Best of Ojeagbase

It’s rare. Very, very rare for you to find a wealthy Nigerian tell you the story of how he made his money.

To document the story in black and white, in a book, is even rarer. Very few Nigerians, to the best of my knowledge, have been able to do it.

Don’t get me wrong. I’m not saying you won’t find books authored by wealthy Nigerians. Of course there are many of them. Trouble is, many of those books are mere collection of essays, after dinner speeches, lectures delivered at colloquiums and the like.

They never answer the question that you and I want to know: How did you make it? What did you do? What were your strategies? What were the challenges you faced? How did you overcome them? If I want to duplicate your efforts, how do I go about it?

These are the questions that will empower those who have the burning desire to achieve greatness in life, including success in business, if they could find answers. If such answers were readily available, especially from Nigerians whom GOD has blessed to find their way to the top, there won’t be so much frustration in our land.

Our young people will not feed on the lie of the devil that is being fed to every unsuspecting ambitious Nigerian that you can’t make it in the country unless you are engaged in some dubious activity.

To find answers to these burning questions, you have to mostly turn to the United States of America. That is the country where you will find almost every achiever describing in great detail how they made it, the idea being to empower others to duplicate their success.

No wonder United States of America is the leading country in the world. That country is so successful that you can hardly find any nation on earth that has not been influenced it.

I myself have been blessed by that country. The book that gave me the courage to become an entrepreneur, Think and Grow Rich, was authored by an American, Napoleon Hill.

Without any doubt, Nigeria is blessed with many successful people of her own. But why are they not telling us how they made it?

Each time I get hold of a book authored by a Nigerian –– whether wealthy or not –– the first thing I’m looking out for is to find out how much of what the author knows he or she is willing to share with me. I’ve to tell you the truth, I’ve been mostly disappointed.

Then, out of the blues, Dr. Cosmas Maduka’s book, From Trials to Triumph: The Coscharis Story, was delivered to my office, accompanied by a personal letter he addressed to me.

I hope this is not one of those books, I thought as I began to flip through the pages. Then a sentence caught my attention. It says:

“Just how does one turn a 200 naira one-man business into a large conglomerate with over 15billion naira in shareholders’ funds in less than thirty years?”

This was the opening paragraph of Chapter Four titled, Business Sense. And I was instantly hooked by the book from that point!

As I became engrossed with the book, I had to pause at some point to double check if, indeed, I was reading the biography of a Nigerian. Could this be true?

Of course, there was no question about it. The photograph of Dr. Cosmas Maduka, President of Coscharis Group, and his adorable wife, Charity, was there on the book cover, with both of them smiling happily at me as if to say to me, “yes, the story you’re reading is about us.”

Whao! But there was even a bigger surprise waiting for me.

At the time Dr. Maduka’s book was brought to me, we were planning the monthly SADC Wealth Empowerment Summit for members of our communities for May. We wanted the event to be something extra special, a programme that would herald the new community that is emerging from our recently merged communities –– SuccessDigest Leaders’Club [SDLC] and Successful Entrepreneurs Network [aka SEN2020].

Who else could command the right credentials that fit the high profile summit we were planning but Dr. Maduka? Here was a man who started from the ground floor, with only N200 seed capital and climbing to the very top in 30 years, with N15billion in shareholders’ fund –– and growing –– as evidence of his faithful stewardship.

But will he accept to be our keynote speaker?

As it turned out, that question was not necessary. Dr. Maduka and his wife have determined it was time to take other Nigerians in their wings, and show them the way to the top. ‘‘Yes, I’ll give the lecture,” he said when I extended the invitation to speak to members of our community to him.

GOD is awesome!

I have no other way of interpreting this development in our country. I strongly believe that with what Dr. Maduka has decided to do, which I strongly believe to be the move of the Holy Spirit, many Nigerians, especially the young ones, who have been fed the scrap that no one can make it Nigeria except they bent the rules, will begin to have a change of mind.

By the time you read the biography of Dr. Maduka and see all the steps he took to arrive at where GOD has taken him today, and then you listen to his lecture, which he will be delivering at SADC, 28, Esuola Street, Off Ago Palace Way, Okota, Isolo, Lagos, on Wednesday, May 20, 2009, you cannot but come to the same conclusion with me that GOD is set to do something new in our country.

You will not miss out your own portion in Jesus precious name. Amen!