Its 7:30AM in Victoria Island, Lagos, and across the road from Oniru, a suburb in the city, cars are piled up in front of the Total petrol station. There is also a separate line of about 100 people with empty yellow containers waiting to be filled. Toke Ogunlesi, founder of GQ Shoes, a shoe manufacturing business is number 30 in the queue of irritated car drivers – some of whom slept in their cars.
“This is really terrible, I have been queuing for the past three hours even though I arrived very early this morning. Yesterday, I couldn’t get any fuel and so I decided I would leave the house early today but unfortunately that plan did not work,” says Ogunlesi.
Business has slowed down significantly for his fledgling business, which, like many businesses in Africa’s largest economy, is hampered by severe power cuts. Nigeria has a diversified economy, however, the country’s monetary policy is heavily dependent on oil. The finance minister, Kemi Adeosun, in an interview with Reuters, said the country is expected to post budget deficits for the next two to three years. Reuters puts the 2016 deficit at 2.2 trillion naira (around $11 billion).
“Firstly, Nigeria has a revenue challenge, oil prices are low and this is leading to production challenges. We lost Forcados which is a major terminal for exporting crude oil, that means about 250,000 barrels have been shut down and cannot leave the country at the moment, so we are not pushing as much production as we used to. This means the little revenue we are making right now has to be dispersed to finance imports for various things, like foreign exchange (FX) for imports and refineries, normal FX for fuel imports and other production costs,” says Dolapo Oni, an analyst with Ecobank.
“On the other side, the industry also has a regulated pricing structure so marketers are not able to sell at whatever prices they need to sell to recoup whatever costs they incur in the process of buying and selling the petroleum products. So, as a result, most of them are either not ready to sell and keep that loss or, if they had the opportunity, they will sell at a much higher price so that they can recoup the costs that they are facing. They are also faced with higher cost of FX because most of them have to buy their FX from the parallel markets among the various other charges that they face when they also try and load at the depot.”
The restriction of foreign currency in the country has also had a negative impact on the oil market, which is a dollar-denominated business. According to the Shippers Association of Lagos State, the forex restriction has led to 50% of Nigerian bound cargos being diverted to Cotonou, Benin. But there may be help on the horizon.
“I think the situation is gradually easing because we now have FX supply coming from oil and gas companies. The upstream guys, like Shell, Total and ENI, have been tasked to provide about $200 million to some of the fuel marketers to assist them to import more products into the country. This is not a sustainable solution because you are asking these guys to also part with FX, which they also need to invest in other parts of the world where they have operations. They cannot continue to always give us $200 million every month or every year and also I do not know what we have given up as a country to be able to receive that help because there has been a trade-off somewhere,” says Oni.
The current dilemma has however presented an unlikely opportunity for one entrepreneur. Fueledup is an app that has been created by 24-year-old Nigerian developer, Subomi Owo-Odusi. The app is an on demand delivery service, where customers sign up to request fuel.
“It is more of creating a convenience that is necessary. It picks your location naturally with Google location services. There is a request for how much you want and the delivery time. We have three delivery times; there is priority, expectant and flexible. Flexible is within three hours, expectant is within 30 minutes and two hours, and priority is within 30 minutes and an hour. So, take for instance a situation where you wake up and you go to take a shower, by the time you finish getting ready in an hour you realize that your car is already filled up,” says Odusi.
The app is scheduled to be launched in May and has already received a positive response.
“We are speaking to private depots that we can get our supply from. Eventually we want this to become a lifestyle where people ask ‘have you got fueled up today?’”
The company is looking to expand rapidly outside Lagos to other major cities in the country.
A critical success factor for start-ups like Odusi’s in this climate is the cost of goods and services.
“Inflationary measures are rising. Prices have been increasing steadily. It got to 11.3 percent last year and the figure is due to come out this week and I am already hearing that it will be around 12.8 percent, which is significantly higher than the last inflation figure… It is the lesson of the crisis, when you don’t save or put money aside for a rainy day, when the rainy day comes you will be wet,” says Oni.
He believes the government should push for deregulation of the industry to prevent this crisis from repeating itself.
“In a market that is regulated, it is very easy for these conditions to happen because once we have that common pricing structure people tend to come strongly under unions. Once we deregulate this, there is no tendency that the union will tell someone to shut down their station because they know that once others are all not selling, they will make more money if they sell. So, unions go weaker in markets that are competitive.”
The influx of foreign currency is expected to ease the current fuel crisis gripping the Nigerian economy, however, the economic hardships are far from over. The decline in oil prices and corresponding decline in revenues, has had a knock-on effect on the oil sector and other ancillary markets.
“The only way out is that we should allow the market to decide where the naira should be priced at and, as a result, where the products within the economy should also be priced to allow for a competitive business environment,” says Oni.

