Mr. Unyime Idem is the Managing Director of Idems Ultimate Limited and Chairman, Standford Microfinance Bank limited. He obtained his first degree in Business Management and Master’s degree in Business Administration from the University of Uyo in Akwa Ibom state.
Mr. Idem is a businessman par excellence who started business at the age of 12; right from his Secondary school days. Today, he has grown to be one of the leading business people in Nigeria. Currently, he is the Chairman of Telecom Partners Association of Nigeria. In this interview, he spoke to ISRAEL UMOH, about his passion for business development.
NE: How did you get involved in business?
I would say that what I am today is something I had already figured out as a child. I actually started business at the age of 12 when I was in Secondary school. At that age, I started business indulgence and developed business ideas. Vividly, I could remember in one of my classes when one of my teachers taught us on how to create employment opportunities through business ventures. At that time, I set for myself two cardinal objectives. One was to create employment for the young school leavers and the other was to render service to the people of Akwa Ibom state and Nigeria in general. Believe you me, I have been living by those two objectives till date.
NE: How has your experience been throughout these years you have been in business world?
I would say that at that early stage, it was a very challenging one because of the kind of background that we have. The structure I met on ground is civil service platform- that is Akwa Ibom for you and getting people to work with me from that time till today because I have been in business for the past 17 years. Getting people to work with you and sustaining this vision from that time till today, has been a very challenging situation. This is so because the person you meet today (either you want to help the person or groom him to become entrepreneur tomorrow) would not want to go through all the pains when you know the rudiments of becoming an entrepreneur, yet the person wants to be rich overnight. So, at the end of the day, he might not want to spend time to study you and see how business is being run. He will leave you for one or two years, and when you ask him, ‘why are you leaving?’ he will say he wants to enter a sector that can give him money instantly; he cannot go through all these processes. Even the one that you bring in as a staff, somebody just approach you that he wants to be your staff, work with you, so the person wouldn’t know that you have to get through certain stages or strata before you get to managerial level. From day one, the person wants to earn so much; he wants to be a director, a manager. Those are the kind of things that we face. After realizing these inadequacies that existed in business world, I decided to start up something I called, “Internal Training centre” in my business, where I groom and train my staff, even while they are working with me, I know that what they got from the school might not be sufficient for them to use throughout their stay in the place of work, so I decided to engage in intense training on monthly basis, because even the scriptures that we read, says that the word of God cometh by hearing over and over. Before you can get full understanding of the scriptures, you need to hear it, and understand it, all the time. I know that is one of the ways to tame laziness among our staff, and inconsistency is for us to engage them in consistent training, and we have been doing that for the last 17 years. I can tell you now that I have been able to keep some staff who have worked for me for the past 13 or 14 years. This has been one of the strategies that I have used to retain my staff. Then looking at area that actually poses challenge, and before now, it was security. I can remember when I lost so many staff through bank robbery some years back. Then I lost a huge amount of money. I thank God that the government of the day has been able to do something about the security apparatus of the state- that actually has reduced it to a certain level. I believe, before the second term of his Excellency, he might be able to improve on it to ensure that Akwa Ibom state is totally free from insecurity. Security wise, we are doing well right now compared to when I started. And then, in the area of power, that is one area that we are still facing bottleneck in the cause of running in the business. The kind of money that we spend in power is something that if you are not really a core businessman, I’m not sure one will like to continue, because you spend resources. That is even more than what you make as profit, and I want to commend the governor of Akwa Ibom state for the efforts he has made to ensure that we have steady supply of power even though we are not there yet. But I believe that with this effort, as time goes on, will go a long way to minimize the level of exposure in that area.
