Sunday Chukwu is the Chief Executive Officer, Empire Doors Limited. Recently, the Young Nigerian Professional, Enugu Chapter, honoured him for his contributions to sustainable development in Enugu State. In this interview, he tells LAWRENCE NJOKU what Nigerian youths need to do to survive current difficulties. Excerpts:

The younger generation of Nigerians is going into all manner of illicit activities to make a living. What would be your reaction to this?
I was not born into a family with a silver spoon. My father was a civil servant and I attended one of the public schools in Enugu State. I passed through challenges but one of the things that helped me is my background and the upbringing my parents gave to me. They inculcated the fear of God in me and I gave myself solely to the service of God.  I was barely 16 years of age when I went to Lagos for an apprenticeship.  I spent years serving my boss but he refused to settle me at the end of the day. That was an ugly beginning.  That development could have led me into becoming a drug pusher because all I needed to join the trade had been prepared. My friends were beckoning me to join. But I remembered the words of my mother those days where I could be sleeping and she would say to me  very late in the night,  “the word of God says, ‘do not follow strange women, do not take strong drink, strong drink is not for kings.” So, she told me all these when I was supposed to be sleeping. I regarded it then as a disturbance but it helped me later in life. This is because, when the opportunity came for me to follow some bad gang in the drug trade business, those words reverberated in me.  Remember I had served my boss and was not settled. The pressure was high. But I had to look for something genuine to start doing.  
 
I went back to the market and started hustling and before you knew it, God showed up and started introducing me from one customer to another and before long, I received orders to supply goods. That was how I found my feet.  At some point, I lost my shops because they were demolished. But the struggle continued. I started from scratch again and was able to pick up. It was not easy but with God, you can make it.
  
Why I gave this account is because our young people are losing focus because of money.  I see a whole lot of boys, if you invite them to learn a trade, they will not want to come. They are so distracted with social media in their quest for money. This cannot take them anywhere. What they need is proper orientation and good mentorship that will guide them and help one become what God wants the person to be in life.

A lot of our youths are being distracted by shows of wealth. They so much believe in money. They go into Yahoo plus and this is basically the harvest of kidneys for money. This is why there are so many cases of kidnapping here and there. It is not in our interest. I advise them to embrace dignity and hard work and leave the shortest route that leads to destruction.
  
I think the government, families, institutions and churches should go into reorientation. As I am today, my mother still scolds me. It was the things that my parents did that shaped my mindset otherwise I would have been a bad boy and even my boss who refused to settle me would have accepted my other side.

How can the rate of migration out of the Southeast by youths be curbed?
  The issue did not start today. We can however say that inability to find what to do after graduation has been responsible for the movement out of the region. The other thing is the lack of infrastructure in the region. You cannot compare what we have here with what you have in cities like Abuja and Lagos. But to address it, for me, you have to bring production down to the Southeast. We need to invest in the production sector. I am thinking of bringing my business down to the Southeast and if my partners discover that this place is favouring us and the government is helping us, they will do more. Not just door production, but also several other things as much as we can lay our hands on the raw materials.
 
We are being taxed very much in Lagos and that is because Lagos is the hub of business in West Africa. So, they believe that you don’t have any other option than to be there and do your business. The advantage is that the market is there but we can also replicate that in the Southeast if we have the same opportunity.
  
So, let the governments here provide tax incentives and give people opportunity. Enugu wants to achieve a $30 billion economy but you need to open Enugu to production and infrastructure to be able to do that. So, when we create jobs and the right atmosphere, it will discourage people from migrating out of the Southeast region.

Do you think that businesses in the Southeast are receiving enough support from the government to thrive?
  That is what I have been saying that governments here need to support businesses to thrive. People are investing in other regions because they cannot find enough support from the governments here. We need to help businesses to survive and thrive here.  The government should help the young entrepreneurs through loans and grants. The problem we have is that they say many things and do too little.
 
They can give low interest loans and let the people that need the money access it. When you don’t give this money to people that need it, it still brings us back to where we are. When politicians pack the money here and there, the restiveness of the youth will continue. So, I want to suggest that the government give the money to those who need it, especially to the youth, who have businesses to do. When someone has eaten and has a business to do, he will think less about stealing or kidnapping somebody.

You were honoured with the award as a young entrepreneur. What does this mean to you?
  It is a very big honour and it is also an encouragement to do more in my area of specialisation in terms of innovation in internal decoration, building of doors, kitchen and bathroom. For my state, Enugu, to recognise me means a whole lot to me. It is kind of giving me the spring to do more. I am so much honoured and I thank the Enugu Chapter of the Young Nigerian Professionals; I thank my family and my team, the Empire Doors staff, our partners both here in Nigeria and Turkey and my customers. Without the customers there will not be an award to collect.
 
I think over the years they have been following some of the things I have been doing in terms of innovation and products I bring to the market. Fortunately, I have a lot of customers that come, buy my products and send them down to Enugu and many other states. They see my design and quality of my products and more so my passion about empowering Enugu youths in the area of craftsmanship in tiling, doors installation and also building generally because I also do real estate and very soon we will bring it to Enugu by making houses affordable. These are some of the things they have been following about me for a long time.  I have empowered so many young people in the Southeast and we are ready to do more to help the Southeast grow.
  
I want to be remembered as someone who has empowered so many Nigerian youths, Southeast in particular; someone who has been a positive influence to the people, someone who has brought innovation and empowerment. If you empower one person today, he will empower another and with that you solve a whole lot of issues. That person that should have carried a gun to kill will not do so. So, the people I have are people who should have been a problem to society. It is not about the billions of naira that one has acquired; the most investment ever is about human empowerment. I want to be remembered as one who has been able to impact other lives.