From Kenneth Udeh, Abuja
‘Lost you to another man last year , Lost my brother to death this year…seems like Nothing I Love ever stays.’
Amid Nigeria’s surging unemployment and harsh economy, Dr. Dominic Joshua defied the odds to earn his spot among successful young entrepreneurs in the country.
In this exclusive interaction with The Sun, the Ebonyi State-born CEO/founder of Cultivate Africa, renowned innovator, consultant, and public policy analyst succinctly divulged how he started from being a roadside phone repairer and water tanker conductor to becoming Nigeria’s top tech, agro and fintech CEO.
Raised by business-oriented parents, the philanthropist disagreed that the prevailing economic situation was enough excuse for Nigerian youths not to succeed.
The University of Calabar graduate of biological sciences explained why the harsh effects of President Bola Tinubu’s reforms won’t be an obstacle to his re-election in 2027 on the platform of the All Progressives Congress (APC).
Joshua, MD/CEO of Brisk Capital Limited, also shed more light on his ongoing project to establish the largest hatchery in Nigeria and also gave his verdict on the Japa (emigration) syndrome among youths, as well as Ebonyi State governor, Francis Ogbonna Nwifuru, and the affairs of the state’s APC under the leadership of Stanley Okoro, among other issues.
Some have described you as a philanthropist, but we would Like you to set the records straight by re-introducing yourself…
Some people call me a philanthropist but I’ll best describe myself as someone who owes service to humanity, which I have taken very personally and I won’t want to describe as philanthropist.
I hail from Ebonyi State, Ohaozara Local Government Area, but I was born and brought up in Cross River State where my mother is an indigene.
I attended Sacred Heart Primary School in Cross River and had my secondary school education in Akwa Ibom State, at the Federal Government College, Ikot-Ekpene, and afterwards I returned to Cross River State and gained admission into the University of Calabar (UNICAL), where I graduated with a degree in biological science.
As a kid both my parents were business entrepreneurs my mum was trader and my father was a businessman and through them I started learning how to do business.
I started by going to the shop and managing funds and customers at a tender age. From there, nobody needed to tell me that I would be good at business, by the grace of God.
At the age of 15 while waiting during the long break before we sat for our West African Examination Council/SSCE, my journey started because I went to learn how to repair gadgets such as phones at the front of UNICAL gate.
A lot of people have this impression that I started from a rich, privileged background but this is the first time I’ll be stating it clearly where my journey started from.
I made more money from phone repairs than what people would imagine. Let’s say for example we buy a pack of charging ports for a very cheap amount and we repair each phone more than the cost of the whole packet of charging ports.
You know phones are indispensable items for everybody and when your phone is damaged you can go any length to repair it.
So, we had jobs every day; in fact, at some point my classmates would pass from school and see me at UNICAL School Gate repairing phones. They’d laugh at me and make jeering comments, in addition to my small stature.
From repairing phones, I fell in love with the communication business and when I turned 17 years of age I established Alpha Technologies, which was my first company.
I searched online and sourced for companies that imported gadgets and the likes and appealed to them to consider my age as a young person and supply me the phones at a lower price but they told me that I needed to pay them money to enable them ship them into the country.
I didn’t have the capital on ground. I just went to Facebook and made those posts. I told them I was expecting bulk importation and I told them to give me their money so that they could get it at cheaper rates like N10,000 to N20,000 discount and they would get it in five to seven working days.
That’s how I started Alpha Technologies and, by the grace of God, today, we are importing 2,000 to 3,000 iPhones , Samsung, Apple laptops and other kinds of electronic gadgets.
I started myself as a very good fund manager even as a 100 level student at that point. I started saving the profit from Alpha Technologies and thinking of the next thing to do. I believed that I could be a Jack of all trades and master of all, if properly managed.
From there, I started doing research on agriculture, specifically, farming because I understand that people must feed every day and without food people cannot survive and they get food from farming.
It’s also a very good means of getting FOREX from exports. So I had to start farming in Cross River State. I bought a cocoa farm for about N5 million.
I also started a fish pond and I also started rearing pigs and snails and that was where my farming business started. Cocoa business is very profitable and at one point a bag of cocoa was within the price range of N30,000 to N50,000 but as at today its about N800,000 per bag.
Agriculture is a gold mine and I personally urge all Nigerians to return to agriculture as it is an essential need. The investment value chain is very long , even if you can’t do farming, you can purchase, store, sell and study the seasons.
My agro company is called Cultivate Africa, because we are looking at cultivating the whole Africa, that is where I got the inspiration for the name.
