluchi partnered with the Shine Group to launch O Model Africa, a South Africa-based modeling agency dedicated to selecting and developing African models.
Yet, she feels more needs to be done.
“We need to praise ourselves more. Nobody will do it for you. We should stop idolizing the West so much and start celebrating and marketing ourselves better. I am an African woman and I know beyond doubt that the only way to build a better Africa is to embody, think and celebrate our own grand feats.”
And to achieve her goals, Orlandi has a simple philosophy, which she reveals before wrapping up for the day: “If you’re good to life, it’ll be good to you.”
<h1>Oluchi Unplugged</h1>
<h3>Jan Malan</h3>
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<h4>“The first time I laid eyes on Oluchi back in 1997, I knew she would become a star. Oluchi is an incredible businesswoman; she instinctively crafted and honed her career without losing herself in the glamor of it all. Oluchi has become a dear friend and compatriot and she is the one who guided me on the pitfalls of doing business in New York City,” says Jan Malan, Head of Production at Umzingeli Productions, one of Africa’s leading show producers.</h4>
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<h3>Duro Olowu</h3>
<h4>“Oluchi is great to work with. Super smart and funny too. Her beauty is effortless and so she has a fantastic way of giving her best without it looking forced. And she understands the camera and clothes too, you can’t get better than that,” says Nigerian-born London-based designer Duro Olowu, who has worked with her.</h4>
<img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="wp-image-29540 size-thumbnail alignleft" src="http://www.forbesafrica.com/app/uploads/2017/05/FWA-2014-Oct-Nov-028-032-Oluchi-Orlandi-004-150x150.jpg" alt="" width="150" height="150" srcset="https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/FWA-2014-Oct-Nov-028-032-Oluchi-Orlandi-004-150x150.jpg 150w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/FWA-2014-Oct-Nov-028-032-Oluchi-Orlandi-004-100x100.jpg 100w" sizes="(max-width: 150px) 100vw, 150px" />

FWA-2014-Oct-Nov-028-032-Oluchi-Orlandi-001

Beyond The Catwalk

Italian fashion designer and Lagos-resident
Caterina Bortolussi can be mistaken for a home-grown Nigerian. She fits in seamlessly with Lagos’ thriving social circuit and is always on the VIP list at sought-after city events.
She is the founder of the ethical African fashion label Kinabuti, dedicated to sustainable development in the Niger Delta, and popular among fashionistas, Afropolitans and Nigeria’s entertainment elite.
<div id="attachment_29490" style="width: 310px" class="wp-caption alignleft"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-29490" class="size-medium wp-image-29490" src="http://www.forbesafrica.com/app/uploads/2017/05/FWA-2014-Aug-Sep-074-075-Kinabuti-003-300x200.jpg" alt="" width="300" height="200" srcset="https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/FWA-2014-Aug-Sep-074-075-Kinabuti-003-300x200.jpg 300w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/FWA-2014-Aug-Sep-074-075-Kinabuti-003-600x400.jpg 600w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/FWA-2014-Aug-Sep-074-075-Kinabuti-003-768x512.jpg 768w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/FWA-2014-Aug-Sep-074-075-Kinabuti-003-1024x683.jpg 1024w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/FWA-2014-Aug-Sep-074-075-Kinabuti-003.jpg 1023w" sizes="(max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px" />Lagos (Nigeria) Kinabuti Collection 2012</div>
“I believe it was God who guided me towards this idea; I just had a dream of designing clothes. I never thought I was going to live in Africa or Nigeria. I didn’t have formal education in fashion and didn’t even know how to sketch but I have been lucky to come across so many amazing personalities that inspired me with their vision and drive,” says Bortolussi.
She had been working in the strife-torn Niger Delta since 2007, when a state of emergency was proclaimed, and there were ensuing kidnappings, curfews and police blocks. She compiled a paper called Peace and Art and saw in art a vehicle to spread peace and inspire the youth.
“This propelled me to start the Kinabuti fashion label in 2010 with the focus of using it to go into areas described as highly unsafe and populated by militants, to provide training [for women and youth] in modeling, silk-screening, cutting and pattern drafting.”
And what does Kinabuti mean?
“It is my nickname. As a little girl, I found it hard trying to pronounce my lengthy name. I used to call it Kina [short for Caterina], and Buti [short for Bortolussi], so when people asked my name, I told them I was Kinabuti.”
Before landing in Lagos eight years ago, Bortolussi was with an investment bank in London. After that, she moved to shipping, but she was on the look-out for something more exciting and creative.
“I have made several career moves, from selling advertising to setting up my own communications agency. But the direction was clear: to set up my own fashion label,” she says.
Bortolussi says settling in Nigeria has not been easy. A lot of capital is necessary to invest in Nigeria due to high costs of starting a business, limited access to credit, lack of power, and market insecurity.
<img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="size-medium wp-image-29489 alignleft" src="http://www.forbesafrica.com/app/uploads/2017/05/FWA-2014-Aug-Sep-074-075-Kinabuti-002-200x300.jpg" alt="" width="200" height="300" srcset="https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/FWA-2014-Aug-Sep-074-075-Kinabuti-002-200x300.jpg 200w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/FWA-2014-Aug-Sep-074-075-Kinabuti-002-300x450.jpg 300w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/FWA-2014-Aug-Sep-074-075-Kinabuti-002-600x901.jpg 600w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/FWA-2014-Aug-Sep-074-075-Kinabuti-002.jpg 682w" sizes="(max-width: 200px) 100vw, 200px" />
“There was a time when I lost all my money and was threatened to leave the country but I never lost faith. Nigeria is not an easy place, but teaches you to endure, to be fearless and most of all to have self-belief. Nigeria has plenty of opportunities, in eight of my years here, I have felt its transformation and development and consider myself lucky. Nigeria is a place where dreams can become a reality.”
Through Kinabuti, Bortolussi is also passionate about training young entrepreneurs. She has taken her drive to the ghettoes of Port Harcourt in the south of Nigeria.
South African apartheid activist Nelson Mandela is an inspiration, as she quotes him: “A winner is a dreamer who never gives up.”

Lagos (Nigeria)Kinabuti Collection 2012

Ghetto Glamor

Fervently chasing after a passion that took me quite long to identify.”
This is what Affiong Williams’ Twitter profile reads. Spend a day with the 28-year-old entrepreneur and you believe it’s not just a clever line, but the story of her life. Her first job out of college may have been in the corporate sector, but for Williams, her passion for business was one she couldn’t ignore. It had tugged at her since she was a child growing up in Nigeria.
She was only six when with the help of her cousin she cooked and sold food to her neighborhood. By second year in college, she had already dabbled in a few odd businesses, such as buying and selling handbags on campus. She left Nigeria when she was 11, spending most of her formative years in South Africa. College was a defining time. It was here she realized what she didn’t want to do.
With a bachelor’s degree in physiology and psychology, she wanted to switch to medicine but realized her strength was business. The post graduate degree she pursued in business administration at the Witwatersrand Business School in Johannesburg was invaluable.
Williams acquired a job with an entrepreneurship incubator, which exposed her to the world of start-ups and businesses. Here, she could apply all the theory she had learned, spending four years, starting as an intern, ending as a portfolio manager. She looked at services that would help entrepreneurs grow across different sectors. It awakened her innate flair.
“I was most inspired by the entrepreneurs. In any economy, small to medium enterprises create the most jobs. I told myself this is what I want to do.”
Williams started researching business ideas and the sectors that inspired her. The South African economy was highly-developed and she knew her competitive advantage, being a foreigner, was also limited, so she veered towards Nigeria.
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“Agriculture was becoming very topical. I started reading up and asking questions,” she says.
Why is there so much inefficiency? Why is there so much waste? Why are fruits rotten? Why can’t we create finished goods? Why do Nigerian products look unappealing? What is stopping Nigerian products from being sold anywhere in the world? A few more pertinent questions and it was the light bulb moment she had been waiting for.
“I decided this is the sector I wanted to get into. I also knew agriculture is a big job creator. I wanted to make Nigerian finished products look good, I wanted to use up our raw materials, and employ a lot of people. I became obsessed. I read about fruit juices, cassava, cash crops etc, and moved into fruit.”
Capital was the next issue.
“I looked at the capital required for food processing. I started figuring out cost in terms of investment. I then stumbled upon [the idea of selling] dried fruits and realized very few people were doing this. It was not that expensive and there were not that many healthy options out there.”
In February 2012, determined to win a government entrepreneurship grant, Williams made the decision to move to Lagos.
“I knew I would win this N10 million (just over $60,000) grant that was going to be my source of capital. I traveled to Nigeria for a second round of applications and made a decision to move back, because I was so sure I would win this grant,” she says.
But did she?
“I did not. My name was not called.”
It was a setback, but Williams had it mapped out. With her savings of $15,000, she started on what was a sink-or-swim journey into a tough market that required more analysis. She drew from her experiences.
She started understanding the value chain better, and engaged in some market-research to see what consumers thought of her dried fruit product. With a tighter rein on funds, it was time to focus on the market.
“Lagos is a hugely urbanized city with a growing middle class and this is where we focused the business. We found a fair percentage of exposed and well-traveled Lagosians already familiar with the product,” she says of the growing number of health-conscious Nigerians, who had little or no time on their hands. Food choices available on the go were a major determinant of health trends.
“Because we are a food product, we are lucky. People can use an immediate taste test to prove whether they like it or not. For our core market, it’s an affordable product,” says Williams. The epiphany may have taken a while, but it was the formula she required.
Agriculture is the most important sector in the Nigerian economy and contributes up to 35% of the country’s GDP. Its 170 million population represents a large domestic market that can support and sustain local production and processing. Unfortunately, limited collaboration exists across regional value chains.
As agribusiness plays a role in jump-starting economic transformation through development of agro-based industries, successful agribusiness investments stimulate growth by providing new markets and developing an input system. This hadn’t escaped Williams’ notice.
She introduced ReelFruit, a healthy range of snacks with variants of mango and pineapple, into the Nigerian market. These are preservative-free fresh tropical fruits, dried and ready for snacking. Its target market is mainly working women, and more products are being developed: a fruit and nut mix, a cashew brand, health drink and kids’ candy. Over the past year, ReelFruit has sold in 62 locations in Nigeria.
“From a business perspective, it made sense, because we are then not exporting raw materials but actually finishing the products here. And if markets can be found for them locally or overseas, then, that’s a win. I found a partner in Ghana to produce on my behalf. They provide the finished product. Now, we get bulk products and are responsible for the packaging. In March 2013, we started selling finished products,” she says.
William’s business has also garnered recognition. She won the BiD Network Women in Business Challenge award in the Netherlands in 2013, and also the top prize for Creative Focus Africa. What inspires her?
“The can-do attitude of Nigerians. There are so many norms and misconceptions about the African woman. As an entrepreneur, despite all these, if you are passionate enough, you will always find a way around it. Having a vision and purpose is what pushed me the most to start a business,” she says.

