Alhaji Ali Yusuf Madobi: Rise from Grass to Grace

Alhaji Ali Yusuf Madobi, a Kano-based fertiliser production mogul, was born in a town called Madobi in Jigawa State but moved to Kano as a young boy with nothing but hope and determination in search of opportunities. It was at Kano fortune smiled on him. The Kano billionaire, who started off by selling oranges on wheelbarrow, shared his rise from grass to grace in this interview with MARY NNAH

Tell us how you started and then become so big like this?

You know Kano was a thriving business hub before Nigeria got her independence in 1960 and every young man growing up in the north, and even other parts of the country wanted to come here in search of opportunities. Kano was a thriving commercial town with many people doing different things. Then, Kano was quite big, although not like it is today. But it was big and people from all over the world were coming here mainly for trading and commerce. At the time I arrived here, the present day Jigawa was still a part of the larger northern region, so it was like moving from one part of a state to another and being the commercial capital of the north, everyone wanted to come here and find something for himself.

It is sometimes strange talking about how things were then, but I would say it was not easy to start off a business then as it still is not easy even now. I came to Kano with nothing except hope and a determination to make something for myself. I also believe that God was with me because back then, I was not sure that my path in life was going to take this turn, and that is why, I always tell my children and other friends to work hard and believe in God. I say this because after my arrival in this state, it took me a long time to even figure out what to do. But I knew I had to start somewhere. One of the things I did in my early days was to buy oranges and sell wheelbarrows on the streets.

You sold oranges here?

Yes, I was an orange seller in Kano and there is nothing to be ashamed of about it. I bought these oranges and sold them along the streets, moving from one place to another, depending on where I sense there are heavy gatherings of the people. I did this for many years and at some point, I began to think of going into other businesses and because of my love for agriculture, and there were many people in farming around Kano, I thought that doing something in that area was going to help me become better.

Fertiliser appears to be the biggest of your investments now. How did you get into the business?

You’ll be surprised. I started right from the grassroots. I started by buying one or two bags and selling them to farmers. As time went on, I began to buy bigger volumes and when people saw that I was determined, they began to trust me and that was when some of them who were big business men then began to give me fertilisers in trucks and immediately after selling them, I returned their money to them. Trust is very important in business. When people trust that you are honest, they go out of their way to help you grow. It was therefore from this level that I got to know some people at the Kano State Agricultural Supply Company (KASCO) and with their help, I started obtaining small allocations of fertiliser.

At this time, I did not even have a shop. So they would give me just a few bags. If I buy, I resell to those that have shops in the major markets. In 1992, I saw an opportunity to acquire a fertiliser plant that was originally owned by Alhaji Aminu Dantata. Because I had been in this business for years, I knew there was something good to be made out of it. So between me and two other friends, we reached a partnership to acquire this plant. Even after acquiring this plant, I was still a major distributor of many of the fertiliser companies in Nigeria then.

Then later on, I and my other partners separated, but I remained in the business. It was not easy and at a point, I wanted to collapse the entire business and go into something else but God in His infinite mercies helped me to recover and gradually I began to pick up. God in his own infinite mercies made me what I am today. It’s a story of rising for grass to grace and it’s just a miracle; the work of Almighty Allah. Today, I have five blending plants. There are two in Madobi town here in Kano, one in the Kano municipality and another one is coming up in Madobi, my hometown in Jigawa State. We also have another plant in Gusau, Zamfara State. But it is the one in Madobi Kano that gave birth to all the plants.

Madobi seems to feature quite a lot in your business. Any reason you have your businesses in the two towns bearing the same name?

You know, like I told you, I was originally from Madobi in present day Jigawa State. That is primarily the reason I adopted that name as surname, Ali Yusuf Madobi. People call me Double Madobi because of that and I think I like it because the name of the town seems to have brought blessings to my business.

What is your company, Al-Yuma doing differently that is making it very important in the overall Nigerian agricultural landscape?

