Dr.
Cosmas Maduka
An interview with Dr. Cosmas Maduka is like a lecture in Harvard
business school — very rich, engaging and quite inspiring. Though not as big in
size as he was four years ago, he reveals how he achieved his weight loss.
That, he would talk about as the interview progresses.
To have built a conglomerate like Coscharis (established
in 1982) meant hardwork, determination and resilience. “It meant having a drive
and a passion to succeed,” he starts.
“When you want to succeed in life, you must have an allergy to
failure. I did. I lost my father at the age of four and we had only our mother
trying her best to raise us. We experienced poverty and I started hawking at
the age of six. By the age of seven, I had learnt how to climb and cut palm
tree for elderly women and I charged them three pence. I became a breadwinner
at an early age. All along, I had a passion to make a difference. I brought the
money home to my mother and when she could not cope, she sent me to live with
my grandparents. From there, my uncle took me to Lagos to be an apprentice.
His spare parts shop was at Ebute-Meta. I slept in the shop and I recall some
children mocking me on their way to school. They laughed at me for sleeping in
the shop but I told myself that I would be better than them in the next six
years.
“There was no formal education, but I went to school up to
elementary 3. Though not enough, I tried to do some research and find out how I
could take some parts from a Volkswagen car and fix into a Honda. I was always
curious to know which automobile parts could work on another brand. For three
years, I worked tirelessly with my uncle and he opened a branch in Jos. I went
there to manage it, he opened another one in Sokoto, I was there and I became a
born again Christian,” he recalls.
The Coscharis Group has the franchise of over eight automobile
brands and also sells automobile spare parts. Other subsidiaries exist too—
Coscharis Technology, Coscharis Foods and Beverages, Coscharis Medicals and
Coscharis Agro-Allied. The Nnewi, Anambra-born businessman would not forget the
experience that saw him breaking loose from apprenticeship to being an
entrepreneur. He reminisces: “My uncle opened another branch in Nnewi, again, I
moved there and I became a new personality entirely. Then, I was just 14 years
old but I had been involved in certain sins—I watched pornography, smoked, and
drank. So, imagine my repentance when I discovered the truth. I was going to
church and didn’t open the shop. When he discovered that I was leaving
his shop unattended to, he disengaged me with just N200! This was a man I
served for seven years without any contractual agreement and I never stole his
money once. I told him as I collected the money, ‘five years from now, you
would be amazed at what God would do with this N200.’
“So, I teamed up with my brother, who passed Standard Six, to
establish a company called, Maduka Brothers but some months after, we differed
in ideologies and parted ways. We didn’t make enough money but I had N316 and
someone gave me his shop for free. So, I started there and came to Lagos to buy
crash bars, went back to the East and sold everything. The same night, I
travelled back, bought more and made some money. I bought a motorcycle.”
Dreams die hard. Maduka was a dreamer (he remains one anyway).
His is a story of visions and dreams. “One day,” he recalls. “I had gone to
Lagos to buy my goods when I passed through the AG Leventis building in
Oyingbo. I said to the man walking with me, ‘One day, I will build something
like this.’ He looked at me and wondered if it was the boy sleeping in a shop
talking like this. I have always believed that whenever you have a goal, you
work towards it. Many young people don’t have dreams and they don’t have
destinations. A destination is where you are going and not shifting from the
path. In fact, when I got money to build a house, I didn’t build in Ajegunle
like my people did. Instead, I built Coscharis Plaza (my first building in
Lagos) on Adeola Odeku, Victoria Island. I was a tenant when I built that
house.”
The father of five (four boys and a girl) would always tell you
that his sufferings would not make him expose his children (his first-born is
25) to any luxury. “It’s laughable that some parents throw money at their
children,” he observes. After graduation, my sons wanted to join the company
but I opposed it. I told them to work elsewhere and get the experience. In
fact, the first just got a car because I refused giving him any car until he
finished his post-graduate studies and got a job. I have always told them
that you don’t need sense to spend money; it’s making it that requires sense.
They see me as too strict but I don’t think so. My idea of life is not what
happens to you but what happens in you. I didn’t have any formal education but
I have been to Harvard for courses. I read books and I don’t watch
television at all. As a matter of fact, there is no television set in our home.
I raised my kids not having a TV and I encourage them, including my wife, to
read newspapers.”
He would always talk about his wife, Charity. Maduka recalls: “I
got married at the age of 19, had my first car at the age of 21 and also my
first son. I met her in the church and we have been married for 34 years
now. Then, her brothers opposed the union but I had confidence in myself and so
did she.”
Back to the days of small beginnings in his business, Maduka
remembers relocating to Lagos from Nnewi. “I teamed up with a friend and we
established a company called Cosdave. By 1982, we parted ways and I started
afresh with Coscharis, which was coined from my name, Cosmas and my wife’s,
Charity. We started the automobile business, became employers of labour and by
1992, we made enough money to set up a branch in Ghana. Then, another one came
up in Gabon and Ivory Coast.”
At this juncture, he talks about his weight loss success. “Now,
I feel like a 19-year-old boy,” Maduka, who will be 54 on his next birthday,
says amidst laughter. “I was fat. In fact, I had pains. So, I watched what and
how I ate. I also did a lot of exercises (I still do). I walk a lot and I also
ride on my power bike. I come from a family of riders— my mother, my sisters
and grandparents had ‘okadas’. When I lost weight, I was excited. The only
disadvantage was that I could not wear some of my designer suits again. Really,
I love wearing suits.”
Any advice for entrepreneurs? He says, “Success is not an event,
it’s a process. It is not a product of chance, it is characterised by dream and
visions, which when you nurture, becomes a reality. Go for your dreams.
Credits: the Punch
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