We go as far as transporting onions from the North to the East. We are also doing tomato business in Benue State, cocoa and fish in Cross River and Akwa Ibom states. We are also involved in rice in Ebonyi State. So, we are cutting across different sectors and states in the country.
We are also into export of these products and, this year, our plans are to process these products in Nigeria and not just export them. We are looking at starting a proper palm oil refinery and a very good ride mill as well. We have acquired a site to build the best private-owned hatchery in the South-South region in Cross River.
What strategy do you use in managing these chains of businesses?
I have an effective salary structure for my managers and I have a different pattern because, if I’m starting a business today, because we invest in different sectors presently, we run at least seven companies today, which we plan on making a very strong conglomerate. We just recently acquired a microfinance bank license so we are probably going into fintech soon.
To get proper results in business, I don’t give salaries to my managers. When I want to delve into any field, I find someone who has more expertise than I in that field and I make them shareholders of the business.
So, if the business grows, you grow, if the business fails, you also fail. So I make them emotionally attached to the business.
With this they put all their efforts in the business to make it succeed, this is why I’ve not had anybody leave me in business for the past 10 years now, except the ones I chose to lay off, which I barely do.
What are other businesses you own?
I started to learn graphic design, social media management, so it led to a media company and digital agency separately because when you have chains of businesses you need the media to operate those businesses. So, instead of going to outsource, I decided to create a media agency so our businesses would not lack those hands to make it work. We worked with banks , insurance companies and different other companies.
Tell us about the challenges you’ve encountered in running a business in Nigeria, especially with regard to lack of funds, human resources and infrastructure
“I’ve never received any government funding for my business since I started; it has always been between me and private partners.
I know it’s a difficult terrain to find your way around, which is why most youths are frustrated with getting funding.
But I also want to advise the youths to start something because it is from what you have done so far that you’ll be able to have a projection of what you’ll do if you get more funds.
You can’t just be waiting for people to give you their hard-earned money without seeing any evidence or any result so far from what you’ve been able to do with the little you’ve had. It’s easy to convince anybody or any organisation to give you funding when they’ve seen your results.
The challenges involved with regard to human resource is that most Nigerians don’t have work ethic and skills.
So, what I do is, when I recruit staff, I have to retrain them. Most people are not even prepared for the job that they want, even if they don’t have the skill.
There’s YouTube and other social media platforms that have made these things easier these days. You can easily log to these platforms and learn something tangible to better ourselves.
Nigeria is a very difficult place to do business, especially as a young, starting entrepreneur. As a person running a company that was worth billions and generating profits so much, but the regulatory framework was not that favourable for me as a person and the company.
I generated a profit that some companies will never generate in 15 years and as a young person of barely 20.
I don’t think it’s an easy field to navigate but I believe I am a resilient person and I just had to pick the pieces and start all over again by God’s grace we are doing excellently today.
What are you views on the tax reform bills?
I think it’s a good bill, because Nigeria has to make progress by competition and for small business owners it’s profitable for them.
I no longer operate on a small-scale anymore by the grace of God but I’m in support 100% because small business owners have a relief as the bill proposes that companies with an annual turnover below N50 million will not pay tax and that’s over 90% of Nigeria’s enterprises.
I’m not a beneficiary of that reform but I support it solely because I was once there and I know how difficult it was to keep up.
How will you best advice young, jobless graduates today in Nigeria’s economy?
I’m not someone who likes to apportion blame when things are wrong. If I was like that I wouldn’t be as successful as I am today.
As youths, we should stop brooding over the problems and start seeking solutions for ourselves. I told you while I was in school I already had what I was doing but it didn’t stop me from going to school or being an extremely brilliant student and coming out with good grades.
Nigerian youths must learn to be handy. You can learn graphic design. If you’re not a technical person that wants to go into front ends and back end developments, websites and all of that.
Designs alone and branding can set you up, I used to do branding for 10-15 million when I was just 19 years old.
I did retainership. If you’re taking me for a year you’ll pay as much as over 20 million naira.
Youths should also focus their attention on farming even if it’s small scale , even if you don’t have money you can be an Intermediary. The value chain is very long. There’s something growing in your region that another region needs.
If someone needs onion in Kano state you can be the Intermediary that will source it for them. Nigeria is so blessed.
It’s quite difficult , I know it’s not as easy as I’ve said it is , but I’m a solution provider. Nigerian youths should work harder and challenge themselves, growing up I kept hearing things like you’re still small , there’s still time to take it easy but the truth is there is no time, the same phone we used to spend on social media, you can use it to learn.
