Sunday, July 24, 2011
Two Nigerians declared wanted for war crimes
Two Nigerians declared wanted for war crimes: "Two Nigerians were among 30 nationals declared wanted on Thursday by the Canadian Border Services Agency (CBSA) for war crimes or crimes a..."
Saturday, July 23, 2011
BREAKING NEWS: Amy Winehouse, 27, found dead at her London flat
Police treated death as 'unexplained'
Amy Winehouse has been found dead at her home in London, it has been reported.
The Back To Black singer was apparently found at the property in by emergency services at 3.54pm this afternoon, according to sources, and her death is being treated as 'unexplained' by police.
In a statement, the Metropolitan Police said: 'Police were called by London Ambulance Service to an address in Camden Square NW1 shortly before 16.05hrs today, Saturday 23 July, following reports of a woman found deceased.
On arrival officers found the body of a 27-year-old female who was pronounced dead at the scene.
'Enquiries continue into the circumstances of the death. At this early stage it is being treated as unexplained.’
Picture of health: Amy was spotted out and about in London earlier this month
It is not known whether Amy’s father Mitch actually knows about his daughter’s death and Sky News have confirmed that he is currently on a plane to New York to take part in a Jazz festival.
Winehouse had been seen with her goddaughter Dionne Bromfield earlier this week as the teenager took to the stage at the iTunes festival.
She refused to join in for Mama Said, but did support the 14-year-old with a few dance moves before urging the crowd to buy Dionne's new album Good For The Soul.
A source said: 'Amy staggered onstage and grabbed the mic to beg the crowd to buy her protege’s new album.'
Winehouse's appearance at the concert came after she cancelled her European tour following a disastrous performance in June when she stumbled onto the stage in Belgrade and gave an incoherent performance appearing very disorientated and removed from reality.
Following the concert which saw fans enraged and the subsequent video that circulated to millions she cancelled the remaining dates of her European tour.
A statement released by the troubled singer's spokesperson said that the singer would be given 'as long as it takes' to recover.
Daddy's girl: Amy was very close to her father Mitch, who is believed not to know about his daughter's death
The statement read: 'Amy Winehouse is withdrawing from all scheduled performances.
'Everyone involved wishes to do everything they can to help her return to her best and she will be given as long as it takes for this to happen.'
Winehouse had been working on her long-awaited new album, the follow-up to her 2006 breakthrough multi-million selling Back To Black, for the past three years.
Singing sensation: Amy had huge hits with tracks including Rehab and Back To Black and is seen here performing at Glastonbury in 2008
Winehouse has had a troubled life which has included various stints in rehab for drug and alcohol addiction.
In an interview in 2008, her mother Janis said she would be unsurprised if her daughter died before her time.
She said: 'I've known for a long time that my daughter has problems. But seeing it on screen rammed it home. I realise my daughter could be dead within the year. We're watching her kill herself, slowly.
'I've already come to terms with her dead. I've steeled myself to ask her what ground she wants to be buried in, which cemetery. Because the drugs will get her if she stays on this road.
'I look at Heath Ledger and Britney. She's on their path. It's like watching a car crash - this person throwing all these gifts away.'
Wednesday, July 20, 2011
Better late than never-70-year-old man marries partner of 41 years… After 3 sons, 7 daughters
41 years ago, Pa Uzoukwu married his heartthrob, Esther, in the traditional way. As a Christian of the Catholic faith, he had hoped to have the church wedding as soon as possible, especially since he had a gentleman’s agreement with his father-in-law.
Pa Uzoukwu, a native of Egbeoma in Oguta Local Government Area of Imo State, left the shores of the country before the Nigeria civil war.
He found a home in Cameroon and he stayed in that country till the war ended. At the end of the 30-month battle, the septuagenarian felt he had come of age and needed a wife.
As was the practice among the Igbo then, Uzoukwu, in choosing a wife, looked homewards and found his help mate in an Igbo girl whose parents equally resided in Cameroon.
Uzoukwu, now a father of 10, (three men and seven women, seven of them university graduates), then performed the traditional marriage rites. On August 17, 1970, he took Esther as a life partner.
Although it was a blissful day for both families, something was still missing. The father-in-law was not happy with the way his daughter was betrothed to Uzoukwu and he made this known in unequivocal terms. As a mark of prestige and in consonance with his Christian belief, the man had hoped that whoever would marry his daughter would take her to the altar for a church wedding.
