Director-General, Lagos Chamber of Commerce and Industry, Muda Yusuf, speaks on steps some entrepreneurs need for success in this interview with MAUREEN AZUH
How can one be a successful entrepreneur in a country like Nigeria?
To be a successful entrepreneur in a country like Nigeria, one needs to leverage on the passion that he has, he needs to leverage on his skills and competency. He needs to also leverage on his experience and network. These are things that can make one successful as an entrepreneur. When all things are down, these attributes will keep one going.
It is difficult if you are in business and you don't have proper skills to run. That is why all these variables are very critical to making a good entrepreneur in any environment for that matter.
Apart from what government can do to improve entrepreneurship, what can individuals also do?
Individuals should have financial discipline as entrepreneurs. You need to also work with people who already have experience in your business line. And where the opportunity exists, you allow people to mentor you. If you look at our brothers from the South-East, there is a lot of mentorship and apprenticeship and that is why you have so many successful entrepreneurs among the Igbo.
So this issue of mentorship is very important to individuals who want to be successful in business. But most importantly, prudence should be the watchword. If you also have a network you can leverage on, it is fine.
Some of these small entrepreneurs, especially those who have contacts, have a network that they use to help themselves, which is also common in the South-East.
What are the benefits of joining a chamber of commerce?
The chamber of commerce offers an excellent platform for networking with other entrepreneurs. Through the networking you can share experience. You can share perspective and learn a lot from others as well as have access to quality business information. A good chamber of commerce must be a repository of economic and business information.
As a member, you have daily access to such information. There is also the access to foreign partnership. Like LCCI for instance, we regularly have foreign business delegations and when they come they want to meet with local business people. Through that, quite a number of people have developed foreign business partnerships.
We have what we call inward trade mission, when we receive delegations from outside and outward trade missions when we send our own members to meet with others outside the country. Both ways, it creates partnerships internationally.
It also gives access to quality advocacy; if an individual business person has an issue with an authority, it is much more difficult to take up the authority. It could be an issue with tax, regulatory institutions, tariffs and policies of government. It is easier for a chamber of commerce to champion such issues on behalf of their members. It also builds the capacity of members by helping them keep financial capacity, run their business properly and package themselves and business for credit.
How much interest are foreign industrialists showing in LCCI?
LCCI has a good number of foreign industrialists. Many of them are multinationals in all sectors. We have those in manufacturing, conglomerates, oil and gas. We have them in virtually all sectors but we don't have many Asians, I don't know why but we have more Europeans and Americans.
As the director-general of a chamber of commerce, are you satisfied with government's policy on duty and tariffs?
We have a lot of issues. I'm not satisfied. Government has this practice of waiving duties and tariffs for some importers, that creates a lot of distortion in the market place and the competitive environment. It creates a situation of unfair competition and also leads to a loss of revenue going to government itself.
Second challenge is that of enforcement; the quality of enforcement is not good enough, especially where we have a high tariff regime. There are rampant cases of smuggling, sometimes with the connivance of some officials.
Sometimes the tariffs are not properly aligned. Those who are in the paper industry, for instance, like Jebba Paper Mills, have come to complain that because the tariffs on papers are so low, their industries are collapsing.
We also have the tyre industry; it collapsed because of tariffs, take Dunlop and Michelin for example. The tariffs on imported tyres were so low it was not profitable for them to continue with production. That killed their capacity to create jobs and their ability to keep foreign exchange as well as create local skill was lost. That is the kind of damage tariffs can cause.
There are also issues with arbitrary changes in tariff. Sometimes, officials in the finance sector change tariffs in a non-transparent way and that creates a lot of problems in the industry.
Let tariff regimes be consistent. That is why we have the tariff book that is seven years. If it is consistent, people will be able to plan with the tariff policy. But if we have a tariff policy that we tinker with all the time, it would escalate the risk of and stifle investment. We have seen instances where government would ban a product and the next day they remove the ban, these things are not good for the business environment.
As someone who is always busy, how do you relax?
I engage in sports, tennis at Ikoyi Club once in a while. I watch current affairs local and international and once in a while I hang out with friends.
How did you make it to your present position as DG?
After my first degree from the University of Ilorin in 1983, the job situation in the country then was bad so I went for my masters degree in University of Lagos, also in Economics. I later worked for some years in the sales department of Ajaokuta Steel Company in Kogi State. Then I worked as a journalist when I moved to Nigerian Economist as the head of the business desk.
I left journalism for the Lagos Chamber of Commerce in 1993 as a principal research officer and then rose to become the director-general about three years ago. It has been a great experience but I must say that my experience in journalism helped me a lot; it is a tasking profession. If you can be a successful journalist, there is hardly any job you can't do with ease.
What have been your most trying and happiest moments?
My most painful moment was when I realised that my first child had sickle cell and I lost her two years later. Before I got married, my wife and I did blood tests, so it came as a shock to me.
We later discovered the first laboratory we went to made a mistake. The lesson here for people is that they should always validate their test so they don't run into situations like this. It is devastating.
As for happy moments, every day is a happy day for me. When I got this job, I was happy and when I was promoted to the position of DG, I was happy too. When I am in the midst of my loved ones, people I share same perspectives with, it gives me a lot of joy.
