If you are a regular traveller on the Lagos-Ibadan Expressway, you would have noticed a distinctive red building at Mowe, Ogun State with Sam and Sarah Garments boldly written on it. Those who are conversant with the ongoing revolution going on in Osun would surely talk about the free uniforms for students in the state. GBENGA ADERANTI met with the woman who is partnering Osun State government in providing the uniforms. She is Mrs. Folake Oyemade, the CEO of Sam and Sarah, owners of Omoluabi Factory. In this interview, the woman explains the uniform revolution, her choice of red colour, fashion sense and so on. Excerpts:
You have red cars; your buildings are painted red. Why red?
Red is a very strong colour. I’m sure you will agree that it is one of the primary colours. We are a very strong company, and that is why we have chosen such a significant colour.
So why the names Sam and Sarah?
Why don’t you take that as my own little secret? I just love these two names, and the names are precious to me. That is what I want to say.
Your firm is gradually taking over South West. Apart from your presence in Mowe, Sam and Sarah is visible in Osun. What does this say?
I will say God has been good. Our business is growing, and this is brought about by help from God, hard work and the quality of our services and products.
What is your relationship with the Osun State government?
Our relationship can be described as partners in progress. What I’m actually doing is that I have a passion for the image of Nigeria. I have a passion for people. I have a passion for success, and these are the major things that have spurred me into starting the Sam and Sara. If it were just about money, I would make more money trading than being in the manufacturing sector in Nigeria. It is a very hard sector. In fact, it takes the grace of God to break even if you’re in the manufacturing sector in Nigeria.
Problems ranging from power failure to currency fluctuation to manpower, name it, everything is there. The manufacturing sector in Nigeria is a sector that involves all areas of business. It involves actually manufacturing the product from the beginning; it involves marketing; it involves accounting; it involves just about every area that you need to touch in business. Take for instance, most uniform companies abroad do not involve in manufacturing. They simply trade. They get a manufacturer they give the quality or standard or whatever. They dub it for them. They basically will just market and sell. But, in our own case, we’re involved in everything. We’re the producer ; we are the manufacturer; we are the sales people; we are the everything. So it is very difficult to be in that sector in Nigeria.
Now coming back to your question as being a partner with the government of the state, as a CEO of this company, I watch with keen interest what every governor seems to stand for and what each governor seems to represent. I’ve been able to know that Governor Aregbesola loves his people. I’m a people person. I believe so much in the welfare of people. The Bible says we will always have the poor among us. It is the duty of those who are more comfortable to take care of the less-privileged, just like it is the duty of government to take care of all citizens, both the rich and the poor.
And the governor of Osun caught my attention as somebody who cares so much for the welfare of his citizens, and that is why as a company, we identified him as somebody who has a common interest with us. That is why we have been able to work together as partners in progress. And one of the greatest reasons for the floating Sam and Sara Garment Manufacturing Company is to employ a lot of people, to put food on the tables of a lot of Nigerians. That vision is still much around with us and we keep doing that. We keep increasing our manpower from time to time. There are other businesses that have the potential to expand, but if their owners don’t have the kind of passion that I have, they might have diverted the money into other things. We usually make sure that everything we are doing, we’re people-oriented. We want to employ to keep a lot of young people out of mischief, out of robbery, out of 419, out of so many evils we have in our society.
It is also out of this passion that we have even gone into exports. We’re rebranding Nigeria . In most of these Western countries, when you mention Nigeria, the next thing they think about is fraud. We want fraudulent people to have a change of heart. We have the largest population in the whole of Africa, and this population can be used for the betterment of mankind and to even make our lives better here.
Why did you adopt the name, Omoluabi, for a subsidiary of Sam and Sara?
Because it is a joint venture between our company and the government of Osun State . You know Osun people are called Omoluabi. In line with that, we decided to name the factory Omoluabi Garment Factory. I should let you know that the purpose of the free uniforms in Osun is to bridge the gap between the rich and the poor. The government doesn’t want a situation whereby a student will appear in tatters in school because his parents are poor, while some other children will appear sharp and clean when going to school.
Some people would want to argue that providing free uniforms for pupils in the state is unnecessary, considering the lean allocations it gets from the Federal Government?