Little Bites Of Lagos

He is the maverick entrepreneur in the hat – who has worn many hats: the precocious kid; the investment mover and shaker, the banking wizard. Whenever you see Atedo Peterside in his flowing robes in the heat of a Lagos afternoon – you know a big deal is cooking.
Right now, wherever Peterside lays his hat, that’s his home. His diary shuttles him between Lagos and Abuja; he is on the board of six listed companies; he is chairman of the National Council on Privatisation’s technical committee and runs his own foundation on good governance. On top of this, Peterside is behind many of the biggest investment deals in Nigeria.
We talk at his Victoria Island penthouse, full of art and family portraits. This is Peterside’s quiet haven, away from work and his other passion, polo – a sport he has played for more than two decades with a current +1 handicap. He has a string of fine polo ponies.
Peterside is in the news these days for reasons other than maverick business and polo, but he is quick to clear up that he is no political aspirant – merely a devotee of the greater good; a philosophy born of years of sweat and risk in the dynamic Nigerian banking sector.
At 33 years old, a little older than he would have liked, Peterside became the youngest bank CEO in Nigeria, when he founded the Investment Banking and Trust Company (IBTC Bank) in Lagos.
“Because I was young, people were quite nervous about a bank being run by a ‘kid’, businesses wouldn’t take you seriously. So, I invited some other shareholders who would join the board to create the understanding that it was a mature decision,” says Peterside.
He ran IBTC Chartered Bank for 18 years. Now he is Non-executive Chairman for Stanbic-IBTC, following a merger with South Africa’s Standard Bank Group Nigeria operation – Stanbic Bank Nigeria.
It was the fruit of a merger, in 2007, Nigeria’s first ever tender offer. A foreign direct investment of $525 million took place and Stanbic IBTC was born.
“The most difficult problems I faced as CEO were self-imposed – when I started IBTC, I made a personal decision not to cut corners. I made a resolve to never get involved in any form of corrupt transactions and practices. I had a strong personal commitment to integrity and good ethics. We were going to be above board. I never wanted anyone to say ‘This guy built a bank but they are a bunch of crooks’. While it was very difficult for many to operate this way, for me it was quite easy as I was bent on creating a quality and reputable institution that will stand through time.”
In 2005, following a directive by the Central Bank of Nigeria on conversion to universal banking – a system that allows a bank to engage in all aspects of banking under a single license, Peterside’s IBTC was the only pure investment bank left at the time. There was an eventual compliance and a ripple effect &#8211; out of this came IBTC Chartered Bank.
“Acquiring two small retail banks took us out of pure investment banking into universal banking which was never my strength as I was an investment banker through and through.
“But even before we got to that point, I knew that it was time to move all the way to a different type of institution. In effect, if we were going to have a universal bank, I thought we could team up with an international bank. I was happy with IBTC as a well-connected domestic investment bank and we could have kept that model going for many years but there were new requirements that came with the change that affected the tight control unit that had existed previously &#8211; I thought, I might as well go all the way and started exploring the direction of a merger with an international bank. Stanbic was the obvious choice. They also had the need to expand their footprint in Nigeria.
“Simultaneously, I divested substantially and reduced my percentage shareholding and also sold some shares to Standard Bank – that too, was deliberate. I was not comfortable leaving too large a chunk of my personal net worth in one institution as I was already seeing signs of vulnerability. I didn’t want anything to get in the way and preferred to have my net worth spread over regulated businesses. Also, events of 2005 showed me that in a heavily regulated system like banking, the regulator can destroy your business overnight with the wrong decision and sometimes you are only as safe and secure as your regulator allows you.”
This is all part of a career, born of foresight in his days at the London School of Economics, where he earned a master’s degree and steeled himself for the world.
“At that time, I was one of the people who were bent on returning to Nigeria – I never contemplated staying a few more months after my education. I was back in Nigeria within two weeks of receiving my master’s degree. In reality, I got a sense, even at my age of 21, that Nigeria would go places very soon and I thought by staying in London to search for a job I’d be missing out on the great things that would happen back home,” he says.
“Oil had just been found in large quantities and I thought my country was going through a very important phase. The civil war had ended in 1970; I was to return home in 1977. So, I thought that was Nigeria’s now moment and I didn’t want to miss it. I wouldn’t say I was phenomenally patriotic, I just felt Nigeria was a place where the sky was the limit. I identified with every single thing that was happening and I felt I could move mountains here &#8211; I could have an impact.”
On his return, Peterside was clear; he wanted to be an entrepreneur and chose the field of finance because he felt he could do well. First, there was compulsory time to be worked for the government in the National Youth Service Corps (NYSC). Peterside didn’t want to waste time and requested to be posted to an investment bank.
“I was told the investment banks were not registered with the NYSC scheme and my next best bet was a commercial bank. After spending about six months there, I met the CEO of NAL Merchant Bank, who registered with the NYSC scheme, so I could join their team after I expressed my initial interest. I finished my NYSC at NAL Merchant Bank and stayed on after my service. I worked with this bank for 10 straight years – after which I left to start my own bank,” he says.
“I was heavily exposed while at NAL Merchant Bank. I had a lot to do. I did not complain because I was learning. People wondered why I had been given so many responsibilities but I believe it was a mutually beneficial situation for the CEO as well. He had a lot of confidence in me and he threw a lot at me.”
Like a man on a mission, Peterside studied the system, identified loopholes and carved out a niche. The genesis of his own bank proved a problem. The qualification to be a bank CEO, according to the Central Bank of Nigeria, was at least 10 years’ experience.
“I was bent on becoming a bank entrepreneur in Nigeria, because I felt that the existing investment banks at that time were not very good. So, I was in a hurry to set my own bank up and take them on,” he says.
After 10 years of work, in 1989, license in hand, Peterside gathered young professionals and older heads to found the top investment banking institution in Nigeria.
“I was also lucky in another area – the minimum capital requirement to start an investment bank at the time was quite low. It was therefore within my capacity as I was able to muster some savings, own about 20 percent of the bank and invite others to own the rest of it. I saw a window and I didn’t know how long it would remain open for – I had to grab the opportunity while it existed. Also, when I began, the requirement was a minimum of 10 years’ experience. Several years later, the requirement became 20 years’ experience. Today, it has become 15 years. So, there was an element of good fortune in my case,” says Peterside.
Through it all, a sprinkle of luck and a mean hand played by Peterside won through. This was pure Peterside, a calculating player, who split his life into three segments.
“The first 25 years for me, was to get educated, the next 25 was to be productive, gain financial independence and be well invested. The next stage is to start investing my energy into giving back to society, see how to improve the country – I have that time now.”
It is a belief born in childhood, he says. Peterside grew up, one of three children, in Lagos and Port Harcourt, Nigeria. He recalls a strong parental influence.
“I think I almost grew up with the message that: Yes, you must do well and be successful but that also came with a contract that says if you achieve all of this, promise to devote some of your time to the greater good of society. So, I’ve always taken this to be a duty.”
One of Peterside’s big duties, right now, is overseeing the privatization of Nigeria’s parlous power generation. The country has a mere few thousand megawatts to share between more than 160 million people. He is the chairman of the technical committee of the Nigerian Council on Privatisation. With the privatization of the Nigerian power sector being one of the biggest issues on the continent, Peterside and his team have their work cut out.
“One thing we must remember is that Nigeria’s power sector was neglected for decades in terms of the priority given to it by government. We were at rock bottom. A number of us believed that the way forward was to launch a power sector reform program that was driven at the heart by privatization. We did all that and actually went out to advertise transparently, got prospective asset owners to compete transparently and it is fair to say that the entire transaction was hitch-free,” he says.
“If we had made a decision to sell the entire power sector to one individual, I’m very sure there would have been no takers. The activity is just too complex, not to mention the staggering financial requirement.”
Many Nigerians expect the lights to switch on overnight. Peterside warns that is not going to happen and there are also issues around the reform of gas supply. Most of the country’s power generation relies on gas, which suffers from unreliable supply.
“People also have a right to be angry, however, and they have a right to demand accountability but it will not happen overnight. We should expect to start seeing improvements within six to 12 months and, for as long as these improvements continue, then we are getting somewhere,” he says.
Peterside says he is now semi-retired and has closed the CEO chapter in favor of striking out on a new path. Seven years ago, he founded the ANAP foundation.  The foundation name, also his nickname, is based on the initials for Atedo Nari Atowari Peterside. It is a non-profit organization fostering good governance.
“I’m convinced that my purpose is to be able to influence those in political office in the right direction and I think that’s a full time job on its own. I believe this is something I can do effectively too,” he says.
“I have no interest in holding political office itself – I don’t think that was ever my purpose. I’m more gifted with being able to influence their decisions in moving the country forward. My focus is on projects that will bring good to the greater society and not individuals – we are trying to impact lives.”
Apart from banking, Peterside has invested in aviation and property.
He is inspired by people like Milton Friedman, the Nobel Prize winning economist and prophet of the free market, Lee Kuan Yew, the former Prime Minister of Singapore and Jack Welch, the former CEO of General Electric.
With a good polo pony collection, ranch and boat,  Peterside enjoys himself and time with a close knit family. On the future of Nigerian financial institutions, Peterside is optimistic.
“We must remember that the Nigerian banking sector was dominated by Nigerian institutions. It was important to allow Nigerians to form banks if one wanted the sector to develop. Stopping people from trying was going to be counter-productive and Nigeria was right for allowing some of us to give it a try,” says Peterside.
“When there is a lot of stumbling and falling however, it is also right to take them out – there should be no room for sentiment. It is dangerous to allow failing institutions to remain in business in finance and banking. Ultimately, we are well on our way to having a mature banking industry and the only way we can get there is by making and learning from our mistakes.”
Peterside believes all entrepreneurs should surround themselves with good people. Good staff, good board members and good business partners.
“I always remind people that everyone does not have a divine right to get to the top. By definition, only a handful will get there. When you forget that you are likely to fail through a combination of arrogance, lack of humility and/or poor homework,” he says on why some entrepreneurs fail.
As Nigerian banks move forward in the 21st century, they should tip their hats to the maverick who is rarely seen without his.