So, when Uzoukwu indicated that he was not going to do the church wedding immediately, his father-in-law did not fail to show his disappointment over that decision, which was antithetical to his belief. Although he allowed his daughter to go with his son-in-law, it was not until he had given a condition to the young man that a church wedding must take place in the near future. Uzokwu accepted.
Determined to carry out the wish of his father-in-law, Uzoukwu did not only give the wedding issue a serious thought, he also made plans to get the dream realized as soon as possible. The plans were on when Uzoukwu’s business suffered a serious setback and the wedding was put on hold.
But on July 13, that deadlock was broken and the 41-year-old dream became a reality. Uzoukwu and his wife were joined in holy matrimony alongside 99 other couples in a mass wedding held at Christ the King Church (CKC), Aba.
In a chat with Daily Sun after the colourful ceremony, Pa Uzoukwu enthused: “Today is one of my happiest days on earth. It is a day my dream of 41 years became a reality.
“When I performed my wife’s traditional marriage rites and wanted to take her to live with me, my father-in-law objected, insisting that we must do the church wedding also. It was only upon my strong promise that his wish would be done that he allowed me to have my way.
“It took me 41 good years to get this task accomplished because as I was planning how to do the wedding, my business suffered a serious setback and there was no money to continue with the idea. I had to put it off but not without the issue remaining a recurring decimal in my mind.
“At the time my financial standing improved, our children had come of age. So, my wife and I decided that the money we would have spent for the wedding should be used to train our children. We decided to keep the wedding pending.”
Today, seven of Pa Uzoukwu’s children are university graduates while some are living abroad. One of his daughters, an accountant with one of the blue chip companies, died last year, however. But the Septuagenarian said the joy of the wedding had helped in cushioning the sad memory of the lady’s death.
Pa Uzoukwu wasn’t the only ecstatic one. His wife, Esther, and their 23-year-old ninth child, all expressed gratitude to God for making the dream of their breadwinner come through.
Pa Uzoukwu was even happier that he had been fully admitted into the Catholic Christian family, and that he could now partake of the Holy Communion.
In a sermon during the solemnization service, which holds at least once in three years, Revd. Fr. Joachim Anumba admonished all the couples to eschew bitterness and rancour, and to show love to one another.
Fr. Anumba stressed the need for the newly weds not to be quick in passing judgment on their partners but to exercise patience in whatever they do in order to sustain the marriage.
He urged the couples not to hide anything from their spouses so that joy would remain in their households.
“This life is humorous. If there is no humour in your life, you are heading for doom for this life is too short and precious.”
He said with the wedding, the celebrants had fully been admitted into the Catholic fold, stating that before now, they were regarded as sinners who did not enjoy full rights in the church as other members.
Perhaps what appeared to have motivated Pa Uzoukwu into insisting on having the wedding was the discrimination he said he had suffered in the hands of fellow Christians, who saw him as a sinner who was not worthy to be found within their fold.
To worsen things, he and others, who were not properly wedded in the church, were not allowed to take the Holy Communion while their marriages were regarded as illegal.
Fr. Anumba gave vent to Pa Uzoukwu’s assertion. “They (the new couples) have to receive the sacrament of holy matrimony without which they will not be allowed to participate in Wednesdays’ sacrament of Holy Communion and other related church activities.
“According to our doctrine, if a man and his wife are not wedded, they are not Christians and their children are not legitimate because they are born out of wedlock. And if any of them dies, no Catholic priest will attend or officiate at the burial ceremony,” he said.
An ardent member of the Catholic faith and a Christian father, Michael Obi, told our reporter: “This type of wedding comes up once in a while and it avails those who could not wed properly the opportunity of wedding the Christian way.
“Without this type of wedding, even if one’s marriage has produced 20 children, one will not be recognized as a Christian father or mother as the case may be and such a person has no right whatsoever in the Catholic Church.”
Obi further stated that once a man had walked down the aisle with his wife, he would be faced with some rules. One of them is that he must not marry another wife. And if he goes out of his way to circumvent that aspect of the Catholic doctrine, he would go back to square one.
Pa Uzoukwu’s wedding was unique in so many ways. It had the trappings of royalty. Aside the razzmatazz that went with it, the holy matrimony was performed by no fewer than 11 priests. The sun was very bright even though the wedding was held in the middle of the rainy season.
