NOG2019 Awards: a confirmation of our tenacity, hardwork - COLEMAN

Engr Ernest Nwapa (fmr E.S NCDMB) presents award to Mr George Onofowokan at NOG 2019

“NOG 2019 Awards: ...a confirmation of our tenacity, hardwork” - Onafowokan, MD Coleman Cables

Coleman Wires and Cables is an ISO 9001:2015 certified, indigenous company, committed to manufacturing consistent quality wires and cables locally. Part of its strategy to maintain and increase its market share has been a continual improvement of its processes and services delivery through staff development, motivation and creation of a conducive work environment. In this interview with Majorwaves Energy Report, Mr George Onofowokan explains why Coleman emerged as the Best Indigenous Company of Year; he also touched on a couple of other innovative activities ongoing at the company. Excerpts.

Congratulations on the award as NOG 2019 Indigenous Company of the Year. What do you have to say about this recognition?

Thanks.

I’m very excited about this award. It’s been a long time coming. It goes to say hardwork pays. Our investments over the years is being recognised. We’ve been tested, but we are still here; this is a confirmation of our tenacity, grit and hardwork.

What do you do differently to set your business apart from the other players in this industry?

For Coleman, what we do differently is that, we have actually invested a lot more. We have looked at the long term and decided to invest in the cable industry, surpassing others in the industry; and our investments have gone into pioneering products. Pioneering products like the High Voltage (HV) Cable which we did in 2014, like CAT5 and CAT6 Cable which we did in 2015; Instrumentation pressure Cable which we also did in 2015 and currently, we’re also investing in backward integration, in copper and aluminium production in-country, and also looking at the oil and gas industry. For the oil and gas, we are also moving into marine vessel cables. By the time we finish that project, we will only be the second country of production in Africa. All the projects we have made were pioneers in the whole of West Africa, which is what makes us innovative and totally different and exceptional in the Industry, because we are making cables that nobody is actually doing. On the normal cables, in terms of capacity and size, we are actually equivalent to the whole industry in West Africa multiplied by two. So our own vision for the country and the West African

coast has been a lot bigger and more forward thinking and long term, that’s what really differentiates us. “ We are investing and pushing finances in an area where nobody wants to go into and that’s what has been our distinction in the market”.

Your market penetration strategy has been superb, and I know this impact on the bottom line, but aren’t you perturbed about fake products? How do you manage this threat?

We are always perturbed about fake, adulterated and substandard cables because that has been the bone of the industry for years and it will continue to be. But our philosophy in fighting fake and adulterated is a bit different - by building capacity because one thing we realised is you do not fight what is too available. Basically, what is “pure water” (sachet water)? Nobody adulterates it. In my philosophy, you won’t see anybody adulterating pure water, it’s damn too cheap and available and there are so many players. Now, what we need to do and the industry has never done, which Coleman is doing, is to make product available and cheap and of good value too. So when you have good value and good pricing; and you have the capacity to back that good pricing, you actually drop the substandard and faking of your cables because you’re matching, if not beating, the price of the fake of the cables; and that has been our focus in the last two years. “We now use our capacity to build availability to fight substandard cables’’ and we fought it with SON, and fought it with government agencies. But we found out it wasn’t working. Some of the government’s agencies seem not to do the work they are supposed to do enough. Nevertheless, we need to sustain and survive and the way we have done it is to change the dynamics. “ Why not make these cables to be available and viable for people to want to buy it and then at those levels?”

And so far in our two years strategy, it’s been working. The amount of faking of our cables has drastically reduced, especially in our one year plus. When you make these cables affordable and available to people, it makes the faking difficult to achieve and the substandard prices difficult to compete; so that has been our own strategy for now, pending when the government agencies meant to stop all these, would stop them.

What are some landmark projects we can associate Coleman cables with, one you would say you’re proud of?

We are very proud of “ ou r high voltage factory; that is the plant in Shagamu, in 2014 when it was commi s sione d . It became the first of its kind in the whole of West Africa”.

