How Many Nigerian Family Businesses Or Brands Are 100 Years Old And Above?

 Those who know me can testify that I love green tea. I also love black tea, especially from Sri Lanka. Sri Lanka is one of the world’s largest producers and exporters of teas of various brands. Recently my wife bought for me Sultan black tea made in Sri Lanka and owned by the Anverally family and the family has been exporting their blend of tea since 1890. That got me thinking. 

How come that Nigeria does not have family businesses and brands that have lasted more than 100 years? Perhaps there are. I will love to be corrected. Why is that businesses and brands run by families in Nigeria do not last that long in Nigeria? Most businesses often die with their owners including the best of brands. At the time that the Anverally family in Sri Lanka began the export of tea in 1890, King Jaja of Opobo, the Igbo slave that founded a Kingdom was controlling the export of palm oil directly to Liverpool in England. 

This was before anyone ever imagined that a country called Nigeria would be born. King Jaja of Opobo was controlling the palm oil business acting as the middleman between the palm oil producers in the hinterlands of what has become today South-South and South-East and the markets in Liverpool. His problem started after the Berlin Conference and Africa was partitioned and his beloved Opobo fall under the control of the British. He resisted their effort to have access to the hinterlands to buy palm oil directly from the farmers by the British. He was tricked and captured by the British and taken to the Caribbean where he died. 

However what baffles me while I held the packet of Sultan Tea was, why is it that there was no one who could emerge from the ashes of King Jaja of Opobo’s kidnap by the British and create a family of palm oil exporting business from today’s South-South or South East? This question is pertinent because after King Jaja the area was still involved in palm oil export. 

As a matter of fact, the area today where Opobo is located in Rivers State was known by the British palm oil buyers as the ‘Oil River.’ Today if you mention Oil River, many may be mistaken to think that you are referring to crude oil found in the same area in recent times. By the same time some Yoruba families were selling cocoa to the British, but no family business brand exists in the whole of the South West that is an international brand in cocoa export or any of its value chain in the past 100 years. The same can also be said about groundnut in Northern Nigeria with its famous Groundnut Pyramid. 

This scarcity of family businesses that are 100 years is also common in recent times. Sir Louis Ojukwu, the first Nigerian billionaire and first chairman of Nigeria Stock Exchange founded many companies including Ojukwu Transports among others. Do any of his companies still exist today? What about Chief MKO Abiola, whose business interests span from newspaper publishing, bookshops, and banking, how are his companies doing since he died in 1993? Why is it that many successful family brands die with the founder in Nigeria? Mind you, Sri Lanka was also a British colony at the same time as Nigeria, yet they were able to leverage their comparative advantage on tea farming, blending, and export to create family businesses that have lasted more than 100years. So what is wrong with the Nigerian business environment that kills the business once the founder is dead? Perhaps once the founder dies the drive with which he ran the business wane and many were not able to have a transition plan for the children to take over from where they left behind. In Nigeria, the matter is made worse by the lack of self-control by the founders while alive. Take the case of Chief MKO Abiola, the man had over 20 wives and was breeding children from all of them, that is not the mentality of a man who wants his business to live after him. To date, for a man who died in 1993, the will he left behind is still under contention by various children and wives he left behind. And while the will is yet to be dispensed with many of his physical assets have deteriorated. Whatever may be the case it is now the responsibility of the present generation of Nigerian business owners to run their businesses with an exit strategy that would ensure continuity more than 100 years after they have gone to join their ancestors.