Why Entrepreneurs Fail

Nobody knew how to say Zarah Razafimahatratra’s surname when she was crowned Africa’s junior tennis champion in Lagos, Nigeria, in 2010. All they did know was that the young girl from Madagascar, who was a little over 15 years old and brimming with confidence, could become a star.
She had a solid backhand and controlled the baseline with ease, skills she learnt in South Africa, where she was a student at a Pretoria academy backed by the International Tennis Federation (ITF). Razafimahatratra describes her journey to victory as a “great adventure”, but admits that the excitement quickly gave way to real concerns.
Razafimahatratra’s form was improving to the point where she wanted to start playing in the junior events at grand slams. “I should be playing the Australian Open but for financial reasons, I cannot,” she said at the time of her junior title win.
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“To progress, I have to spend a lot of money, and this is what I currently lack. I’ve already improved by playing regularly in Africa. I made an effort to be at the top of Africa and now that I have, I need to play a lot more tournaments.”
Without sponsorship, global travel was difficult and Razafimahatratra found, like many other players from Africa, that the year’s first major event could not feature on her calendar.
Later that year, Razafimahatratra secured a small amount of corporate backing when motor vehicle company Materauto Ford in Madagascar decided to back her. It was too late to head to Australia, but she used the money to concentrate on making a name for herself.
In 2012, Razafimahatratra played two Grade 1 tournaments in South America and a full season of junior clay court tennis in Europe. She found the competition much tougher, losing in the first round in both Costa Rica and in Venezuela, but managing to reach the quarterfinals on clay. That was when she decided to turn professional and start playing with the big girls on the ITF circuit.
Razafimahatratra’s first outing was back in Nigeria. If she won the tournament, she would take home $25,000 in prize money, with the knowledge that she would have to be the best player on the court in order to pay for her career. Razafimahatratra knew she had to up her game.
She struggled initially, losing in the early stages of competitions, but by the end of the year, the Malagasy player was crowned champion in both the singles and doubles events in Potchefstroom, South Africa. She started 2013 with two victories in doubles tournaments in Egypt.
At 19, Razafimahatratra is her country’s top tennis player. She has handed Madagascar its first Fed Cup – a team event that is the female version of the Davis Cup – victory in a decade. However, money is still the biggest obstacle to her continued success.
Razafimahatratra is not alone. Across the continent, tennis players rely on slim pickings, even though the ITF runs three centers of development. The academies, in Morocco, South Africa and the most recent addition in Burundi, create a home for the sport in the north, south and east of the continent.
West Africa used to have a base in Dakar, Senegal, but the facility has lost its ITF status. It continues to ope-rate as a national centre of development, and with similar operations in Mali and Togo, that part of the continent is not entirely out in the cold when it comes to tennis.
Talented African players are awarded scholarships from the ITF, which allow them to spend up to a month at any of these centers. If they are deemed superstars in the making, they may be invited to spend longer periods at the academies, honing their skills. But the ITF has repeatedly exp-lained that the financial assistance it provides is insufficient.
“We would love to see the governments being more committed to developing the game,” Frank Courard of the ITF’s development projects told CNN when Burundi’s facility was opened. “If you look at our budget of $4.3 million each year, it’s what FIFA gives to maybe one or two nations. There’s a huge discrepancy.”
Football and athletics remain the most popular sports in Africa and one of the reasons is because the continent consistently produces heroes in those sports. Tennis role models are few and far between. Courard says the last one was probably Yannick Noah, the Frenchman of Cameroonian descent who began playing tennis in Africa and won the French Open in 1983.
“When he won, in Cameroon, kids identified (with him) and wanted to play tennis because they saw Yannick winning,” Courard recalls.
Currently, Burundi’s Hassan Ndayishimiye leads the stakes in the men’s game. He became the first Burundian to play at Wimbledon. He was ranked 112th on the junior table when he was given a wild card entry to the qualifying draw. Not only did he make it into the main section of the tournament, but he went on to play in the second round, an achievement he described as one of the best moments in his life.
“It was amazing. It was when I realized that this kid from Burundi can change the tennis world, he can make it. He can go where no Burundian has ever been – and no one has even heard of Burundi,” he said at the time.
Similarly, very few in the tennis world associate Madagascar with the game, and even fewer have heard of Razafimahatratra. Malagasy authorities would do well to heed the young woman’s call for support. The last tennis player from Madagascar to progress internationally was Dally Randriantefy, who reached a career high of 44 on the Women’s Tennis Association rankings. She “fought alone without the help of the state and finally decided to stop” in 2006.
Razafimahatratra has no intention of quitting but her country has already come close to losing her.
“I was asked by Egyptian coaches and South Africans to change nationalities but I have said no. I am proud of my country. I’ve given a lot to Madagascar and I still hope for some recognition,” she explains.
She may get that recognition if she makes it to an event such as the Australian Open. She will not be the first Malagasy to play there; Randriantefy participated in the tournament and retired in 2006 after losing in the first round. But Razafimahatratra could become the first African woman in a long time to do something special in a grand slam.
South Africa’s Chanelle Scheepers was the only representative from Africa at the 2011 Australian Open, and since then, Zimbabwe’s Cara Black has played in doubles events at the Rod Laver Arena. No other African woman has made it, but the next one could well be Razafimahatratra. The commentators had better start learning how to pronounce her name.