It made Nigeria only 6th country in the continent making it. And it made us the first to actually pass the oil and gas NOGIC Act under high voltage, and we were very proud of that. Until we did it, for more than 30 years, everybody in the industry actually believed it was impossible making high voltage cable in Nigeria, in-country.Manufacturers thought it was not viable, and could not be done in Nigeria. We broke all barriers, broke all rules and delivered the product to the Nigerian market. And for us as Nigerians, it was a thing of pride because it wasn’t a foreign company that delivered it first, and it was Nigerians that made that possible. For us at Coleman, that’s our pride, to have achieved that level of impact without being behind a foreign companies. It should be noted that till date, we still remain the only in country producer of High Voltage Cables. So, after that we have seen ourselves being able to move the industry forward, pioneering a lot of things in the Industry. As a result, we are the only industry where everybody says, “Buy made in Nigeria because it’s the best.” But then, we need to be capable of servicing the whole country, the same way the brand of beverages are served round the whole country. We see ourselves as a company servicing the whole country; that’s where we are and what we are proud of.

Are there component parts of your product or operations that you presently outsource or would want to domesticate in-country? Which would you need an enabler or incentive from the government for?

One of the key things which we are currently building now is the backward integration of our copper and aluminium plant; the design of the factory is unique and rare in this part of the world. And in terms of capacity and size, it would be the biggest in copper and aluminium factory available within this part of the world, and the whole of West Africa. So for us, we want to see that the backward integration is that type of business which government supports. Yes, we have gotten some support from the Bank of Industry in recent times. We need to also get quality support in that line because there is no point if we don’t make this backward integration work. It enables us to import raw materials, while we export the finished products. We need to change the dynamics, where we move from user-processing country to where we see ourselves exporting; that is what we believe the factory can do. It has the capacity, not only for Nigeria but to West Africa and other parts of Africa.

So what’s the multiplier effect, if you perfect this backward integration in respect to the numbers and the people it would employ?

In terms of employment, it would have an impact generation of at least 200 workers and later on, about 600 workers. But the impact in the industry would be greater in numbers, because we would be able to reduce cost of raw materials, which means the cable itself would be cheaper to buy at a point in time. Secondly, we can look at creating sources for our raw materials locally; the impact of that is when you reduce your import elements, you reduce your expenses on import and Forex; and you increase workforce. So, take into account the long term effect of that added to the creation of jobs, not only for that; the sustenance of the other parts of the industry, and other players of the Industry outside our country.

How are you doing in supplying the entire Nigerian market,

including the up country places? And are you thinking about export in the immediate?

Yes, we are thinking about export, but the first phase of our business is to expand in-country first. We are looking at West Africa sometime in Q4 this year; we are already working on some parts of West Africa. In Nigeria, our first aim is being able to expand to some parts. We have opened in Kaduna, with branches in Kano, Abuja, in Port Harcourt, in Warri, Owerri, and Onitsha; of course the Lagos, Ibadan and Southwest has been a strong point for us. So “ our focus is to try and open distributorship in all parts of the country and have availability in every space of the country within this year”;

and we are already making that possible for now, so that you can buy Coleman wires literarily everywhere. That has been a positive sign because our capacity has allowed us to sustain it and to grow. We would be the first in the history of the country in being able to sustain a national front, a national distributorship of its products in cables. That’s not all, of the cable companies operating in Nigeria, Coleman is the only one that has been able to have a national presence, and it’s because we have the ability to sustain that national outlook of distribution, having built our capacity and capability. We are always pushing the product everywhere we go because we believe we have the capacity to sustain the country’s need, and that is where we stand out.

Is Coleman 100 per cent Nigerian owned? What’s the level of expatriates’ participation in the company? Do you have expatriates here and what’s the number?

If we look at it today, Coleman is a 100 per cent Nigerian company. It’s an indigenous company. We have been indigenous since 1996 and to make it more indigenous than anything else, it’s being run by indigenous people and all its

Mr George Onafowokan and Engr Simbi Wabote

management board is indigenous. I will say 99 percent of our workforce is indigenous, and the management. Even with the expatriate, I believe today out of over 350 workers there is only one expatriate. We have managed to keep that by allowing the expatriates to train and go. I believe in our own people and that belief has been sustained in our history from the management team over the last 20 years. Coleman has never been a company that believes in majority foreign technical partnership, because foreign technical partnership is only useful for training purposes, which we do. They come into Nigeria, train us for 30 or 60 days and go back to their country. Nigerians can continue the job, because we need to continue to believe in ourselves and if we don’t train and retrain our people, making them believe in their abilities, you can’t sustain a business in this country. It would be too dependent on the expatriate. And for us, we pride ourselves in seeing people come into our company, looking for the expatriate management staff; only to find out we have none, but Nigerians everywhere. Then, they start asking, “Where is your technical partner?” They are all Nigerians. The technical crew are all Nigerians; the designs are made and built by Nigerians. If we are not proud of ourselves and we don’t take pride in pushing our own knowledge, there is no way we can grow our own knowledge, which is fundamental to all industries. We need to grow know-how in-country; know-how without training cannot take us anywhere; because they won’t teach us everything. Let them teach us what we want to know and we would continue to grow it and as long as we

