Although she belongs to the corporate world, it was always her passion to design and make beautiful bags with local fabrics. It was this passion that was taking her away from her familiar world into the business world as it was a passion she was being goaded to take to another level in line with many entrepreneurs all over the world who have turned their passions into viable businesses.
Containers coming into the factory were first highly taxed at the ports and then ‘taxed’ by belligerent youths who call themselves ‘omo onile’ – never mind that some of them couldn’t even speak fluent Yoruba. Productivity, caused by the lazy, laissez-faire approach to work by staff was such that more people were required to do less. When she punched the figures again, she realised she could never hope to compete with imported brands without some form of State concession.
The world is on the cusp of another industrial revolution but Lagos State is still leveraging on land. Given its unique position, it could leverage on commerce, on tourism, on finance institutions, on the blue economy, on the emerging AI, or even on human capital. But all of these will require a change in mindset which would require a more business friendly approach. Instead, it has chosen a low hanging fruit. Its land is small relative to others and is in high demand.