By Ebele Orakpo
Like the Holy Bible said, ‘all things work together for good…..’ That was the story of Mrs. Dorcas Abimbola Adeluwoye, a Hotel and Catering Management graduate from Ondo State Polytechnic, Owo (now Rufus Giwa Polytechnic) who became an employer of labour after searching in vain for a job.

In a chat with Vanguard at the recently concluded 2010 edition of the Lagos International Trade Fair, the Managing Director/Chief Executive Officer of Ezedoc Limited, a food processing outfit located in the Ondo State Industrial Park, Akure spoke on why she  ventured  into her line of business and the challenges.

After the  compulsory one year  national youth service  in August 2003, Mrs. Dorcas Abimbola Adeluwoye left for Lagos in search of a job. She was in the job market for about three months without success so instead of wasting her time and resources, she decided to do something on her own.

Mrs. Dorcas Adeluwoye

“I never had it in mind to work for government or for anybody for that matter. I have always preferred to be my own boss because I was thinking of how to be an employer of labour; to be innovative, to have something doing that will help our economy.

After my youth service, I travelled to Lagos in search of job. I was invited  for many interviews but none of them materialized into a job so I decided to be productive because the only way to improve the Nigerian economy is to be productive. Buying and selling cannot improve our economy but when we are into production, it boosts the economy. Government cannot employ everybody so we also need to create employment in order to help our nation.

Again, I like being my own boss so that I can have time for my family. The course I studied takes time; even my business is time-consuming but because it is my own, I can easily share my time with my family. If I was to work in a hotel, I will not have much time for family and if I’m to mix hotel job with my business, both will suffer so was  why I opted to be on my own,” she stated.

According to Mrs. Adeluwoye, “I started with about 4.5kg of beans. I bought the beans with the money I saved during youth service because throughout the period, I was doing catering business. I served in a secondary school as a home economics teacher so I had time to do little business. I started with beans flour. The following year (2004), I added another product.

My father had promised to support me financially but three months into the business, he died. I was a bit discouraged. It was a big blow but I didn’t give up. After the mourning period, I picked up the business from where I stopped. This time, after production, I would put everything in a big bag and hawk them myself, going from one office to another in Akure,” she said.

This hawking paid off as in the process, she met officials of the Ondo State Ministry of Commerce who introduced her to trade fairs.

“Since then, they have been taking me to trade fairs. I was producing at home initially, but now, I have a factory at Ondo State Industrial Park where I process all my products – Beans flour, Poundo yam, Rice vita, Pap flour (both maize and guinea corn), Garri, Ogbono, Pepper, Locust beans, Wheat flour, Plantain flour and Plantain chips,” she stated.

Speaking on the challenges, Mrs. Adeluwoye said: “The major ones are capital and electricity. There is no stable power supply. Most of the time, we record a lot of wastes because all our processes need electricity especially during drying of products. For instance, you can’t dry beans in the sun because doing so will change texture, so also the poundo yam.

And once you place them in the dryer and power goes off, if it is not restored quickly, you lose everything because the taste changes and nobody buys such product.  So we record a lot of wastage. I am planning to buy a generator but I don’t have the money now because I need at least N500,000 to buy a generator that will power the machines. I have all the equipment I need, I just need a powerful generator to power them,”

The Ezedoc boss said she has not enjoyed any loan from government, stating that the only thing she has enjoyed from them is the sponsorship to trade fairs. “They have promised to give us loans so we are still waiting. God has been helping us. Sometimes we get big orders but we are unable to execute the contract because of lack of money and there is no place we can run to for fast loans.

Even where they pay us half of the money to execute the project, it wouldn’t be enough and the electricity problem does not help matters because what we are supposed to do in one week, we may be on it for one month due to power failure.”