Igba Boi: How The Igbo Entrepreneurship Model is Helping Young People To Stamp Their Feet in Business

In 2009 at the age of 12, Samuel Ugochukwu left his parents’ home in Umuoba to live with, Nwaokeikpe, one of the most successful building material dealers in Isiala Ngwa North local government area of  Abia State. It was a turning point for Ugochukwu’s family. 

“My family is poor. Since my father doesn’t have much, we need to be greater than our father,” Ugochukwu, now 25, told Neusroom.

With five siblings, his parents were poor farmers striving to provide food for their children with little hope of sending them to University. Ugochukwu’s immediate younger brother, who finished his secondary education in 2021, is currently learning motor mechanics. 

In the last 13 years, Ugochukwu has been living with Nwaogeikpe, helping with household chores and learning the building material business. However, unlike his brother, who paid to learn how to repair vehicles, Ugochukwu’s training came at no cost to his family, and after the training, he would be ‘settled’ by his principal, that is, his principal is expected to give him funds to set up his own business.

Born in Umuoba, less than 40km from Aba, the commercial hub of Abia State, Ugochukwu is under an entrepreneurship scheme known locally as Igba Boi (Igbo Apprenticeship System, IAS)  that has produced millions of entrepreneurs across Nigeria in over 50 years. He believes that by December 2022, he will be settled with at least ₦1 million and two years of shop rent. He’s confident that after seven years, he has learnt what is required to run a successful building material business. 

“I can manage the business very well. Currently, I’m in charge of almost all of my Oga’s shops. I buy the goods myself and set the price. There is nothing in this business that I don’t know now,” he said.

In Southeastern Nigeria, communal ties are deeply rooted in the culture. Following a popular Igbo adage, ‘onye ahala nwanne ya’ (one should not leave his brother behind), successful businessmen are often expected to pick their younger brothers, sometimes from the extended family, and teach them the trade which had made them successful. It helps to diffuse envy and jealousy while fostering prosperity in the family.

Professor Ndubuisi Ekekwe, in his 2021 Harvard Business Review article, described the Igbo Apprenticeship System “as a communal enterprising framework where successful businesses develop others, and over time provide capital and give away their customers to the new businesses.” Over time, the ‘Oga’ relinquishes shares of his stakeholdership to his apprentice after completing their years of service by providing them with capital to start up their own business in the same niche, and most often in the same vicinity. Through this system, thousands of businesses are developed and established yearly, and the apprenticeship system has been considered the largest business incubator in the world. 

The system has produced some of Nigeria’s most influential businessmen Innocent Chukwuma, the founder of Innoson Motors, the largest indigenous automobile manufacturing company by sales in Africa, is said to be a product of the Igba Boi System (Igbo Apprenticeship System). Chukwuma served as an apprentice to Chief Romanus Eze Onwuka, one of the biggest motorcycle spare parts dealerships in Nnewi at the time. He learnt the business and eventually, when he was settled by Onwuka, opened up his own spare parts business. Other business moguls in Nigeria of Igbo origins that are products of the IAS include Ifeanyi Ubah, the owner of one of the largest private fuel depots in Africa, Capital Oil & Gas. Cosmas Maduka, who controls Coscharis Group, a conglomerate with diverse interests in manufacturing, automobiles, and petrochemicals, also passed through the system. 

 

How the Igbo Apprenticeship System Became Prevalent After The Nigerian Civil War

In 1946, after the end Second World War, the global economy was severely affected. Professor Georges Doriot of the Harvard Business School generally considered the “Father of Venture Capital,” invested in a new company that had ambitions to use x-ray technology for cancer treatment. Doriot invested $200,000, and in 1955, when the company went public, his investment was worth  $1.8 million. 76 years later, the venture capital system has become a model that is revolutionising businesses by providing funding for startups, particularly in the Tech sector. Flutterwave, a Nigerian Fintech company, has raised over $400 million since it was founded in 2016. Kuda Bank, a London-based, Nigerian-operating company, received its Series B funding of $55 million in 2021. Paystack, Opay, and Decagon, are some of the other Nigerian Startup companies that have received Venture Capital Funding from investors. 

Just like the Venture Capital System, which sprang up from the ruins of the Second World War, the Igbo Apprenticeship System became prevalent after the Nigerian civil war in 1970. When the war ended in 1970, many Igbo businessmen, who had investments in Nigeria and funds in banks before the war, lost their investments and were rewarded with just 20 pounds (Nigeria’s official currency at the time) to start afresh. To survive the economic hardship, successful Igbo entrepreneurs began to take their younger siblings as Boi (helps), to teach them the trades they are involved in, with the hope of settling them after an agreed period of time. 