If you love social media, make it your base and make sure you’re making money from it. Monetize anything that you are devoting your time to, if you don’t you’re just wasting your time and there’s no profit in time wasting.
Our youths should understand timing and discipline. I encourage people to go out and market themselves, you see most people today , they are ashamed to even post their business. When I started I was always posing my phone import and marketing business and I was proud of it.
At one point I was a water tanker conductor and I will post my pictures. I have an interior decoration company and in fact learnt how to mix paints.
Nigerian Youths are hardworking, those who want to Japa you will realise that they can Hustle out the money that they lll use to process their travel so why not put that same energy and look for that money do something here that is lucrative?
Most of them don’t have anything to do until they want to migrate. Before you know it they’ll raise the money needed for “Japa” which is very expensive.
This shows you that they are hardworking but they chose not to work. The illusion that it is better elsewhere gives them that motivation to source for the money so they should convert that illusion to do something better here.
People chose their poison, but I can tell you that most people that travel out are usually more disappointed, not to get what they expected and it’s because most of these countries have a system that can manage things properly.
They move from one pay cheque to another and Nigerians are hardworking. There’s no country in the world where people buy properties in full and pay for it in cash but we do it here in Nigeria and we survive. That shows that we are hardworking and things can work here.
If you check the statistics, they repatriate their money back home to do the business that they refused to do while they were here.
Nigeria is the country where you can start anything without anybody being on your neck. You don’t need so much to start , you don’t need to be a professional, you can learn on the Job in Nigeria, it is not easy anywhere except in Nigeria. Nigeria gives you that freedom to learn on the Job so I think it’s an opportunity we shouldn’t take for granted.
Small businesses rarely get any attention, nobody even looks their way and it is a gift that we should appreciate and capitalise on. No country is perfect and I believe in Nigeria a lot. That’s why I’m still here. I’ve had opportunities to relocate but I don’t think I’ll ever take advantage of such opportunities.
Describe your recent engagement with the state Chairman of the Ebonyi State APC, Stanley Okoro.
The meeting was a very fruitful one , the state chairman is a very brilliant and strong leader and I believe he is the best person for that position even in the next Congress to come. We remain solidified behind him .
Do you think the effects of President Tinubu’s reforms will affect his re-election in 2027 if he decides to run? And rate the performance of Ebonyi state Governor, Francis Ogbonna Nwifuru who you also met recently.
I believe APC is firmly on the ground and APC is still going to win the 2027 elections. Now for Mr. President I strongly also believe that for a leader , I have never seen one who is courageous like Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu.
He is so courageous that he is taking steps that no other President I believe can take.
Starting from the subsidy removal which no other President has dared implement.
You see that almost every previous President tried to remove subsidies but they didn’t, this shows you that something is fishy. The subsidy removal didn’t favour most Oil marketers, it didn’t favour me too because I’m also a marketer.
But it’s for the greater good of Nigerians, because if you look at it very well with the removal of subsidy more monies are being allocated to the state as well , so Nigeria should also learn not to hold their State Governors responsible.
Nigerians should check FAAC allocations and see what is going on in their States.
Ask their state Governments what are they doing with the money? Compare and contrast. I think Mr President should be encouraged. His reforms are very courageous to me ,they are difficult reforms very difficult to take and anything that has to do with reforms in economics it’s very difficult for things to just start. Let’s go through a process of things breaking down before it comes up again.
So I believe he needs his eight years tenure as well because to monitor and continue what he started, he has good plans for Nigeria.
At that time he was Lagos state Governor he was facing the same criticism today, he almost lost his second term. But till today Lagos is reaping the fruits of the Labour of Bola Ahmed Tinubu.
I support him and I believe that he means we’ll for Nigerians, I’ve not seen a President who is accountable as this before, he comes out all the time to assure Nigerians to reassure Nigerians of his plans to let the know that he knows and understands their pain but these things are necessary and they have to be done.
My Governor is doing excellently well, the state needs more investment for the private sector and the Government has provided the enabling environment for that.
The former Governor has tried in infrastructure and we still need more. Today the Governor had a meeting with Salt partners limited in Switzerland to exploit the Ebonyi State salt industry because we have the largest salt deposit in Africa .
That shows a Governor that is visionary and thinking about the good of the state because we usually export our raw materials.
We should tax these companies and give the ultimatum to set up those processing industries in Nigeria as well. So people can have jobs because our labour is stronger so that we can make more money for the state and Nigeria as a whole. The Governor is doing well and I applaud him.