Move Back to Nigeria is a new
series on BellaNaija. The aim is to encourage young
and not-so-young professionals in the diaspora who are trying to make
the decision of whether to move back to Nigeria. In collaboration with
the guys at MoveBackToNigeria.com,
we hope to bring you a weekly interview with individuals who have
successfully made the leap. The idea is to share their successes and
their challenges as they made the decision.
This week we speak with a Nigerian
professional whose back story is very intriguing. He is a communications
and graphic design expert and currently runs his own company after
moving back to Nigeria from the UK to start from ground zero. Please
note that the identities of the respondents will be concealed in order
to protect them. We hope you enjoy the interviews and you are inspired
and motivated. We also welcome discussions and your views on the subject
matter.
Can you briefly introduce
yourself and tell us a bit about your education background?
I’m a trained architect & a tech geek. I run my graphic design &
corporate communications business. I studied architecture at a
reputable Nigerian university and got a Masters degree in the UK. My
career choice was due to the fact that my father did not want me to
follow in his engineering footsteps so he personally filled out
architecture in my Jamb forms and that’s how I ended up there. Dad was
always strongly involved in my upbringing. In junior secondary school,
he enrolled me at a tailoring school to learn how to sew and after
secondary school, I had to attend computer lessons as well. Even during
the ASUU (Academic Staff Union of Universities) strikes which were quite
frequent at the time, I had different jobs including a stint at the AIM
GROUP, Lagos where I worked the graveyard shift on radio. My time there
gave me a good overview of business administration. Also, while
studying architecture, I learnt how to design using computer-aided
software and this is how I fell in love with all things I.T
related. I’ve always been very entrepreneurial as I started a business
in my undergraduate days which on another note, is how I met my wife as
she was attracted to my creative drive. Our services essentially
involved taking pictures and creating experiences and even after I
graduated, I was constantly going back to visit, as my then girlfriend,
now wife was still studying there and I was a very love-struck young
man.
Very interesting. We hope you’re
still love-struck. So when did you leave Nigeria and why?
Oh yes, I certainly am. Well, my younger brothers had left Nigeria to
the UK for their A levels and kept telling me about the UK’s amazing
opportunities. They thought with my soft skills, as I am often described
as being charming and personable, that I would do really well in such
an environment and so I decided to initially visit which I did and then I
came back home to apply for a masters degree at Middlesex University
and a student visa. It was a successful application and so I eventually
left in 2000. I should state that my time at AIM was instrumental to
what I currently do for a living. I learnt a lot because I was very
persistent and kept trying to know and understand everything around me.
I also had a mentor there who was very tech-savvy and who inspired me
and painstakingly showed me the ropes. From AIM, I left the country.
How did your professional life
take off?
What I do is Communications Collateral which is corporate communications
with a strong branding edge, essentially creating the brand message on
different platforms and disseminating to the client’s target audience.
In the UK, I worked with a charity and then a company called City Index
which eventually got acquired by Rank Zerox and became BlueSquare where
my professional life began but where I was later let go. Studying for my
postgraduate degree in the UK while simultaneously getting I.T
certifications gave me a global view of design and also opened my eyes
to more career opportunities and perspectives.
I got a project with a bank and set up a
company with a friend to implement the brief. It was a small business
which was turning over about £300 a month but things changed and the
business was not doing well and so my partner went to start his own
company which led to a falling out and so the company closed down. At
this point things got really difficult for my family. We could not pay
our bills, we had maxed out our credit cards, my wife sold her car etc
and so I went ahead and got my first job in the UK. It was a minimum
wage job and it was while there I met my first UK mentor who encouraged
me to get Cisco certification and helped me move to a better job that
paid £18000 per annum. Then I met a second mentor who worked with the
Food Standards Agency (FSA) and helped me get a job there which I
thoroughly enjoyed. It was a contract job and eventually due to visa
restrictions, I lost the job.
Then I got my next job in corporate
communications at Cazenove which was eventually bought by JP Morgan.
Another job I enjoyed. However, after a while, my wife got fed up of the
UK and we started looking for opportunities in Nigeria, as the time had
come for us to move back.
This naturally leads us to your
reason for moving back. How did you decide it was time to move back and
what was the process like?
