The Nigerian Businessman and”Iji Ugwo”

“Iji Ugwo” is a word in Igbo language spoken in the south eastern part of Nigeria which means “debt”, that is to owe someone. “Iji Ugwo” appears to be a stock in trade for a lot of many traders and businessmen of Igbo extraction for whom I relate in terms of the experience. It is possible that other Nigerian tribes fall for the same trapping of not letting go of some other person’s wealth but I have no concrete information on that to make the deduction, so I will stick to the one I know.

While in the University, I always spent my holiday in Lagos where my dad worked as a civil servant. I always went to my elder cousin’s shop at Idumota in central Lagos to help out and also partake in the largesse that come with such. Best part for me was lunch time! Choi! You can’t beat that “ukpo rice” (rice aroma) that get all “umu boy” (apprentices) giggling like it was Christmas. It was always “Ofe akwu” (bang soup) or “Ofe Onugbu” (bitter leaf soup) ensuring the Anambra man maintained close link with his tradition and ancestors!

A typical observation then in the market was the fact that once it was five o’clock in the evening you would not see any “Oga” in his shop. “Oge ndi oga ji ana eruwego” (time when the bosses will go home is approaching) will be what you will hear the apprentices say. “Oga unu anoya” (is your boss in?) was a normal call out you will get then with a template answer expected which is “no” or that he has gone home. Most times, the boss has not gone home, but has merely gone to a friend’s shop to chat since it was close to the end of the business day. Sometimes they will move from the friends shop to the bar for some drinks before heading home. Interestingly, that final gist with the friend also serves as additional way of taking off from the shop to avoid creditors since the apprentices are not authorized to make certain level of payments.

Not meeting “Oga” in the shop have been my friends experience lately, he had no choice than to call me to help out in any way I can, preferring to now distribute his goods to only trusted family and friends instead of spending his whole time with the police each time he came back to Nigeria in a bid to retrieve his money from his debtors. In most cases, even with the police it is still extremely difficult to get the debtors to pay. Worst thing is that they would have sold the goods but instead of returning the guys money, they would use it to import their other lines of goods and keep giving my guy all kinds of excuses.

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As my friend narrated his ordeal to me, I couldn’t but reflect on that experience and consoled him, reminding him it was the nature of business while I wondered out loud why it has to be so. I also wondered whether it was indeed ethical and whether it was not negating the whole essence of trust that is supposed to underpin commerce and trade. In some instances, these guys will have the money and will still not be willing to pay their debtors. Some people are even known as chronic debtors in the market and once you are marked as one, you are finished because no one will be willing to give you any goods on credit. The end result is that you become poorer by the day until you get liquidated and then blame it on the devil or people from the village while exonerating yourself that is the chief culprit. Being credit worthy is the best position a business man can be and there is no business that can grow without credit.Hence, the importance of honouring ones obligations in terms of making payments when due.

For now as the Igbo say “anaghi eji mgbabu aghara ogu” (you will not because of death refuse to go to war) hence my friend, his family and trusted friends will have to keep pushing and at least take calculated risks at people they entrust the goods to in order to avoid stories that touch when it comes to payment. Reality is that to make big sales, one has to rely on several distribution channels and there is no way you can guarantee they will all be responsible at the end of the day in terms of honouring their payment obligations. What one will then do is to blacklist such people subsequently and wish them well as they owe to their own peril and eventual poverty.

Obidike Peter wrote from www.peterobidike.com and p_obidike@yahoo.com

Friday 3^rd August 2018