That is something I think the governor and his cabinet should be commended for. You see when people go to school not well dressed , it affects their output. It affects their concentration.
Research has shown that when a child is happy with himself, when he is confident, his concentration is higher as he will love going to school because that will give him another opportunity to wear that garment he loves so much.
I believe the governor has also done that to even improve them. He wants them to make them feel that they are somebody.
But beyond that, it might interest you that a lot of people are poor to the extent that they can’t even afford school uniforms. Because when we visited those schools, I was close to tears. Some of the children were wearing their elder brothers’ shirts because the shirts were not looking good. May be the uniform is supposed to be a red and white checker shirt, and he now wears a red checker shirt, a hundred per cent polyester brown sokoto with another one under it.
You can actually see patches on another torn one and you can see the patches on it. That is the level of situation some people faced with in that state. Can you imagine such a situation. So I believe that in line with trying to make them comfortable, he decided to do that for them.
In what way is the project going to generate employment and what is the number of people being engaged in your organisation?
We are positioned to employ up to 3,000 people in Osun and the beauty of it is that the way we have designed our factories is that you don’t have to be a tailor to work with us. Any person, as long as he can read and write, can be picked up from the street and taught to stich things together because we do what we can call mass production. So in our factory, one person does not start a job and finish it. To make a short, for instance, we could have 10 people doing different things, so it is so easy to pick somebody up and say you’re making only collars or any other particular part of a dress.
It doesn’t take anything from us to train anybody to work there. The beauty of it is that we’re not placing anybody on any salary, as the work you do determine what you earn. If you’re actually hardworking, you can actually earn much money from working for us in the factory. It is not even only to generate employment, it is also to train and empower them. Before the opening of that factory, we’ve brought some of them from Osun to our Mowe factory. We have trained a number of them already. As we speak, we have quite a number of people on ground in Osun and we will train more.
For how long will this project run?
For as long as the state wants it to run.
What will happen to the project after the present dispensation?
It is only a government that does not want good for its citizens that will say the project should stop. We provide good uniforms at very affordable prices for the government.
Where do you source you materials?
We get everything locally. These initial ones (uniforms) have been given out by the government free, but subsequent ones will be given to them at cheap prices.
Why are you into the garment business?
I have a passion for it. I’m a people-oriented person. I have a passion for helping people. It is just to put food on the table of a lot of Nigerians.
Why garment in particular?
It is likely because I’m a very fashionable person. I like clothing a lot, though I did not study fashion designing. I have always been in the clothing business. When I started business in my early 20s, I was selling clothes. I love it when people turn out nicely. What the government of Osun has done is something that should be emulated at the federal level. There are some colours that should not be worn as uniforms. You see a lot of students wearing shocking colours that should never be used as uniforms because the people that have made decisions are not professionals. They will just come up with ridiculous colours. In this 21st century, countries that are extremely poor, such as Bangladesh and Pakistan, make sure that their students turn out nicely, while going to school.
Which colours are not good ?
There are some colours that look too shocking. They are not good for students. Some schools wear lemon green. Lemon green is like a traffic light colour. It is not good. White is also not okay. The colour of uniform should be subtle. It should be calm and peaceful. It should not be shouting. Some use colours that don’t match. They combine colours together and they come out ridiculous. A school skirt should never have slit. It is not done anywhere in the civilized world. You know what I mean by slit. They cut their skirts at the back.
What some of these girls do is to overcut them, and this thing, among others, can lead to prostitution and all kinds of things among secondary school students. But when a professional is being invited to design, he will be able to advise on the right colour and right styles for the students. You will be surprised that some of the boys in the same class with the girls lose concentration because they will be looking at the skirts. What Osun has done is something every state government in Nigeria should do, even the Federal Government.
Will you advise other state governments to provide uniforms for students of public schools?
I will once again mention Bangladesh because it is part of the poorest countries in the world. Nobody goes to the tailor with fabric and says sow a shirt like this. The world has moved beyond that. It is high time the federal government waded into this situation. They should invite professionals who will choose the right colours, the right styles and make sure that these things are easily accessible to students. What they will all need to be doing is that all these uniforms should be available in local markets and people will just go and buy. The policy has reached the level that right now in Osun State , you can’t easily tell the child of a poor man from the child of a rich man because as we speak now the uniforms that the public schools are wearing are better than those of private schools in Osun State. To a lot of these students, the uniforms are the best they have ever owned in their lives.