According to Obi, the clement weather was attributable to the sacrifice of prayers that had been made to God.
Sources
Confession of a prostitute:How I killed a man over oral sex
The young lady isn’t denying that she committed the crime; she’s saying, however, that she killed the man in self defence.
The 21-year-old lady, Kofoworola, said when she boarded a Honda car at Borno Crescent, Apapa, Lagos, at about 3.30 am that fateful night, she was very grateful to the driver. The driver, she said, reportedly assured her he would not collect any money since he wasn’t driving a commercial vehicle.
Kofoworola, (other names are being withheld by us) said she never knew that danger was lurking around the corner until the driver, identified as Patrick, refused to stop at her destination - Monalido Night Club, Apapa. Kofoworola said when she protested, the driver brought out a knife and threatened to kill her if she failed to do his bidding. Ironically, it was Kofoworola that ended up killing the man with that same knife. How did it happen?
“He threatened to kill me with the knife if I refused to perform oral sex on him,” she said. “He said I should use my mouth to stimulate his manhood. I told him I could not do it. I had never done such a thing before. I begged him and even told him that such act irritates me and would make me vomit. All my pleading fell on deaf ears. I later told him to allow me ease myself. I told him I was not going to run because my bag was on the back seat. He stopped the vehicle, but as I wanted to come down, he sped off again.
He held my neck with one hand as he drove and was pressing my throat with it while he controlled the steering with the other hand. He then pulled over at a dark spot along Hyndra Road, Apapa. He pulled down his trousers and commanded me to do what he wanted me to do. I still refused. He stabbed me in my foot to show how serious he was. I screamed and begged him to leave me alone.
He pressed my face to his lap and ordered me to do what he wanted me to do. I did not obey him. As he was pressing my neck, the knife fell off from his hands. I quickly grabbed it. When he saw that I had collected the knife, he attempted to collect it from me by force. He bit me in the hand. So I first stabbed him on the thigh and later stabbed him in the chest several times.
“I didn’t mean to kill him. I was only trying to defend myself since he had vowed to kill me. I made a mistake. Maybe instead of killing him I should have allowed him to kill me. That would have been better. I would not have been in this problem now.”
She also explained how she became a prostitute. Her words: “I am a Lagosian. I come from Lagos Island. I live at Casco Street, Old Ojo Road, Mazamaza with my mother. I am also a mother, as I have a three-year-old daughter. My father never cared about me and that was why I am into prostitution. My father is not interested whether we survive or not. My mother is just a petty trader. There is little she can do financially. I needed to do something so that I could be able to take care of my child and myself. Now that I am in trouble, who will take care of my baby? I have to do something to take care of my baby. I love my baby. I love her so much.
“What am I going to do now? Who will help me out of this problem? They said they will charge the case to court. I have not entered any court since I was born. Now I am going there because of murder. God, I should have allowed him to kill me. If I had died, at least I will rest from all these worldly problems. I don’t have a helper. See what poverty has dragged me into. If not for poverty, I should be sleeping in my house instead of going to the club. But I do it on part time basis. I am not a full time prostitute.”
The lady said the man who impregnated her abandoned her and the baby, saying she even dragged him to the police station over the matter.
“I tried to make Collins understand that he is the owner of the baby but he denied it. The police tried to settle the matter. But you know you can take a horse to the stream, you cannot force it to drink water. My family were also disappointed in him. Up till now he never cares about his baby. He is not interested in her. For three years now, I have been the one rearing the baby alone. All these problems made me look for money by all means. I had to drop my pride and take my destiny in my hands.”
According to her, she is regretting ever venturing into prostitution. She urges women to avoid it as much as possible. “Prostitution is not a job,” she said. “It is immoral. It can put you in trouble at any time. Please learn from my own experience. I became pregnant during my final year in secondary school. After I delivered, I later went back to write my WAEC examinations. Unfortunately, I failed English language.”
An investigation by this reporter in many night clubs in Apapa revealed that the dead man might have violated several prostitutes in the area before he was finally killed.
At Wazobia Night Club, a lady called Ngozi spoke of her experience in the hands of the dead man. Her words: “One day at about 2 am., I was leaving the residence of one of my ‘customers’. He is a white man. He lives at Calcutta Crescent, Apapa. I was waiting for either a commercial motorcycle or a taxi that would convey me to a hotel on Azare Street, Apapa, where another customer was waiting for me. I saw this car and it stopped in front of me. Only the driver was inside. He beckoned on me to come inside and I did.
