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Exemplars of Greatness: Ayo Megbope, The Story of Resilience!
By Tolulope A. Adegoke
“Rock bottom became the solid foundation on which I rebuilt my life.” – J.K Rowling
Success can sometimes be found in the most unexpected places. It could lurk in the most despised or detested occupations, making it only discoverable by those who have the determination to ignore all the pain and shame that come with the process, and remain focused till they strike gold. This type of success inspires hope in people who run odd businesses or side-hustles and feel they are only spinning in circles, with no hope of real success to eventually come their way. This is why the zero-to-HERO story of Ayo Megbope, a moi-moi (bean cake) seller, who hustled against all odds to eventually grow a successful business with a turnover of over $100,000 a year, is worth exploring!
Megbope was a trained confidential secretary, who worked at Corona Schools, in Lagos, Nigeria, for nine years. After working with Corona for so long, she decided to quit her job to start a playgroup. To achieve this, Megbope signed up for a six-month Montessori programme. However, by the end of the programme, she had lost total interest and was no longer motivated to run a play group, because according to her, it was no longer exciting.
Now without anything to do, Megbope started cooking for her sister-in-law – who ran a restaurant – so she could keep herself busy. She would make all kinds of meals, including soups, stew, and a lot more. Then one day, her sister-in-law visited her, and met her family having a meal of. Megbope had prepared this meal from the last 1,000 naira (roughly $3) that the family had. The sister-in-law was invited to the dinner and she found the moi-moi so tasty that she asked Megbope to start preparing it for her too at her restaurant. Before long, her sister-in-law’s friends and colleagues started placing orders for the moi-moi from Megbope.
Within three months of selling moi-moi to family and friends, Megbope’s monthly turnover was already between 30,000 to 40,000 naira. At this point, she realised she was on to something and had to maximise her profit margins, since the best way to run any business would be to have high turnover. However, finding a place to grow the trade proved to be a bit difficult. After much effort without success, she decided to try her former place of work (the school), to see if she could sell some of her delicacy there.
In an interview she granted to a newspaper, Megbope said; “I would show up in my rickety Peugeot car, with wraps of moi-moi in a cooler. I would stand at the school gate, and begin to call each parent by their first name or their children’s names, and attempt to sell them moi-moi. They were used to seeing me in skirt or trouser suits, but were now seeing me in Ankara outfits. It was a humbling experience. They were like, ‘sebi we told you not to leave Corona but you did, see what you are selling now, moi-moi; this is bad’…but I sold still.”
As she persisted, the people gradually began to patronise her. After confirming that she was a good cook, they started requesting for other delicacies like meats, stews, soups and a lot more. At this point, Megbope could not really account for what she was making because she kept no real records; but she knew her income was growing. Soon after, she read in the newspapers that a United Nations team was coming to Nigeria to invest in women-owned businesses. It was a partnership between Goldman Sachs and the Enterprise Development Centre (EDC) at the Pan-Atlantic University, to empower about 10,000 women entrepreneurs.
Every participant was required to write and submit an essay. Megbope submitted an entry for the moi-moi business and it was accepted. The five-month programme exposed her information she wished she had known a long time ago. It showed her how to structure her business, organise her finances, build great communication skills and improve her customer service experience. By the end of the programme, her business, now called “No Left Over Nigeria Limited”, experienced a major overhaul. Within a short time, she had hired over 50 staff, including temporary workers, and got her accounting right. She went from a one-product business to becoming a full-on catering outfit, servicing over 1,000 people. So much was the patronage that Mogbeope got that her moi-moi sales in one week alone was able to pay all the staff’s salaries in a month. Indeed, within a year from her time at the Goldman Sachs training, she was finally able to purchase a delivery van. Her success was so remarkable that she was invited to the Annual General Meeting (AGM) of Goldman Sachs. She was also on the panel of the Turkish Prime Minister’s Global Summit on Entrepreneurship, while equally holding meetings with former America’s first lady, Michelle Obama and former America’s President, Bill Clinton.
Ayo Megbope is truly an inspiration to entrepreneurs, especially those who are just starting out. She has shown that no matter how petty a start-up’s products and services may seem, positioning your business at the right place, with the right price, and constantly improving your knowledge, will set you up for success and emerging a HERO in your life’s calling.
The key question is, what have you learnt from all these inspirational narrations and experiences so far? And what will you do about it?
Exemplars of Greatness Series continues next week…
Watch out for the Book titled: “The Power of an Empowered Zero” (From Zero to HERO) by Tolulope A. Adegoke. Foreword by Dr Yomi Garnett (CEO/Chancellor, Royal Biographical Institute, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania U.S.A., U.K., Abuja, Nigeria.) Edited by Ola Aboderin.
The Lagos State Commissioner of Police, Moshood Jimoh, has explained why security details attached to the Speaker of the Lagos State House of Assembly, Mojisola Meranda, were withdrawn, noting that the aides have since been restored.
The Lagos Police boss, while confirming the withdrawal of four policemen attached to Meranda, blamed the withdrawal on the audit of all policemen attached to VIPs in the state.
He also claimed that it was not Meranda’s security aides who were withdrawn and that those of other VIPs were also withdrawn during the audit.
CP Jimoh also insisted that the audit is not peculiar to the Lagos State Police Command, adding that it also happened in other states of the country.
He said, “Lagos with a population of about 20 million persons have 18,000 police personnel. This is grossly inadequate for a state like Lagos which is centre of excellence.
