Mr. Okoro Nduka Pele is the Managing Director/Chief Executive Officer of Neo Pele International Concept (Fashion Designing/Tailoring Company), based in the oil-rich city of Warri, Delta State. He spoke to our Tejiri Ebikemie and Francis Sadhere recently on why he is into the fashion world. Happy reading:
Please introduce yourself to us
My name is Pele Okoro Nduka, a graduate of Engineering from the University of Port Harcourt. I joined fashion designing after graduating and searching for jobs without success. i decided to go into fashion because my family is into fashion. After sometimes I came up with my own brand which I call Neo Pele International Concept Fashion Designin/Tailoring Company. I have been into fashion designing now for the past four years now.
How is the Fashion World Business?
To me fashion designing is one of the most lucrative businesses in the world because everybody wears cloths. People can’t do without wearing new clothes or wearing what is fashionable. I have not seen any business that I will get used to compared fashion. Right now I cannot even think of any other business I can do apart from fashion.
Tell us, how did it all started?
My father and mother are both fashion designers. So my siblings are all fashion designers too. My father told me that before I can be a fashion designer I have to earn a degree from a reputable university. When I graduated I did not want to go into fashion but when I could not get a good job after graduating I was forced to join the fashion world.
So how has the fashion business been so far?
So far, I will say it has been nice. Though, initially it was very tough when I started in 2010 but I was not deterred and I was able to come to this stage that I am right now.
What are the challenges in this business?
Since we deal with customer directly, the challenge we face some time is that customers do not come to claim their cloths and your money will be tied down. Sometimes we design cloths for our customers and they will say they do not like them and we have to pay with our money. Another very big challenge is the workers. If the money is not there to pay your workers, that is a big challenge. You know as an individual, you cannot do the work alone. You will need the help of others and you will have to pay them.
Can you beat your chest and say you have been able to get people out of the streets through employment?
Of course I can beat my chest to say that. When I started, I stared with six staff and three apprentices. But right now I have 25 staff and over 20 apprentices. All my staff and apprentices are very serious people because when you come here and see that your mates are doing well, you will not sit back and relax. You will like to be like them too. After your apprenticeship if you want to go and upon your own, you are free. But if you want us to retain you here, we will retain you. I have about four people that I have trained but now they have opened their own businesses.
Did you grow up in Warri?
No I did not. I was born in Ashaka my home town. I later went to Lagos and after graduating I came back to Warri.
Why did you decide to choose Warri as your base?
I decided to put up this business here in Warri because this is where I have most of my customers. Though I have other customers outside Warri but this is my base. I have never met most of my customers. My works speak for themselves. This kind of job is like networking because when somebody sees your work in another person’s body, they will like to get in touch with you even when they do not know you. All they will do is to call me and I will take their measurement. But for those I cannot take their measurement, I will ask them to go and take their measurement from a qualified Taylor. I have people who work for me in Abuja, Lagos, Port Harcourt and Yenagoa. After sending their measurement to me, they will pay me by sending the money to my account and after finishing the job I will send the work to them through any of these courier services.
Can you say you are the best in town?
To be honest with you, I cannot assess myself. It is the people that will assess me and tell if I am the best in town or not. But I can tell you that I am good.
Do you have any regrets so far for choosing this career?
So far, I do not have any regrets for choosing fashion designing as a career.
What is your dream for Neo Pele in the next ten years from now?
When I was in my final year, they asked us what we want to become in future and I said I want to be the boss of my own fashion outfit. I did not know that in the next five years, something like that will happen. So in the next five to ten years, I would like become a household name both in Nigeria and outside Nigeria.
What is your advice for youths like you who are out there waiting for white collar jobs?
My advice to them is that they should look up to people that they admire and try to be like them. For those youths who engage in community activities, what I will tell them is that they cannot achieve their dreams and train their children with community activities and gangsterism.
What is your advice to government?
My only advice I have for the government is that they should try and empower people like us who are trying to take a lot of the youths out of the streets by offering them employments. I have about fifty boys who are working with me and if these fifty boys are allowed to go back to the streets, you and I know what will happen. The set policies in place that will allow us have access to credit facilities from the banks with ease. What the banks are offering us now is way above what we can afford. Some of them tell us that before they will give us any loan we have to provide collateral in the form of a house. I do not have a house, so how do I get loans?
When are we expecting your fashion show?
For now I do not have the funds to organize a fashion parade. Though fashion shows are very important in this business, with time we are going to get there and we will organize our own fashion parade.
What is the secret of starting a fashion business like this one?
The secret is that you have to be committed, resilience and diligent. Even the Bible said that you must be diligent in whatever you are doing because when you do, you will not only eat with ordinary men, but you will eat with kings. You must avoid partying, womanizing and drinking because when you start all that you will never achieve your goals.
How will you advice somebody who wants to start from the scratch?
I started from our parlour when I started this business. We have about three machines and I was able to save enough money to rent this workshop. That was how I started little by little until I grew up to this stage. The key word in this business is that you must save money to start from somewhere.
What is your final word?
As fashion designers, I will encourage us to try as much as possible to be innovative in our carrier if we want it to be lucrative. In whatever department we find ourselves in this business we should try as much as possible to be innovative so that people we know us for the kind of work we do. We should also try our best not do disappoint people so we can disabuse the minds of people who see us as a people who are always disappointing their clients.
How have you been coping with the epileptic power supply?
It has been very hard because my machines are not manual but electrical. So we need power to be able to work efficiently. But we try to manage the amount of diesel why buy every day. For instance, if I buy six thousand naira worth of diesel, it will be used by about twenty of us and not by me alone. So it is a bit easier when you many using the diesel. But if we have steady supply of power we would have preferred it because we will enjoy it the more.