He asked where I was going and I told him. He said he was going towards that direction and that he would drop me at no cost. But instead to move towards the direction I was going, the man brought out a knife and threatened to stab me to death if I failed to cooperate. He pulled over at a dark spot along Hyndra Road, Apapa. He pulled his trouser down and ordered me to perform oral sex on him. I was afraid. Tears rolled down my eyes as I begged him that I could not do it. I begged him to have normal sex with me instead.
But he refused and threatened to kill me. He claimed to be an ex-soldier. Since I didn’t want to die, I had to do what he wanted. Later he held my bag and said he would do me a favour. He told me to go down, open his boot and bring his bag. Immediately I got down, the man sped off. My two handsets were inside the bag.”
The police said the lady would soon be charged to court.
By MATTHEW DIKE
From frying Akara, this lawyer now has fast food chain
… Says, “It pays to be self-employed”
He would have been a tailor, but he veered off and found himself in a catering school. He later combined catering with his pursuit for a first degree. Indeed, when Chindeu Chigbo, 34, proprietor of Daddy’s Kitchen was admitted to study law at the University of Abuja he was looking forward to the graduation day after which he would pick his gown and wig to begin operating as a lawyer.
But as the university teachers went on strike he learnt how to fry bean balls popularly known as Akara and later set up an outlet for it from which he bought his first car.
After his National Youth Service he became a fast food vendor, specializing in noodles; from there he graduated and started full scale restaurant business, Daddy’s Kitchen at Damijah Junction, Trans-Ekulu area of Enugu State.
Today, just after two years in the business, he has established three branches and employed 14 persons with salaries of between N15, 000 to N20, 000, as well as a well-furnished staff quarters.
The rush by customers who patronize Daddy’s Kitchen at the ever-busy Damijah Junction at Trans-Ekulu Enugu was what attracted the interest of this reporter. That evening, there was no space for people to sit; yet the queue of people waiting for their turn to be served continued to grow.
The lucky ones who had been served carried their trays proudly and struggled for space anywhere they found any.Chigbo, who hails from Eke in Udi Local Government Area of Enugu State in this chat with Daily Sun, looks at his foray into business.
Background
“I have two degrees; I read Political Science Education before reading Law; I graduated before my 21st birthday; so, immediately after my graduation I proceeded to read Law because that was my dream course. When I was going for my Youth Service my dad, a former State Coordinator, National Directorate for Employment (NDE), Enugu State, gave me three books to read; he said ‘Chinedu forget about white collar jobs because I believe that you are going for service with the hope that when you finish I am going to make a way for you.’ That there was no way for him to make for me, that I am going to establish my own way. He gave me a foreign textbook on entrepreneurship, another book entitled ‘The Richest Man in Babylon’ and another one, ‘Rich Dad, Poor Dad’. So he said read these books, whatever you make from them use it and help yourself.
I started with fashion and designing.
But before then, there is one thing that I believed in, and that is acquiring skill; my dad is a civil engineer and I see him come up with structures and it thrilled me and I felt I should have a sort of technical knowledge. However, I was not interested in Engineering or construction, I was more interested in building businesses and that may have informed my decision to go into fashion and designing in the first place. I learnt fashion and designing immediately I left secondary school; I used it to occupy myself as I awaited my WAEC and JAMB results then in Abakaliki, Ebonyi State. So, when I entered the university I combined my studies with fashion and designing; but I later realized that it was a highly challenging vocation because of poor power supply and shortage of manpower.
I went to catering school following the challenges in the fashion industry. I decided to go into catering because I love cooking. When I was younger, while the boys went playing football I always joined the girls in the kitchen. So, I decided to give it a trial and I enrolled and attended Royal Institute of Catering, Agbani Road, Enugu. It was a good experience and I enjoyed every bit of it; but at a time I had to abandon the catering school when I got admission to read law at Abuja. So, I spent five years plus one year strike period making it six years at the University of Abuja. When I graduated from the school I proceeded to the Nigeria Law School, and was called to the bar in 2006; afterwards I went for my Youth Service at Osun State. After my service I returned to Enugu.
