Richards: Nigeria is a Country of Fascinating Contradictions

next level. We did a lot; we changed structures, and developed. When I joined the company, we were selling about 600,000 cases a month on a turnover of less than N2billion and when I handed over to the new CEO (Mr. Olivier Thiry) last year, we averaged a monthly turnover of N5billion. So, we’ve moved the company to the next level and the thing that gives me very greatest satisfaction is the fact that I’ve left a strong Nigerian team, very good, strong Nigerians. The company is ready to grow and develop. They asked me to stay on as non-executive chairman. As the chairman, I advise the new managing director particularly on the political and economic environment and things like that.

Didn’t you think that the multinationals would overrun Promasidor with their financial muscle on the unbundling concept it pioneered?

That’s good. Really, that talks to the whole thing about growing businesses against multinationals in any sector. Now how do you develop businesses and keep going into that space? The first thing is multinationals tend to be very slow. They have a lot of money; they are big elephants. If they trample on you, that will be a big problem, but if you are swift in avoiding it by being fast and innovative, you’ll live to tell great stories. What Promasidor has done is being innovative; if they had rested on their small sachet, they would have been stamped out. All you need to do is to be faster and quicker in your decision-making processes. You can also be closer to your customers and your consumers: this is very important. If you are a small business and you are starting, make sure that what you are doing is in tune with the market.

With all your entrepreneurial acumen, why did you choose to remain an employee instead of setting up your own business? You want to share with us the world of an employee?

Of course, Nigerians have always wanted to leave and set up their own businesses and that is the entrepreneurial nature of Nigerians. There is also that path of being an employee, growing and developing within one business or one company over years. Many Nigerians have set up their own businesses and have done very well but other Nigerians have continued in a company. If I look around, I see some people like Chief Kola Jamodu, who is the Chairman of PZ. He grew up in PZ until he left to become a minister of the Federal Republic of Nigeria. He is the Chairman of Nigerian Breweries as well, and he is very well-respected. If you go back a few years, we have people like Mr. Felix Ohiwerei, Chief Olusegun Osunkeye, among others. These are people who have grown within the company to the top, but it seems not to be the fashion any more; that would have been the tradition in my generation.

In my own case, there is this assumption that either I have a share or the other issue is that I have chopped money. They think that if he was MD of Guinness, he must have stolen a lot of money, but let’s be fair, if you run a multinational company, you’ll get a good salary, you’ll have a good pension. You are never going to be a multi-millionaire, but you should be comfortable.

So now, I’m 61 and I’m into one or two things, but my son is setting up a business here. I can advise and mentor him. I hope when that takes off, then, I can truly retire and be supported by my son.

Given what you have experienced, what would be your advice to those who want to remain employees? What can make them succeed as employees?

The first word that I always use is integrity. Now, integrity has a narrow definition which is about being honest in your dealings, not stealing money but working for the company that is paying your salary. But integrity has a wider meaning and that is the meaning I want to focus on. If you have a very high standard of integrity in the way you deal with your colleagues and your subordinates, the way you interact with your boss, I think that is very important. If you build that integrity, people would then trust you. They would give you more jobs that would give you more cash. Your subordinates, if you treat them well, without being soft, you can be firm, but if you are consistent and treat them with integrity, they will work hard for you. Your peers and your colleagues will want to support your projects, if you support them and that would come to the attention of your bosses to know that you are a man that can be trusted. I am a massive believer in the importance of integrity in its widest sense and of course, the other thing is if you behave like that, you are not only going to gain the respect of others but it will enable you to keep your own self-respect. If you don’t have self-respect, how are you going to move forward and get other people to follow you? How can you become a leader if you no longer have self-respect? You can see this reflected even at the top level of politics when political leaders no longer become respected because of their lack of integrity not just by way of corruption, but in the way they deal with other people. They just cannot be role models that people will want to follow. This is one thing that has probably counted for President Muhammadu Buhari; people may not have voted for him because of his policies, but more because of respect and integrity.

Next is self-discipline. Many Nigerians come to work late, they go to meetings late, and they don’t meet their commitments. I think that’s another thing, self-discipline and this is external. People will see that you are a disciplined person. Again, it attracts trust and respect. It is also internal, you know you are doing the best you can and comporting yourself in the best way possible.

People who have accomplished greatly often have what you can call a set of values that govern their decision matrix. What are your own anchors?

My values are similar to those attributes I just mentioned a while ago. My grandfather died when my father was seven years old and he was brought up in what Nigerians will call face me, I face you (residential apartment). He was brought up in two rooms. His mother, my grandmother had three jobs; she was a cleaner and waitress to make money. She and her daughter, my father’s sister, slept in one room and my father slept in the kitchen; they had a shared toilet outside. They used to go to the public bath where you would pay money and you would get soap, a towel and you would be allowed to use the bath. Now, Nigerians can be surprised; they think that in the UK everything is nice semi-detached houses. No, it’s not so. Then, my father joined the company soon after the war, he joined as a junior clerk, after 30 years, he became the managing director. So, a lot of my values were built on that: hard work, discipline, honesty, integrity, customer service. Those are the values I inherited and that I have lived by over the years.

What you would regard as the nastiest experience you’ve had in Nigeria thus far?

Rather than focus on one particular thing, for example, my two years in Aba, dealing with The Bakassi Boys were difficult, but what I find disturbing is how Nigerians often treat themselves. I find that very disappointing; you know how it is, you wear a uniform on a Nigerian and suddenly he thinks it gives him the right to bully and abuse other Nigerians for no reason.

Let me give another example. If I ask somebody to come and fix something for me, he or she is ready to do it. If I ask them to go and fix things in the staff quarters, they won’t do it. They will say why are you bothering me? They are ready to help an Oyinbo (a Whiteman), but they are not ready to help their own people.

That’s just a small example. Now, the reason that is very important is, if you look at how nations develop, a lot of it is about supporting each other. If you look, for example, how successful the Indians have been in business, they support one another, they help themselves.

The Jews, of course have always been like that, very supportive of one another, but Nigerians don’t do that. To some extent, may be the Igbo people do it more, perhaps that’s why they are more successful in business. As a general rule, Nigerians tend not to do that.

They are not quite supportive of one another, not even in business. If we are going to develop as a nation, we need to be better supporting and helping one another.

You described the issue of educational standards which have dropped as a time bomb. Is there any solution you can proffer to defuse this time bomb?

If we just take one area, and that is technical education. A few years ago, I went to China to buy some equipment for packaging. In this particular town, it wasn’t a big city, they specialised in factories making this kind of equipment. They had set up a technical college that trained people specifically for the skills needed for those factories. Now, if we just focus first on technical quality and technical education and start developing our own artisans and our own engineers, we’ll create more employment opportunities.

Many companies are bringing in even welders from other parts of the world to work here, and certainly, people are bringing in engineers. The oil and gas industry, for example, if we develop our own high quality engineers at every level, we’ll create employment.

So, if we focus first on technical education certainly at the tertiary level that will also have the impact of making industry more efficient and more competitive, which will encourage more investment and help, us grow manufacturing as a percentage of GDP which is very important. That will again make it more competitive, we will import less products because we can make them more competitively here. It’s indeed a big task. We also need to begin to get our primary education right.

There is certainly a role for the private sector in education. Private universities and private schools have a role to play but they are never going to be a panacea because majority of the population are not going to be able to afford

Richards