0
Chief Chukwudi Boniface Okparaku is the Chief Executive Officer of Bonchudi Ventures Company Ltd., a Lagos-based company that produces different cosmetic products. In this interview with Ikechi Nzeako, he shares his assessment of the Nigerian business environment, the challenges and strategies needed to thrive in the harsh environment. He says that the future of Nigeria is very bright if certain things are put in place. Excerpts:
What type of products do you produce?
We produce beauty products like body cream, hair cream, soap and others.
How did you get into the business?
My father was a distributor, and when I was young, I told him that I would build a factory and produce those things he was distributing; that I would go into manufacturing. I built a factory, and I made beauty products.
How has it been over the years?
We are trying because manufacturing is not easy in Nigeria. After manufacturing, you need to push your product to the market. You have to deal with NAFDAC. You must sustain the quality of your products. This is not easy to do because there are competitors out there. You also need to deal with marketers and sales representatives; some of them are not honest. Some of them take your products, sell them, and run away with the money. This is a very difficult situation for people in the manufacturing industry.
In terms of quality, some Nigerians still prefer to buy foreign-made products because they think they have higher quality
It is a mindset, and it is changing because many beauty products made here are of good quality and Nigerians are buying them.
How do you source your raw materials?
We source them locally, but it has become difficult to source raw materials because most of the companies we source materials from are closing down.
Generally, how would you assess doing business in the country? I mean the business environment in the country.
I can tell you that Nigeria is still a very good country to do business in. We have the market; we have the population; this is the most populated country in Africa.
Nigeria’s future is bright; the only problem is that we have bad leadership. By the time we succeed in dismantling bad leadership and criminality in the country and get Nigeria functioning, I can assure you that Nigeria is a good marketplace. We are not losing hope.
What is your view of the current situation in the country?
Are we going to start from the insecurity? The country is no longer safe and secure. You can hardly travel from Lagos to the East without hearing one sad story of kidnapping or the other. We go to the South-West, North-East, North Central, even in the South-East.
We have a terrible situation in our hands, and I don’t know what else to say.
As a business person, what strategies will you give to young people on how they can also get ahead in this situation that we find ourselves in?
It is a very precarious situation, and to the young people, I can only encourage them not to lose hope. They should have faith in God and have hope.
Some Nigerians still prefer to buy imported products. What is your advice to such people?
Well, those are unpatriotic citizens; they do not want the Nigerian economy to grow by their actions. You don’t blame them because the government is not doing the right thing.
Imagine a situation where the government allows the Chinese to come into the country to bring their products into the country and begin to deal directly with Nigerians. Even the products they are bringing into the country are inferior compared to the quality of the ones we make here. But the government will give them licenses to operate freely in the country.
Even at the ports, as a clearing agent, I know that the government is giving licenses to Chinese to own terminals in Nigeria, thereby disempowering Nigerians economically. So the government is not doing well in this regard.
Most of the cosmetic companies are closing down because the Chinese are here; they take what we produce here and go back to China and produce them. They will then bring them back to Nigeria and begin to sell them cheaply. So, people prefer to buy Chinese instead of Nigerian products because they are cheaper.
So that is a challenge, and it is a very difficult situation for us here. The government needs to regulate what foreigners do in the country.
I don’t see myself going to China and establishing a shop and beginning to sell Nigerian-made goods in China. It will be very difficult for me.
But Nigeria has become an open place, a dumping ground where everybody comes and does whatever they want. So the earlier the regulatory bodies begin to deal with these things, the better for us as a country.
Can you name two or three policies that you think the government should introduce immediately that can make the business environment friendlier to business people like you?
When you talk about policies, for instance, NAFDAC registration is like passing through hell. They demand all manner of documents and make it almost impossible for you to secure a licence.
It is not encouraging, and the government need to relax some of those requirements. NAFDAC have to take it easy with us.
We are local manufacturers. We need their support. Secondly, the Bank of Industry is not helping matters.
We need a government intervention fund because here, if you want to acquire a machine from China for instance, they will tell you they are not going to support you except if you are going to buy it here in Nigeria.
Then thirdly, the commercial banks are not helping matters. How can you take a 29 per cent or 30 per cent interest loan to produce things? How are you going to pay back?
And even for banks to give you a loan, they will require you to go and bring your great-grandfather, your grandmother and other things for you to obtain a loan. So these are some of the challenges we are facing.
So the government must address these areas to facilitate trade. The fourth one is the Nigerian Customs Service. They are frustrating business people.
When we bring in raw materials, the frustration is much greater. There are multiple tax systems, multiple duty systems; you have a lot of tables created at the ports. A job that is supposed to be done by one or two officers is being done by about 40 officers.
So the government needs to facilitate trade at the ports and look into it and begin to deal with it decisively.
What future do you see for your company in the next five? Where do you think the company will be?
My company already has a Project 2030 agenda, which we started in 2020. So we are still on our way because we always have a 10-year vision ahead.
So, I believe we are getting there by 2030. The company is already 30 years old.
What advice do you have for young aspiring young businessmen and women?
I will advise them to go to school and get an education. They need to be disciplined and ready to work.
And they also need vision because without vision you cannot do anything in life. A man without vision is a dead man because vision gives you the reason to wake up in the morning to pursue your dream.