Career decision
When I was doing my chamber attachment I was with one M.O.C Okoye Chambers; so after my service I went to him. I was with him for a short while before he died; and his departure was a very serious blow to me and even made me have a re-think about the law practice. In fact, it was then I remembered what my father told me and started to think about business. I had options before me: to use my first degree, which is Political Science (Education) to teach or to continue practice as a lawyer or whether to open tailoring business or better still put into practice my catering experience.
But first I decided to try getting a job with my first degree; so I went to one private school and applied. At the end of the day they said my salary was N5,000; meanwhile I was married and I had a car already, I said no, that the money cannot even fuel my car. I also tried another law chamber in Enugu, where I worked for about a month, but the principal told me that I was not employable; I felt so bad and asked how? He said yes that I had no experience, that I need to have at least seven years experience, that I am not employable; that he is making money because he worked so hard, he had practiced for over 22 years; that he will only be paying me stipend. I thought he was joking, but after working for a month, I was expecting the stipend to come but nothing came, and I was forced to quit.
Frying Akara and buying a car with the proceed
I got my first car when I was in my final year as a law student at the University of Abuja. I established a place in Asata, Enugu, where we fried Akara with a colleague of mine. That was when we had a long strike that we stayed at home for about 11 months. We` called the place Asata Bite. It happened that I visited the University of Nigeria, Enugu Campus where I used to read and I saw one woman selling Akara. I sat down, and observed how students were rushing the Akara; after sitting down and drinking a bottle of soft drink for about 30 minutes I realized that the woman was making so much money and I knew I could do the Akara better than the woman.
So, I invited a cousin of mine who also attended Federal School of Catering, WDC, Enugu and we shared the idea and agreed it would be a very good business. We visited all the places where they sell Akara in Enugu, bought samples of their Akara, went home tasted and analyzed each of them. We choose three that were the best; they were so good and we went back to the women and told them that we wanted to learn how to make Akara.
They laughed at us, but two of them were kind enough and they thought us how to make Akara.
So, we combined the experience from the women and what we learnt in school because most of these local women, their food may be so tasty, but their packaging and presentation may not be wonderful. So, we gave some professional touch to the Akara; we were also frying Irish potato, plantain, etc we also improved on the sauce because the women used to serve the Akara with stew or sometimes they cut onions, and mix with pepper and groundnut oil.
We wanted something different so we developed what we called ‘The Sauce’; we used variety of vegetables, it was very colourful; we had green beans, we had carrot, lots of vegetables, it was a very wonderful combination; if I give you the sauce and fried yam you won’t know when you finish a tuber of yam. The business was so good and interesting that when schools were re-opened I couldn’t go back because we were making a lot of money. We started with less than N3,000, but we made so much money that I returned to Abuja and told them I was no longer interested; I lied that I wanted to go and manage my father’s business. My dean then, Prof Iloegbunam asked me to go to the senate and defend my request; at the end of the day the school refused to let me go and I was forced to go back and complete my law programme. Thus we closed the business, but I made some good money and I bought my first car.
Becoming a tailor after NYSC
After working for one month in a law firm without pay I decided to make use of my tailoring skills and started to work with one Idika around the Damijah area of Trans-Ekulu, Enugu. Idika is a semi-literate man, but he is a very nice man. So, I worked under him. Some of my fellow lawyers would come to me and say how, can you work under someone who did not even pass primary school, and you are a lawyer. But I would tell them that there is nothing wrong with it that I knew what I was doing.
It was from that place I discovered that I could open up an eatery here, this place where I am now. The Daddy’s Kitchen here used to be an outlet for a popular noodle; so, I met the person who was operating it, discussed with him and he agreed that I can be making use of the place; not even the inside, but the outside. So, that at the close of business at night, I may stay outside and be cooking the noodles; because I promised that I would be buying from her as long as she would allow me to be cooking in front of the shop. But she said I had to pay, and asked how much I could afford? I said N1000 and she said I should pay for three months advance and I promised to pay the coming week. I didn’t have the money then, but I returned to the tailoring shop and worked very hard, worked day and night and before the one week expired I had raised the N3,000 and I paid.
