Sam Hart: Ikpeazu Has Given Abia a Facelift

Director General, Abia State Marketing and Quality Management Agency, Mr. Sam Hart, is passionately driving Governor Okezie Ikpeazu’s vision for made-in-Abia products. In this interview, he tells Charles Ajunwa about the rationale behind the recent Aba Business and Leadership Summit organised by the Abia State Government in conjunction with Aba Chamber of Commerce, Industries, Mines and Agriculture, how Ikpeazu’s approach to governance has changed the narrative about Aba in particular and Abia in general

Your agency is saddled with the responsibility of driving development in all sectors and marketing Abia State globally. How has it been so far?
I head the Abia State Marketing and Quality Management Agency as the Director General. Basically, what we do is to find new markets for products that are made in Abia State and enforce quality for the same products. This is basically in continuation of the vision of Governor Okezie Victor Ikpeazu to ensure that goods made in Abia State are given the best exposure and they are of course of the best quality. It’s a twin mandate agency to guarantee quality of goods that are made in Abia State and also to expand the existing markets for those that already have the market and find new markets for those that do not have markets. The essence of this is that, you know that there was a time everybody was coming to Aba to buy things. Aba was really budding, and after a while Aba fell off because it lost market share, there were some infrastructural challenges and quality was also a problem. People do not trust the quality of what was coming out of Aba and because of that Aba lost its edge. But since Dr. Okezie Ikpeazu became governor, he was now able to restore that edge of the Aba products by passing branding. He took it up, marketed made-in-Aba and all of that. My agency is the focal agency that is driving that conversation globally.

Talking about made-in-Aba products, what is the level of buy-in into this noble idea?
No administration has placed Aba on the map the way Dr. Okezie Ikpeazu administration has done. Aba has never had it this good with exposure, with marketing and with the drive. It has been tremendous. The Aba producer is now an international person apart from the well-known China that shoe makers were taken to, to go and learn how to make shoes. We have been to The Gambia, we have been to the UK, we have been to Rwanda, we have been to the United States of America and we have been to Egypt. We have been to all of these places with either shoe makers or fashion creators.

The creative sector in Aba and Abia State has never witnessed this level of unprecedented big screen marketing and branding led by the governor himself who is the chief marketer of the state and the products that are made here. Since he became governor everything he has worn has been strictly made in Abia State and he has gone. Not just Aba but Abia State because we saw him wear Akwete and he wears things that are made in the state basically. He has been quite fantastic, he has restored the image and the pride of people of Abia. One of the reasons Aba fell off the radar was that the Aba producer was not proud of his creation because people were looking down on him. It was a thing of derogation to say you were wearing made-in-Aba and it got to the level that something that was faked was soon called made-in-Aba. But we have turned that narrative around, changed that conversation and ensured that respect is given to all the products that are made-in-Aba and Abia State. That is the contribution of the Ikpeazu administration to the psyche of the producers in Aba.

Governor Ikpeazu has been visiting many prominent Nigerians and organisations with the made-in-Aba products. Has this in any way changed the psyche of people about made-in-Aba products?
We have influenced every society the world over, not just Nigeria, and that is why you have celebrities, you have 200 million followers on Instagram, 100 million followers on Twitter because influence matters and people follow people that have influence and people listen to them. If kim Kardeshiam was to tweet wearing a shirt made by a producer in Aba, the person would run out of his home. The whole world would want to wear what Kim Kardashian is wearing, be it Obama or whoever.

So, we identified political influencers, cultural influencers, social influencers and other groups. We decided that we are going to meet them to market this made-in-Aba brand to them, convince them to endorse it. We went to former President Olusegun Obasanjo in Otta, Ogun State. The thing is that, it’s aggressive marketing and we come looking for you. We went to former President Obasanjo and presented some shoes to him; he wore them, endorsed them and praised them. The next time he went out and still told everybody that he is wearing shoes that are made-in-Aba. That is exposure. We went to the National Assembly, we saw then Senate President Bukola Saraki and he has been a supporter of this project from day one. He came that day even dressed in made-in-Aba attire which he acknowledged was brought from Aba with a red cap. For a couple of days afterwards he was wearing strictly stuff that was made-in-Aba.