The governor has given them a sense of belonging. In fact, when we were going round taking measurements, I was really touched with what I saw. It was like the whole state has heard that the government has brought people that are going from school to school, taking measurements. So the moment our vehicles arrived, you would see commotion. The students would not wait for the principals to order them to come out for measurements. Everybody would rush to queue.
Talking about uniforms in Nigeria, there are different organisations using uniforms. We have the police and the military in this regard. What would you consider a fitting uniform for professionals like policemen?
Well, what I think is wrong with the police uniforms is the fact that they don’t have proper outfitters. A situation where fabrics are being given to force men to go and give tailors to sew is very unbecoming. I don’t think it is only the police. Some other forces are doing the same and it should never be the case. It is even a security risk because anybody that can lay hands on a fabric that looks like that can just go and stitch anything. That is why we sometimes have cases of impersonation here and there. Abroad, all those forces have their outfitters who are the people making and supplying uniforms to the government. If these people want to buy extra, they go to these outfitters at special stores. We should really wake up in this nation and get out this nonsense. I wouldn’t say they are creating jobs for these tailors because these tailors will be catered for, if they are working in a factory such as ours. I think it is high time we began to turn our population into advantage in this nation.
You said you went into the fashion business early. How would you describe a trendy woman?
A trendy woman is the woman that knows what looks good in her wardrobe and wears it. The woman that can identify what looks good in her wardrobe and decides to stick to that because it is not everything that everybody can wear. If you have a particular shape, there are garments that you should wear. There are garments you don’t go near them because they won’t look good on you. That is a trendy woman.
Would you describe yourself as a trendy woman?
I believe I please myself and I try to observe all the rules and regulations of dress sense.
Where do you get what you wear?
Everywhere I see what I like I buy.
You have been in this industry for…
Decades I will say.
Are you not worried about the state of the textile industry in the country?
I’m worried. I must tell you because it doesn’t seem to be moving forward as much as it is supposed to. It is moving forward a little bit at least with the help of the Federal Government through the Bank of Industry. There are other things that need to be done besides funding. In Ghana, for instance, they have a school where they train tailors, pattern masters and others that work in the factory. The training makes it easy for their factories to thrive. It is not very easy for us to get people to get work in our factories. I get annoyed when people say there are no jobs. There are jobs, but our people are no ready to do the kinds of jobs that are available. This is not supposed to be the case because a serious-minded person should only refuse to do something illegal or something morally wrong. But you should do anything that is legal, that is morally right. If you need a job, you should be ready to take up a one.
I think generally speaking, the country needs reorientation. We need to reorientate our minds. The Federal Government should look for a way to reorientate the average Nigerian. It is not just about money. There is what we call job satisfaction. There is what we call being fulfilled as a person. I’m fulfilled because I’m doing what I want to do, but it looks to me that quite a number of us regard fulfilment as naira and kobo because if you ask me what I’m doing in the manufacturing sector, I will say it is about fulfilment. I love to turn things around when they are not nice. I love to say I’m the one that made it beautiful. This thing is being turned around because I’ve applied myself to make it beautiful, but unfortunately it seems to me in this environment people with this kind of mindset are not many.
What is your plan in the next 10 years?
Without saying much, to the glory of God, we’ve almost fulfilled quite a number of our missions, number one being the foremost garment-making company in the country. We have two factories, and we are grateful to God. Second, we are determined to change the face of garment making in Nigeria. We are gradually getting there now with the partnership with Osun. We have been able to change the face of uniforms in Osun State. If you go there now, they are looking so beautiful, so smart. It is a gradual thing. We are still doing the distribution; it is not all schools that have got theirs, but every school will soon get. We are still giving them. That is part of our missions. Another mission is to employ as many Nigerians as possible. We are trying in that area. As we speak now, our staff strength is over 500. When Omoluabi garment factory is fully operational, it is going to be moré than that because we will be in a position to employ about 3000.