Our Daddy’s Kitchen
Daddy’s Kitchen is ‘where daddy cooks better than mum.’ Immediately I started the eatery it appeared that doors of opportunities began to open; I stopped thinking of working in a big company or a prominent law firm as I used to when I was in school. I was then thinking of how to build a big business that I would call my own. But I must recall that when she gave me the place, I did not have enough capital to kick-start the business; so, I went to my father’s house and took the spare gas cooker we had in the house, took the dinning set we had for people to sit and eat. I had no money for a signpost so I took my dad’s drawing board and begged an artist in the neighbourhood, and he wrote my business name, Daddy’s Kitchen on it, with the slogan ‘where daddy cooks better than mummy’.
To catch the attention of customers since it was at night I brought the Christmas light we used in our house the previous December and hung it round the signpost and with a small generator from my house the signpost was lit-up. Before I kicked off I shared flyers in the whole of Trans-Ekulu, and by the time I started it was interesting. Although I did not experience heavy rush initially, but with time things were improving.
Actually, I had an encounter with noodles at the University in Abuja; I observed how people were rushing to eat noodles prepared by a Mallam and I knew I could do something better than what he was doing.
The next day I went to market and bought a lot of vegetables, carrot, peas, and green beans and garnished the noodles and to know the reaction of students I became generous and they confessed it was unequalled. As they were enjoying the noodles I went to a corner and laughed; I said to myself this is money. And today, I am seeing a lot of money cooking the noodles and people are enjoying it. I have even graduated from cooking only noodles to other delicacies; I cook rice, Egusi soup, Ora soup, Ogbono soup, then I prepare my chicken, I prepare fish, I also prepare sauce that goes with the chicken and the one that goes with the fish; and people turn out very well and they enjoy my food.
Staring the business
When I started the business, I started it with nothing, but today I have 14 employees; I have staff quarters, I have three outlets, one in Damijah, I have one in Ugbo-Odogwu and one at Campus-III, Institute of Management and Technology, IMT, Enugu. Then I have my staff quarters in Phase-Six, Trans Ekulu; it is a two-bedroom apartment and I furnished it for my female staff. I have gotten a vehicle I use to run my business, I have also employed a driver that takes my staff to their places of work and also supply the materials they need to do their work.
My food
In cooking my food I make use of professional caterers; I believe that for me to succeed I need to work with professionals; so with trained personnel like myself, I believe they will deliver as I am delivering. And I achieved these within a space of two years; you can imagine the rate of growth, it was indeed very rapid. I really thank God for everything. The interesting thing about it is that I spent 12 years in higher institution, but what is feeding me and my family, what is even giving me hope of being a very wealthy man in future is not even the education I acquired, it was a course a read for less than one year and some managerial books I read.
And I have the hope of retiring from struggling, from active service at the age of 40 years. I would then move from an operator of business to an investor; because it is when I retire that I will have the time to create wealth. And by the time I retire, I have a plan of building a structure that would be yielding not less than N20 million per annum. Business is very good and I encourage the young ones to stop searching for white collar jobs and look inwards. Let them ask themselves what they can offer to the society.
But as the university teachers went on strike he learnt how to fry bean balls popularly known as Akara and later set up an outlet for it from which he bought his first car.
After his National Youth Service he became a fast food vendor, specializing in noodles; from there he graduated and started full scale restaurant business, Daddy’s Kitchen at Damijah Junction, Trans-Ekulu area of Enugu State.
Today, just after two years in the business, he has established three branches and employed 14 persons with salaries of between N15, 000 to N20, 000, as well as a well-furnished staff quarters.
The rush by customers who patronize Daddy’s Kitchen at the ever-busy Damijah Junction at Trans-Ekulu Enugu was what attracted the interest of this reporter. That evening, there was no space for people to sit; yet the queue of people waiting for their turn to be served continued to grow.
The lucky ones who had been served carried their trays proudly and struggled for space anywhere they found any.Chigbo, who hails from Eke in Udi Local Government Area of Enugu State in this chat with Daily Sun, looks at his foray into business.
Background
“I have two degrees; I read Political Science Education before reading Law; I graduated before my 21st birthday; so, immediately after my graduation I proceeded to read Law because that was my dream course. When I was going for my Youth Service my dad, a former State Coordinator, National Directorate for Employment (NDE), Enugu State, gave me three books to read; he said ‘Chinedu forget about white collar jobs because I believe that you are going for service with the hope that when you finish I am going to make a way for you.’ That there was no way for him to make for me, that I am going to establish my own way. He gave me a foreign textbook on entrepreneurship, another book entitled ‘The Richest Man in Babylon’ and another one, ‘Rich Dad, Poor Dad’. So he said read these books, whatever you make from them use it and help yourself.
