By Moses Nosike
Apostle Abraham Ezaza, Chief Operating Officer, Marab Investment and Capital Projects, in this interview with Saturday Vanguard Business explains why Nigerians should trust the current regime of President Jonathan in reforming the economy and the way out of youth unemployment in the country.

Excperts:

As the chief operating officer, Marab Investments and Capital Projects, what do you deal on?
Apostle Abraham Ezaza, Nigeria Delta- born, a graduate of economics, studied a lot of managerial courses.

Marab Investment and Capital projects Ltd, is a company registered in 1997 with 5 directors. And we major in oil and gas and real estate development. In fact, you can’t be in Abuja doing business without doing property business.

I am also professionally trained as a printer and publisher. I combined all of these together. Marab is involved in multinational business concerns. From day one when the idea of doing business came into me, I wanted to run a business that cut across the real sector and as well go into providing services.

So in oil and gas, we take care of offshore and downstream supplies of petroleum products while in the real estate department, we buy and sell houses as well as land and other property as the case may be. And in the printing and publishing industry, we major in current digital and large paint production that has to do with production of bill boards, and general printing .

To what extent has your company contributed to the growth of the economy?

Well, I grew up to know that every economy is powered by the private sector. The government as it were are only to create enabling environment while the organised private sector drive the economy.

So, having that at the back of my mind, I decided to be a member of many trade unions and trade organisations across the country and internationally, I have my business concerns in Spain, Abdabi, Doha, Saudi Arabia Dubai too.

In Nigeria, because I know that business has to do with motivation and because of the cost of running business in Nigeria, one sometimes find it difficult to consolidate but because we’re Nigerians and we have no other country than Nigeria, I am motivated to make sure I encourage people to work here and do business here.

On the aspect of how our company is impacting on the economy, relatively, I have been able to synergise with a lot of business concerns in Nigeria. As a corporate messenger, which is one of our core area of specialty, we have helped to establish small scale industries in the country. We have also been able to encourage young boys through partnership to stand on their own after awhile.

I’m happy to say that a lot of these boys are picking up in their little ways and are becoming self-sustaining. Again, I think is all about human capital development and I can tell you that we are close with a lot business groups who in their own little ways have become independent and self-sustaining.

That I can say is also a contribution to the economy because when you train people and they become self-sustaining, then the economy is becoming less independent . The economy can’t grow unless the people in the economy also witness growth.

And the sufficiency and sustainability of the economy is dependable on how the people in the economy are surviving. So when you say the economy, people think is the ground, not but it is the people.

So if the people are happy and are taking good care of themselves, it is an economical responsible that are beehives of the people who are running business in that same economy. By the fact that we’ve been able to encourage some people to be on their own and try their best to sustain themselves, we also contributed to the development of economy. We are still doing it. In my office, I have many of them working and they are feeding their families.

How easy is the business of oil and gas in Nigeria.Why can’t our refineries operate?

To a very large extent, I can say that with the current administration under President Jonathan, the oil and gas sector is getting stable, in the sense that it’s not the refineries functionalities that is actually a problem. It is the policies and programme of the government that are set on the offstream and downstream that matter more.

When the policies and programmes of the administration favours the system as it were, talking about oil and gas, you will see some proactive development. You will agree with me that Denani, the Honourable Minister of Petroleum was highly given acolyte internally recently in Cooper Hague.

That implies that the stability of oil price internationally and the relative peace we are enjoying in the Niger Delta today, has all translated to the global economy being affected positively. So, we are still expecting a major breakthrough with the stability of government.

Democracy also has its own impact on any economy. The oil and gas set today in Nigeria is witnessing a relative growth because there is stability in democracy, and in the system of administration and the President is also concerned.

You can agree with me that petroleum products like fuel and kerosene are no longer scarce as it used it be. Today, there is a smooth operation. The NNPC has diversified in such a way that the average Nigerian can buy fuel from anywhere. Technically, all joined together, the end result is what we’re seeing.

There is no job creation in Nigeria, what is responsible for this?

I make bold to say that one of the things that have given me concern about job creation and job availability for the young ones is that fact that the people who have been in government or ministries refused to give little way for young ones that are growing.

Have you ever sat down to think about a director who grew through the rank and file of a ministry and he trained all his children and they are all now graduates of universities. You discover that the same person who is now at the age of 65 to 70 years is still in the office.

He used the government connection, contacts and money to train these people and he is still a director aspiring to be a permanent secretary and from there, he wants to become a minister and if care is not taken he wants to become a president. So, at what point in time will the young ones have the opportunity to grow?

First and foremost, there must be general retirement of these old class of human beings. They are too old for the system. We are in a digital era and the economy is empowered by digital people.

We are in a computer age, how can a man of 65 to 70 be going to computer class that he wants to become computer literate for what? Just for him to be able to continue to remain in that office. The federal government should make it as a law that at the age of 45, any man who is still in government should begin to pack his things and go because the younger ones are becoming faster in growth.

If you give a computer to a 6 year old child, he will be able to operate it. So how long would the younger ones continue to wait?