Owning the backHAND

It’s been just over a year since I packed up my life in South Africa to return to the country of my birth. As the plane hit the tarmac at the Murtala Mohammed Airport in Lagos, I knew I was back. The humid heat of the city welcomed me home with a slap, as did my struggle through immigration and my search for a cell phone signal so I could find my driver amid the multitude.
In the two hours home on the gridlocked highway, where I luckily managed to grab my dinner from the hawkers, a mild trepidation slowly sank in. This was it; I was home and needed some sort of returnee boot camp.
If you think this is one of those pieces where a Nigerian returnee whines about the ills of the country, think again. Yes, Lagos is traffic-plagued, crowded, highly polluted and will probably have even the bald and patient pulling their hair out as they wait for business meetings, but I love this city. Lagos is a place with rare energy, where each day injects a fierce lucidity that recharges the soul. In this column I want to give you a feel of this buzz, this electricity; a tapestry of arts and soul. I want to lead you through the best nightspots in Africa. From the sweet sounds of highlife music, jazz saxophones and art galleries that tell a tale like no other; to beer parlours with the best pepper soup in the world. From the lavish lives of the high and mighty to the infectious drive of the street vendor.
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On Monday morning in Lagos, the streets swarm with white-collared young, energetic executives, suited up in the heat, tablet in hand, rushing from meeting to meeting. Boardrooms brim with the pulse of change in this land of opportunities.
Patches of mustard-yellow are spattered across the city centre as commercial buses and taxis honk  fiercely at each other, competing for a place on the road with the ‘tut-tut’ BRT buses and private cars, while the market slowly comes to life with stores laying their wares out for a beehive of new customers on the roadside. This day, is not any less important and eventful than the next few.
On Friday evening, men in tailored traditional outfits hunch over bars at the best spots around the city, while half empty bottles of cognac and champagne loll on the table amid boisterous baritone cheers and pulsing Nigerian tunes. This is where the real business deals begin.
Across the road at a posh lounge, ladies with their fancy hairstyles, all with Ankara skirts and designer handbags, cocktail in the right hand, blackberry in the other, plot their next move. The night is still young and promising–for both for the ladies and the bartenders.
A few hours later, as the rich and famous crawl out of the busiest night clubs into the hazy light where their newest Range Rovers sit, there are chewing gum hawkers and parking attendants asking, with their best smiles beaming, “Oga/madame, anything for us?” Have I mentioned opportunities enough in this piece?
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Wedding convoys trail across the city incessantly on a Saturday morning. Lagos is a wedding planner’s Utopia as no weekend goes by in this city without a few nuptials, each one grander than the other. Women are geared up in their towering headties, men in their best kaftans, agbadas and caps, while live bands perform as celebrants and friends are sprayed with cold-hard cash on the dancefloor. From  morning till dusk, it is nothing but a fancy affair. Multimillion-dollar yachts and motorboats tear up and down the creek between the main Lagos islands as the quieter gentlemen come out to play with their toys. They are on their way to private beach-houses on a Sunday afternoon, because they can. Tomorrow is Monday and we have to play before then.
Whichever way you look at it, Lagos is a layered, bitter-sweet dish of rich culture, tastefully infused with a hint of class and laced with plenty of grit for texture.
This is Lagos, my Lagos.

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Working Hard Playing Harder

When she speaks, heads turn and minds change. The entrepreneur from Senegal is on an untiring mission, advocating her own brand of Afro capitalism. She turned an age-old African drink into a fashion accessory and raised millions. In 2013, Magatte Wade is back with another idea to tap into her African roots.
Every year, Wade speaks at more than 20 conferences across Africa. Her message is proving to be a popular turn in a business world hungry for hope. It rarely fails to disappoint those expecting a feisty African woman with a reluctance to mince words.
“You can’t just say it sucks and leave it,” says Wade of the continent’s shortcomings, at the Women of West Africa entrepreneurship conference, in Lagos in June.
“If you can’t do business in your country, leave and go to Rwanda!”
When one delegate complains that banks do not want to lend to start-up companies, Wade shoots back across the hall.
“Banks never want to fund start-ups, get over it. What about the money we, women, spend on weddings, millions ever year. Why can’t we put that money to better use in business?”
Wade, educated in Germany and France, has a good line in homespun homilies mixed with common sense in bite-sized pieces, in an accent that swings between New York, Paris and Dakar. Her critics could say she was glib, but that could be too dismissive of a 37-year-old woman, who has made a lot of money and noise. Whatever people say, Wade certainly holds a room with her strident free-market evangelism.
“I ran into a guy from Kenya the other day, who said his friend had quit her job as a banker to open her own hair salon, after hearing me speak in Nairobi. She is now securing private equity funding and has opened her two hundredth salon,” says Wade.
Wade, in the midst of a tiring day, tells FORBES AFRICA her story in the middle of a lounge in a plush Lagos hotel.
It all began at her grandmother’s knee. Wade grew up in rural Senegal, where her grandmother grew vegetables to sell at the market.
“She simply told me that no one could be better than me,” says Wade.
“Her influence was more important than anything else, it helped me become an entrepreneur. That is why I turned down business degrees at Harvard and Stanford, because they would have ruined me as an entrepreneur. These courses teach you to be a good manager, but not an entrepreneur.”
Wade proved herself early in life—she introduced the world to an age-old Senegalese drink made from the hibiscus flower. At the time, the drink was losing out to canned drinks and was dwindling in Senegal.
“All I care about is that now, in Senegal, people are beginning to understand the value of hibiscus. When I started that company, people laughed at me. It was cruel, really, but they laughed and said, ‘Oh, Magatte, after all your fancy education, you’re now going to make flower drinks,’” she says.
“Africans have a bad attitude towards indigenous resources and products… We have a tendency to believe that anything indigenous to us is not good enough and can’t wait to get rid of it, and that’s how they die off.”
The hibiscus drink was called Adina, which means “life” in Wade’s mother tongue. The slogan “drink no evil” helped it take off and the business accumulated $30 million in capital. It saw the shipping of mountains of hibiscus flowers across the Atlantic to factories in the States. It revived the hibiscus growing business in Senegal, attracted investment from Pepsi and made Wade a fortune.
In 2009, Wade left the company when she believed the venture capitalists were taking the brand in a direction that did not represent her. She formed a new company, Tiossan, which she hopes will do the same for the ethnic beauty products of Senegal that Adina did for the country’s hibiscus drink.
“I’m convinced that if people, like me, don’t do what I do, a generation from now, they will disappear because everyone is busy buying western brands at elite level, and at bottom level, buying knock off products from China. Africans don’t believe in the traditional stuff and indigenous knowledge is dying off,” she says.
This time, once bitten, twice shy, Wade wants to stay in control and has fended off investors. Either way, she accepts that business in Africa is not for sissies.
“I also really try to focus on people who have the right mind-set too. There’s a lot of laziness in the system right now but when you find like-minded people, who are not willing to take any shortcuts, I find those people, rally them towards me and I hope that together, we can begin to form a new metric,” says Wade.
For all of her fire, there is a fragile side to Wade. Tears roll down her face as she talks of times of frustration in Senegal.
“I went to the ports, when I started my company, and I saw the customs guys. I said to them: ‘I’m here—I’m a child of Senegal just like you are. I have all my diplomas and more passports than you can imagine. I don’t have to be here if I don’t want to. But, I have nowhere else to go because this is where I came from and I cannot live happily elsewhere, if this place doesn’t get better—I have tried it. At 25 years old, I bought my first home in Silicon Valley, where I was making tons of money, but how could I live that way when there is so much misery back home? I have nowhere to go, this is the only place I have, so let’s make it right but I cannot do it without you,’” she says.
“I would rather die than not have my dignity. People get so excited about money and material things but I couldn’t really care less.”
Money, business, Africa, women and dignity—Wade’s head is full and her legs are on the march. Whatever she says next is likely to be interesting and could change your life.

