The importance of the age-long Igbo apprenticeship system dominated the 2021 edition of Aba Business Leadership Summit and Awards with the theme “Transferring tested and proven business models to the next generation”.
The educating summit brought together the crème de la crème of the Igbo business world and the intelligentsia together at the Aba Sports Club to deliberate on the problems bedeviling the Igbo business society.
Speaking to the youths and young entrepreneurs at the summit, the founder of Coscharis Group and one of Nigeria’s most successful business magnates, Dr. Cosmas Maduka said that the Igbo apprenticeship system is as complete as any formal business institution in the world.
Maduka through the narration of the story of his life, asked every young Igbo man to learn from his life story, humble background, resilience, hard work, and see every problem as a business opportunity.
He said that God sent someone like me ahead of the youths to dismantle every excuse they may have for not succeeding. Hear him.
“The man standing before you today can boldly say that the best I did in school is elementary three. So the four corner walls you call school is not known to me. It’s not because I’m not intelligent, but life offered me no opportunity to survive. I lost my father at the age of four.
My mother became a single parent and life was really unfair to me. I was the second in the family. I was going to farm, climbing palm trees.”
He said that the youths must change their mental attitude and must jettison the abnormal way they process information to enable them accept the beneficial ones.
Maduka narrated how his uncle took him to Lagos State for apprenticeship at tender age, when it was obvious that his mother could no longer cope with burden at home. Maduka said that the major problem with the current young generation is that they have been spoilt and none of them wants to take responsibility.
“I served my uncle for six years and half years and in 1976, he counted N200 and gave me as settlement. I just did the mathematics while we were talking.
N200 then was about close to N150,000 now. It was nothing. It couldn’t pay for a shop. Because I asked my uncle what he wants me to do with it. I could have eaten Isi-ewu, nkwobi, pepper soup and turn around to blame everybody around me including God on why he took away my father.
“We’re well informed as apprentices than many know. There, we were taught administration; we were thought accountancy because your books must balance every day.
We were also thought inventory management because you need to keep the stock on your books to know when your boy starts stealing from you. So, everything you require to succeed in business is taught during apprenticeship.
The only difference between it and a business school is that it’s not done in a formal way where you’re issued a certificate. We even did research while we were doing apprenticeship. We did research in an informal way.
While serving my uncle, I was able to know what I can get out in a Volkswagen Beetle than in Peugeot. That is a research and I was keeping records of that information. I have challenged many people on this issue of apprenticeship and formal education in business.”
“I’m talking to you about mindset. My senior brother asked me to leave the money in anger, but I asked him, do you have any money to give me when we get home, he said no, and now asked why are you telling me to leave this one? Young people today neglect every small thing given to them.” Maduka said that his main excitement was not N200 he was given, but on the freedom to decide my future and do whatever he wants to do with his life.
He urged young Igbo businessmen not to neglect partnership to enable their business grow as it was one of the platforms he started with to be where he is today. The renowned business mogul said that he got into four different partnerships before the formation of Coscharis (Cosmas and Charity) which was formed with his name and that of his wife.
He said that when he started Coscharis, his wife was his first employee, the second employee was his wife’s sister and as times goes on, and he started putting apprenticeship board. He also urged young Igbo businessmen to be innovative, stressing that without too much grammar, innovation simply means finding a new way to do what you were thought how to do.
“It’s all about doing things differently, so forget about all the big grammars they blow about it. We must not continue to do things how we were thought saying this is what we were thought. Many people believe we’re not educated because we don’t speak big grammars, I’m not a British man, you can speak your grammars as you like, what we’re looking for is what you’ve been able to actualize with it.
“Henry Ford said that an educated man is someone who can organize his thought into productivity. So, if you cannot organize your thought into productivity, you are just having a mere conception.” He said that inasmuch as government can be held responsible for unemployment, Igbos must use their resilient Igbo spirit to tell government that they need them in all angles.
“If we build a strong economy, yes they can use their powers but we know who we are. Today, I’m in Ghana, Ivory Coast and Gabon because I’m needed and money has no face. Investment capital doesn’t like you and hate me. Anywhere you receive money it goes. Money understands all languages and speaks them all. Many of you are busy learning how to speak English that doesn’t put you in any Guinness Book of Record.
“Listen and understand that the Igbo resilient spirit is important. With elementary three Educations, I served in two public quoted banks in Nigeria. I never had the educational qualification to do that.”
The Nnewi born business magnate said that it is unfortunate that those who are ignorant look down on Igbo apprentice saying that they are not educated.
“We’re well informed as apprentice than many know. There, we were taught administration; we were thought accountancy because your books must balance every day. We were also thought inventory management because you need to keep the stock on your books to know when your boy starts stealing from you. So, everything you require to succeed in business is taught during apprenticeship. The only difference between it and a business school is that it’s not done in a formal way where you’re issued a certificate.
“We even did research while we were doing apprenticeship. We did research in informal way. While serving my uncle, I was able to know what I can get out in a Volkswagen Beetle than fit in Peugeot. That is a research and I was keeping records of that information. I have challenged many people on this issue of apprenticeship and formal education in business.