I started with fashion and designing.
But before then, there is one thing that I believed in, and that is acquiring skill; my dad is a civil engineer and I see him come up with structures and it thrilled me and I felt I should have a sort of technical knowledge. However, I was not interested in Engineering or construction, I was more interested in building businesses and that may have informed my decision to go into fashion and designing in the first place. I learnt fashion and designing immediately I left secondary school; I used it to occupy myself as I awaited my WAEC and JAMB results then in Abakaliki, Ebonyi State. So, when I entered the university I combined my studies with fashion and designing; but I later realized that it was a highly challenging vocation because of poor power supply and shortage of manpower.
I went to catering school following the challenges in the fashion industry. I decided to go into catering because I love cooking. When I was younger, while the boys went playing football I always joined the girls in the kitchen. So, I decided to give it a trial and I enrolled and attended Royal Institute of Catering, Agbani Road, Enugu. It was a good experience and I enjoyed every bit of it; but at a time I had to abandon the catering school when I got admission to read law at Abuja. So, I spent five years plus one year strike period making it six years at the University of Abuja. When I graduated from the school I proceeded to the Nigeria Law School, and was called to the bar in 2006; afterwards I went for my Youth Service at Osun State. After my service I returned to Enugu.
Career decision
When I was doing my chamber attachment I was with one M.O.C Okoye Chambers; so after my service I went to him. I was with him for a short while before he died; and his departure was a very serious blow to me and even made me have a re-think about the law practice. In fact, it was then I remembered what my father told me and started to think about business. I had options before me: to use my first degree, which is Political Science (Education) to teach or to continue practice as a lawyer or whether to open tailoring business or better still put into practice my catering experience.
But first I decided to try getting a job with my first degree; so I went to one private school and applied. At the end of the day they said my salary was N5,000; meanwhile I was married and I had a car already, I said no, that the money cannot even fuel my car. I also tried another law chamber in Enugu, where I worked for about a month, but the principal told me that I was not employable; I felt so bad and asked how? He said yes that I had no experience, that I need to have at least seven years experience, that I am not employable; that he is making money because he worked so hard, he had practiced for over 22 years; that he will only be paying me stipend. I thought he was joking, but after working for a month, I was expecting the stipend to come but nothing came, and I was forced to quit.
Frying Akara and buying a car with the proceed
I got my first car when I was in my final year as a law student at the University of Abuja. I established a place in Asata, Enugu, where we fried Akara with a colleague of mine. That was when we had a long strike that we stayed at home for about 11 months. We` called the place Asata Bite. It happened that I visited the University of Nigeria, Enugu Campus where I used to read and I saw one woman selling Akara. I sat down, and observed how students were rushing the Akara; after sitting down and drinking a bottle of soft drink for about 30 minutes I realized that the woman was making so much money and I knew I could do the Akara better than the woman.
So, I invited a cousin of mine who also attended Federal School of Catering, WDC, Enugu and we shared the idea and agreed it would be a very good business. We visited all the places where they sell Akara in Enugu, bought samples of their Akara, went home tasted and analyzed each of them. We choose three that were the best; they were so good and we went back to the women and told them that we wanted to learn how to make Akara.
They laughed at us, but two of them were kind enough and they thought us how to make Akara.
So, we combined the experience from the women and what we learnt in school because most of these local women, their food may be so tasty, but their packaging and presentation may not be wonderful. So, we gave some professional touch to the Akara; we were also frying Irish potato, plantain, etc we also improved on the sauce because the women used to serve the Akara with stew or sometimes they cut onions, and mix with pepper and groundnut oil.
We wanted something different so we developed what we called ‘The Sauce’; we used variety of vegetables, it was very colourful; we had green beans, we had carrot, lots of vegetables, it was a very wonderful combination; if I give you the sauce and fried yam you won’t know when you finish a tuber of yam. The business was so good and interesting that when schools were re-opened I couldn’t go back because we were making a lot of money. We started with less than N3,000, but we made so much money that I returned to Abuja and told them I was no longer interested; I lied that I wanted to go and manage my father’s business. My dean then, Prof Iloegbunam asked me to go to the senate and defend my request; at the end of the day the school refused to let me go and I was forced to go back and complete my law programme. Thus we closed the business, but I made some good money and I bought my first car.
