Nigeria should focus on manufacturing what citizens need – Nwokoro, financial analyst

Chima Nwokoro is a business professional, entrepreneur and investor. Born in Enugu, he proudly refers to himself as a Coal City guy but he hails from Onuimo Local Government Area of Imo State. Husband to an exceptional lady and father to three lovely children.

After obtaining his BSc in Industrial Chemistry at Imo State University and completing the mandatory national youth service, he moved to the United Kingdom where he has spent the last 16 and half years, acquiring his MSc and other professional certifications.

He has worked and led various departments in manufacturing companies within the metals, oil and gas, construction, telecommunications, energy and financial sectors. His experience spans implementer and leadership roles in operations, technical, commercial and business development functions.

Currently, Chima Nwokoro runs a consultancy company, 5TT Partners Limited that supports foreign companies seeking to either enter or grow market share within the sub-Sahara African region, as well as facilitating an enterprise (5TT Profit Club) that supports everyday people to take control of their lives for peak performance with a focus on financial responsibility, again with a major focus on Africa.

He is widely travelled, doing business and supplying products and services worth several million pounds to major global brands across Europe, the Middle East and Asia.

The Nigerian Xpress chatted with him recently from his base:

Nigeria is suffering from dwindling oil revenue, with your wealth of experience, candidly advise on what areas should we be looking at to improve the fortune of the country?

I believe there is already a national awareness that our economy must be diversified away from over-dependence on oil revenues. That drive must continue. There are sectors that are already starting to see progress like the agricultural and telecommunications sectors.

If you take, for instance, the UK, there are several other industry sectors that contribute to the total GDP of the country. Most are broadly classed within the services sector and this accounts for over 70% of their GDP.

That is huge. Sectors like finance, retail, entertainment, tourism, leisure (hotels, restaurants, theme parks), etc all fall within the services sector in the UK and they accounted for over $1.9 trillion in 2019. That is just simply insane.

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Obviously, Nigeria is nowhere as advanced as the UK, but that should give us a clue on areas we can diversify into. Nigeria should focus on manufacturing what we need in our country.

I must say though that the initial focus of our government and industry leadership should really be at developing the basic infrastructure that will carry and drive improvement on any sector of the economy.

Four key areas for me: Legislation and government policies that allow for easy setup of SMEs and big business, sensible regulation of activities, tax reform, collection and incentives, etc. Emphasis should be on SMEs.

Power and transport (rail, road, air & water) to provide energy and for easy movement of people, goods and services from one place to the other. Capital and finance that allow access to affordable credit for SMEs to start, grow and consolidate.

A national and deliberate approach to develop its citizens to be ready and skilled for the sectors we must focus on. For instance, through apprenticeships, pure technical institutes, effective industrial attachments for students and funding pilot schemes in manufacturing. Once the infrastructure is in place, leave the rest for the private sector. The private sector has shown itself and will continue to show an unending ability to innovate.

COVID 19 has disrupted global economies, Nigeria inclusive, how can individuals, organizations and government navigate this strange terrain?

Like most other countries are doing, Nigeria must continue to test citizens for quick identification of breakouts that will then allow for easy isolation. More importantly, the citizenry must continue with the sensible personal responsibility and hygiene including washing hands, social distancing where possible and where that is not possible, use of masks or other face shields to mitigate potential spread.

Nigeria will probably not be able to infuse funds and resources into the economy as other bigger economies can, but it is something that the government must consider doing at some level. This will potentially allow businesses to continue operating thereby saving jobs.

Youths are often referred to as the leaders of tomorrow, as a developmental coach, what should Nigerian youths be leaning towards at this time?

In my opinion, there is a need for a complete paradigm shift for most of our young people. Now, it’s not really a fault of theirs to have found themselves in an environment where there is no national patriotism and too much focus on the acquisition of material things with little or no effort.

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In many advanced and advancing countries around the world, young people are the ones leading innovation and are actually disrupting established norms of enterprise.

These young folks do not unreasonably focus on the perks of success. Rather, they are trying to create systems, products, services and solutions that solve problems bigger than themselves in their societies.

In a lot of cases, their success in delivering the bigger purpose comes with all the perks and material pleasures they would ever desire to have.

My encouragement to our young people is to innovate. Resources follow good ideas. You can see it all across the country with Jiji, Jumia, Paystack, etc. There are a lot of others with small and growing businesses, but not yet popular. We want more in all the sectors.

You have been able to build a strong and formidable profile, take us through that journey?

I almost laughed out loud to the ‘strong and formidable profile’ phrase; whatever that means. I have been blessed with opportunities that have turned out good for me over the years and if I have to summarise it, I will use one word: GRACE. Anything I have achieved has been because of grace. However, I am just starting out and there is much more to achieve and those will definitely be by grace.

So, how did I get here riding on the wings of God’s grace? It all started from having a strong desire, then constantly ‘skilling up’ to achieve the desire and never losing the drive to be the right guy for the task.

In addition, an unapologetic disposition to hard work and a wiliness to accept mistakes along the way; doing whatever is necessary to mitigate or change direction. I will also mention a statement I read on a wall back in my early days in secondary school: ’Be kind to those on your way up because you never know who you will meet on your way down.’ That phrase has stayed with me all these years. Therefore, I value people around me and can attribute a greater portion of my achievements to the people (personal and professional) around me.

What has been the biggest challenge on your career path and how have you been able to surmount the challenges?

Most of my working career has been abroad. As I mentioned already, I am riding on the wings of God’s grace and I have an undying drive to be the right guy for the task.

This meant that in places where folks that look like me may not be regarded for certain roles, I have actually set myself the target to get to those positions. So, although I may not be naturally considered for the task, I go the extra mile coupled with my approach, level of personal education (not necessarily formal education) and skill, one has to at least give me some consideration.

I have found the above to help me stay prepared and armed to face any challenges.

At a time like this, will you advise investors to dabble into the stock market and if yes, how can one invest successfully and escape unscathed?

I will answer that question by quoting Warren Buffet: to be a successful investor, “simply attempt to be fearful when others are greedy and to be greedy only when others are fearful”.

So, in simple terms, when others are running away from stocks, that may be the right time to be accumulating them.

Obviously, one must know what they are doing to be able to effectively do what Mr Buffet suggested there. Seek advice. I facilitated a company, Five Talents Trader for financial solutions that help retail investors in the financial market, and we have not seen a time as this season in history. Technology has made participation in the markets an extremely easy process so that practically anyone can get involved.

Information technology is seen as the new crude oil, how can Nigerian youths tap into this goldmine?

Simple… skill up! Get formal and informal education in the IT sector. The opportunities are vast as IT and data science permeates every area of life now. In medicine, engineering, education, commerce, you name it. We now have self-driving vehicles, people speak and have conversations with their phones or some other gadgets.

The way wars are fought now is through data breach, remote technology, and one can now get training from prestigious institutions globally whilst sitting in their room in Lagos, etc.

All these things are made possible through IT and technology in general. For our country to progress we must start to transform our institutions, aligning them to global best practices.