And then the next one is getting customers to be consistent in business indulgence. This also boils down to the fact that Akwa Ibom structure is not known for business; but is known for politics, civil service and the rest. Seeing customers and being consistent is very difficult. I can tell you that the turnover we have from customers is very high. You have customers that stay with you for just one year, you ask him ‘what happened to his business; he will say that he has gone into something else’. You will start grooming a new set of customers because you must have people who will take your goods out. There must be off-takers when you produce the goods or when you print the recharge cards. That’s the problem that we face. It is only now that I also use the same measure that I use on the staff, also in the area of customers. I have been able to sustain customers for six years- that is the highest that I have been able to do. It was a very big challenge. Right now, I can say we are improving- that we are doing well. So, there are other enormous challenges but because of time, I just want to limit it to these few ones that I have mentioned.
NE: Someone seeing you right now as a big time entrepreneur may not understand your background, but for some of us we understand where you were coming from, how you started as a barber, ventured into selling of GSM accessories, and all that in Ikot Akpan Assiek. In fact, it is a worthwhile experience which I want to be specific, can you just let us into how it all began.
I started my business with N45,000, that is the area I normally start from unlike the other ones when I was in school. When I opened the barbing salon- that was when I was in secondary school. I actually engaged someone to manage that one for me. So, I don’t really like to mention that one, because there was no experience them. I would start from where I started with food stuffs business at Akpan Assiek market. I started that business with N45,000 some years back. It wasn’t really easy, getting the food stuffs in a few bags, not much quantity until I gained experience in that field. And then I earned the trust of my suppliers to the point that they gave me the goods in large quantity, and then I now mastered that area. When I looked at it, the business was limited to just Ukanafun, that was what informed me about the idea of going into telecoms, because there was a space in telecoms, and as at that time, Ukanafun did not have means of communication. I remembered for the first time that I went into it, I had to go to Aba, got antenna, got one phone at that time was called Samsung R220. It has a pole. We used that to make calls. I remembered, we spent N45,000 to get those things, and then by the grace of God, we moved from that level to where we are today. I think that the first time that we made impact in these telecoms was when I graduated from being in Ukanafun to Uyo, the state headquarters of the state. We came down to Uyo, as that time, we were about seven or eight dealers. I think that was 2007, that was when I moved from Ukanafun to Uyo. I am about 11 years now in Uyo, but I have been in the other side for six years. We moved operations to Uyo in 2007, precisely February. When we came down here to Uyo, we met stiff opposition in the business, talking about competitors. It wasn’t that easy. But one thing that really helped me to get to where I am now is focus. I was very much focused. I didn’t want to be distracted by the heavy weights that I met on ground as that time. And one secret that I discovered about business is consistency in terms of product availability. So that was one of the strategies that I used when I came in, and by the grace of God, that has really helped us. We make sure that we open our doors on daily basis; we opened early and closed quite late. So, people were happy seeing somebody that was coming to do business like an Igbo person. As a matter of fact, they used to come to me and asked me whether I was Igbo, and I told them if I were Igbo, what about this name -Uniyme Idem? (Laughter) Is that an Igbo name? So, we struggled from that humble beginning to where we are today. The first time that we emerged as the best telecoms partner in the entire South-South was amazing, that people that just came to the state not quite long, after two years have made that kind mark in those days. But even myself, I am surprised that from that the little beginning, we got to the point that we now become the biggest telecom partner in Nigeria. Not just in one network, but in three networks consistently for five years running. The level of impact that we have made, the history that we have made, I can tell you that we haven’t seen any telecom partner in Nigeria that has attained that feat for the past 17 years of telecom experience in Nigeria. No partner has ever emerged twice as the best in Nigeria. But because of our consistency, ou diligence in the way we pursue our business activities, we have been able to emerge five consecutive times and won all the best cards that the network has been able to provide. So that has been our journey in the telecom sector from that time till today.
NE: What lessons did you learn from either your parents or siblings in business?
I will say that my parents, though I lost one, but I still have my mother around. But my father wasn’t really a big time businessman. He was one of the poorest persons in Ukanafun, I will put it that way because of the kind of business he was doing was petty trading. It didn’t really fetch him much money. I think my source of motivation was taken from my mother in those days, because she was someone that engaged in all forms of petty trading around, and the way she saved money, even when she had need for something so serious, so urgent, yet she always thought of tomorrow- ‘that if I use this money now, what am I going to use for the business, so that it will fetch us what to eat’. So, when I look at that element of resource management in her in those days, I had to key into her style of management.