Young, Gifted  And Firing Back

It is a hot day in Lagos when we talk and yet you can feel the chill when Eryca Freemantle tells you of her worst day that left her body crushed and mind shattered. It was very cold on that day; December 14, 1990, in Brixton, London. A raw wind gnawed into Freemantle’s cheek as she tried to keep warm at the pay window of a busy petrol station. She knew how cold the streets of the capital could be as she was born in London of parents who emigrated from Jamaica in the 1950s.
“I was putting petrol in my car. I walked over to the kiosk to pay for the petrol and a lady came in with a Volvo Estate car and instead of putting her foot on the brake, she put her foot on the accelerator and made me into a human sandwich between the kiosk and her car,” says Freemantle.
“The glass from the kiosk shattered across my face. My body went into shock, my hair fell out there and then and my left leg was broken in five places.”
By cruel, or as it turned out, fortuitous coincidence, Freemantle’s father was near where his daughter lay in agony.
“My dad happened to be across the road in the pub, the Angel in Brixton, having a pint and he came out because there was a crowd around me. Someone had said to him: ‘A woman has just got run over at the petrol station. He had turned around to say: ‘Stupid. How can anyone get run over at a petrol station?’ At the same time, his left leg started twitching, he told me later.”
When the cold realization set in, Freemantle senior was beside himself with grief.
“He went over to have a look and saw me lying on the ground. He went into shock and started screaming. Everyone kept on saying ‘She’s dead, she’s dead!’ And he said: ‘God, why have you taken my only daughter?’ and in my semiconscious state, I could hear him. My father and I were very close and I remember thinking I don’t want to upset daddy, I have to get through this.”
Within minutes the ambulance came to take Freemantle away.
“My hair was on the ground and my dad had picked it up and put it in his pocket. He followed the ambulance to the hospital in my car. I was taken to the King’s College Hospital in South London, where they informed my mother. She was told they’d have to amputate my left leg. My dad said: ‘No way, before you amputate her leg, you will have to cut mine off.”
Freemantle spent months in hospital, luckily the surgeons did not amputate and she was left to heal. On release, she underwent physiotherapy every day for two years as she learned to walk again.
“I was also told I would also have a crooked walk,” she says.
Doctors told Freemantle her hair would never grow back again. For a while, the scars meant she had to cover her face. It was then that the demons of her traumatic childhood, at a tough London school, crawled from her subconscious and bared their teeth.
“I had been called ugly while I was at school and had always been teased about my looks. So, when this accident happened to me later, I took that as confirmation of all the things I had been called by the bullies at school,” she says.
Freemantle’s parents could not get her out of the house for nearly two years. Her scars held her prisoner.
“Now, this was the early 1990s, when there was no make-up for women of color and what was available was Derma-blend. I however went out and got some mud which I mixed with some water and put all over my face to cover my scars—that was my first ever encounter with make-up. Of course, that only lasts for so long but that gave me a bit of confidence, even if it was only for five minutes,” she says.
“My parents noticed  my new interest and thought it might be a good idea to send me to a make-up school, which was an idea that was frowned upon back then, in the West Indian culture, as you’d rather become a doctor or an accountant.”
Freemantle went to college to learn the trade and passed with distinction. She completed teachers’ training and the next thing she knew she was writing make-up classes for London College of Fashion. Her courses were endorsed by the British Association of Beauty Therapy and Cosmetology.
One day, the newly qualified Freemantle was invited by a friend, who was a model, on one of her photo shoots.
“When I got there, I immediately knew I could do a better job than the person who was working on her. I ended up doing her make-up and there was someone there from Island Records, who engaged me on the strength of my work at the shoot. Before I knew it, in a week’s time, I was doing celebrity make-up for names like Seal and Soul to Soul, Loose Ends. Whitney Houston would come into London a lot and I assisted her make-up artist,” says Freemantle.
“Seal was lovely, he used to wear his hair on his face because he used to have locks. He’s a very intelligent man, who was ahead of his time. I understood why they asked me to do his make-up, as he also had some scarring on his face.”
A pharmaceutical company, which had heard Freemantle’s story, approached her to create a make-up range. She said she would get involved only if it was a range for women of color. That is how Keromask was born.
Nearly a quarter of a century after the crushing accident that changed her life, Freemantle is in Lagos setting her sights on the world’s great emerging markets in Africa.
“There are many brands that are afraid to enter the market as they don’t know anyone on the ground… Africa is huge and many brands are looking to come in here presently. I see the biggest markets for make-up in Nigeria, Kenya and South Africa,” she says.
“Training is the way forward. In Lagos there are 500,000 make-up artists. A high proportion of them are not trained or are self- trained. So, there is scope for certification and international recognition.”
Anyone with the courage to claw their way back from being a shattered heap on the cold stone floor of a London petrol station is surely worth listening to.

Bloodied, Scarred And Unbowed

It’s 10AM on a Thursday on Victoria Island, Lagos; the pulse of the Nigerian financial world is racing. Blue-chip boardrooms buzz; so does the traffic. I’ve eased my way to the serene offices of a man who surveys it all from the 12th floor.
The view is framed by the Atlantic Ocean to the south and some of Nigeria’s richest buildings to the north. From his vantage point, Jim Ovia can pick out the twin pillars of his success. Across the city is the unmistakable red of Zenith Bank, where he made most of his $825-million fortune. Company insiders say that his wealth is nearer $1 billion after a string of lucrative deals this year. Also on the Lagos horizon are Visafone billboards, his telecommunications business and moneymaker, with a current subscriber base of  around 2.3 million.
Inside the huge office are shelves of plaques, awards and photographs of Ovia with Bill Clinton, Arnold Schwarzenegger and Goodluck Jonathan, alongside pieces of literature and art.
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Dressed in a well-cut suit, he greets me like an old friend. They call him ‘the godfather of Nigerian banking’ and in many ways, he is. Banking is where he began life as a clerk; it was also the vehicle that carried him to his fortune. He created West Africa’s largest financial services provider, according to market capitalization and assets.
Ovia transformed Zenith from a small commercial bank into a financial services conglomerate, with operations in private and retail banking and investments around the world. After nearly two decades at the helm he stepped down, but he remains its largest individual shareholder with a 15% stake in the company.
“When we started Zenith in 1990, it was extremely difficult as the necessary resources and infrastructure to do business, particularly banking, were not in place. There were no ATMs, no mobile phones and ICT was a rarely known concept in the business space,” he says.
“When, in 1990, banking licenses were being issued, indigenous private individuals were being offered the opportunity to set up financial institutions. Prior to that, you either needed to be a foreign global financial institution, or a federal or state government institution, to own or set up a bank in Nigeria. Businesses and entrepreneurs could not possibly get these licenses because of the prerequisites attached. It was perceived then, that Nigeria did not have the technical expertise to run or manage banks.”
A surge of liberalization soon changed this. On May 30, 1990, doors were opened for Ovia and 119 other hopefuls, who received their bank licenses. It was a long-awaited breakthrough. Ovia and his team got down to work quickly. They commenced operations on July 16 for what proved to be a rocky beginning, with technology very thin on the ground.
Improvisation was the way forward. Ovia had to be creative with the sparse telecommunications and financial services on offer. In time, with the help of improved infrastructure, the bank found its feet.
Ovia saw a silver lining, then noticed the cloud. The introduction of ATMs to Nigeria was not an easy one. It proved difficult to win over people who had grown up with counters and rubber stamps. People worried about fraud and it also took time and feasibility studies to decide where to place the ATMs. Ovia and his team persevered and Zenith blossomed.
Banking isn’t Ovia’s only game. He also owns an expansive real estate portfolio with landmark commercial and residential properties. These include the Civic Centre  and an exclusive boat club, Aquamarine in Lagos, where Africa’s richest man, Aliko Dangote, is a member. Ovia is known to have a weakness for expensive boats.
It is his infectious entrepreneurial passion that paid for this lifestyle.
“Your passions are always in sync with opportunities. You’re naturally able to identify them and respond to them as they materialize because of the passion you have for them,” he says.
It is an intuition that has driven Ovia through life as an entrepreneur. Choices came early for the young Ovia, who grew up one of many children in a large family in Akbor in Nigeria’s Delta State. As a young man, Ovia pondered what to study. He was encouraged by his uncles, who had run successful businesses, to pursue a qualification in business administration. To this day, for most Nigerian families, business administration, alongside medicine, law, accounting and engineering are the keys to success. Ovia went for it and enrolled for a degree in business administration at Southern University, Louisiana, in the States.
“It so happened that halfway through my studies, my keen interest in computer science and information technology was heightened… I couldn’t help it and decided to incorporate computer science into my program. One of my uncles advised me against this, as he reckoned that it was an immature industry at that point. Business administration was the way forward,” he says.
Ovia carried on regardless of avuncular warnings.
“Like any young man, I was full of hopes… [there were] tremendous opportunities in the future. It wasn’t so much what you studied but what you did with the knowledge that mattered.”
Ovia earned an MBA from the University of Louisiana, after which he returned to Nigeria to do his National Youth Service Corps, where he worked with one of the government-owned banks. He secured a job with First National Bank of Chicago—then International Merchant Bank—in Lagos, where he was trained as a financial analyst. This was just one of many strings to Ovia’s bow.
“I’ve worked as everything, from a junior clerical officer in a bank to a middle management trainee. I really did work my way up the ladder. I had enjoyed banking as a profession right from the onset and because of the passion I had for it, it became a place that I went to be happy. I worked 16 hours a day and I enjoyed every minute of it,” he says.
Many years later, Ovia knew the business inside-out and nurtured his brainchild, Zenith Bank, to rude health. ICT was the next fertile field.
“The way I see it, all are seamlessly interwoven. You can’t do telecommunications without combining information and vice versa. As part of my interwoven passions, it became my immediate desire, and the next level of evolution for me was the establishment of a mobile phone company,” he says.
Ovia was one of the early players in the internet space and established a company called Cyberspace in 1995, when the internet was almost unheard of in Nigeria.
“We were the pioneering set of internet service providers in the country and it was very challenging back then because there were no submarine fiber optic cables to give us the bandwidth and speed we needed to download data. We then had to rely on satellite dishes that would provide this speed to log into any portal out of the country,” he says.
As the private sector fought steadily for its place, the government kept a firm grasp on major sectors, especially telecommunications. Nigerian Telecommunications (NITEL) enjoyed a monopoly.
“It had the density of only about 0.04 percent, which equated to about 250 entities and homes sharing a telephone line. There were hardly 450,000 existing lines for an entire population of about 120 million Nigerians then. Today, we have about three other submarine cables that enable high-speed broadband technology internet services in the country.”
Ovia’s telecommunications company, Visafone, was another testament to his faith in timing and instinct. The Nigerian government, after an apparent communications epiphany, decided to license the Global System for Communications (GSM) services to a few bidders. Ovia didn’t participate in this auction—an opportunity every bidder couldn’t afford to miss back then.
“All my attention was focused on building a strong financial institution at that point, I couldn’t afford to be distracted and the timing was unfortunately not good for me. Failure is an opportunity to learn&#8230; You can only succeed when you fail, get up and then run again. I was determined to keep running.”
Ovia’s philosophy on setbacks was useful when a new directive from the Central Bank of Nigeria, on the tenure of bank CEOs, forced him to step down from an organization he had built from scratch.
“I immediately took it in my stride and couldn’t find any reason for resistance… I’m in fact glad that decision was made, because it also opened up tremendous opportunities for me and this allowed me to move on to accomplish new things I wouldn’t have had the time for.”
With this philosophy in mind, Ovia started anew. Along one of the major roads in Victoria Island, Ozumba Mbadiwe, is the waterfront, which used to be refuse dump. A drive along this road saw the genesis of Ovia’s real estate empire.
“I saw an opportunity on this refuse dump and decided to transform it into something else. The result of this foresight is the famous Lagos Civic Centre—a masterpiece event venue on the waterfront. This development immediately opened up other opportunities,” says Ovia.
Lagos, a metropolitan mega-city with a population of around 21 million, scores poorly when it comes to hotel rooms per head. Ovia saw the gap. As the result of a multi million dollar deal, the Lagos Marriott Hotel is set to open in December next year.
“This is one of the ways to create an enabling environment for the future of tourism in Nigeria,” says Ovia.
Philanthropy is equally important to him. He has embarked on the establishment of a free, co-educational high school, James Hope College, in Delta State, the place where he pondered his future as a young man. The school, an 18-month project, launches in September with an initial capacity for 420 students. He is also the founder of Mankind United To Support Total Education (MUSTE), an organization providing scholarships for the underprivileged.
“This will provide an opportunity for our future leaders. It is a mission I’m thrilled to drive, as it is a great investment in the future of my country. The first thing you learn in business is to make profit. However, how you choose to spend the profits is just as important. Philanthropy is important to me as I derive more joy from spending mine this way. You need to give back, reach out to the larger society and less privileged,” he says.
In the past year, Ovia gave $6.3 million to help the rehabilitation of flood victims across Nigeria. He also runs a non-governmental organization for young Nigerians that drives social change through information and communications technologies. Ovia is a father of five and a family man.
“Family is very important and I derive tremendous joy from being with [them]. I’ve always been family-focused. My father had three wives and I have almost a dozen siblings but we’ve always been very close-knit,” he says.
While he is revered by many, Ovia has also been influenced by a few. One of his inspirations is Akintola Williams, the first African to qualify as a chartered accountant, whose firm, Akintola Williams &amp; Co., was founded in 1952. The company merged with two other accounting firms to create Akintola Williams Deloitte, the largest professional services firm in Nigeria today—a position it has held since 2004.
“This 94-year-old man is someone that I have so much respect and gratitude for. He inspired me very greatly, because he’s a man of honor, integrity and an unbelievable level of discipline,” says Ovia.
Ovia learned from many to become the fourth richest man in Nigeria and the 19th richest in Africa. I ask him about his fortune but he becomes reticent.
“Wealth means nothing to me—it’s what you do with it that is truly important. Yes, I am blessed but there is really nothing special about me. I’m just a regular guy who has a hunch for identifying opportunities and taking advantage of them.”
He says that he achieved his success by remaining truthful to every partner and stakeholder.
“Honesty and integrity are key. Always honor contracts. That speaks volumes. It’s very important to be of tremendous integrity. There are really no shortcuts. Those who try to take shortcuts will always fail,” he says.
When it comes to Nigeria and its entrepreneurs, Ovia is fulsome, believing that with improving infrastructure and the privatization of the power sector, the country is a breeding ground for entrepreneurial spirit.
“Nigeria will be a gold mine in the next few years… Every day, international airlines are fully-booked to come to Nigeria and the only reason they do this is because the return on investment here is one of the highest in the world. I’m very proud to be a Nigerian because this country gives… tremendous opportunity to blossom,” he says.
Nigeria is a country that rewards hard work and Ovia says that some foreign investors misunderstand the terrain. The solution, he says, is understanding that while the work is tough, it is very rewarding.
Zenith has seen the fruits of this kind of hard work. This was reflected in the 2012 financial year, as it achieved $634 million profit after tax, according to reports released by the Nigerian Stock Exchange (NSE) a grand feat that not only saw it become the first bank to cross the 100 billion naira mark within a financial year, but also reflected an impressive 106.7% growth on the $303.2 million profit after tax recorded for the 2011 financial year.
Zenith is now Nigeria’s largest bank. It recently listed $850-million worth of shares on the London Stock Exchange at $6.80 a share, to improve its liquidity through Global Depository Receipts (GDR). It has a current market capitalization of around $4 billion, according to the NSE.
In recognition of his accomplishments in the banking sector, Ovia was conferred with the national award of the Commander of the Order of the Niger (CON) in November 2011.
From these achievements, it may seem to many that Ovia has reached his zenith with a sharp mind that once saw value in a refuse dump.