So that was political influence, his colleagues knew about it, they got to pass the Public Procurement Act which ensured that purchases from publicly funded agencies had to explore local availability before going for foreign made goods. So these things have influenced policies and it wasn’t only Aba that was benefiting but because of our advocacy, because of such political work even other people will still benefit – the furniture makers will benefit from the work that was done. The governor was able to enter the presidency, even President Buhari in his New Year message of either 2016 or 2017 promised that the federal government was going to pay more attention to the creative sector. For example, Aba, it was clearly written in his New Year speech. Vice President Yemi Osinbajo has been to Aba four or five times on different issues but all concentrated on the made-in-Aba campaign.

We got footballers like Nkwankwo Kanu who came on board endorsed made-in-Aba. We got Nollywood actors and actresses like Uche Jombo, Chinedu Ikedieze and Rough Corn Nwa Aba. We also got musicians. All of these endorsements meant that influential people were endorsing the Aba brand and the conversation went viral. We got the Forth Foundation to fund a campaign that put us on CNN. CNN was running proudly made-in-Aba for close to six months because as a government we couldn’t pay for it. It was beautiful. The effect on the economy of Aba cannot be quantified.

At the just concluded Aba Business and Leadership Summit, the speakers emphasised on the need for technological transfer of knowledge in doing business.
My agency is very proud to have driven the Aba Business and Leadership Summit in conjunction with the Aba Chamber of Commerce, Industries, Mines and Agriculture (ACCIMA). I took the proposal to the governor, he endorsed it and asked that we proceed. The essence is that being that my agency is responsible for marketing Abia State, I do a lot of work in Aba which is the commercial headquarters of the state. So I come across a lot of companies that used to be quite renowned but suddenly they packed up and you don’t hear of them any more due to death, retirement or incapacitation of the founders of the business.

So it was something that bothered me and it was a malaise, I didn’t like it and I knew that we needed to find a solution to it. That was how we came about the convening of this summit and thankfully we leveraged relationships and we were able to get for governor of Anambra State, Mr. Peter Obi, Dr. Cosmos Maduka, Prof. Barth Nnaji, Prof. Pat Utomi and many others. We wrote to all of them inviting them and I followed up. It was quite beautiful to have such array personalities from the academia, the business community, the young businessmen come together to come and discuss this issue. It’s a very important issue, it’s one that I believed that the nuggets that were left behind by the speakers should be able to guide the businessmen in Aba.

In my opening speech, I gave an example of a bakery that didn’t produce for a day because the owner was not feeling well and for that there was no production that day. Apparently because he was in charge of inventory, he didn’t restock, he didn’t open the store for them to carry flour. The key was in his pocket. You can’t sustainably run a business that way. I’m in charge of marketing in Abia State so I need the companies that are producing goods in the state to be vibrant, to have structures to be resilient and be able to survive shocks and stress and last for a very long time because that will make my job easier and also create economy for the state and ensure that people remain in their jobs.

My agency creates jobs too because if these businesses are vibrant and I’m able to make them sell more of their products, it means they would expand and hire new people. That means they will take people off the streets and reduce the burden on the state because an economically vibrant state takes pressure off the government. Government would still fulfill its responsibilities of course but you don’t have a situation where everybody is reliant on the government for one thing or another if the business is booming and vibrant. It’s because the government is carrying so many things at the same time that is why you see them struggle with project execution sometimes.

Many young businesses in Abia State complained that the Bank of Industry no longer assists them with funding. Have you made any intervention on their behalf?
I like the presentation of Dr. Cosmos Maduka at the Aba Business Summit. Part of what he was saying was that the youths give a lot of excuses and he used himself as an example. He said that he stopped education at Elementary 3, he had N200 and he has every excuse not to have succeeded but he was determined, he kept moving and today, he is a Forbes listed multi-millionaire in dollar terms.

The home truth is that I worked with federal government agencies. You saw all of them at the summit- Bank of Industry, Export Promotion Council, Central Bank of Nigeria, Export Import Bank to Rural Electrification Agency. The ones that give cash, the problem that our people have is accurate documentation and they believe because it’s federal government is giving the money, they think it’s a national cake. So they just want to come and collect their own and come back. When they are told procedures or told to provide certain requirements they do not complete their application and don’t go through with the process.

You see them start mumbling that they tried and they didn’t get it. It’s not entirely true. I told you about the confusion, why the CBN governor is saying that South Easterners are benefiting from interventions, South Easterners are complaining that they applied and they were not given. But I have an interface with BoI, CBN and there are criteria for assessing these facilities. This is part of the work my agency is doing. Most of the businesses are not even formalised, you are applying for a federal government facility or a federal government development institution with a private account, with your wife’s account and you do not have a record. Even if it’s Okeke & Sons Ltd most of the turnover they collect one million naira to make shoes, they carry N900,000 immediately in cash to go and give to the person selling leader, the person selling soles, person selling buckle and the remaining N100,000 they put it in their pocket and go home with it.