NE: So, you say your mom was your role model?
My mum was my source of motivation. You can give my mom just N2,000 and the entire house is going to eat through that money for the next two weeks. That is the kind of person she is, that was how she started.
NE: What is the worth of your business now? You started from N45,000. So, what is the worth now?
I can’t really mention the worth now in terms of naira and kobo, but I will say that in terms of stares, we have been able to control larger shares in terms of telecom market in Nigeria. By the grace of God, we are the biggest telecom partner in Nigeria, and then we control about five states in the country, where we distribute our products. And then, we started with just two staff in those days, but right now we have been able to grow to about 450 staff as I speak to you. So, in terms of strength, I can tell you that we are grounded, but I won’t be able to quantify the assets in terms of Naira or Kobo. But I will tell you that we are a conglomerate at the moment.
NE: How were you able to assuage some feelings, when some of your staff were killed by some hoodlums, I mean the parents of the bereaved. How were you able to settle them?
In those days, I would say when this thing happened, it wasn’t a very good experience that I would like anybody to go through. It is an experience that I am happy that such thing has never happened, apart from that time. But when I was going through that kind of trauma, I now remembered one of the courses that I read in school, during my academics, that as a business man, that risk is one of the things that we are going to face in the course of running the business, that we are prone to risk. Sometimes, when they talk about risk in school, we will be forced to ask our lecturers, can you explain these risks, the nature of the risk, so that when we see it, we will know how to handle it. So, such incidence was part of it. The moment I remembered, that these things, that I have already learnt of it, that it is going to happen, so, I summoned courage and then thought of the way forward instead of dwelling in such ugly situation. I started meeting the parents to resolve the whole thing, and of course, the parents of those my staff knew that this kind of thing was something that could happen anyway, not just in my organization as a business person, but on the road. So, they really exhibited high sense of maturity and understanding, and then eventually I was able to get over it. But one thing that I have done, ever since we encountered that, we have worked very hard, we have strategized seriously to make sure that such thing doesn’t repeat itself again. From that time till now, I can tell you that we are running a hitch-free business devoid of security lapse. So, that is the way it is.
NE: Last month, Senate invited some GSM companies to come and explain why they are short-changing their teeming customers. What is your take on this?
To be very honest, this kind of issue that prompted the Senate to invite some of our partners for interaction to know why they are doing this. That was what prompted us to form a body in this country, and speak with one voice. I think it was eight years ago that we came together as a body, and formed a body called Telecom Partners Association of Nigeria, which by the grace of God I have been made a chairman for the past eight years now. I am still there controlling about 105 partners in the entire country. One of the objectives of this body was for us to come together, champion the course of the common people like the subscribers because these people rely on us for services. Each time we go there to speak to them individually, they find it difficult to give us full attention. So, we thought it wise to come together as a body and then fight some of the irregularities perpetuated by these partners. And I can tell you that that effort has been yielding result. What the National Assembly is doing at the moment is a welcome development. We appreciate them because we need to protect the interest of our customers. They are dealing with us directly, sometimes, they don’t really see the partners- the network providers, but they come to us. I support what they are doing, I am on the side of the consumers. At the same time, we also offer advice to my fellow partners- the network providers that they should try and manage them well because by the time they drop the lines, it is going to affect their revenue.
NE: As a GSM dealer and entrepreneur, what motivated you to venture into another business called Stanford Bank?