“And I have said, get a young man, send him to school, let him finish his school and come back to do business. Give him N10 million. Get a man who did apprenticeship, give him N2 million and you’ll see the difference between practical knowledge and theory. Knowledge is power my people.
“We need to start changing the narratives. Currently, the knowledge our young people are acquiring now is not helping them to be productive in life. Personally, I did my private studying. Life is about management and you learn all these during apprenticeship.”
He stressed that management is the most important thing one is thought during apprenticeship, stressing that whatever one mismanaged in life will hardly be recovered. Maduka said that he still advocates not just mentorship for Igbo youths, but upholding of Igbo apprenticeship system, which he also said has its own pitfalls that need innovation to correct.
Innovations in apprenticeship system:
“That’s why I always talk about innovation. We must learn a new way of doing things. The Apprenticeship system that brought me up goes with the form that when the boy is at his sixth year or seven, the boss counts capital and gives to him to start his business.
“Remember then, the boy is already familiar with the business, his boss is comfortable at home while the boy was attending to all customers after he has been settled. Customers who are now more familiar with him will always come earlier to meet him.
“Immediately he opens the shop, he already has customers waiting for him and when they bring list to him early morning, he’ll quickly rush, bring those goods both the ones he has and doesn’t have that he can collect from other people.
“Within five years, the boy is coming up and his boss is going down. By the tenth year, his boss is out of business and that boy is a billionaire. This method of retaining settled senior apprentice is making us to keep producing seven years business champions who doesn’t last more than ten years.
“Everybody will get up and reign for 10 years you’ll not hear from them again. I took the first sets of apprentice because I didn’t have the capital to employ 45 people. But once they’re getting to the point of settlement, I never returned one apprentice that I have settled.
“Each one of them that I settled, I hire a staff to replace them. I celebrate them and settle them and by the grace of God, we’ve been able to create an institution that have stood the test time and will be a model for the young generation.
“I make these sacrifices for the average Igbo man because people have spoken a lot of bad things about us. Let them know that there are lots of exceptional Igbo men doing things right. We’re many and I’m one of them.”
Ways of developing and keeping business beyond founders:
Maduka talked about sincerity, stressing that he built his business with truth and sincerity and urged Igbo youths not to be distracted by situation of the economy.
“As an entrepreneur, you’re a capital creator. You can create an employment. Stop this blame game. Government has not done well, but we can’t continue to hope on this economy. This is because the story of Nigeria is a caricature of an old man who won lottery (as crude oil represents) and because of the money he got from lottery, he stopped doing every other business to sustain his family.
“This man planned all he wants to do for himself and family on the lottery money. By the time the man is old the lottery money has depleted and he cannot manage those children anymore.
“The money is not much anymore to handle his needs. That’s what we have found ourselves doing. People are still talking about oil. I asked the Chairman of BMW how many years this cars of combustion engine last and he said well, it’ll be few years.
“Let me tell you, there’s nothing you cannot achieve with willingness. Coscharis will outlive Cosmas Maduka because in the last 30 years, I don’t sign cheques in Coscharis. I have people today who are not from my tribe working well for me. People usually say they used charms on me, but I tell them that they should get more of such charms because the people there are making wealth for me while I pay them well.”
Proper remuneration of workers as way of sustaining business:
Maduka said that one of the major problems Igbo businessmen have is that they hire people and don’t pay them well.
“You bring people claiming you got them from gutters, teach them how to clean house, instead of changing their status and treating them well, we end up reminding them where we brought them from.
“This will backfire. If you don’t treat your workers well, they’ll join another competitor. There are people who work with me that earn N100,000,000 per annum.
“It’s not a big story. N100,000,000 they earn is a small change to what they make for me. If someone is making N2 billion for you and you give him N100 million have one done anything special? He creates wealth for you and you must pay them well.”
Financial management as bedrock of business sustainability:
Maduka said that the level of poverty hovering all over the land among young people today is partly as a result of poor financial management.
“Some of you don’t know that Jesus Christ was a business man. I learnt all I know from him. Jesus Christ while on eat fed 500 people with two fishes and four loaves of bread. He used his administrative brain to ask them to divide the people in 50s. They broke the fishes and bread and fed people and at the end, he tried to know how they’re feeling which what we call customers satisfaction in business.
“The following day, Jesus didn’t go for them, they were the ones looking for him to know where he was. The customers were now the ones looking for him. Do you know what Jesus did after the feeding that many ignore today, that’s management of rejecting waste. He told his disciples to pick the crumbs on the ground.
“You bring people claiming you got them from gutters, teach them how to clean house, instead of changing their status and treating them well, we end up reminding them where we brought them from. This will backfire.
If you don’t treat your workers well, they’ll join another competitor. There are people who work with me that earn N100, 000,000 per annum. It’s not a big story. N100,000,000 they earn is a small change to what they make for me. If someone is making N2 billion for you and you give him N100 million have one done anything special? He creates wealth for you and you must pay them well.”
“Now, tell me, what was his interest with crumbs if he can multiply those things to feed several thousands of people? Waste is not allowed in business. Nothing should be wasted. If I eat rice here, you’ll not see a single grain after I’ve finished eating.”
He urged Igbo youths to read good books as it will help them, adding that people wonder how a man who stopped in elementary three like himself, has managed to serve in the board of two quoted banks.
