Pastor James Elaigwu, but popularly known as Gakem, is the founder of New Gakem Microfinance Company located at Odessassa Ugbokolo, Okpokwu local government area of Benue state. In this interview with ADOYI M. ABA, he speaks about his foray into the business of buying and selling at a very young age and how far he has gone. He advises the youth to struggle to get out of poverty instead of blaming and waiting on the government.
For how long have you been in this business?
I have been in the general merchandising business for about 29 years now. As soon as I completed my secondary school in 1986, I started the business of selling garri. I would buy garri from my locality and transport it to other parts of the country, notably to the eastern section of the country. I started with a paltry sum of N900.
I could remember precisely when I started the business on January 11, 1990. After working for a year, I raised a capital of N900 which I invested in the business. We started bringing vehicles here to buy garri and load the same.
When was New Garkem Microfinance Company established?
New Garkem Microfinance Company was founded on August 8, 2013. Like I said earlier I was into the garri business and then I thought that if I could bring people together and form a cooperative it would touch more lives since my conviction is that what one person cannot do, a group of people can do it better. So, I opened the New Garkem Multi-purpose Cooperative Society. In the Cooperative, we bring money together and help an individual in his or her business and spread it across so that others could benefit after a period of one month.
The Cooperative started getting larger until we grew into a limited liability cooperative and currently we have over 350 members and our net worth every year is between N90 and 120 million. As the Cooperative continued to expand, an idea came into my head precisely on August 8, 2013 that if we could organise a Cooperative and many people were also benefiting and the business was growing larger I could do something bigger. Of course, I had brought my first vehicle I brought to the Ugbokolo market here and l chartered it for N600; that was in 1992. As I am speaking with you now, I am the chairman of this market (from 1990 up till now).
Today, we load over 34 vehicles of garri from this market to different parts of Nigeria every four days and people come from all corners of the country to do transactions here. It is the largest market in Zone C which is populated mainly by the Idoma-speaking people of Benue state.
Would it be right to say that you founded the bank because of the influx of people into the market and the town?
Yes, I founded the bank to loan money to people who come to buy garri, who come to do vehicular and other businesses. As I was giving them that little assistance and they placed trust in us, I then thought to myself ‘why not convert this to a company?’ Then I registered it with the Corporate Affairs Commission. That was on August 20, 2013.
Are you happy with what you have achieved so far?
In fact, I am very happy because one of the things I discovered when I was growing up was that for somebody to make it very early without looking for a civil service job or company work he or she should start very early. It was very stressful at the beginning; the stress was quite discouraging as there was nobody to assist me. But that was the price one has to pay to make it. It took a lot of time because to start a business with N900 without anybody assisting was not a child’s play. This was more challenging as in my father’s family I am the most senior. Indeed, I suffered a lot, but my joy is that I have nine brothers and sisters and through this little business all of them are graduates today and they are doing very well in their respective endeavours.
What exactly did you tell your staff this time?
Well, I told my staff that honesty is the price for success and you have to be diligent too. One of the things I discovered in my life since I ventured into this business in 1990 is that there was no challenge which I couldn’t handle. Nobody’s Kobo has entered my money. Since I started this business over 29 years ago, honesty has been my watch word.
It might interest you to know that in this little business, we have no fewer than 32 staff who are benefiting from this company and we have three branches in Ugbokolo, Otukpo and Otukpa. In 2022 alone, over 220 people benefited from our loans scheme and testimonies have been pouring in. We also sponsor businesses in Lagos and Àbuja. Recently, some importers from Spain came to borrow money from us. We are also into transportation business in Onitsha and we have a garage there.
What advice would you give the youth, especially young graduates, who want to start businesses?
Anytime I get an opportunity to speak to the youth, I’m sometimes invited to speak in their seminars, especially when corps members are passing out, I always tell them to have their focus on what will benefit their lives instead of criticising the government, lamenting that Nigeria is not good. Nigeria is good; there is no country in the world where there is no poverty; there is no country where people are not experiencing hardships.
The important thing is that one should not resign himself to being among the poor. You have to struggle your way out of poverty. They shouldn’t just criticise the government and society; rather they should be focused on what they are doing or plan to do and believe that they would be successful in the end because I believe that God created everyone to be a success in his or her undertakings.