The Godfather of Nigerian Banking

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Tayo Oviosu is a trained engineer with a penchant for venture capital and private equity. His journey to spearhead Nigeria’s first mobile money company and foremost mobile money transfer service has been long and winding.
Oviosu was born and raised in Lagos, then moved to the States in 1994, aged 16. He earned an electrical engineering degree from the University of Southern California. Later, he began with a couple of start-ups where his entrepreneurial spirit was born. Regardless, he went to work for Deloitte Consulting where he led a number of system integration projects. The thirst in Tayo was far from quenched and stirred him to seek formal business knowledge at Stanford University, where he obtained his MBA.
While at Stanford , the thought of moving back to Nigeria drifted through Oviosu’s mind.
“Many people had warned me that Nigeria was still too much about who rather than what you knew,” he says.
This was a major deterrent for him and instead, he started thinking of what he wanted to do long-term.
“I concluded, I wanted to help build an ecosystem of early stage venture capital in Africa, help build entrepreneurs and see businesses come to life,” he says.
Oviosu thought of ways to marry his tech background with these lofty aspirations and this led to his next venture with one of Silicon Valley’s priced tech houses, Cisco Systems, where he helped develop strategies for businesses’ investments in Africa. This project brought him back to Africa. As an early stage venture capitalist, experiences with colleagues and business partners—while carrying out the project in South Africa—drew his entrepreneurial fantasies closer to Nigeria.
“I get a real kick out of bringing ideas to life,” he says.
In 2008, Oviosu took up the gauntlet and returned to Nigeria. Loaded with ideas, he joined Travant Capital Partners, a private equity firm, within which he executed investment strategy in West Africa and also spent time identifying opportunities within the Nigerian market.
A few months into his involvement with Travant, Oviosu knew the time was now.
“I was more convinced about Nigeria and the opportunities that are present in this country more than ever,” he says.
Of all these opportunities, one particular issue stood out for him—having to carry cash, to make payments and transactions, was rather frustrating. This led to the quick realization that there was very limited access to financial services in the country.
A huge number of Nigerians are unbanked, but an estimated 60 million of the country’s 160 million people, have mobile phones.
“This got me thinking—what if the phone became the primary means of electronic transactions,” he says.
That is where the mission to bank the unbanked, for profit, started.
Oviosu raised seed capital from friends and family, while he nursed the idea and hunted for the right people.
“Learning to navigate and operate in Nigeria is indeed, an art, one I’m still yet to master. However, if you’re passionate enough about a course, you will overcome any hurdles,” he says.
Oviosu’s passion did the trick and in 2009, Pagatech, the company that was to make his fortune, was born, a direct consumer mobile payment service. Its first product offering, Paga—a direct to customer mobile service—was launched in February 2011. The service allows users to send cash, pay bills and make payments using the cellphone or the internet.
“I’m extremely motivated about what I can see Paga doing for Nigeria and that inspires my team and I to overcome any frustration that may come along,” he says.
“When I’m not working or thinking Paga, I enjoy listening to good music and dancing away. I’d like to be remembered as a fun guy.”
With more than 200,000 transactions, since it launched, 153,342 users and $16 million in transaction volumes, Paga has taken off like a rocket and there seems to be no stopping Oviosu now.

