By Nwagbo Benita and Owuzo Munachi, Onitsha
The convener of the Onitsha Business Hangout Mr. Ogbaji Ifeanyichukwu has emphasized that witnessing the collapse of many large Igbo businesses immediately after the demise of their founders served as the main inspiration for this year’s event.
Ifeanyi highlighted this in an interview with Newday Reporters in Onitsha. According to him, it is crucial for Igbo youths to start examining the errors and choices that lead to the downfall of businesses in the South East following the founders’ deaths.
Known as @ogbajiifeanyi on X (formerly Twitter), he added that one of his primary goals for this event is to change the prevailing belief that businesses cannot thrive in Onitsha.
Mr. Ogbaji aims to inspire the next generation of Igbo people to stop complaining and start being the change that society needs.
He noted that the Business Hangout is set to be an engaging opportunity for the next generation of business leaders from the South East to connect and collaborate.
Read full text of the interview below;
EXCLUSIVE INTERVIEW WITH MR. IFEANYI OGBAJI, CONVENER, ONITSHA BUSINESS HANGOUT
NEWDAY REPORTERS: How have are you facing the challenge of sponsorship for this event?
IFEANYI OGBAJI: There are, we have a sponsorship packages for people who want to be part of what we are doing, opportunity for people to showcase their brand’s, product and what they are doing.
The last time we had a business hangout, somebody said a business without advertisement is blind. I will quote “Chijioke Erucharu” for saying that, so we have Platinum, Diamond, Dold and Silver packages. These are the four sponsorship packages we have for this event for people who are interested.
NEWDAY REPORTERS: What would you point out as the biggest challenge you are facing while trying to organise this event?
IFEANYI OGBAJI: Because this is non-profit, that makes it extra difficult, assuming it’s profitable, i will tell you, ok we are going to sell tickets, we are going to do this or that to be able to generate funds. So one of the biggest challenges we are currently facing now is funding and getting people to bring their money to make this event a success. For instance, the Hall we are going to use, we have tried talking to the church to make it a bit cheaper for us but the church have refused.
We don’t blame them because this is what they brought up for business, the Hall alone is about 1million (1,000,000), how do you expect us to raise one million from charity?
You see why I said it’s difficult, and this is because, our people over here are yet to embrace the things we do for charity.
It is easier for them to go to a burial and spray one million than bringing the money to organise an event like this, so funding is our greatest challenge and also getting people to buy into the idea of social media marketing is another major challenge.
This is because, it is under utilized in the south east. We are trying to bring it to the eyes of people buy saying, ok this is what we are going to do, in our sponsorship packages we made opportunity whereby we are going to advertise brands on social media, yet some of them are not even seeing the opportunity there, so funding is our challenge another one is getting people to be part of our panelists.
An average onitsha person don’t want to come and sit down and discuss himself, because he sees it as a security threat if he tells people how he is because he might be kidnapped or robbed so these are the few major challenges we are facing now.
NEWDAY REPORTERS: Who are the target audience for this event and how have you identified and reached out to them?
IFEANYI OGBAJI: Our target audience are mainly the youths and business owners. When we talk about the youths it’s because am a youth and i have to work with people of my age, so the target audience is between age 18 to 50 or 55 years.
The reason is because, we don’t know what we learn today, how and when it can be of help to us, there are some things we learnt in primary school that we are still implementing today, there are some things we learnt in nursery school that is still valid till today.
So, we have to bring in adults because the topic we are going to discuss is something that has to do with life time and after life, which is a generational discussion. The topic is ‘defying succession’.
If you learn what you can do as a business person at 18 that can last you a lifetime it is something beautiful for business owners, entrepreneur, anybody that is into business even working class some of them would love to go private in the long run so we have identified with them by reaching out to one through social media which is the easiest way of reaching out to them. We are going to reach out to people again through radio stations. We have wazobia FM as one of our partner, we are also reaching out to different youth organisation, we have reached out to Catholic Youth Organization, Anglican Youth Organisation, so many fellowships; Winner’s Chapel, Christ Embassy and Dominion City.
We have reached out to the traders also. I am going to meet with the Market Chairman Anambra Market Association this week so through him, we can be able to reach out to the market people as well.
NEWDAY REPORTERS: What inspired the theme of this year event?
IFEANYI OGBAJI: This is a very delicate topic that we are about to discuss on the 7th of july, why?
I grew up knowing so many beautiful brand’s like Ekenedirichukwu, Vincent Standard, Alliance, throughout Old Road. I grew up knowing Bendis, so many companies but i discovered that immediately the founder dies, the company closed down.
If you get somebody born in the 2000 and mention Ekenedirichukwu, they won’t know, so what happened?
It is something that has always been in my subconsciousness. I have been asking what is actually going on?
My Dad worked in a transport sector and i can confidently tell you that all the transport companies, 90% of them, non is in existence today.
So it triggered something in me that i will try to find out. Last year the topic that we discussed was ‘Collaboration’, why is it so difficult for two Igbo people to come together and start up a business.
We tackled it last year. This year, if we don’t find out the root cause of this problem, we the youths will repeat the same mistake no matter how we try to beautiful curve it.
If we are not thinking about a generational business, is not making any sense. This is our 3rd edition so the first one was ‘Introduction to Onitsha Business Hangout’, the second was ‘Collaboration’, now we are trying to identify the problems we normally have in businesses in south East, which is businesses dying with the founders.
If we can tackle it and people now have an idea of how to run a sustainable, generational business, it becomes easier that when we start discussing other topic like setting people up, they can understand what running a business is all about and how he/she can run a successful business so that is what inspired our topic for this year’s edition.
NEWDAY REPORTERS: What is the primary goal of this event ? What are you hoping to achieve through this event?
IFEANYI OGBAJI: We want to have a discussion because Igbo people are very fond of complaining.
An Igbo businessman, politician, musician, everything that has to do with igbo person is complain. So what we want to do, is first of all change the narrative about Onitsha, that business cannot survive here.
Currently, there is no business in onitsha that can attract a foreign person, so that is the first thing we want to change and also, we want to start having those discussions our father’s refused to have which led them to where they are today.
We want to do better than them. We want to bring about a change in our immediate society, what is going to light up the heart of the people to do good, just like you see preachers preaching everyday, because they don’t know the one they will say, that touch the sinner to repent. So also, we don’t know what that business person is going to hear during these discussions, that will stear up he’s or her mind to change and the reason why I am emphasising on he or she is because in business, people only think business is made for men alone. Hence want to address that, we want to build a strong female entrepreneurs, because if i should ask you if a known female entrepreneur you know in Onitsha, you might not be able to mention any.
So, we want to bring women into our discussion that’s why, it is open to everybody.
NEWDAY REPORTERS: Who are your target audience?
IFEANYI OGBAJI: Our target audience are primarily the youths, business owners, entrepreneurs or anybody into business because business is vast.
Anybody into buying and selling is into business, a makeup artist, or anybody with the intention of going into business.
G.U.O is coming, he is 72 years, an old man and still doing his business very well, his age mates, can also come, join and see what we are doing, so is not limited to anyone but it is primarily for young people between 18 to 55 years.
