…everyone who worked on the KRcabs and Integrated Services Limited is FULLY Kogi. I was careful not to outsource anyone from outside the state. The paid services were all done in Kogi. The business name was even registered here by a Lawyer resident here. I made sure any money I spent was retained in the state.
My mini team consists of an ICT Person who is a smart Yoruba Okun man, my Manager an intelligent Igala young graduate and my dependable driver, an Ebira chap from Okehi. Besides other support services, majorly, I look for excellence in people rather than ethnic insecurity.
Let me begin my story.
You see this business, it is my baby. Baby in the sense that my entire passion for Kogi State as you all know was translated into the birthing and operationalization process, to inject the can do spirit of an average young Kogite, thinking innovation in the midst of financial austerity. I have planned this over a year. I made purchases for the cars and motorcycles about 6 months ago. Like, many months before I launched skeletal services.
What I know about businesses is that if the business process is correct, hardly would it fail.
My goal is not to build an Aliko Dangote wealth from this, it is mainly to solve a social problem.
Does it not bother you that Kogi didn’t have a Traffic Light at the state Capital until 2016? Some said we did, I have asked for pictures, none provided till date.
Does it not also bother you that businesses close as early as 8pm with every shop closed in the state capital until the recent growing boom?
How about getting home from any location after 10pm especially if you do not have a car of your own or some sugar daddy to pick you up? These are basic economic nucleus that grows the economy. Transportation is key- the movement of people and goods at any time.
There was a gap in this area. Lokoja is a hot town, with a relatively stable heat of 35-40 degrees Celsius on a daily basis. Air Conditions seldom work in most facilities, neither can you get a drive around town if your car is broken.
If Kogi has potentials for hospitality, with yesterday’s politicians littering the towns with Hotels that operate at half professionalism, full mediocrity and neglect of simple things in rooms such as bulbs, safe for hotels like Satoof, Idrinana, Dafeyo and Reverton and other motels like Ibosan and NNPC Guest House which are doing relatively above average. But what are the support services for these hotels?
For example, most Taxi/Cabs should be able to provide adequate information about hotel rates and class for visitors coming to town without getting stranded. How about navigating the scorchy Lokoja sun inside an Air Conditioned vehicle?
Disastrously, plenty people have no such alternatives. At best, younger men and women with white clothes ride on Okadas (motorcycle) to very important events.
Is it lack of finance to hail cabs or unavailability of it?
Enters me.
From my feasibility research and solicitoring of counsel before the business, about 80% counselled I shouldn’t plant the business in Kogi, most favored Abuja, a two hours drive from Kogi State and the nation’s capital, stating recoup of investment as a major reason.
However, many Kogites troupe to Abuja and Lagos state to enjoy private cab drops, mostly. They talk about excellent services.
They travel very far to Abuja to buy Dominos Pizza and Cold Stone Ice cream, however, they would also counsel anyone trying to site such businesses in kogi not to do so. It could be a good advice, it depends on the relativity of it.
Remember, many people who have made money from Kogi seldom put their monies back into the state to generate employment and stimulate the local economy. It has been a-make-to-Abuja and overseas. Hence, the state feeds on allocation that is only spent by civil servants and most times their purchasing power is exported to neighboring towns because of a lack in the services in Kogi state.
I had thought, if we are to think differently, it starts from domestication of excellence we enjoy in other states, here in Kogi state.
My key focus is not to make money, of course, I would make money, but I want to break a jinx. Businesses which are also corporate inclined are few.
To be continued..
Promise Emmanuel
C.E.O KR Cabs and Integrated Services Limited.
