By Sylvester Asoya
Frank Nneji, the well-known founder of ABC Transport Plc, is a dreamer. As a child, he had big dreams and desired to be the master of his environment. In actual fact, one of his childhood fantasies was to succeed in all his endeavours. He also desperately wanted to conquer the world even from his ‘disadvantaged’ position as a child from middle class family. So, he did many unusual things and pushed very hard to overcome obstacles. He also learnt early that fulfilment and a purposeful life depended on hard work and success. Therefore, he was more than willing to push the limit as a child growing up in a small town.
After many years, one can safely say that this dreamer now lives his dreams. It is also obvious from every indication, that he has achieved a good number of everything he set out to achieve.
Understandably, this autobiographer, a consummate businessman, has similarly proven time and again, that he knows the methods of investments.
His successful investment journey that began in his teenage years represents today, a diverse portfolio of investments across different areas of businesses. And for sustaining the validity that there is always a way where there is a will, Nneji remains a good example of the power of dreams.
It is instructive to note that the foundation of Nneji’s business empire was actually laid when the dreamer was just 23 years. That year in 1984, he founded Rapido Ventures, a company established essentially to provide educational materials and audio-visual teaching aids to schools and institutions. Less than a decade after, Nneji founded ABC Transport and revolutionised Nigeria’s road transport industry that was largely at the time, in the hands of unlettered businessmen, drivers and conductors. But ABC Transport changed all that, and it continues to enjoy phenomenal success and popularity due to its innovation. And the transport company is also making inroads into logistics, hospitality and tourism.
WHO SAYS YOU CAN’T? Timeless Lessons and Experiences in Business is therefore the story of a beautiful and great life of purpose and impact. In this book of four parts that represents his life through time in a most remarkable manner, Nnaji takes his reader through a journey. He begins under the title: Getting Started and continues with A Glimpse Into the Future, The Question That Never Goes Away and concludes with Everyone Pays a Price.
The ABC Transport Story, considered by many readers as the most interesting and detailed, provides insight on the birth of ABC Transport, the founder’s ingenuity as a forward-looking businessman, the challenges that confronted him and the solutions that eventually came. And In Going Beyond Boundaries, Nneji speaks eloquently about Breaking Into the West Coast and Looking Beyond Profits. Business Realities on the other hand, engages the reader on the Realities of Business and why in the final analysis, People Determine Everything.
Without doubt, ABC Transport is the flagship among his many companies and ventures. “Whenever I think about how the ABC Transport idea has germinated, I am astounded by the power we all have been endowed with to dream and realize our dreams; to start small and grow big; to become better and relevant and to positively influence the lives of others in amazing ways,” he reveals.
This is a fascinating and beautifully written story of a restless and an adventurous young man who knew very early, where he was headed. So, to arrive his destination in good time, he denied himself, defied the odds and surmounted nearly every obstacle on his way.
Nneji’s personal stories are powerful and life-changing. His stories and encounters are also inspiring; but at the centre of his life is curiosity. According to him, “curiosity was one of my stand-out traits as a child in many ways, it provided a glimpse into my future as an entrepreneur. I always wanted to know how things worked. I probed, I asked questions, I wondered…it was curiosity that led me to start business and create solutions and value in the market place”.
In many ways, WHO SAYS YOU CAN’T? Timeless Lessons and Experiences in Business is a book that provides knowledge on how to survive some of the things life throws at people. It is also rich on lessons for everyday life, especially for young people who want to conquer the present and survive the future. And the book, like its author, is also frank. The book is also helpful, absorbing, unpretentious, uplifting and familiar. In this autobiography, Nneji recalls how he became an emergency diplomat and fought tirelessly to change the battered international image of his country. His skills as a negotiator and a patriot when it mattered most, saved the day for Nigeria and his business interests many years ago.
“We could have easily missed doing business with Telex Communications and so many other companies, especially from Europe and America. They had all believed that every Nigerian and by extension, every Nigerian company, could not be trusted. Our reputation had gone bad. Things got worse particularly in the early 2000 when some young Nigerians became famous for internet scams. They were popularly known as ‘419ers’ and later as the ‘Yahoo, Yahoo Boys’.
These boys became extremely skilled at advance-fee scams which typically involves promising the victim a significant share of a large sum of money in return for a small up-front payment which the fraudster requires to obtain the large sum. Once the payment is made by the naïve victim, the fraudster disappears or continues to come up with extra fees that the victim must pay to get the transaction to the finish point. The bait is usually a loan, contract, investment or gift.
This form of scam messed up Nigeria’s reputation globally. The country’s name became synonymous with it and invariably, with scams and crime. For those of us who wanted to do legitimate businesses with foreigners, the situation became our nightmare”, he writes.
Another essential lesson from Nneji’s story is human resources; and he regards people as the most significant asset of any company. In this book, he acknowledges the importance of workers in every business and advises employers to be mindful of how they treat employees. According to him, employees function better when they are valued.
“I realised quickly that a business in which people are not valued, is one that will crumble. People make or mar any business. This sounds like something we all know but many people do not take it serious enough. In our business, I noticed that a good driver can take a bad vehicle and manage it from Owerri to Lagos but a bad driver may fail to take a brand-new vehicle from Owerri to Lagos…people are not numbers, so don’t treat them as such. They are critical to business success. Those who work with or for you have much more to give to you than you to them. If you can work well with people despite ethnic, religious or cultural differences, you will be a brilliant business leader”.
In this book, Professor Pat Utomi, the respected political economist and founder, Centre for Value Leadership, tells the reader why he or she must read this important book by an unusual businessman. Utomi who is also an entrepreneur says he is lucky to be selected to write the foreword. “What a joy it is for me to see this day and the chronicling of this journey. Entrepreneurs help solve social problems and derive economic and other benefits for being leaders and change agents. Central to their essence is passion and recognition that failure is an opportunity to learn lessons that will prevent more failures, so they fail and rise again”.
In an irresistibly appealing manner, Nnaji provides self-written account of a great life in twelve captivating chapters of storytelling and teaching, from personal experiences and chance meetings to the realities he faced as a boy and later, a businessman. But Utomi also has some words for young people and those just starting out. “In this memoir, Frank Nnaji sets out to challenge the young to the fact that they too can. I concur and say to the reader in the words of Nobel Laureate, Wole Soyinka, “you need to set forth at dawn”. That, indeed was what Frank did, transiting from an entrepreneurial undergraduate to a 23 years old founder of a formal company”.
Frankly, there are very few low points in this book, and all the good sides are already well known to the reader. However, I disagree with the cover. The cover illustration is not only poor but also uninspiring, and this is not good for such a great book. Book lovers know that cover designs are the best first impressions, but I am not sure this impression is good enough. Evidently, this cover does not in any way, express the deep and inner self of this remarkable book. The fact is that the design is not active and does not bear resemblance to the storyteller, his powerful prose and his uncommon stories, and this is worrying.
But in spite of the bland cover, it is still a great book; an exiting journey of purpose, courage and self-actualization. It is a must read for anyone interested in success and attainment.
(This article was first published in alice, the in-flight journal of Air Peace.)
• Asoya is a senior journalist and prolific art writer.