I’ve Got Your Number

The hustle of the noisy, crowded, streets of Lagos is spawning a raw sound that is catching the ear of the world. They call it Nigerian urban music and it could be a gold mine.
Twenty million people-a-month, in 98 countries, tune into Nigerian urban music on YouTube and the numbers are rising rapidly.
“Nigerian urban contemporary music is about young, powerful, trendy, attitude-driven Africans who are not talking about poverty, exclusion or famine. They are saying we’re the new world, the new way, get in with it or forget it,” says Obi Asika, CEO of Storm Records—a leading entertainment company—who also sits on the board of COSON—Copyright Society of Nigeria.
<div id="attachment_1136" style="width: 211px" class="wp-caption alignleft"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-1136" class="wp-image-1136 size-medium" src="/wp-content/uploads/2017/04/MI_Bubbles-Magazine-201x300.jpg" alt="" width="201" height="300" />M.I</div>
Nigeria is in a prime position to take advantage of this music. It has some of the finest recording studio technology in Africa and a thriving home market on which to test new sounds. The only problem is corruption and rampant music piracy, which threatens the growth of this vibrant Nigerian music.
Asika says the deterrents to growth are regulation, copyright and piracy issues, which leave artists with a lack of income from record sales.
“It is a constant battle but we are making a lot of progress,” he says.
“If you give Nigeria the same resources the Americans have, we will have full domination of the entertainment scene. This is a fact because they don’t have the story. We have a unique story, a unique culture, a unique urban identity and it is in high demand.”
One of the problems is the average Nigerian musician’s recordings can be bought at the side of the road in Lagos traffic, for a pittance. It means concerts and live shows are the moneymakers.
<div id="attachment_1137" style="width: 194px" class="wp-caption alignleft"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-1137" class="wp-image-1137 size-medium" src="/wp-content/uploads/2017/04/Tu-Face_Now-Musik-184x300.jpg" alt="" width="184" height="300" />Tu Face</div>
For this reason, the United Sounds of Africa—a music project taking African talent on a seven city tour of North America—was created. On tour will be: Tuface; M.I; Jesse Jagz; Ice Prince; Brymo; Timi Dakolo and J.Martins. They will play in Atlanta; Houston; Washington; New York; Los Angeles; Chicago and Toronto.

Twenty Million People Can’t Be Wrong

Christopher Okocha, or Chris, as he was referred to, was one of the passengers on the ill-fated airline that carried 146 passengers and a crew of seven from the Nnamdi Azikiwe airport in Abuja, Nigeria’s  capital, to the Murtala Muhammed Airport in the commercial hub of Lagos. He was one of the many Nigerians who constitute the nucleus of the country, who through their daily motions, are pivotal to the overall development of this giant of Africa. A young and visionary man, he had been married for about two years to the love of his life, during which time he became a father to his daughter. Chris’ life is a sad example of the misfortune that befell several families, as many like his small child lost fathers, while others like his young wife have become widows. The devastating crash wiped out whole families who were on board the airline, while children were left orphaned. The families of the victims have all experienced an irreparable loss; they are left bereaved and despondent, left alone with memories of their kin that do little to soothe the pain.
In the hours after the crash, a pervasive cloud of gloom hung over the country that had been weary from similar incidents that occurred in the past. Nigeria is no stranger to airline crashes. Its unenviable record of 10 air crashes in the last 20 years means that it has had an average of one fatal crash in every other year since 1992. A particularly disastrous spell in the 12 months between October 2005 and October 2006, saw three commercial airlines—each carrying a substantial number of passengers—meet a similar fate. After six years of relative safety, Nigerians bore a palpable sense of relief and cautious optimism at the changing fortune of the country with regard to airplane crashes. Many believe these incidents had become a thing of the past, but the crash of Dana Air flight 0092 represents a calamitous setback, which due to the scale, is a visible scar that has blighted the consciousness of the nation. Among the passengers on the flight was the group general manager of public affairs for the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC), Levi Ajuonuma, a respected journalist who was chief spokesman of the state owned oil corporation for nine years. Likewise, Ehime Aikhomu, the son of a former vice president who held office under the military in the 90s, also lost his life in the incident.
The airline involved, Dana Air, is a subsidiary of Dana Group of companies, which is owned by the Hathiramani family. The family has lived in Nigeria for over four decades, they control a number of subsidiaries that play in the automobile, consumer goods, pharmaceutical and aviation industries. The airline has been operational since 2008, with a fleet of five planes that fly across various regions of the country. The aircraft involved in the crash was a McDonnell Douglas MD-83 which was commissioned in 1990, when it was bought by its previous owners, American Alaska Airlines. The plane was reported to have had a history of incidents including a wiring incident that caused smoke to fill the cabin in 2002, while it was being used by Alaska Airlines. Dana Airlines is reported to have bought the plane in 2008.
As a result of this airplane crash, Nigeria’s aviation authorities are now faced with the enormous task of restoring the shattered confidence of the public in the aviation sector. This is despite comments by both local and international regulatory agencies in the aftermath of the crash that significant improvements have been made in the country’s aviation sector in terms of adherence to safety procedures and international standards. In 2006, the industry regulators issued a recapitalization order to airline operators. This led to a significant reduction in the number of carriers with only eight able to meet the new requirements. Since then, the carriers had operated remarkably well, with no major incidents recorded. But notwithstanding, some experts had indicated that airline maintenance and overall safety practises in the industry were not what they should be. On the evidence of the recent crash, it appears that they have been proven right. Dana is now liable to pay compensation worth over $15 million to families of the crash victims, in line with global practices and rates for airline passenger insurance. It is reported that about 70% of the insurance risk was retained with foreign-based insurance companies; therefore the local companies will avoid taking a massive hit from the claims. Thus, for both the aviation authorities and the airlines, the long and arduous task of addressing the challenges in the sector has just begun.

TRAGEDY ON A SUNDAY

Ganiyu “Tarzan” Balogun, managing director of Tarzan Marine Enterprises in Lagos, Nigeria, is not a poker player and he’s never taken big business risks. His success story is riddled with serendipity so that he now owns one of the oldest boat companies in Lagos. Tarzan was born in 1943 and spent most of his early childhood in Tarkwa Bay, close to Victoria Island. As a boy, he took a 15-minute boat trip to and from school. After completing his studies, he worked for the African Insurance Brokers Company (AIBC) as a driver. His father, then an engineer for the Nigerian army, was unhappy with Tarzan’s career choice and forbade him to continue working as a driver. It took an AIBC senior management official to convince the old man that it was in his son’s interests to work for them. Nine months later, AIBC bought Tarzan a boat.
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Soon after acquiring the boat, Tarzan began ferrying passengers. He soon realized there was good money to be made from the waterways. A cargo ship about to dock, gave him an idea: the crew would make excellent tourists. Captains and crew rented his boat to go ashore and his bus to tour Lagos. “I used to take them to night clubs and wherever they wanted to go to have fun and take them back to their ship of around 11,” says Tarzan. He expanded his business. By 1990, he had opened his first boat yard in Eleke Crescent, home to 65% of Nigeria’s foreign embassies. Tarzan ferried diplomats visiting the country.
He later moved to Lekki Expressway where he still conducts his business. The old building on Ozumba Mbadiwe-Lekki Expressway waterfront is deceptive. It hides Tarzan’s success story. He carries 4,000 passengers a week. In a good month, this company could generate more than $50,000.
Tarzan has now been operating for 30 years. Many times, he could have given up. He tells an anecdote of the impact of government policies on his business. “I have been beaten so many times by the Nigerian army and police because I used to buy fuel with the 20-liter jerry can for my boat,” says Tarzan. The government had banned the sale of fuel in jerry cans to curb the practice of hording petrol and later selling it at a higher price. This, however, had unintended consequences for boat operators who relied on these cans to refuel their boats. Today, fuel stations have been built in Cross River State and Rivers State but they are still to be built in Lagos. Rather than close shop in the face of the challenges, Tarzan persevered.
A tourism industry, which could help companies such as Tarzan’s expand, is still in its infancy. The industry suffered during the recent military and civilian governments. Despite the government’s declaration in 2002 that it intended to make tourism one of the six key areas for economic development, Nigeria is not a popular tourist destination. Countries such as Kenya, with its vast game reserve, have invested heavily in tourism making it one of the most popular tourist destinations in Africa. The West Africa sub-region has lagged behind attracting only 770,000 tourists representing 10% of the 2,6 million international tourist arrivals in 2009. Six of the 14 countries in the region recorded 100,000 international tourists. Paradoxically, Nigeria was ahead of the pack attracting 30% of the sub-regional market.
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If waterways business in Lagos was a game of luck and timing for Tarzan, then for Soji Adeola, CEO of Salmon Multiservices, it was about risking it all. Despite the challenges in the industry, Adeola believes there is potential in Nigeria’s waterways. “A city the size of Lagos cannot survive on a single mode of transportation,” says Adeola. The population of Lagos is estimated to be 18 million and it’s growing at about 8%, which means that the city is growing faster than Los Angeles and New York. The World Bank predicts that Lagos will be the third largest city in the world after Tokyo and Mumbai by 2015.
This is why Adeola is betting on the waterways. While working as a banker, he bought a boat. After completing his MBA studies in 2009, he resigned and focused his efforts on his new company. He operates two boats that ferry corporate officials in the Marina-Apapa Channel. He believes there is potential for his “emerging company”. “As of today, we had 1,4 million Lagos residents using the waterways each month. This is projected to increase to 4 million and perhaps, a lot more than that,” says the optimistic Adeola.
Adeola sees his company as being strategically positioned to provide water transport solutions and meet leisure challenges in Nigeria’s coastal areas. He is proposing a $100 million plan to the Lagos State government to build jetties around Lagos. There are about 60 jetties in the city so far, but these would be insufficient should the market reach the projected 4 million.
Currently, the world’s biggest hotel operators are the only serious investors in Lagos’ waterfronts. The Oriental, Four Points, Peninsula Resort and Radisson Blu hotels got in early to line the picturesque Ozumba Mbadiwe-Lekki Expressway waterfront.
For investors looking for returns, your next trip should be to Lagos–there is plenty of opportunity in the waterways.