The motivation actually came when I interacted with my customers, because I actually have about 9,000 customers across the entire state. So, in the course of my dealing with time, I discovered that they have basic demands which are source of funds to run their businesses. I also discovered that there is a gap between the people and the commercial banks. Commercial banks don’t bank these petty traders. They feel that their scale of business is very small compared to what they actually want from the public. So, when I saw that gap, not that Akwa Ibom did not have microfinance bank as at that time, they did but there were still some gaps. I believe that the best microfinance bank will be best managed by a businessman who will really understand the need for funds to run a business. That was what prompted me, not necessarily because of my personal interest, but I was motivated by the yearnings of the customers to say, let me set up a bank so that by so doing, we can be having access to funds, which we can in turn give to them to run their businesses. So far, by the grace of God, we have been able to empower over 6,000 customers, out of 9,000, and we are still working very hard to ensure that we are going to surpass that number. And then, in the course of running a bank, we also discovered that the bank can actually partner with a telecom, and also create employment opportunities in our society, in addition to the 450 employment opportunities that we have already created. So, we did that by asking Stanford to partner Idems Ultimate. Stanford went to China and brought in about 3000 recharge cards printing machines. And then Idems Ultimate got those machines, gave a guarantee, and distributed them to 3000 beneficiaries that use these machines on a daily basis to earn their living. Anyhow, some of them make at the end of the month 6,000, 7,000 in the course of doing that business. So, this bank by the grace of God has been able to create additional 3000 employment opportunities in addition to the one it has already created, that is direct employment. So, that was what informed us to open the bank.
NE:What is the share capital of the bank?
The share capital of the bank, the initial one is about 200 million, and then we are working on increasing it to something better than that. The customer base is also high.
NE: Do you have the estimate of the customer base?
About 15,000 customers.
NE: What about Board of Directors?
We are about seven directors, which comprise professors from Business Department, University of Uyo- great men so that they can join hands with me to build a well-structured bank.
NE: Do you intend to make it conventional?
I want to use it to empower the on-bank community. I can’t really tell what will happen tomorrow, but as time goes on, we might metamorphose into a commercial bank. But the intention right now is for us to use it to empower on-banking community first. It is only when I know that I have been able to achieve much in this sector that I can now think of moving to the next level.
NE: Away from the bank, you know an average Akwa Ibom youth wants to go into politics, they want to follow a politician around, they want to be an SA to an SSA, and in your theory will you say this is right, depending on how far you have gone?
I want to be very frank in the way to handle that question because I am this person that does not believe in that. My advice to the youth is that they should start life with something else, that they should try and develop themselves first, they should try and groom themselves and become self-reliant before they think of moving into politics. I see politics as a hobby where you can just go in and come out and face what you are doing. So, it is not even advisable for even the government to allow youths to start their life with politics. I advise the youths to think of doing something using their hands, and get established, so that by the time they get into politics, they have experience, so that there won’t be pushovers when they get into politics. When you start life with politics, empty handed, once you go there, I can tell you that you might not have anything to contribute, because you will continue to be a boy to another boy, till you leave the stage. Because you can’t stand on your own, no experience, you don’t know what to do, you don’t have anything to stay. But if you groom yourself first, and by the time you grow matured and be ready for the job, when you go in, you’ll have a lot to offer. It is just like our Excellency, Governor Emmanuel Udom, he has been able to use private sector to develop himself for years, he didn’t come around to say that he wants to contest for counsellorship, he went in there and developed himself for several years, that’s why as he is coming in here to lead us as a governor, you can see the evidence that this man has been able to develop himself. So, you can see the result, the result is speaking for him to show that he was busy doing something about himself before coming. So, I want to challenge the youths to drop this idea of just leaving school, and the first thing that they want to do is to become a PA to another PA, like that. It is not a good way to start life.
NE: What role do you think women should play in politics? In Nigeria, they have relegated them to play the role of cheerleaders in political events?
