By Debo Oladimeji
Sir Chigozie Okafor is Chairman/CEO, Dynatech Group of Companies, with interest in industries/production, recycling of plastics, general imports and real estate, with corporate headquarters at Dynatech House, Amuwo Odofin, Lagos. Sir Okafor is also a Rotarian and started his business from little to build a continental brand. His journey into the world of entrepreneurship is exemplary.
The Genesis of the Journey
He was born into the family of late Sir David Okechukwu Okafor and Lady Evelyn Nwamaka Okafor who are from Nnewichi, Nnewi North Local Government Area of Anambra State. His late father was a trader in Onitsha; he was dealing in padlocks and building materials. His mother, on the other hand, is a retired teacher at the moment.
“I was born into a business family; I got involved in it at a very young age because of the kind of environment that I found myself. As you know, Onitsha is one of the biggest central commercial cities in Eastern Nigeria. Any person that grows up in Onitsha will have some business traits in him. However, I’m a graduate of Nnamidi Azikwe University, (UNIZIK) Awka, Anambra State. When I was a student, I was always around my late dad, who happened to be my mentor in business.”
He recalled that he started from the scratch. “It was just a support from my father. If you have a businessman as your father, who can support you to start a business, you don’t have any option than to do well. When you have support from your uncle, father or family, that means you have a good foundation. I will say I have a good foundation that I built on. Today, I see myself as a successful entrepreneur.”
He reminisced that toothbrush and shaving sticks are household items that one can’t do without; no day passes without people using toothbrushes or shaving sticks. “I studied the business and I realised that it is a good one, as far as we can ensure high quality at a very competitive price. I believe if we are very consistent with our quality and price mechanism, importation of toothbrushes to Nigeria will soon become a thing of the past. As soon as we are done with our consolidation in the industry, the importers will not be able to compete with us; that I can assure you.” His companies currently employ well over 120 workers and hopes to triple that number by 2021 as new factories continues to spring up.
Basically, about 90 per cent of the products he distributes under the umbrella of Dynatech Group belong to the group. Virtually, all his products are registered and solely distributed in Nigeria and across West African countries like Ghana, Ivory Coast, Republic of Benin, Togo and others, with many of them coming to transact business with him. “I will tell you that our products have remarkable presence in these countries. Most of our products like Wisdom 212 Smokers toothbrush, our Tiger razor blade, Tiger shaving razor blade, Tip top shaving razor blade, super glue, Dento toothbrushes and others, even Dynatech generators and Dynatech Industrial machineries.”
Sir Okafor is a maestro in the manufacture of plastic products, and this happened by sheer accident. Having travelled around the world quite a lot, he had mastered the art of talking to anyone, anytime and anywhere. This skill would help him greatly when he stumbled upon experts from a plastic production company many years ago.
In his words “As a teenage boy, I had the opportunity to travel to several countries of the world for business and other reasons. Having to consistently deal with people from various sociocultural backgrounds sharpened my interpersonal skills a lot especially in terms of communication. This helped me immensely when I ran into a manufacturing company that produces plastic pegs many years ago. Much to their surprise, I was able to reach an agreement with them: to dispose their massive cargo of expired plastics.“
Running into this plastic peg company was the first accident. The second accident was in discovering that approximately half of the expired pegs this company was using him to get rid of were not actually expired.
“When the cargo of pegs were delivered to me for disposal,” recounts Sir Okafor “I realised that all the pegs had one out of six different colours: three colours were expired, the other three not expired. This would spur me into recruiting people to help separate the pegs. This exercise gave me 50% value of the total plastic pegs that were initially slated for disposal. But it didn’t end there. I resold the expired plastics to a local recycling facility making some profit in the process“
Following this little win, Sir Okafor would intensively study plastics with the eyes of an entrepreneur and the vigor of a Spartan hungry for victory. The visible result of this study would be the eventual establishment of a full-blown business that imports, manufactures and recycles household plastics. However, little did he know that this would only be the beginning for him.
Next Levels and Big Moves
When his capital grew big enough, Sir Okafor ventured into the importation of electric power generators in Nigeria having observed the often epileptic power supply in the country. The idea was to fill the gap caused by inconsistent power supply through the use of private power generator systems that were both affordable and accessible to the masses. His starship brand, Dynatech Generators is at the time of writing, one of the fastest-selling power generators in the southeast of the country.
Committed to dynamic growth as has always been his philosophy, Sir Okafor would ultimately pitch his tent in the real estate industry in Lagos which is one of the fastest-growing economies in West Africa. He is known to advise young entrepreneurs to follow in his footsteps: building a business empire step-by-step in contrast to the get-rich-quick mantra that has become the order of the day in so many nations.
Learning from His Father
Sir Okafor’s odyssey screams mentorship, dynamism and innovation. Being mentored by his father as a kid gave him a lot of leverage both in business and in life. As he revealed: “I gained part of my trade knowledge by learning closely from my father who was a trader at the time in the popular Main Market in Onitsha, Anambra State. Most people who learn a certain trade often follow in that path as they naturally have more experience and contacts in that sphere.”
But Sir Okafor would prove different. Maybe he would have become a padlock merchant as was his father and maybe not. Either way, it was not long before his innovative mind figured out how he could carve out a portion of the home plastics market in the country for himself. As is already illustrated, this triggered a cascade of entrepreneurial moves that would go on to establish his place in Nigeria’s business sphere.