“The audit will help us to know those on illegal duty, those who are where they are not supposed to be. Once the audit is completed, we start to reassign them to Divisions and Post to help in policing the state effectively.”
Continuing, the CP added that the audit is a statutory laid-down procedure of the police, which is not limited to the state command alone.
“Periodic audit of police personnel attached to eminent personalities and groups is a police statutory laid down procedure which is not limited to Lagos State Police Command alone, this is to ensure that the police personnel are accounted for including their firearms and other police crime fighting equipment in their possession.
“To further ensure that they are on their duty posts and the firearms and equipment under their custody is not misused. As we speak, other police state commands in the Country are carrying out similar audits of Police personnel hitch-free and without any problem.
“The exercise will equally avail the Command the opportunity to discover where police personnel are posted without approval and or those that are on illegal duties and unapproved duty posts, so that we can withdraw those on unapproved duty posts, those with invalid approval and those on illegal duty and redeploy them to Police Posts, Stations, Divisions and Area Commands to provide security and safety for all Lagosians.
“It is important to underscore the facts that Lagos State, the Centre of Excellence with more than Twenty million population but with a strength of police personnel of less than 18,000 in total need more personnel to be at the police posts, police stations, divisions for the safety and adequate protection of lives and property of everyone in Lagos State.
“The ongoing police personnel audit in the Lagos State Command is done in absolutely public interest and not with any other considerations, except for the safety of all in the State. As I speak with you, the audit of the police personnel attached to Hon. Mojisola Meranda has been completed and the four armed personnel attached to her from the Lagos State Police Command have been returned back to her for her protection.
“It is pertinent to also state that the ongoing police personnel audit has been on for several days now and prominent personalities and individuals have been complying with the process. The exercise once again is not aimed or targeted at any individual,” the CP added.
“However, for those whose police personnel are still undergoing the audit process with the Command, the outcome of the audit will enable the next line of action to be taken. Let me sound a note of warning that prominent persons/individuals without valid approval, Police deployment to them will be withdrawn throughout the State.
“The Special Protection Units Department at the Force Headquarters have been mandated to provide security coverage for every Nigerian needing police protection in the country, and will henceforth provide deployment of police personnel for guard duties and personnel protection, will be centrally done throughout the country at the Force Headquarters,” the Lagos CP added.
Security aides attached to the Speaker of the Lagos State House of Assembly, Hon Mojisola Meranda, has allegedly been withdrawn while it was also alleged that the security aides of the embattled and impeached Speaker, Hon Mudashiru Obasa, has been restored.
The move, according to source, is part of the pressure being mounted on Meranda to resign her speakership position.
A reports by The Punch onThursday said security details attached to the speaker including police officers have been withdrawn.
On online platform, The Whistler, reported seeing videos of Meranda going into the assembly for official assignment without any of her security aides, except civilian aides.
The paper added that the identity of whoever authorised the withdrawn is still unknown just as a source close to the Speaker confirmed the development.
“The source told the paper, ‘All the Speaker’s security aides have been withdrawn. All the security aides attached to the House of Assembly have also been withdrawn.’
The paper further noted as follows:
The source further lamented that, “the speaker is now vulnerable.”
The removal of Meranda may not be unconnected to the move by a mediating team including Chief Bisi Akande and Aremo Olusegun Osoba, former governors of Osun and Ogun states respectively to ease the embattled speaker out of office and restore normalcy in the assembly which is sharply divided over the influence of the state governor, Babajide Sanwo-Olu and President Bola Tinubu.
The meditating panel reportedly met last Sunday with key stakeholders at the House including members of the Governance Advisory Council at the Governor’s Lodge in Marina in their bid to resolve the political impasse.
Various reports from the meeting said the panel recommended the resignation of Mudashiru Obasa and that Meranda should also step down for a new lawmaker from Lagos West to take the mantle of the House leadership.
Meanwhile, the Obasa camp confirmed that all his aides have now been restored.
“They have restored all Obasa’s security aides as of this morning,” the source said.
Special Adviser to President Bola Tinubu on Information and Strategy, Bayo Onanuga, has said he believes the former governor of Kaduna State, Nasir El-Rufai, is hurt because he was blocked from being a minister in Tinubu’s cabinet.
El-Rufai, who has been critical of Tinubu’s government in recent times, claimed on Monday night during an interview on Arise TV that Tinubu, not the National Assembly, blocked his nomination as a minister after initially asking him to be part of the government.
“The National Assembly had nothing to do with it, the president didn’t want me in his cabinet,” El-Rufai had said.
Reacting to his statement on Tuesday during an interview on Channels TV’s Sunrise Daily, Onanuga said:
“As a person, I think I will pity former governor of Kaduna State, Nasir El-Rufai. He feels hurt that he was not made a minister…I think it is time for him to move on.
“You cannot continue to behave like a child as if somebody stole your bread and things like that and then you’re crying over spilt milk?
“It’s natural for him to feel hurt, excluded and I think that as the president acknowledged in a recent birthday tribute to him, Nasir actually helped a lot in installing President Tinubu, and if he’s not there it doesn’t mean that he must bring down the roof.”
Onanuga stressed that the president has nothing against El-Rufai, reiterating that the ex-governor was only frustrated for not being part of the Federal government.
He said El-Rufai’s criticism of the Tinubu administration does not “reflect reality,” adding that the government inherited numerous problems but “things are getting better”.
