Kelly Nwogu is the Managing Director and Chief Executive Officer of Livelihood Homes Limited. In this interview with KUNLE AKINRINADE, he reveals his grass to grace story, trajectory in business and childhood years, among other issues.
He strolled into the venue of the interview in Ikeja, looking debonair in his elegant native attire with a Hausa cap to match. Swathed by his aides and employees, Dr Kelly Izuma Nwogu offered apologies for turning up behind schedule. ”Sorry, for keeping you waiting,” he said. “It is not in my character to stand people up unnecessarily. I was held up in traffic.”
But beyond his dapper looks and the infectious airs around him, Nwogu, founder and Chief Executive Officer of one of the top real estate firms in the country, Livelihood Homes Limited, operators of Blue Sea Estates, has a riveting story to tell of his struggle to the top.
The only child of his mother, the 42-year-old businessman of Igbo descent, who was born and raised in Lagos State, invoked his childhood years and tempestuous trajectory with a feeling of gratitude to the divine.
He said: ”I was born in the morning of April 6, 1977 at a hospital in Itire area of Lagos State. I arrived just 22 days after the second World Black and African Festival of Arts and Culture also known as Festac ’77, a cultural jamboree held in Lagos from January 15, 1977 to February12,1977. It was during the military administration of the then Head of State, General Olusegun Obasanjo, who took power following the dastardly killing of his predecessor, General Murtala Ramat Muhammed, in a bloody coup staged by a band of mutineers led by Lt. Col. Buka Dimka.
”Nigeria of that era flourished in the oil boom and life was relatively good for people. So, the celebratory mood of my parents at our then residence on 1, Daniyan Street, Itire, was quite understandable.
”My parents, Mr Godwin Nwogwu and Victoria Obioma Nwogwu (of blessed memory) are from Isiala Ngwa South Local Government Area of Abia State.
“My father was a mid-career staff member of a foremost electronics company, Philips Nigeria Limited, based in Ojota, a Lagos suburb. My mother, a trained pharmacist, heaved a sense of relative fulfilment over my birth.
“My coming had signalled the beginning of a fruitful relationship a few months after their union was consummated and their excitement was quite necessary, considering the pride of place a male child enjoys almost in every African family, especially the first child for that matter.”
For the first child of a newly wedded couple, life was rosy for him as he was pampered and showered with love by his parents until domestic crisis rocked the couple’s enduring wedlock bliss. Signs of crack within his parents’ nascent marriage reared its head a few years after he was born when his father became exasperated with the inability of his mother to bear another child. The matter peaked when his parents separated.
”The issue generated series of row in our home, but both of them still managed to leave it to God until it tore their marriage apart a few years later and my mother separated from my father.
”Although, I was enrolled in elementary school early enough, my parents’ marital crisis affected my education and saw me to four different schools within a space of three years.
“My first contact with formal education was at Santa Maria Nursery and Primary School, a private school located in the neighbourhood of Itire. The marital feud that rocked my parents’ marriage was to abbreviate my stay in the school.
”I was taken away by my mother when she was leaving. She relocated to another area of Itire and enrolled me in Eleja Primary School, a public school tucked in the Durojaiye area of the community. From a private school with conducive environment, I became a pupil of a public school located in a compound that accommodated about 10 different schools with chaotic environment that was enough to affect academic performance. Still I was on top of the class and appointed the captain of my class.
”My parents’ separation didn’t last for long. About a year after they parted ways for the first time, reconciliation was brokered and they were back together as a couple. Upon their reunion, they relocated to Egbe, a suburb of Lagos, and re-enrolled me in a public school, Ore-Ofe Primary School, Egbe, where I completed my elementary education three years later.
“Despite their short-lived breakup, my parents were doing well. My father was still on his job at Philips Nigeria Limited and my mother’s career as a pharmacist was terrific.
“My joy knew no bounds when I finished elementary education and looked forward to gaining admission into a secondary school. A military school, especially Command Secondary School owned by the Nigeria Army (NA), was my preference, but enrolment into the school was too competitive and required a lot of influence.
“Since there was no one to influence my admission into any of the Command Schools within Lagos State, the only choice left was to accept my fate and enroll in a government-owned secondary school. I was therefore more than happy when I passed my Common Entrance Examination in flying colours and was offered admission into the foremost Eko Boys High School, Mushin.
”Although the distance from Egbe, where I resided with my parents was quite far from the location of the school, the thought of being a student in the school filled my heart with great joy. The more I looked forward to the end of the terminal holiday for primary school pupils and going to my new school in an all-white uniform, the more I became anxious.
“My parents also made frenetic preparation for my first day in a secondary school. There were new uniform, sandals, bags, stationeries and other educational materials to make me comfortable. The only thing that did not cross my mind was that my studentship in the school was to suffer terrible blow before the end of my Senior Secondary classes.