So there is no record of the transaction but if they had collected that one million and put it in the bank and even issued a cheque to the shoe man it creates a turnover. When you are now approaching BoI for 10 million naira, BoI will see that in a month you have done business of N20 million, N5 million even if it’s not your money. The truth is that an amount of money has passed through your account. It’s not rocket science or a tall order any more. When you provide a private account, a savings account as your account to be used for the transaction and they look at it, you pay in N20,000 today and you remove N10,000 tomorrow. They don’t think that you are serious or you can handle the amount of money. Meanwhile, this is a person that does huge turnover but he doesn’t have proper records, he doesn’t bank, he doesn’t keep financials, provide your team he doesn’t have any of these things. Our people are impatient with some of these proper business models. That is part of the challenge that was identified at the summit that leads to loss of business with demise of the founder.

The lending institutions too have their own blame because they should make some of these requirements a little less stringent because you cannot be telling a businessman who wants to expand his business that he should go and bring this and that and he is supposed to go to FIRS to collect his tax letter identification number. Meanwhile, the federal government says that businesses with less than N25 million you don’t have to pay taxes. At the end of the day you find out that the deadline has expired or his application is incomplete.
So, we are working with both sides, have the traders step up their corporate governance game and also have the federal government lend institutions to make it easier for these people to be able to assess their facility.

Are there incentives from the state government to these young entrepreneurs?
Yes. Governor Okezie Ikpeazu’s administration in his business friendly disposition has actually done a lot. The governor has paid for businesses to be registered in Abia State. He did free registration for businesses numbering over 1,000 and we had a deal with Corporate Affairs Commission to crash the price down to about N5,000 even if you cannot do business liability company, let them do the basic business name registration which is the least form of corporate identity a business can have and a lot of people came forward. You see, somebody that has been doing business for five years doesn’t have business registration. He cannot open an account and because he doesn’t have an account he cannot assess some of these facilities because there is no record of any transactions. All his accounts are in his personal name, so there is no corporate account and there is no business account.

We said okay come and do business name registration, call yourself any name you want to call yourself. At least, have a business name, take it to the bank and open an account in that business name and when money comes for that business put it in that account. So that by tomorrow we can present that to the Bank of Industry, CBN, NISRA,you say I have been doing business for this length of time and I’m qualified to assess your facility. So the governor has provided funds for business name registration, authorised interface with Standard Organisation of Nigeria, Export Promotion Council they are in the Aba Chamber of Commerce building, NEXIM Bank we are also bringing them to the Aba Chamber of Commerce building, NISRA, CBN. The governor has done a lot to make it easier for these people and one of the strongest pillars of government is the ease of doing business. We moved from 27 to five in a very short while and we have a one-stop investment centre where they can come and have everything about Abia State simplified for them. So we have done a lot in business development in Abia State.

Governor Okezie Ikpeazu at the business summit talked about his administration’s plan to establish the Aba Business School. What is business school all about?
The Aba Business School is very important and it’s going to be home grown. It’s going to be uniquely tailored toward Aba and Aba peculiarities. It’s not going to be high in theory, it’s going to be practical at the Aba Business School. The essence being most of the traders, the entrepreneurs, businessmen in Aba do not have any formal certification in any form.

Most of them didn’t go to school, most of them are apprentices that graduated from the apprentices system and became free. There was no opportunity for formal education, the best they have in terms of education is in the form of Primary Six but they are highly skilled. They are highly business savvy. So we are not going to impose existing corporate culture on them, we are going to create a curriculum that takes into cognizance their preexisting capabilities in terms of business savvy. They have the practical experience, all they lack is the theoretical.

Professor Pat Utomi has agreed to work with us on this initiative and we have some very fantastic people who are grounded in matters like this to build a curriculum that captures the preexisting practical knowledge of these gentlemen and ladies. Then creates something that brings in some theories so that they understand the concept behind what they are already doing. It will help them to expand their horizons and advance their knowledge base if they understand the theories behind some of the acts they are carrying out in practicality. We are partnering with the Abia State Polytechnic which will enable them to get Diploma certificates at the end of the day. The Diploma certificate will help them in their business and outlook.