pride is pushing all the jobs, that same pride is why we won the award and that same pride is why we push for our “Nigerianess” in this cable business as much as we can, to show that we can be proud of Nigerian products and proud as Nigerians. Our products can be seen everywhere with such belief and such pride that makes us exceptionally different in this industry and I believe it would continue to stand for us over the years coming.

show the sign that we are not interested in being dependent on expatriates, they would be forced to teach you.

What’s the next big thing for Coleman? “ The next big thing is for us to deliver the next marine cable production incountry” and once that is done, we would be the only second producer in Africa to do so. We expect to be producing in-country by Q1 or Q2 of 2020; that would be a game changer for us, a game changer for the whole country and the continent. We can only continue to strive for bigger, better, capacity production and technical know-how, because that’s our belief; “we are passionate about ‘made in Nigeria.’ You cannot remove that from us and there is no one that can actually say to anyone of us or to Coleman that we are not proudly made in Nigeria. Our business has grown from the foundation. It should only be made in Nigeria and not imported and that’s why we have grown so well. We don’t believe in importing finished products, we believe in striving to make it possible locally. And that has been the pride of every Nigerian. Even expatriate say they can’t believe it. I can’t count how many expatriates who have walked into Coleman for audit, and they say, “We can’t believe this is happening in Nigeria, that this level of know-how or technology is available in-country.” And that same pride is getting us all the work we desire, today; that same

What would you say about NCDMB and its activities?

The Nigerian Content Development and Monitoring Board has been fantastic,even this award, if you notice, “ we dedicated it to them, we dedicated the award to the NCDMB because seriously the NCDMB under Engr. Simbi Wabote has been a driver for Nigerians”,

made in Nigeria and in-country production. The impact this man has made since I met him in 2017 January and since the visit in 2017 February has been a massive, massive, massive impact to our industry, to Coleman as a company and even to our faith in what we’re doing in-country; and to believe in the projects we are putting our money into; and even borrowing to do what we can. If NCDMB is not doing its job, believe me, I won’t be where I am today. One of the things that brought us into oil and gas was the NOGIC Act of 2010, and we are passionate about that project, we believe in it. Leadership is key; when the leadership directs aright, like the current ES, Simbi Wabote, it changes things. We can all see the amount of impact that NCDMB has made, the amount of local content impact they have made in the industry. A lot of people participating in the oil and gas industry have tried several years, but have made no impact, because they were not being pushed, seen or heard; or did not have enough belief that if we push, someone will support it. NCDMB is doing a fantastic job for Nigerians, not only for Nigerians but for Nigerian companies, and in the words of the ES,

CONT on pg 31

“The BUK project is the second to be commissioned under Phase 1 of the Energizing Education Programme that would deliver clean and sustainable energy to nine federal universities and one university teaching hospital”

in the next four years, using solar hybrid and/or gas-fired captive power plants. Speaking on the project, Managing Director of the Rural Electrification Agency, Mrs. Damilola Ogunbiyi, stated that the project is the largest off-grid solar hybrid power plant in Africa, adding that with it, students and staff of Bayero University, Kano can now experience learning and teaching in a safer, cleaner and more conducive academic environment. Also speaking on the impact of the BUK solar hybrid installations, Mr. Evangelos Kamaris, Managing Director, METKA West Africa Limited, the EPC contractor, stated that the state-of-the-art solar hybrid power plant would result in carbon dioxide savings of 108,875,120 pounds. Commenting on the EEP programme, Engr. Sale Mamman, Minister of Power, said, “The Ministry’s power policy specifically targets education to ensure that all federal universities, to begin with, have access to reliable electricity. Notably, the Energizing Education Programme was designed to involve students from project inception for project sustainability.” On his part, Governor of Kano state, Abdullahi Umar Ganduje stated that “Kano State is committed to fostering technical and practical training; therefore, this programme is strategically aligned to our state level job creation and capacity building objectives. Furthermore, as one of Nigeria’s commercial centres, Kano state prides itself in nurturing private sector engagements.”

