Every Woman, which has become synonymous with Debbie Akindele-Ojo and vice-versa, was birthed from a casual suggestion  by friends trying to comfort her protracted mourning session after the death of her mother. As far as Akindele-Ojo’s friends were concerned, she had all it would take for a fashion retail business: a knack for business, an eye for good pieces and credentials to get a bank loan to purchase her business premises.

Off she had gone abroad for the first round of stocking, and the rest is 18 years’ worth of history.

By Morenike Taire

HOW did that go?

I ended up paying no excess luggage. I brought the dresses and by the end of that weekend we’d sold about 50% of the dresses. Another friend of mine had seen an uncompleted building. He said to me that why don’t I go to the bank to ask for money and buy that building. I went to the lady and I had this big wound on my hand. She said it was for her son (the building). The wound started to bleed, she asked me what was wrong and I just started crying.

She put me in her bed and I slept. When I woke up she had her lawyer there.She called her son and told him she had met another child of hers. She gave me a 7-year lease at a very cheap rate.

Successful businesswoman

She said it was to encourage me because she was a phenomenally successful businesswoman herself back in the day. She said the thing with women is that we do not know the amount of strength that we have and she said I was sure I could do it.

Let’s talk about your customers. Were they friends of yours when you started?

It was amazing to me that the first friend that bought from me did not buy from me for about four years. I would say that the familiarity that they brought into it almost killed the business.

People that should ideally support and help you to build your business feel entitled. Those are the kind of battles I had to fight. I cut everybody off and made myself an example. If I took something I paid and they saw that I paid.

How did you counter that?

I would rather be firm. If you come into Every Woman and you do not have any money you will not take anything out

How did the expansion come?

My vision was to cater to women that were like me- working women who necessarily didn’t have all the money in the world. I think one of the remarkable things about Every Woman is that when we started selling in 1996 we were selling suits at 6,000, 8,000. We are in 2014 now and we are selling suits at 6,000, 8,000. As I got bigger I developed some influence and the power to get people to do me right. They would rather talk to me than a smaller store so that influence is passed to my customers. My tops now are cheaper because as we got bigger we pass all the dividends of our expansion to the customer.

Was it difficult to expand? Were you afraid that maybe the first one was a fluke?

It really wasn’t a fluke. It was a serious amount of hard work. As a perfectionist I would work hard at something and almost break my back doing it. I am a salesgirl; I’m a cleaner. I believe in the value of physical work. We just revamped the Surulere store and people were surprised to see me cleaning the floor. I believe those are the kind of things that God blesses, that if you prove yourself worthy of a blessing you stand a better chance of being blessed. What I am asking you to do is not something I am not willing to do.

Is the old lady proud of you now?

I am a member of the family. Mama is older now; it is her son that is my landlord. He is the kind of person that if I get stuck in London I call him- “uncle o!” He would say: “how much do you need to borrow?”The family has been very close.

Apart from her, who has been like a mentor to you?

My grandmother who is all that a woman should be: diligent, humble, a great cook, hygienic, a great achiever. At 80 she had to be persuaded to close her shop in Oke-arin and as soon  as her children banned her she promptly started selling exercise books, adire, pencils and biros in front of her house. She didn’t see impossible.

Two bedroom bungalow

She was a landlady five times over and she didn’t move out of her two-bedroom bungalow in Keffi. The kind of women that inspire me are those that people look down on. They are in the middle of Oke-arin, Apogbon but when push comes to shove all of us with our fancy cars and houses are not worth what they are worth.

They are worth their weight literally in gold. They are not celebrated but the absence of such women is why the fabric of our society is torn.

Why do you say that?

Where are the grandmothers?  They are no longer the moral compasses for all of us. They have strong ethics. I was lucky to have some great women. Some of them have raised children on their own and nothing was missing. They didn’t raise vagabonds. Women that took care and took charge.

What’s your average work day like?

I try to get some exercise done, try and get some devotion done. It depends on where I’m needed. I go to the store that needs me the most but you never can tell, I can just drop in.

How many states are you in now?

We had to close all our stores in the North . Boko Haram was threatening.

What  are the plans for the future?

One of the things that I’ve learnt is that planning is not meant for mortals since nobody has a lease agreement on life. Whatever the future brings the God that I serve is ahead of me. If God says there will be Every Woman a hundred years from now to God be the glory. I’ve reached a stage in my life that if God did not do anything else he’s still done more than enough.

Young people now all want to do entertainment because it’s easier. What would you say to young women now who want to go into business?

They are making a lot of assumptions. The most important ingredient for success is the spirit of excellence.  The generation we have now  have a sense of entitlement and that is a recipe for failure.

Entertainment industry

If you take the spirit of excellence into something it means you are willing to make sacrifices, put your head against the plough and keep pushing against all odds. I’m so proud of Nigerian entertainers, phenomenally  talented people. My fear for them: what are you doing about your future? Before you came there were other people. It’s very rare in the entertainment industry to have a career that has longevity and consistency. It’s very easy to become a Majek Fashek. Where is Billy Ocean today?

Get an education. Oprah signs all her checks including the checks of five dollars. She advised Toni Braxton to do the same but Toni hired an accountant because the money was rolling in.

Toni Braxton has declared bankruptcy twice. Her accountant now lives in Buenos Aires. It takes education. The process of acquiring education is painful and strenuous. It’s not the degree that you actually get. What do you have on the back burner? Success actually is the ability to sustain the lifestyle that you have become accustomed to for a period of time without you doing any work.