The governor recently enrolled in Aba Footwear Academy. How did the governor’s action spur youths to engage in meaningful ventures?
Napoleon Bonaparte says that a leader is a merchant of hope. The governor is very good at raising the hope of the people and giving them direction. Governor Ikpeazu is a fantastic leader in terms of building a narrative and creating hope amongst his people. He registered at the Aba Footwear Academy. Of course, he is a sitting governor but it’s about the endorsement. It’s about validation, it’s about telling these people that I see you and then encouraging these people.

Remember he started items of clothing made in Abia State when he became governor. He was a merchant of hope, he was to give the tailors hope that if my governor can wear your clothes, it means anybody can wear your clothes. Even though we have suits made in Aba, you hardly find any Abia State Government official wearing a suit, Senators and House of Representatives members wear Isiagu or caftan made-in-Aba. You can imagine the economic effect of that decision on the lifestyle of tailors in Aba. Tailors and fashion designers in Aba are not poor people, they are rich people. They have cars and houses.

They live in their own houses, they don’t pay rent. It’s now big business and their products are in high demand because of the exposure that the governor has given to them. So the footwear academy the essence of it is that symbolism to say okay I as a governor I’m coming to enroll to learn how to make shoes. At the summit, he said that is a Doctor of Biochemistry but he realised that he didn’t have the manual skill and he is a big proponent of everybody having a skill.

So if a governor has gone back to an academy to learn how to make shoes. Within one week of his enrollment more than 2,000 people went to that academy to register. In fact, they had to stop taking new people. It’s practical, the governor spent more than one or two hours with them the day he went and he finished one shoe before leaving. He was the symbolism of it, he was the encouragement, he was the validation of their dream too of the founders of the academy. They were in Lagos but they heeded the governor’s call for the made-in-Aba campaign. The governor is a merchant of hope and he is very good at that and we are proud of him.

The governor has built more infrastructures in Aba since coming on board in 2015. What is the secret?
It’s not just the infrastructure that he is putting up but the way he is going about it. The model is costing him more. What it costs Dr. Okezie Ikpeazu to build one kilometer road in Abia State may probably build five kilometers or 10 kilometers in other roads. He is doing rigid pavement technology which necessarily involves concrete underlay with rods after which you will now have an asphalt overlay. Other people and other states have ways of doing roads which is simply doing your stone base, sometimes people pour sharp sand, convert it and pour asphalt on top of it.

The thickness even if you have six inches or more and sometimes 10 inches of concrete or rods inside for the strength of the road before you have asphalt. So this guarantees the longevity of these roads and each of these roads comes with a minimum 30 years guarantee. We asked him why are you spending so much time on these roads? He said he doesn’t want any road within the lifetime of his administration and he needs to do this properly so that the next person taking over from him will not have to be grappling with this sort of infrastructural challenges. Maybe they can now tackle education or maybe they can face healthcare or maybe can face sports or maybe they can face anything.

He has decided to build infrastructure especially in Aba because the city is highly essential and key to economic sustainability and survival of Abia as a state. You know what is going on with the Federal Allocation Accounts Committee (FAAC), states go to Abuja and come back crying, they come back empty handed, they say there is no money. NNPC says there is no money to give to FAAC anymore. So these things are real, states are going to suffer very soon because there is no money anywhere. At the moment just two or three states can survive without FAAC. So what will sustain states is their ability to generate an economy within themselves so that the less people are reliant on government and what comes out of government the more beneficial it’s for the states.

That is why it’s important that businesses expand in Abia, that is why it’s important that Abia regains its pride as a manufacturing and commercial hub so that more of the population are businessmen. That way we are less dependent on FAAC, we have production and we have more things to expand. We have more economic activities which lead to more Internally Generated Revenue which enables the state to meet its needs without much pressure from whether or not there was FAAC. That is the creative ingenuity of the Okezie Ikpeazu administration and I will say without mincing words no administration has done what he has done in terms of infrastructure in Aba. Again my credit is not just that he is building roads, anybody can build roads but it’s the type of road that he is building. You can accuse him that he is slow, he is slow because he wants to do it right. It’s better to slow down and do it properly than run fast and have to return back and come back to do it again. For me, I think it’s style. I have learnt it as a personal life lesson. Go at your pace, you know what your end goal is. You know that you are building to last, you are not building to impress. The pace may not be as people want it to be but you are doing the right thing.