STEVE BABAEKO MY STRATEGIC INCURSION ON AFRICAN CONTINENT IS DEVELOPMENT ADVENTURE
His gait is unmistakable; so is his swag. His style is simple but the complexity and perspicacity of his vision are enthralling. Though unassuming, he is reputed for traversing uncharted paths. His hunger for value, thirst for fulfilment and desire for fe
Steve Babaeko is intriguing. He is ingenious. He disrupts the norm and opens up new vistas hitherto not envisioned. His life is ruled by the eternal vision to impact life and establish what is for the public good and excitement. To him, life’s potential is limitless. Haunted by the nostalgic memories of an indigent childhood, he exemplified the grass-to-grace narrative. Growing up from such backdrop, it has become his bounden duty to excel, to exhilarate, to inspire and replicate his successes in others. For that reason Babaeko is expanding his frontiers. Speaking about the impulse behind his decision to expand the X3M frontiers to South-Central Africa, he says: “I don’t want to call it the South Africa project. I want to call it the South-Central Africa Project because what we are doing now covers about five territories in southcentral Africa and South Africa being the arrowhead where the operation is panning out from now goes to Mozambique, Zambia, Zimbabwe and Botswana. So it’s a south-central Africa project. The vision is clear. There are over 1.3 billion on this continent for us not to be doing business with one another.
“If you look at America, South-East Asia, North-East Asia, and Europe, the level of intra-continental trade is higher than you find in Africa. Sometimes it’s even more expensive to travel from one African country to the other than to travel to Europe. These and many more have informed our vision to bridge the inter-trade gap among us on this continent. Nigeria and South Africa are the biggest economies on the continent, so if we get it right with these economies, we can actually change the story of this continent for good.”
It all sounds great like a mellifluous sound bite. It is not an easy project to embark upon given the uncertainties on the continent and the phenomenal African factor. However, Babaeko is adept at beating the odds. It has taken him more than a year to put the project together.
“In South Africa like most countries have rules and you just have to play by them. They are welcoming if anybody has genuine intentions of doing business goes there. But you have to play by their rules. When I went to South Africa we conducted some interviews and tried to recruit South Africans to run the operation. We cannot go there and say as Nigerians we know the South African culture more than them. So everywhere we go, we are going to incorporate locals to run that place,” he adds. Beyond South Africa’s Volatility and Xenophobia
In spite of South Africa’s notoriety for volatility and xenophobia, Babaeko beams with enthusiasm and