Fuel Shortage  In The   Land Of Oil

It is 8PM on a warm Friday night at Eko Hotel in Victoria Island in Nigeria and a $480,000, white Rolls-Royce screeches to a halt. A 2015 red Lamborghini Aventador, with a retail price of $548,800, follows it shortly, revving its engine before joining an array of black Mercedes G Classes, which elegantly litter the parking lot.
Victoria Island is the wealthiest district of Lagos and home to one of the biggest congregations of millionaires in the world. Theo Tiemessen, Manager at the plush Eko Signature hotel, says these millionaires are demanding customers.
“They have good taste and they are willing to pay for good meals and fresh products,” he says.
Around 80% of the guests at Eko Signature come from outside the hotel. The customers are predominantly top government and banking officials who use the hotel for their meetings. Specialist businesses have sprung up to cater for the particular needs of this affluent group.
“We had guests in the hotel once who asked for camel milk for their infant child, they would not take anything else,” says Tiemessen.
Ultra high net worth individuals (UHNWIs) are classified by having liquid assets worth more than $5 million. The number of UHNWIs in Africa will increase by a staggering 59% over the next 10 years, according to the Wealth Report 2015 and Nigeria will have one of the highest growth rates in UHNWIs over the next decade.
Aderemi Ajidahun is the CEO of Hole19 Group, which specializes in providing luxury retail products to the rich. The group’s flagship brand is Zakaa, a retailer of luxury brands such as Brioni, Angelo Galasso and Maurice Lacroix.
“Our clients are mostly extravagant spenders with a unique taste. They only want the best and the most unique timepieces which cannot be found in any other shops,” says Ajidahun.
Last year, Ajidahun sold one of those timepieces for a staggering $250,000. His showroom in Maitama, an exclusive district in Abuja, caters to the wealthiest.
“Our female clients usually only want the pieces they have seen on the runway and it is our job to make sure that they have them,” says Ajidahun.
Kunle Bello runs Platinum Concierge, a company that provides specialty services for the affluent in Mayfair, one of London’s wealthiest areas. A lot of his clients are wealthy Nigerians.
“We provide services that cater to the needs of UHNWIs. Our services range from organizing exclusive parties, catering, booking holiday packages, property and whatever the client needs,” says Bello.
The number of Nigerians buying luxury properties in Britain has risen sharply since Bello started his business three years ago.
“Two months ago, I sold a property to an oil entrepreneur for just over $6 million,” he says.
The super-rich travel in style and have private jets waiting for them at airports. Nigeria is currently the largest market in Africa for Bombardier.
“Average flight time an hour costs about $8,000 for those who do not own their own jets but still want to travel in style,” says Bello.
Those who can afford their own planes will have to part with $25 million to $65 million for a new Gulfstream. Around 1,200 private jets land at Murtala Muhammed International Airport in Lagos every month.
“It costs upwards of $4 million a year to maintain a private jet with two fulltime captains and a flight attendant on standby, in addition to related airport handling services,” says Bello.
Despite tough economic times, it seems Nigeria’s rich are able to maintain their lavish lifestyles.