Tarzan: King of the Water

It was just like the old days in South Africa. Marching, police and protest. This was not a protest against an oppressive regime; this was a free people unwilling to pay for new roads.
Investment, economy, Protests, employment, South Africa, National Union of Mineworkers, April 2012
It was a dull, cloudy day over Lagos. On the ground it was dazzling speed and skill as the Lagos Polo Tournament—the sporting event of the year in Nigeria—thundered to its climax. For two weeks, the finest players in this polo-mad country have vied for the glittering prizes of this rich tournament that costs a million dollars merely to sponsor.
They’ve been playing at the Lagos Polo Club, in the exclusive Ikoyi district, where British Army cavalry officers laid down the turf in 1904. As the years go by, it is getting more and more expensive to assemble a winning team. It will cost you around $40,000 for a good polo pony and many thousands more to import top professionals from polo playing nations like Argentina. This is a game that carries status and most of Nigeria’s tycoons have a polo club or team.
<div id="attachment_589" style="width: 484px" class="wp-caption alignleft"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-589" class="size-large wp-image-589" src="/wp-content/uploads/2017/04/IMG_6261a-1024x770.jpg" alt="" width="474" height="356" />Better luck next time: Prince Albert Esiri, the Captain of Ashbert Raiders collects the runner up trophy</div>
The final, on March 4, was between teams led by two of the richest men in Nigeria. Entrepreneur, Prince Albert Esiri, who was ranked  one of the top 10 polo patrons in the world by the Financial Times, led his Ashbert Raiders against the Lagos Ironclad Mandarin team—led by Obafemi Otudeko, the chairman of Bharti Airtel in Nigeria. Both teams are veterans of the big occasion and have also played at the British Open and the Royal Windsor Cup.
The Ashbert Raiders were the favorites as they had a two-goal start, through the handicap system, plus Argentinian professionals, Bruno Cipponeri and Hugo Caesar. The favorites raced into a 4-0 lead with power and panache, by the end of the first Chukka, as Cipponeri scored two penalties. It should have sealed the game, but it didn’t.
<div id="attachment_591" style="width: 484px" class="wp-caption alignleft"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-591" class="size-large wp-image-591" src="/wp-content/uploads/2017/04/IMG_5708a-735x1024.jpg" alt="" width="474" height="660" />Ashbert Raiders (in blue-and-white) tussle with Ironclad Mandarin in the final</div>
The feisty Ironclad team fought back to level at 5-5 before scoring the decisive goal, late in the fourth Chukka, to secure a memorable 6-5 victory. A packed grandstand cheered as organizers handed trophies and medals to the victors Kwame Musa and Bashir Dantata of Ironclad.
The elite of Nigeria then retreated to marquees pegged out on the polo grounds and the party began. Behind the scenes, players took off their helmets and knee guards before slipping into more comfortable clothes.
The softly spoken oil and gas tycoon, Prince Albert Esiri, said proudly: “For me really it is to have had a chance to play with my son, because he has been wanting us to play together. He wasn’t very keen about polo and he only took up polo two three years ago which is quite late…” Someone in the background said that the game is certainly growing in Nigeria, but conversation was lost when the music went up and the party started. Celebrations went on into the night. In 108 years, Lagos Polo Club has seen f
<div id="attachment_588" style="width: 484px" class="wp-caption alignleft"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-588" class="size-large wp-image-588" src="/wp-content/uploads/2017/04/IMG_5883a-1024x683.jpg" alt="" width="474" height="316" />Champagne on the sidelines at the Lagos Polo Club</div>

Polo, Power  And Panache

It all began in the 1920s, when Kishin Chand Chellaram stepped off a boat and onto the shores of Lagos. He had heard from a family friend that there was money to be made in Nigeria and had journeyed for months across the sea to find out if this was true.
Chellaram was a small textile business owner in his hometown of Hyderabad. In 1923, he joined other Sindhis who were venturing into Nigeria’s growing economy. After two weeks of exploring his options, he sent for the first consignment of goods.
In the late 1940s the Chellarams, who are Hindu, were forced to leave their home after East and West Pakistan were formed as a Muslim state. The Chellarams sold all their assets, exchanging them for coupons in Bombay, and set up shop permanently in Lagos.
The name Chellaram became known in Nigeria for retail, operating 17 department stores across the country selling groceries, cosmetics, textiles, luxury items and electronics from the early 1950s up until 1992, when economic and political conditions in the country slowed down its operations. The family business survived as Chellarams Plc. and is one of the largest conglomerates in Nigeria, with a business portfolio consisting of fast-moving consumer goods, chemicals distribution, a bicycle manufacturing division, a food packaging unit contracted to Nestlé Nigeria, an industrial goods sales and service subsidiary, a textiles manufacturing unit, a plastic film manufacturing unit,  quick service restaurants, a travel agency and a retail operations business.
This mixed bag of companies is now run by Kishin Chand’s great-grandson, Suresh, his wife Kavita and his two children, Aditya and Amisha. Although the company listed on the Nigerian Stock Exchange in 1978, 75% of the business is still held by the family; 20% belongs to shareholders and the remaining 5% is in the name of a Nigerian charity.
“My great-grandfather was the first Indian member in Nigeria’s prestigious Ikoyi Club and the first Indian to live in Ikoyi,” says Aditya proudly.
Amisha was behind the first foray of South African retail giant Woolworths into Nigeria. She started as a franchisee in 2002, but operations halted in 2005 due to an importation ban on garments and footwear. In November 2011, the deal was reopened as a joint venture business that will see three stores running in major shopping centers in the country this year. The company also made headlines in Nigeria when it entered into a joint venture with RJCorp of India and Yum! Restaurants International as the sole operator of the KFC brand in Nigeria. Today, 15 stores operate in Nigeria, with plans to open another 15 stores this year.
Chellarams has also partnered with big international names like American Express travel services, Oldenburger and Real (dairy products), as well as chemical companies like Shell and Bayer, and other international consumer durables and electronics companies. The company’s biggest trading line is chemicals for the foam mattress industry and 70% of their chemicals sold go into this.
“Nigerians are very savvy and well traveled, so they are exposed to international brands. They are looking for brands and these brands are looking for Nigeria now. With the recession in Europe and America, everyone is looking to Nigeria now and Chellarams is positioning itself to be a partner for these guys—not just an investment partner but a strategic partner that can provide services and that has the local knowledge. We will keep finding ways to leverage these partnerships to grow our other businesses,” says Aditya.
The Chellarams family is a picture of success in Nigeria, but it has not been easy. As any Nigerian business owner can tell you, manoeuvering the political and socio-economic environment in the country is an uphill battle. Nigeria has had a turbulent past, which has resulted in a tough business climate.
“A difficult period was the early to mid-’90s with the major devaluation and the ’94 election saga,” Aditya reminisces.
“International credit lines were given to Nigerian banks and they were crawling on repaying these loans. They began to aggressively try and cease advantage and take over our house. Real estate really saved us then and we have had to sell some iconic real estate that we owned, including warehouses, retail stores and an office tower.”
Remarkably, the family was not derailed by the oil boom of the ’60s when many companies were rushing to get a piece of Nigeria’s black gold.
“We are not running after a rainbow. It is a high investment business and we were small boys. It’s a game that is not for Indians or foreigners but a game for the indigenes. Our aim is to supply products that benefit these businesses which, Chellarams believes, is a better business model anyway.”
Africa hosts more than 150 Indian businesses today, many of whom are trying to penetrate Nigeria’s market. The company claims that it is not threatened by the increasing number of similar businesses entering the space it has occupied for the last 88 years. Rather, Chellarams is more worried about competition from Nigerian companies that are able to operate with lower overheads and have more focused product lines, geography and customer base within Nigeria. These businesses import their products and sell them at much lower prices.
The family is trying to invest in Nigeria’s power sector and capitalize on the government’s plan to reform and deregulate the sector. Chellarams had already formed a company called Solar Power Generation Ltd, which has already commissioned two gas-powered generators and has attained permission to sell power to their neighbors in the industrial areas of Lagos. This project has the capacity to hold up to 50 megawatts. Currently, Nigeria is the only country in which the family operates, but its next step is West African expansion in both the Anglophone and Francophone parts of the continent. Chellarams Plc. is already looking into sponsoring activities in Chad, Cameroon and Niger, where the plan is to create the pull effect for their goods into these three nations. Chellarams also has its eye on a full-time operation in Ghana.
To finance its growth objectives, the company issued a N1.5 billion ($9 million) BBB-bond in December 2010 and a second tranche of N3.5 billion ($22 million) in December 2011.
“For now, we are just holding back and looking, but we expect partnerships to be a big part of the brand. This is the business model that is prime for a region that everyone is trying to come into at once.”
The family says it will continue Kishin Chand’s Nigerian dream in the 21st century. When people ask where they come from, the family says: “We are Sindhi refugees but Nigeria has been a warm welcome.”

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