As far as I was concerned, I had no skills, had worked in core finance
at the FSA and corporate communications at BlueSquare. JP Morgan
however, opened me to a global perspective and everyday at work was a
WOW moment for me. I thoroughly loved it! So I was not interested in
coming back to Nigeria at all, particularly for security reasons. But I
found that every time I went back to visit, I was truly at peace. I
would compare it to the superficial work-life in the UK and so moving
back started becoming appealing, particularly with regards to family
life as my wife was really keen to move. There were obvious advantages:
We could relax in warm weather, eat pepper soup (which I enjoy), be
closer to family and raise our kids with the cultural values we so
admired. And then around this time, my visa expired and our hands were
forced, we had to move. Let me state clearly that it was not a voluntary
move. I loved being in the UK, I had started a charity, work was
finally going well and I was quite happily settled but we had to move
and so we did.
How have you found it,
particularly with regards to your entrepreneurial orientation?
Nigeria taught me to be humble. I had assumed I would get a job easily,
as easily as my wife did but it did not happen like that and I was
introduced to the ugly side of Nigeria. The politicking was new to me
and I had to learn to understand the idiosyncrasies and re-engineer my
thinking. We moved back to Nigeria and my wife asked me what I wanted to
do and decided to support me on one of my projects and so because of my
experience working with kids I decided to start a summer camp. An
ingenious idea I thought, and it generated favourable patronage as well
but the patrons did not pay and the whole venture left me heavily
indebted. I explored many other opportunities albeit unsuccessfully and
then went back to architecture. It was a booming sector at the time but
then I started dealing with artisans and got frustrated and so I took a 3
month break from it all. Before the 3-month break, I had an interview
with one of the top multinationals and then decided to work with for a
while with them to get a work refresher.
It was my first corporate communications
job in Nigeria and an enlightening & disappointing experience as I
learnt first-hand how hard people work and realised it was not for me. I
got so disillusioned at the fact that it was run like a one man
business. There was no innovation, no passion or creativity, I felt used
and so I left. I needed more. I started networking which proved
immensely useful as it was a contact who introduced me to a few
investment banks to pitch for jobs. My old partner rejoined me during
this process and we eventually started working for 2 of the banks. Thus,
our business was re-launched in 2011. It is a communications
consultancy and a global communications/design agency with branches in
Lagos and London. We basically create brand messages for our clients and
spread these messages on touch-points which can be anywhere the target
audience connects with the brand. Simply put, it is end to end
communications.
Admittedly, it was a bit weird in the
beginning as we hadn’t gotten a grasp of details like staffing, pricing,
overhead costs etc but we persevered and then suddenly jobs started
coming in. Then business slowed down again and we underwent a drought so
to speak but this time decided not to give up. So we got rid of all our
staff and started the business again on a much smaller scale. In the
1st year of operations which basically consisted of 4months we had a
turnover of N7million, and then the inertia we were experiencing passed
after which things changed. In the 2nd year of business, our
turnover was N6million and now, just a few years after, we have an
average monthly turnover of N25million, which is about N300million
annually.
Wow…You have certainly come a
very long way. Looking back, what can you say were your highs and lows?
As Steve Jobs famously said, you can only connect the dots looking back.
Despite the turbulent times, I have to admit that every failure I had
taught me a lesson, some of which included the fact that while the
economy may have been right, the mindset was not. I learnt how different
Nigerians are and the way to do business here, and also that certain
services are not valued. Every single process I went through prepared me
for where I am today and I can only thank God for bringing me this far.
That is certainly true. On a
final note, do you have any words of wisdom for anyone who might be
considering a move back to Nigeria?
I think it’s very important to always have mentor-like people at every
point in one’s life. I have always had such people who also call me to
order when I am going off the rails and those are the things I lean
onto. Of particular note is my partner and friend who has been very
influential in my life to date. I often say people should always have
two kinds of relationships: Vertical relationships which are those
involving people I look up to such as mentors & horizontal
relationships which are those involving people at my level such as my
peers.
It is also important to genuinely care
about people. This goes a long way towards creating positive karma
around you and yours. Also, learn to trust. At some point, to take risks
you have to trust people despite the prevailing distrust in the
society. Finally, be persistent. Don’t give up, follow your passion and
be humble. Stay grounded and accept help & favors from people
especially family.
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