“The perennial feud over my mother’s ‘inability’ to produce another child would again smash her marriage to my father, who had become intolerable of having me as his only child despite entreaties from my mother.
”Right from my first day in the school till my botched terminal class—SS 3—I was always made the captain of my class. Even when I tried to hide my face during selection of the class leadership, my teachers would still single me out for the role because of the qualities they noticed in me.
“However, going to school every day gradually became tough for me. My father had lost his job then and had impregnated other women because my mother could not bear more children. So, the financial burden of taking care of other wives and seven children (six from other women) took the better of him and set him on the path of financial crisis.
“My parents could no longer afford to take care of my transportation to school. The little money they gave me every morning, according to them, was to take care of my lunch, while the burden of making it to school and returning home in the afternoon was left to me.
”Anyone in my shoes will no doubt revel in a quandary. I did, but later opted for a survival strategy. Every morning, I would set out early enough and jump on a molue bus to beg for a space on the laps of passengers, many of whom were on their way to work. Before helping me out, some belligerent passengers would throw jibes at me, thinking that I had spent my transport fare on small chops. Others would just lend a helping hand without raising any issue as to whether I got transport fare from my parents or not.
”The situation worsened when their marriage again took a descent into incessant quarrels, many of which I had to settle at a relatively younger age. Like the previous quarrels, the latest feud was borne out of my mother’s inability to have another child.
“My mother had tried all she could to have another child, but she did not conceive. My father, who was apparently tired of coping with the situation, put some women in the family way and this got my mother disenchanted with the marriage. The situation led to another break-up.”
”Africans are known for giving a child a name contrary to the peculiarity of their environment, cultural background or circumstance of birth. His was not an exception. His middle name, Izuma (the wisdom you need to live on earth) depicts that he would need to apply outstanding wisdom to overcome the tempestuous ocean of life in order to attain the greatness for which he was destined.
Living up truly to the truism behind his middle name, the young Nwogu came up with an enterprise to raise money for his daily trips to school. He cleverly started a small bicycle rental business in his neighbourhood without investing a dime. The enterprise earned him money enough to take care of his meal and transportation to school every day.
He said: ”I was then 11, and it was an interesting experience for me. I approached an Igbo boy who was serving apprenticeship under his brother, who sold foodstuffs in the neighbourhood. I had noticed that the boy, almost of my age, while his brother was away, would rent a bicycle from an older bicycle technician in the neighbourhood and rode it for hours.
“One day, I approached him and told him I could get him a bicycle to ride for free only if he could give me the sum of N250. After he gave me the money, I approached a nearby bicycle technician to purchase a bicycle without the front tyre. I took the bicycle to the boy and he complained about the missing tyre.
”I told him that I had brought the bicycle to him so as to prove to him that I was not lying. I told him that it would require another sum of N250 to fix the tyre which he quickly handed to me. That was how I got a bicycle without using my money to buy it. I would give him the bicycle to ride whenever his boss was not around. In the evening, I would take the bicycle to my home and rent it out. I later bought another bicycle from the profit I made from the business. With the business, I was able to support myself in school, pay my transport fare and eat good meals before returning home.
”The misfortune which my father’s lack of job threw our family into refused to abate. The family again lost the chance to retain accommodation at our Egbe residence when my father had no money to sustain his rent. We were ejected a day after my father threw a birthday party for me. The party must have infuriated the landlord because my father was owing rents.
“The only option available to him was a small apartment in a mud house in the Odogunyan area of Ikorodu. It was not the kind of accommodation one can be proud of, considering our former accommodation in a suburb. Yet, it was the only place my father can afford due to his financial problems arising from lack of gainful employment.
”The situation was made worse by the departure of my mother who could no longer cope with my father’s penchant for spending the proceed of their joint business on his other women and their children, and tolerating the ceaseless quarrels over her inability to have another child many years after I was born. I chose to relocate with my father to Ikorodu and turned down the offer to live with my mother.
“My decision was based on the fact that I was already 17, unlike a few years before when I went with her at their first separation when I was only four years old. I was of the opinion that staying with my father would afford me the opportunity to finish my studies in time as I was already in Senior Secondary 3. The hardship that came with the relocation however shattered my dream of completing my education.
“Reason: I was goiing to Eko Boys High School at Mushin from Ikorodu every day with a lot of frustrations, chief among which was the lack of transport fare. Unlike when I was doing bicycle rental business to support myself in school, there was nothing to cling to in order to survive and make it to school every day. The situation forced me out of school just a few weeks into SS 3 class. My teachers were worried about me because I was the captain of the class but there was no way they could reach me as there was no mobile telephone then.”
Eager to put behind his ill-fated education goals and survive the hard times, Nwogu took up a job as a clearing agent at Apapa Port, Lagos.