What we are actually doing differently here at Al-Yuma Fertilisers and Chemicals Limited with a popular brand name of Nagari Fertiliser is that, in the first place, whenever you are operating in a competitive environment, there is need for one to be studying competitors’ activities so that you’ll always look at the areas you have a competitive advantage.

Presently, the office of the National Security Adviser are the ones controlling the movement of urea fertiliser, which is one of the major complementary inputs in blending NPK, as the source of nitrogen in the form of ammonia. Unfortunately, the insurgents, Boko Haram, are using it in the making of explosives.

Presently, we have established a blending plant in the North-east, in one of the states there, in Gombe State. But the office of the National Security Adviser said no, we cannot move urea into the North-east. So, as you said, what are we doing differently from our competitors so that we take the competitive advantage? That’s why, at present, since fertiliser comprises of four complimentary inputs, which are urea, the major source of nitrogen in the form of ammonia, the di-ammonium phosphate, which is the source of phosphorous, in the form of phosphorus penta-oxide that is in a compound form and then the Muriate of potash, MOP; they have to dissolve in the soil so that the root of the crop plant can be able to absorb those major primary elements which is the nitrogen (N), phosphorous (P) and potassium (K).

And taking into cognisance that our soil here in the ecological zone of Northern Nigeria is a little bit acidic because of the high rate of leaching and erosion, which is different from that of southern Nigeria. How are we going to reduce the soil acidity so that the crop plant can be able to absorb those major primary elements? So we used to add other things that reduce the soil acidity as a soil conditioner. It contains an element calcium oxide that reduces the soil PH so that the crop plants can absorb those major primary elements: nitrogen, phosphorus and potassium.

If you scoop a sample, you can easily separate all the four complementary inputs. You can move the urea, you can move the di-ammonium phosphate, which is the DAP, you can move the MOP which is red in color and limestone. So, when the office of the NSA said that Boko Haram used to separate the urea and use it as an explosive, we sat down at our own level to think of what are we going to do differently? We came up with an element that is less explosive compared to urea but does the same thing as urea that supplies the nitrogen. From 21 per cent to 26 per cent nitrogen, which is the granular ammonium phosphate. So we are using it in place of urea. That’s why in the formulation of our triple15, NPK 15:15:15 that is widely spread and acceptable, we can move our fertiliser to the North-east because there’s no more urea inside the fertiliser.

At the same time, we came up with another strategy. Since all these four complimentary inputs, looking at them physically you’ll be able to separate them. At times we look at it and ask: What if we apply a dyeing agent, either brown or white so that instead of all those heterogeneous mixtures that you can separate, it can be uniform. They’ll look homogenous. That’s another thing. Boko Haram cannot separate the urea if they look homogenous. So by applying a dyeing agent be it brown, red or any color, the whole mixture will just be a homogenous, uniform color. Then we came up with another strategy. If we turn it into liquid fertiliser the urea cannot be separated.

So, you are behind the liquid fertiliser?

Of course! We are doing it on a small scale but gradually because we always tried to look at our marketing strategy in such a way that we always tried to do things differently from that of our competitors. And we always create a synergy with research institutes like The Institute for Agricultural Research, Ahmadu Bello University Zaria, The Centre for DryLand Agriculture here in Bayero University Kano and many more. We are always in constant contact, asking questions, giving them a lot of findings so that they give us feedback. We give them the fertiliser, and they give it to smallholder farmers. We have our own pilot farms and we used to go to some of our out-growers to convince them in things like the Small Plot Adoption Technology (SPAT) systems, to convince them so that they adopt the use of our fertiliser. We say, ‘take some area of land, apply our fertiliser, then same area of land, apply your own and see.’ Then we monitor till the end of the harvesting season. We’ll just compare the yields. It shows the difference. So in fact, there are so many things we are doing differently and we don’t joke in the area of research and development.

What of your family, are they involved in your business?

Of course! As we speak, two of them are working in that plant, learning the rudiments of the business and being useful for themselves. I am training all of them to be useful because I worked hard to become this successful and they also have to work hard. Although I don’t wish for them to start from scratch like me, they have to learn what it takes to manage businesses.