Meet 2017 TEF Alumni, Jonathan Azua Who is creating jobs through cleaning and maintenance business

Seed capital for cleaning and maintenance business: In Nigeria, in the first quarter of 2021, a report published by the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) on its website noted that Nigeria’s Unemployment Rate has risen from 27.1 per cent in the second quarter of 2020, to 33 per cent. Aside from making it the second Highest on Global List, the NBS report, going by analysis, shows that ‘more than 60 per cent of Nigeria’s working-age population is younger than 34. Unemployment for people aged 15 to 24 stood at 53.4 per cent in the fourth quarter and at 37.2 per cent for people aged 25 to 34.

Identifying this problem

While growing up, Jonathan saw his mom engaged in petty trading in a bid to make ends meet, while his brothers were actively engaged in schooling with the aim of improving their chances in order to get good jobs. At the same time, he saw his mom and other traders make wholesome daily profits, as a result he decided to be an entrepreneur so that he will not only make money but provide jobs for the people around him.

Jonathan Azua owns a Luxuriant cleaning and maintenance company the company that aims at giving customers a higher cleaning experience, this clear promise of value helped to incentivize their first users, even today, this has remained their message and an integral part of their organizational culture. The nexus and common theme of the organization is how to make a difference in the lives of customers, users, and stakeholders.

Seed Capital for Cleaning and Maintenance Business

For Jonathan, the training and the seed capital provided by the programme was a turning point in his entrepreneurship journey.

“Two things stood out for me in the TEF program, the training and the seed capital. Before the training I was managing a business in the informal sector, while I was largely successful at that level, I never knew there were things I was doing wrong, for example, the training helped me to understand important concepts such as corporate governance and structure, it kind of covered something small about everything a business is all about, the training armed me with the knowledge I needed to succeed at scale.

Also, he believes seed capital was a huge leverage, which was a tool for him to achieve his dream. When he started out, he made up his mind that this may be the only business fund he may ever have, so he would not fail himself. He went about investing with that mindset, and as of today, he has about 5 companies in his group just from a single seed, and he believes that the future holds much more for his business in abundance in terms of revenue generation and impact.

“The seed capital changed my life forever, all that I will ever become in life is tied to that seed capital.”

The group makes in excess of $10,000 annually in revenue generation, with over 20 direct and indirect employees.

Currently, they are expanding beyond their primary geographic market segment (Yobe state), as they attempt to become a national player by opening outlets in strategic markets.

“We are proud to be an employer of labour seeing that our country is grappling with an unprecedented unemployment rate, while making money is good business, beyond that, we are proud of being able to gainfully employ people and taking them out of the street, as a result. We see our contributions to the country’s GDP as the hallmark of our work, while our ability to provide goods and services that solve customers’ problems daily has been resounding and encouraging.”

ABOUT THE TONY ELUMELU FOUNDATION


The Tony Elumelu Foundation is the leading philanthropy empowering a new generation of African entrepreneurs, driving poverty eradication, catalysing job creation across all 54 African countries, and ensuring inclusive economic empowerment. Since the launch of the TEF Entrepreneurship Programme in 2015, the Foundation has trained over 1.5 million young Africans on its digital hub, TEFconnect, and disbursed nearly USD$100 million in direct funding to 18,000 African women and men, who have collectively created over 400,000 direct and indirect jobs. The Foundation’s mission is rooted in Africapitalism, which positions the private sector, and most importantly entrepreneurs, as the catalyst for the social and economic development of the African continent.