In his own speech, Vice President Yemi Osinbajo, noted that the programme aligns to the administration’s Next Level Roadmap and upholds the Federal Government’s adherence to global best practice in the provision of cleaner sources of energy. He said, “The Energizing Education Programme is strategic to fulfilling Nigeria’s commitment to the Paris Agreement on Climate Change as we aim to reduce Nigeria’s carbon footprint using renewable energy technologies, in line with the Federal Government’s mandate and unwavering efforts to increase renewable energy.”

Apart from the efforts of the REA,

United States Agency for International Development, USAID-funded Power Africa, had assisted the Federal Government with agreements to move the Qua Iboe gas project closer to financial close. Power Africa is also assisting with agreements on several solar projects that would help Nigeria diversify its energy mix. It helped Nigeria’s first private Independent Power Project, IPP, the Azura Edo Project, reach financial close in 2015, including a $50 million investment by the Overseas Private Investment Corporation (OPIC). The Azura plant became operational in 2018. In addition, through Power Africa, the USAID and the U.S. Trade and Development Agency (USTDA) disclosed plans to improve commercial operations and reduce losses at five electricity distribution companies — Abuja, Benin, Eko, Ibadan, and Ikeja.

The programme also supports off-grid options as noted in the $15 million OPIC loan, via which Lumos Incorporated is deploying rooftop solar panel kits to approximately 70,000 residential and small commercial customers in Nigeria, using a lease-to-own business model. Furthermore, in partnership with General Electric, the U.S. African Development Foundation (USADF) and others, it has awarded nine $100,000 grants to entrepreneurs for innovative, off-grid energy projects in Nigeria. Providing support to the Nigeria Electricity Regulatory Commission (NERC) through a partnership with the National Association of Regulatory Utility Commissioners (NARUC), it avails guidance on regulatory practices and tariff setting. Power Africa also provides planning support to the Transmission Company of Nigeria (TCN) in trying to attract new investments into Nigeria’s transmission network.

It is also assisting the Ministry of Petroleum Resources to structure and implement a program that will attract competent third-party off-takers to invest in the capture and utilization of gas flares using tested technologies. This work in support of the Nigeria Gas Flare Commercialization Program (NGFCP) will improve access to finance for gas flare projects to achieve quicker financial close through incentives to investors and strengthen capacity of regulatory agencies to monitor and sustain the implementation, as well as subsequent bid rounds.

These, among other measures, are expected to impact Nigeria’s energy

sufficiency positively, helping it pursue its industrialization programme and economic growth.

cont from pg 26

“It’s not about ‘Nigerianising’ local content, it’s about ‘Nigerianising’ in-country production of oil and gas.It doesn’t matter where you come from, please, bring this investment, make it in-country, employ Nigerians and we would give you the chance”. – Simbi Wabote, E.S, NCDMB

And we are seeing that it’s true, so why would we not invest or bring in investors? Why would we not take the bull by the horns and take these loans or take these facilities and believe by the end of the day, we would be patronised as a Nigerian company? It is not just because we are Nigerians, but that we are capable of delivering in-country production with a standard consistent with best practice found anywhere in the world. Those are the key ones we are able to do, such that everybody would continue to be proud of the NCDMB. I am absolutely proud of his achievements, his management team, and his Board. He is doing a fantastic job. Basically, we are pushing the limit because we believe NCDMB is doing a fantastic job and I do not mind taking any test on proving in-country production to prove anything the NCDMB supports; and that is the amount of faith I have for that team. I recall the Executive Secretary asking for when to inspect our facility, and I simply told him to come in 24 hours. By Feb 22, 2017 he visited our facility and after inspection said, and I quote: “Based on what I have seen at Coleman and other cable manufacturing yards in Nigeria, today we make a policy statement: there will be no more importation of cables by IOCs into this country!”

He recognised that exceptional investments have been done by Nigerians. Since then, they have fought the fight for cable with a lot of passion! The E.S fights for you as a Nigerian, and believes everyone should be given a chance. People only need that assurance that there’s an institution at the helm of affairs, which will fight for them if they did the right thing, without having to go begging. That’s all we need, and he’s made that available to us.