Yesterday, we went to visit Detola, a Nigerian entrepreneur and small business owner, who lives in a part of Lagos known as "Oko-Oba." As we got closer to his combination house-workshop-office, it became apparent that he was from a lesser-developed part of town - in American terminology, "the other side of the tracks." Although Oko-Oba is by no means a slum, I think it may qualify as a shanty town or, at the very least, a poorer part of town than our own (slightly) ghetto neighborhood- Agege.
The following is merely an attempt to capture what I saw.
The purpose of our visit to Wapa Apparel in Oko-Oba was to follow up on Detola, a FATE Foundation alumnus, and see how his business had been doing since his attendance at one of Fate's "Emerging Entrepreneur" training sessions. Like all of Fate's alumni, Detola had nothing but warm things to relate about the positive influence of the FATE Foundation and the success of their training programs in "opening [his] eyes" to the way business is supposed to be done - especially, in his case, when it came to attracting the "right customer base."
Through Wapa Apparel, Detola targets companies and businesses and he specializes in the design and manufacture of uniforms and "workwares" - ex. oil and gas industry jump suits. His average order size is 500 although he told us that he had set his minimum order size at 50.
Unfortunately, access to financing is a huge obstacle to the growth of his business. In Nigeria, although banks claim to be "SME Friendly" ("Small and Medium Enterprise"), they often have strict, inflexible policies and demand an often outrageous amount of collateral up front before agreeing to lend any amount of money. Furthermore, banks often fail and, when they do, they take their customers' money down with them. In the case of Detola, he invested 30% collateral in one such bank in order to get a loan only to find that the bank failed immediately after telling him he was eligible for financing. He has yet to have his 30% investment returned to him.
Detola would like to purchase more technologically-advanced, digital cutting equipment so that, instead of cutting out 4 or 5 uniforms at a time, he can accurately and efficiently cut out all 500 at once. Once he can find better financing, Detola has big plans to move Wapa Apparel out of Oko-Oba and into a "better location" - a better neighborhood with a more constant supply of electricity and with closer proximity to potential clients. As it is now, Detola claims that business has been slower then he would like which he links to the fact that few people can find him so far outside of Lagos and so deep into Oko-Oba - the "other side of the tracks."
Despite many obstacles to his success, Detola remains hopeful that things will change eventually and, when they do, he hopes to partner with American businesses and prove that "Nigerians can produce much better work that the Chinese.''
The following is merely an attempt to capture what I saw.
 |
| Oko-Oba, Lagos, Nigeria |
 |
| Fresh produce... displayed over an open sewer |
 |
| Trash and open sewage trickle down the street |
 |
| We were told that few people visit this district during the rainy season - as with much of Lagos, the rain water floods the open sewers and, in this neighborhood, the absence of paved roads means that everything is turned into a muddy, sewage slush. |
 |
| Clothes line on the railroad tracks |
 |
| Why did the goat cross the railroad tracks? To get to the sewage-fed grass on the other side, of course |
 |
| Trash in the foreground, broken-down trash truck in the background. I should note that Lagos in general has a trash problem but this particular instance was especially bad. |
 |
| Detola - the owner of "Wapa Apparel" - at the sewing machine with his son. |
 |
| Detola's assistants pause from their work to pose for my (annoying) camera. |
The purpose of our visit to Wapa Apparel in Oko-Oba was to follow up on Detola, a FATE Foundation alumnus, and see how his business had been doing since his attendance at one of Fate's "Emerging Entrepreneur" training sessions. Like all of Fate's alumni, Detola had nothing but warm things to relate about the positive influence of the FATE Foundation and the success of their training programs in "opening [his] eyes" to the way business is supposed to be done - especially, in his case, when it came to attracting the "right customer base."
Through Wapa Apparel, Detola targets companies and businesses and he specializes in the design and manufacture of uniforms and "workwares" - ex. oil and gas industry jump suits. His average order size is 500 although he told us that he had set his minimum order size at 50.
Unfortunately, access to financing is a huge obstacle to the growth of his business. In Nigeria, although banks claim to be "SME Friendly" ("Small and Medium Enterprise"), they often have strict, inflexible policies and demand an often outrageous amount of collateral up front before agreeing to lend any amount of money. Furthermore, banks often fail and, when they do, they take their customers' money down with them. In the case of Detola, he invested 30% collateral in one such bank in order to get a loan only to find that the bank failed immediately after telling him he was eligible for financing. He has yet to have his 30% investment returned to him.
Detola would like to purchase more technologically-advanced, digital cutting equipment so that, instead of cutting out 4 or 5 uniforms at a time, he can accurately and efficiently cut out all 500 at once. Once he can find better financing, Detola has big plans to move Wapa Apparel out of Oko-Oba and into a "better location" - a better neighborhood with a more constant supply of electricity and with closer proximity to potential clients. As it is now, Detola claims that business has been slower then he would like which he links to the fact that few people can find him so far outside of Lagos and so deep into Oko-Oba - the "other side of the tracks."
Despite many obstacles to his success, Detola remains hopeful that things will change eventually and, when they do, he hopes to partner with American businesses and prove that "Nigerians can produce much better work that the Chinese.''
No comments:
Post a Comment