Young and entrepreneurial, he is a metaphor of dignity in labour and creativity. A risk-taker, forward-looking and streetwise, he underscores the need for youths, especially young graduates to seek further skills before thinking of hitting it big. Meet Audu Maikori -the young and suave Founder/Chief Executive Officer of Chocolate City Entertainment Company Limited; the same company presided over by the mogul, Hakeem Bello, a former chairman of United Bank for Africa, as its President. Maikori may be popular as a showbiz boss, his strength and successes are drawn from his entrepreneurial acumen. The Law graduate from the University of Jos is also a social activist and a poet. He is also a driving force of the Graduate Internship Scheme under the SURE-P programme. Recently, he was back in the news again when the federal government appointed him as the youngest member of SURE-P. He shares with Azuka Ogujiuba the modus operandi of the SURE-P programme, the successes and the challenges. But as a die-hard optimist, he thinks the land is green
When Employers Meet Prospective Employees…
Audu Maikori had an issue in his hands. Though into entertainment, he was appointed as a member of the SURE-P management team. But what was supposed to be a routine national assignment turns out to be a ‘battle’ in his hands. In January 2014, he admitted that about 170,000 graduates had applied for participation in the Graduate Internship Scheme under the SURE-P which was designed to assist just 25,000 unemployed graduates. But Maikori was not daunted. He said they had achieved a lot with the way they went about it through the Graduate Job Fairs held across the country. These fairs have helped those who need the services of these interns register same way the interns register. The fairs only provide meeting points.
“We’ve actually made a lot of progress. It’s not easy really when one thinks about the process. First of all, it’s not as if one would just match anyone with any company. For instance, if I want to attach an intern to you, having looked at the curriculum vitae, you’d want to meet the person and have a discussion to be sure that the fellow is good enough. It takes a lot of processes to achieve. So, what we try to do this year is to have job fairs in different states where we match unemployed graduates with companies that need their services. Basically, how it works is that a company will register online the same way interns will register. The location in which the companies are based will be automatically matched with interns who are based in that same location. The reason is that if they live in Lagos and they’re coming from Ibadan, that’s a lot of inconvenience for them.
“There was a time we had the matching in Lagos where we had about 300 companies. We registered about 3,000 graduates who were matched with these companies. How it works is this. Let’s say I am the representative of Chocolate City as a company and you are the intern. I meet you and ask you a few questions after going through your CV, if you are okay for me, I will consider you for the internship and the banks there would take your details. You have an account opened which means that you’re automatically on the system. Within two weeks you’re deployed to the company to start work. The government has approved N30, 000 monthly take-home for the interns and the organisation may decide to add more.”
Maikori said it was gratifying that initially, the scheme had been able to deploy about 13,000 graduates, adding that another 10,000 are in the process of being deployed. He reassured that the management of the scheme would not face redundancy as the job fairs will continue as needed.
In terms of figures what are the current statistics?
The programme has grown tremendously from four thousand interns in 2013 to twenty one thousand in 2015 and the geographical spread of the interns are as North West is 4,428, North East 1,478, North Central 3,016, South West 4,444, South East 3,531, South South 4,004 and the total comes to about 21, 000.
Threat to Source of Funding?
There is also the fear that if and when fuel subsidy is finally removed, the source of funding would have been lost naturally as the current SURE-P partially depends on the subsidy revenue. But Maikori is unperturbed. He said the project was being managed by the Finance Ministry and as such, whether subsidy was removed or not and no matter how oil prices go, the funding would always be there. Beyond that, the Graduate Internship Scheme is supposed to be a public-private partnership initiative.
“Remember that the said money has been used before to give petroleum importers subsidy. With that partial removal, that has been able to achieve quite a bit especially in the area of infrastructure and social safety. There are two things here. The mode of Graduate Internship Scheme is supposed to be a public-private partnership initiative. It’s a programme of SURE-P. So, I’m focusing specifically on youth unemployment only. Personally, for the past two years, I’ve been taking interns from GIS. People just come from South Africa and undergo internship in my company. They would say they are just here to learn. And unless we inculcate that culture of learning by people who are fresh out of school and understudy someone who has done something before, you’d find out that the quality of staff you have is a big issue. We all know that when we get a fresh graduate, he or she barely knows anything. So, it’s not just about the government, it’s about the public and private sectors working together to enhance the skills of young people. With or without government, if that culture has started, it would continue in companies. Already we have a lot of support from many companies. Some don’t even take the N30, 000 government is paying. They take the interns and pay them directly.”
Feedback Has been Encouraging…
Maikori said what has kept him and his team going was the feedback they get from beneficiaries to the extent that they were planning to document them and show the world that the scheme had not been a waste of time and resources. He, however, admitted that it had not been totally fool-proof from those who want to subvert the scheme.
“We’ve been getting a torrent of that. We’re actually planning an event whereby companies will have an opportunity to share their experiences. We will do a documentation of the success stories. Of course, sometimes we found out that one or two people are trying to subvert the system, but that’s humans for you. That is why we have a very unique check and balance system where we randomly send monitors to go to the companies, unannounced, to look for the interns. Have they been to work? If we realised that he or she hasn’t been going to work, we expel them from the system. We’ve had instances where people tried to connive with others not to go to work yet get paid. Once we get them, we go ahead and blacklist them. Generally, we’ve had a great review. If you go on the Internet alone and on the social media, you’d find many people testifying what the programme has done for them.”
‘We Would Have Loved to Do More…’
Maikori would have naturally wished they were able to have more than the 25,000 beneficiaries of the scheme. But he is also aware that it all depended on the budgetary provision from the government. While he might be right, 25,000 is just a fraction of the 170,000 that applied for the scheme.
“The idea is to do 25,000 this year and do another 25,000 next year. But it’s subject to what happens with the budget. I think the most important legacy here is that companies for the first time considered coming on board to help these young people achieve their dream jobs. The support we’ve been getting from these companies is overwhelming. In fact, there was this menial farmer who has made some money off farming. During the Maiduguri crisis he moved his business from Borno State to Nassarawa State. He started his farm business there and heard about the programme; he registered and we gave him two agricultural science graduates. The interns told him that they could quadruple his yield. ‘Just give us three months,’ they told him. As of January this year when he was giving us his testimony, he has made N8m by the last Christmas. This was a business that was yielding N2m previously. Now, he’s saying he doesn’t need GIS anymore. He only needs these guys to be part of his business permanently.”
Maikori said he started making money while he was in the university. According to him, it was like a club thing where they would bring a DJ and they would make some money in the process. He was also into painting and artwork as a business.
“In law school, I was selling shirts and ties because I dressed well and people would always ask me, ‘Where did you get this from?’ And by the time I answered, they would end up saying, ‘Can you get it for me?’ I’ve always tried to be industrious. Immediately after law school, I ventured into mining business, the first time, I made money and the second time, I lost everything. And I found myself fresh out of school with no job but a debt of N200, 000. So, my father just said, if I were you, I will go to a law firm to learn. This still brings us back to the issue of internship we’re harping on.”
From running an entertainment outfit to dealing with a scheme meant to take young Nigerians off the labour market, Maikori has seen it all. But his background has also stood him in good stead to make success of his current vocation in spite of the challenges.