The Rich Get All The Camel Milk And Jets They Need

There is a new avant-garde edifice in the heart of Lagos’ swanky Victoria Island. It is no mere edifice. Typically, it is where you would find Nigeria’s art, design and fashion fraternity converge under one roof.
You could call this edifice, a multi-level design gallery and retail haven named the ALARA concept store, a library of pan-African luxury.
Its founder Reni Folawiyo’s ambitions can be likened to the monumental edifice she has built. An art and design aficionado who worked as a lawyer for a decade, Folawiyo describes her store as a celebration of who we are as Africans today, a sign of our cultural awakening and a statement of where we are going as a continent.
It is clear Africa is developing a noteworthy appetite for luxury design.
When we meet at the store, we sit on contemporary carved wooden stools, with subtle Angolan Kizomba and Pasada music playing in the background. Folawiyo exudes a simple sophistication just like the surroundings we are in.
“I believe we need iconic platforms to project Africa and celebrate the different Africans doing great things all over the world,” she begins.
For this, she started from the bottom.
“I started to grow my passion by seeking to understand the creativity of the artists and designers on the ground. My association with them was important just for my own interest but it also began to grow into a curiosity for their functionality, growth and how they earned a living.”
Folawiyo left her career in law to chase her interests, one that saw her collaborating with young artistes in the design schools and the College of Arts and Technology in Lagos. She held weekend brainstorming sessions to help them monetize their creations.
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“We had fashion designers, painters, sculptors and I thought to connect them to our world would be to create contemporary objects that would be useful to people in their everyday lives. That way, they were utilizing their creativity and for me as an entrepreneur, it was viable,” says Folawiyo.
From organic wooden seats to hand-embroidered cushions created by fashion designers, the functional items were presented at exhibitions for sale. A variety of materials were also showcased, including leather and indigenous raffia fiber.
With demand for more pieces, Folawiyo soon decided to set up her own studio.
“I looked at the numbers and gaps in the market and realized there is nobody doing contemporary doors and joinery… I wanted to keep it local and tool it to perfection so that, if anyone looked at the piece, would recognize that it is African but also very contemporary.”
This led to the launch of Folawiyo’s joinery and doors company, a one-stop shop for all interior design requirements. As she began to travel more on the continent, she began to have a better appreciation for traditional artisans and designers.
“I realized there were many people like me who were trying to use old skills to do contemporary pieces. I became curious and started to inform myself about them, to see how they got to where they were and what they were doing to operate.”
Folawiyo speaks about a lack of exposure and appreciation for Nigeria’s artistes and designers.
“It is difficult for the artistes to break through as there is an aesthetic that people relate to which is different from what contemporary artistes are doing and if with this space [ALARA], we can encourage people and support artistes to produce collections that can be put in stores, then that will be a great feat.”
She highlights the need for design schools, technological support and encouragement in preserving artisanship.
“It’s important to find a way to preserve what we are doing locally and elevate it. This brought me to a point where I felt I needed to celebrate what I had found. Africa has not been seen as sophisticated and I wanted to show people that this is not the case.”
At ALARA, Folawiyo currently stocks names such as Loza Maleombho, Jewel by Lisa, Tiffany Amber, Maki Oh and a host of others.
“I also decided that in fashion especially, it was important to put both African and international designers in the same space because I feel that in order for our designers to grow and be respected, we need to place them side by side with the best of the world,” she says.
And to Folawiyo, every creation she lays her hands on has a touching story.
“A woman weaving a basket tells a story of her life. Her final product may be aesthetically pleasing but it is stronger for me because of the story behind it.”
Art. Design. Fashion. Folawiyo is on to the next chapter of her African success story.