Unlike many young Igbo boys who had passed through the Igba Boi system, Ugochukwu is not related to Nwaogeikpe the businessman who has adopted him to be trained and put in the business line.

“When my Oga was kidnapped in 2006, it was in my aunt’s house that he (Nwaogeikpe) sought refuge after he was released by the kidnappers,” Ugochukwu said. “To pay back the family for their kind gesture,  he promised to take someone from the family and teach him building material business.”

In 2009, Nwogeikpe approached Ugochukwu’s family (who was living with his mother’s elder sister) to fulfil his promise. 

 

Rules and Regulations Guiding The Igba Boi System

Nwaogeikpe told Neusroom some of the rules and regulations guiding the system.

“I have workers who are on a monthly salary; Drivers, Salesgirls etc, but I still have people I choose to take in as Boi and would settle them at the end of their stay. This is often based on relationship, and sometimes willingness to help people from poor backgrounds.”

Born in the 1950s, Nwogeikpe has been in the business of building materials for over 30 years. He deals in cement, rods, titles, nails, and various other building materials. 

Nwaogeikpe said that the duration is seven years.  In Ugochukwu’s case, he has stayed in Nwaogeokpe’s house for 13 years.

While the agreement is done orally between the two families and is often upheld partly due to relationship ties, there is no laid down punishment for those who fail to keep to the agreement. 

Nwaogeikpe said: “The Igba Boi System is not often an easy adventure specifically due to human differences and shortcomings of human beings. In this business (building materials) and in this area (Obikabia, Isiala Ngwa North), it is only me that is known for the Igba Boi because others choose to have workers and pay them monthly.”

While Ugochukwu came to live with Nwaogeokpe in 2009, he started his apprenticeship programme officially in December 2015 after he finished his secondary school education.

“Before I started, I brought witnesses from my side, and he too brought witnesses. But it was not formally written. There was no fixed price for the amount of money that will be given. It’s usually from how you serve your master,” Ugochukwu said.

But Nwaogeikpe said he usually settles his apprentice with ₦1 million with two years of shop rent. So far, he has settled over eight people.

 

Risks and Shortcomings of the Igbo Apprenticeship System

Now in his early 70s, Nwogeikpe has relinquished the day-to-day running of the business to his Bois.

“I do not go to the market again and rely on my ‘Bois’ to buy building materials from our dealers. The money for these markets sometimes run into tens of millions, and whatever they say they bought the goods, will be what will be recorded.”

However, this comes with great trust which can result in betrayal and financial loss. 

Nwaogeikpe narrated how he sacked one of his apprentices who was nearly due for settlement due to misconduct.

“One of my friends brought him to me and pleaded that I should help the boy that his father was late. I am not related to him in any way, but he chooses to be dishonest,” Nwaogeikpe said.

Nwogeikpe claimed that on several occasions, the young man, who he failed to disclose his identity, bought goods on credit despite being given the money. 

“There was this particular time we bought bundles of zinc, and after several months, the dealer came to my shop to demand payment that we have not paid him. I have never bought zinc on credit,” Nwaogeikpe narrated.

On other occasions, his car was seized by his ‘creditors’ for ‘debts on goods he had long issued out money for.’ It took him several years to realise that his apprentice was being grossly dishonest and had stayed in his house to build a well-furnished bungalow.

“At that time, he was the eldest in the apprenticeship programme, and he directs other workers on what to do. Despite giving him a roof over his head, he was stealing my bags of cement, rods, and other building materials. He stayed in my house and built his own house from start to finish without my knowledge.”

While several attempts were made to reach others that Nwogeikpe has settled in the past were not successful, he said that they were doing fine in the business. However, there is need to improve the system through government reforms and policies to ensure accountabilities and criteria for determining who has defaulted from the agreement.

“The person’s character is what will determine if you can stay through the apprenticeship period. If the oga will fulfil the agreement, without accusing the apprentice of misconduct and sending him home, then it’s a good venture,” Ugochukwu said.

According to Robert Neuwirth, an American journalist, in his famous TedTalk ‘ The age-old sharing economies of Africa — and why we should scale them’ said that the Igbo Apprenticeship System among other African stakeholder systems can be modelled to bring about infrastructure to everyone.

“If we propagate these things, we can begin to bring infrastructure to everyone, and that will ensure that communities are leading their own development, which is, I believe, what we need in the world, and, I would suggest, what we need in Africa.”