Becoming a tailor after NYSC
After working for one month in a law firm without pay I decided to make use of my tailoring skills and started to work with one Idika around the Damijah area of Trans-Ekulu, Enugu. Idika is a semi-literate man, but he is a very nice man. So, I worked under him. Some of my fellow lawyers would come to me and say how, can you work under someone who did not even pass primary school, and you are a lawyer. But I would tell them that there is nothing wrong with it that I knew what I was doing.
It was from that place I discovered that I could open up an eatery here, this place where I am now. The Daddy’s Kitchen here used to be an outlet for a popular noodle; so, I met the person who was operating it, discussed with him and he agreed that I can be making use of the place; not even the inside, but the outside. So, that at the close of business at night, I may stay outside and be cooking the noodles; because I promised that I would be buying from her as long as she would allow me to be cooking in front of the shop. But she said I had to pay, and asked how much I could afford? I said N1000 and she said I should pay for three months advance and I promised to pay the coming week. I didn’t have the money then, but I returned to the tailoring shop and worked very hard, worked day and night and before the one week expired I had raised the N3,000 and I paid.
Our Daddy’s Kitchen
Daddy’s Kitchen is ‘where daddy cooks better than mum.’ Immediately I started the eatery it appeared that doors of opportunities began to open; I stopped thinking of working in a big company or a prominent law firm as I used to when I was in school. I was then thinking of how to build a big business that I would call my own. But I must recall that when she gave me the place, I did not have enough capital to kick-start the business; so, I went to my father’s house and took the spare gas cooker we had in the house, took the dinning set we had for people to sit and eat. I had no money for a signpost so I took my dad’s drawing board and begged an artist in the neighbourhood, and he wrote my business name, Daddy’s Kitchen on it, with the slogan ‘where daddy cooks better than mummy’.
To catch the attention of customers since it was at night I brought the Christmas light we used in our house the previous December and hung it round the signpost and with a small generator from my house the signpost was lit-up. Before I kicked off I shared flyers in the whole of Trans-Ekulu, and by the time I started it was interesting. Although I did not experience heavy rush initially, but with time things were improving.
Actually, I had an encounter with noodles at the University in Abuja; I observed how people were rushing to eat noodles prepared by a Mallam and I knew I could do something better than what he was doing.
The next day I went to market and bought a lot of vegetables, carrot, peas, and green beans and garnished the noodles and to know the reaction of students I became generous and they confessed it was unequalled. As they were enjoying the noodles I went to a corner and laughed; I said to myself this is money. And today, I am seeing a lot of money cooking the noodles and people are enjoying it. I have even graduated from cooking only noodles to other delicacies; I cook rice, Egusi soup, Ora soup, Ogbono soup, then I prepare my chicken, I prepare fish, I also prepare sauce that goes with the chicken and the one that goes with the fish; and people turn out very well and they enjoy my food.
Staring the business
When I started the business, I started it with nothing, but today I have 14 employees; I have staff quarters, I have three outlets, one in Damijah, I have one in Ugbo-Odogwu and one at Campus-III, Institute of Management and Technology, IMT, Enugu. Then I have my staff quarters in Phase-Six, Trans Ekulu; it is a two-bedroom apartment and I furnished it for my female staff. I have gotten a vehicle I use to run my business, I have also employed a driver that takes my staff to their places of work and also supply the materials they need to do their work.
My food
In cooking my food I make use of professional caterers; I believe that for me to succeed I need to work with professionals; so with trained personnel like myself, I believe they will deliver as I am delivering. And I achieved these within a space of two years; you can imagine the rate of growth, it was indeed very rapid. I really thank God for everything. The interesting thing about it is that I spent 12 years in higher institution, but what is feeding me and my family, what is even giving me hope of being a very wealthy man in future is not even the education I acquired, it was a course a read for less than one year and some managerial books I read.
And I have the hope of retiring from struggling, from active service at the age of 40 years. I would then move from an operator of business to an investor; because it is when I retire that I will have the time to create wealth. And by the time I retire, I have a plan of building a structure that would be yielding not less than N20 million per annum. Business is very good and I encourage the young ones to stop searching for white collar jobs and look inwards. Let them ask themselves what they can offer to the society.
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