INTERVIEW
Onafowokan: Local Content policy boosted our visibility in oil and gas industry George Onafowokan is the Managing Director/CEO of Coleman Technical Industries Limited (Coleman), manufacturers of electrical wires and cables through years of hard work, integrity and tenacity have metamorphosed from a small manufacturing firm in Ikotun area of Lagos State to being Africa’s pride in cable and wire manufacturing in Africa with ultra-modern factories of 200,000 square meters both at Arepo and Sagamu factories, installed production capacity to process 60,000 metric tons of Copper and 40,000 metric tons of Aluminum per annum. In this interview with Peace Obi, Onafowokan said Coleman’s visibility in the nation’s oil and gas industry has greatly been aided by the NOGICD Act implementation in the sector. Could you give us a peep into your background? My name is George Olufowokomi, MD/ CEO Coleman Wires and Cables. I am the current Chairman of the Electrical and Electronic Sector of the Manufacturers’ Association of Nigeria (MAN). I am an accountant by profession. I obtained a combined Bachelor degree in Accounting and Finance from Manchester Metropolitan University, Manchester; Masters in Management and Information System
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(Combined) from the University of Salford, UK. I started my career with Packard Bell, UK as a Field Manager where I excelled in Sales and Marketing as well as in Customer Relations. I left Packard to PC World UK as Business Accounts Manager and later I joined Cem International UK Ltd as its pioneer Managing Director. In 2002, I left Uk to Nigeria to lead Coleman team in restructuring the company into becoming Africa’s pride in cable and wire
ORIENT ENERGY REVIEW Vol.9 No. 04
production. Can you share a little of what Coleman’s beginning was like and the journey to its present state? Actually, we are a company of humble beginning. We started off as a micro small company with one or two machines. And within the last 10 to 15 years, we grew to being the largest in the country. The beginning was very, very humble. It was a very small team, we literally existed