”I made up my mind to look for a job that could get me out of the situation I found myself. I told my father that I would like to look for a job at the Lagos Port in Tin Can Island and he reluctantly gave his approval, albeit, that he had no money to offer for my transportation to the place. I assured him that once I found a job and make good money, I would return to school to complete my secondary education. With that, I parted ways with education and concentrated on how to survive the hard times.
”Realising my objective became difficult because of lack of money to ferry myself to the port. Although I knew no one at the port, I was determined to approach people there for assistance to get a menial job that could alleviate my plight. It then struck me that I needed to find a way of getting money for my transportation, and this led me into the bush where I fetched some water leaves which I sold for N40. It was the money I spent on transportation to the residence of one of my aunties called Comfort, who linked me up with a man at the Port after I shared my plight with her.
”On my first day at work, my boss was shocked to see me in a well-tailored dress, and he wondered whether I was ready to do the job. I would later realise that his reservation was not out of place because other apprentices in the dockyard came to work in off-putting dress and worn-out sandals. In a matter of weeks, I had begun to learn fast on the job, but my turning up for work in eye-popping dresses soon drew the wrath of my boss who began to feel uncomfortable having me around him. He was of the opinion that clients and people around could not tell who the boss was between me and him. He even complained bitterly to my aunt who introduced me to him. I shrugged off his complaints because it had become part of me to appear in neat dresses since my parents took care of me very well before their descent into financial problems.
“Things happened so fast about three months after I started my apprenticeship when my boss stopped me from interacting with clients simply because of how I dress to work. Exasperated with the turn of events at work, I felt that it was of no use continuing with the job, and I was looking for how I could stow away in a ship to Europe in my quest to succeed in life at all cost.”
The opportunity to stow away presented itself on a certain day in 1995 when he spotted a vessel owned by a Russian company preparing to sail on the sea again. It happened that Nwogu passed of the vessel’s journey for Europe until reality dawned on him when he was handed over to the police in Cameroon.
He said: ”I was of the misguided conviction that the vessel in question was heading to Europe, and my mind was made up to sneak into it to any Western country it was heading to. I never knew the vessel was sailing to Cameroon. To realise my aim, I had bought N5 worth of garri (cassava flakes) and N5 sachet water. I beat the security mounted around the vessel and hid myself in the RAM (the door area) of the vessel.
“The ship sailed smoothly and none of those on board knew or suspected that a boy of my age was hiding somewhere in the vessel. By the third day, my garri and water had finished. I launched into silent prayers, asking God to send down the rain so I can have water to drink, after which I slept off. By the time I woke up it had rained, and that was when it dawned on me that God answers prayers. I disregarded the colour of the water and drank until I had enough.
”On the fourth day of the journey, a member of the crew found me out. I pleaded with him not to inform other members of the crew but he declined. He alerted his colleagues who rushed down to where I was in a bid to apprehend me.
”My mind was made up and I was prepared to kill to evade arrest by threatening to attack whoever dared to come for me among them. However, I was eventually subdued, handed over to Cameroonian law enforcement agents and detained for days in cell. I regained my freedom a few days later and I was given the sum of N11,000 to return by air to Nigeria, which was the first time I would travel by air.
Upon my return, I used part of the money to launch into travel documents procurement through some Liberians I had met inside cell in Cameroon when they locked me up for stowing away in a vessel. The Liberians had linked me up with their countrymen who lived in Lagos and worked as travel agents.”
Despite the unpleasant experience of his short-lived trip to Cameroon as stowaway, Nwogu gathered courage and travelled again to a few countries in Africa, including Congo, where he ran into a vicious rebel group, but was saved by Providence.
”A few months later, I got some travel documents and travelled with a Liberian passport to seven African countries, including Libya and Congo, in 1998. I actually moved into some of the countries through their land borders. In Congo, I went there when the fighting between rebel groups and government forces was fierce. I had approached an old fisherman with an average knowledge of English language to ferry me across the water to the town I was to stay, but the man refused. I did not know the entire riverine area was under the control of certain rebel fighters. Reluctantly, the man agreed to take me there in his canoe.
Unfortunately, the well-armed rebel fighters came out as soon as we landed at shore. As soon as I noticed they were coming towards where we were, I started helping the fisherman to re-arrange his fishing net. Before I knew it, they pointed their guns at me and asked for my identity in French. However, the fisherman had taught me some French words and how to answer the rebels in French. I told them that I was an assistant to the fisherman and that we had been on the sea fishing for hours. They lowered their rifles and demanded some of the fishes we had caught and left. That was how I escaped death at the hands of Congo rebel fighters.
In Libya, I did menial jobs to survive and returned to Nigeria in 2001. In all, I travelled to seven different African countries and had nothing to show for it.”
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