Mrs-F14

‘We Need Iconic Platforms To Project Africa’

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

The end of last year saw a mix of patrons, celebrities and fashion professionals from around the world descended on upscale Victoria Island for the GTB Lagos Fashion and Design Week 2013 (LFDW). In the front row were the founders of luxury retailers Luisa via Roma (Andrea Panconesi) and Browns (Joan Burstein), buyers from Bergdorf Goodman and Barneys, and publications including ELLE, Paper and Grazia. All were there to view collections by some of Nigeria’s most talented designers such as Maki Oh, Jewel by Lisa, Iconic Invanity and Tiffany Amber.
This event is not a first. Suzy Menkes, fashion editor of the International Herald Tribune, attended LFDW 2012 and declared: “The time for Nigeria is now. The development of a middle class means that a larger number of people are able to upgrade from basic necessities to luxury brands.”
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British luxury department store Selfridges also sent a delegation and hosted the Nigerian fashion pop up, Ndani, in association with LFDW founder Omoyemi Akerele. In her words: “The fashion industry is very much in its infancy here. Ndani gave the designers more exposure abroad, that way they will be better appreciated locally.” The lawyer-turned-fashion consultant established LFDW in 2011 and is riding the crest of the ever-rising wave of interest in Nigeria’s fashion industry.
So why all the buzz? Nigeria has one of the highest growth potential economies in Africa. With a population of nearly 170 million and its youthful inhabitants enjoying rapidly rising discretionary incomes, it should not come as a surprise that there is a large market for fashion. Nigeria’s apparel market is estimated to be worth over $7 billion according to Euromonitor, and it has been growing at 13% per annum. However, many wealthy Nigerians still tend to shop overseas for their apparel needs. Global Blue reported that Nigerians ranked third, ahead of Americans, but are behind Middle Easterners and Chinese in apparel retail spending in the United Kingdom.
There are also many other challenges facing local designers. They struggle with a lack of manufacturing facilities, inadequate infrastructure, textile import bans and very little governmental support. Most find it difficult to produce a consistent product of high standards within the timeframe and price range required to fulfill significant overseas orders. However, some have proven to be up to the task and are quickly developing a name abroad.
“There is a lack of skilled labor, general mediocrity and often a lack of appreciation of our tradition and culture,” says Maki Osakwe, the young designer behind Maki Oh. The label has captured the attention of celebrities like Solange Knowles, Leelee Sobieski and Michelle Obama.
“I am true to myself and am always striving towards perfection while keeping my heritage alive,” she continues.
Her designs are stocked at Maryam Nassir Zadeh, a New York City-based emporium. The local landscape is changing rapidly and there has certainly been an influx of international fashion brands coming into Nigerian malls, a boon to the country’s burgeoning marketplace. Euromonitor estimates that the number of international retailers opening outlets in Nigeria is growing at 36% a year and apparel is one of the leading categories. Lagos has seen the opening of high-end stores Ermenegildo Zegna, Hugo Boss, MAC and mid-range apparel players such as Foschini as well as mass-market chain outlets like Mr. Price. The much-anticipated Alara, Nigeria’s first concept store, opened its doors in late 2013. Designed by critically-acclaimed architect David Adjaye, the store changed the face of retail in Nigeria by bringing authenticity and world-class aesthetics.
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E-commerce is another way many are overcoming the real estate and infrastructure restrictions in the country. There are new online retail models tailored to the environment. Internet retailers Konga and Jumia offer payment on delivery options, since most Nigerians are still skeptical about paying online. Additionally, 5th and Quansah, a luxury apparel and accessory e-tailer, offers personal shopping and styling appointments in Lagos.
“Aside from economic growth, what fascinates people are the colors, textures and newness of the collections shown in Nigeria,” says 5th and Quansah founder, Nana Serwah Kankam about international interest in the Nigerian fashion industry.
“Nigerian women are stylish and trendy, proudly owning their own perspective on fashion. I don’t think you see this so often in the world. They are well aware of the global trends, confidently weaving them in with local influence.”
The apparel value chain is quickly developing and the future of Nigerian fashion seems to be very bright. With thoughtful government policies to support investment in the sector, perhaps the country will see indigenous fashion businesses serving the population and maybe even a Mercedes-Benz-sponsored Nigerian fashion week in the not too distant future.

Nigerian Fashion Is Flying

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.

Tag: Victoria Island

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