I wouldn’t say it is wrong for women to go into politics. Politics needs people like that, especially people that have integrity. They should come in, but they shouldn’t rely on politics alone, that is where I differ from you know what I am seeing around. Women should have something doing, they should be engaged in trade. There is a lot of sub-loans that state government has been releasing to women to trade with, so they should be engaged in trade practice, then come into politics as a hobby, as a part time job where they go out and support the government and then retire to their business, so that they will do this with sincerity. Because, when you rely solely on government for your living, it means that if the government can’t satisfy them, which is not possible for government to satisfy their needs, you’ll start saying the wrong things about government, instead of supporting the government, you’ll start criticizing the government wrongly, because your aspiration wasn’t met the way you wanted it. So, for the women encourage them to come into politics, especially people that have integrity, sound background, but they shouldn’t see politics as the only source of living, they should engage in trade practices. Thank God for the governor that has been able to release sub-loans without interest to them. They should take advantage of that opportunity. The governor has done that about twice or three times, ever since he came in. Women should go there first. Then when they have engaged themselves in something, they can now come out and support the governor by way of joining the political activities, that’s my recommendation.
NE: How did you meet your wife?
One fateful Sunday, I took my bath, dressed and then went straight to that Church in search of a wife. I am not a member there, there was no special occasion going on there, but just in search of a wife, and God directed my steps. I think that was 2005, but unfortunately she wasn’t ready for marriage as at that time. So, when I met her, I have already expressed my love, developed my interest, only for her to tell me that if we are meant to stay together, that I need to pay certain price, and which is that I should allow her to complete her education abroad because she is a Marine Engineer, she studied that in the UK for 8 years. So, I paid the kind of price that Jacob paid when he wanted to marry his wife (Laughter). So, I actually stayed for 8 years for her to come back for the marriage. That was how I met her, and I can tell you that I am really enjoying the marriage. It is always good to be patient when you are taking a decision to get a wife. You shouldn’t be in a rush.
I have already gotten a number that I asked God to bless me with, which is 2 boys and 2 girls. What a perfect number, so that for me is a perfect gift from God.
NE: As a very busy person, how do you relax?
I will tell you that because of the nature of my business, I don’t really have time to relax. The only things that normally keep me away from work for a few hours, is when I wake up in the morning and go to my squash court and play squash. I play squash on daily basis from 1st to 31st of a given month, from Monday to Sunday. The area that I also relax is when I am reading and watching football on the TV. So, those are the areas that you can find me sitting down for one hour without doing something. Other than that, every time you see me, either I am reviewing a report, or I am attending to issues. I must do one thing or the other, because I don’t really believe so much on holidays. So the only time that I have holidays is when I go and play sport or I watch Television or I read.
NE: What special message do you have for Nigerian youths, women, and of course, business entrepreneurs?
I would say that our country is a great country. The only challenge is that the structure of our leadership is what we didn’t get right like other countries. We are blessed with enormous resources, but the utilization of these resources was a problem. I want our people to continue to believe in Nigeria, believe in Akwa Ibom state, and our respective loyal governments, that one day, we are going to get it right, that one day, we will become great again. The level of resources that we have in this country is something that can actually sustain development in this place. The level of resources that we have, can actually take us beyond the status that we see, maybe in the United Kingdom, or South Africa, or anywhere in the world. But that resource management has been a problem. I want to advise Nigerians, my fellow compatriots that they should be interested when it comes to emergence of leaders, that could pave the way forward, so that we will select people that will be able to manage our resources effectively to ensure that we have good governance, that we have good facilities to enjoy, just like what we see abroad. For our youths, I want to also use this medium to advise them to be patient and wait for the colourful destinies that God has given them. They shouldn’t rush, because when they rush, they can cut short their destiny. They should be self reliant, they should develop themselves. You cannot really be a man until you first develop yourself. The youths should develop themselves so that when the time comes for leadership, they can take opportunity. They won’t be youths forever. The entrepreneurs, especially in Akwa Ibom, they should believe so much in what they are doing. They shouldn’t be running around looking for what to do without concentrating their efforts in a particular thing and wait for the results. One of the reasons why we don’t succeed in business especially in Akwa Ibom is because, we are not consistent. Even when we start a business, we are not diligent, you don’t see us there, and we are not committed to our business. Businesses are not run that way. If you are expecting your business to grow and flourish, you must put in your best. We should rely on what we do and pay less attention to the distraction out there. That is my message to the upcoming entrepreneurs in our state.
