Saves As To Add (Tuesday/Folder)


                                                By Eubaldus Enahoro

To add value to Nigeria’s raw products, which are being exported out of the country and later imported as finished products, the Go Africa Trading and Go Africa Market place has commenced the construction of a processing plant in Nigeria.

Speaking with the Senior Director for African Affairs and promotions in an Exclusive Interview in Benin City, with the weekend Observer Mr. Richard lyasere said it is time Africans add value to the abundant natural resources endowed by God in the continent.   

Apparently not happy with the ugly trend that has impoverished the black race, lyasere who has been in the USA for almost 30 years disclosed that the processing plant will link Africa to the world, by envisioning the future of Africa.

Excerpts of the interview:

Why did you decide to come back home to invest?

One of the reasons is this brain drain that is going on In the society and secondly is the love for the land, which I always have deep in my heart, People have been asking me that question too, and we are doing a lot to our fellow country men, especially, the Bini’s in New York City.

I have been concerned about several approaches we can develop the land, since this is where I am from. Anything that will lead to the betterment of Nigeria, I am 100 percent for it. I have been in New York for over 27, 28 years now, I left this country about 30 years ago. I have done my part and I have come to realize that home is home and because of security problems here and corruption, people in diaspora are having a difficult task of coming back home to invest. But we must change that mentality. A couple of my friends are pointing fingers to the government for not creating an enabling environment for foreign investors. Though there is truth in that, but I do not allow such things to discourage me.

How did you begin this Journey?

I was a promoter bringing Nigerian artiste to New York City to perform. The likes of Timaya, Tu face, Flavour and a lot of them, organized events, I make some money and became very popular in New York City, doing parties and stuffs like that. In the year 2010 or before then, there was an incident about Amadou Dialo. He was an African immigrant that was short 41 times in New York City and after that the New York City government official tried to reach out to the African Community. It was a very difficult thing for them because there was no established African organization that they could go to or relate with,

The bronx borrough president then created the African Advisory Council. The African Advisory Council was under the auspices of Bronx Borrough President. He goes from one African Community to another community. He would pick somebody that is very popular, who he knows is a leader there. He would go to Gambia and others to sick people from each and I happen to be somebody, picked from the Nigeria community.

This African Advisory Council was set up and it became a can do it between the African Community and the New York City Government.

A strong voice for the Africans. Even when Obama came to New York, he specifically asked for this council and he spoke to them because he had the initiative about the youth programme and he wanted the African’s to be involved.

Taxation Without Representation

In New York, there is what we call taxation without representation. The Africans are paying their taxes, but they are not getting the benefit out there. Some of them do not even know, some of them know about it but they are scared to even take advantage of it. This are what the council looked into. Being part of that I was like a community liaison I am the one that Will go to the African Community bridging the gap, letting people know that there is council like this. If need housing, you need job, if you have a problem, you can come to the council and they wilt help you.

There was a time I even contested to be the chairman of the council and then the Go Africa, is a non profit organization in New York. Every year they organize street festival, they help to teaching Africans about business, entrepreneurship and lot of different things they are doing. They decided to offer me a position as the Senior Director for African Affairs. When I lost the election to be the chairman for the council I decided to come on board with them.

Go Africa Network

When I joined the Go Africa Network, one of my project was what we call, trade mission to bring the elected officials in New York City to Nigeria. When they are coming they will come will professional, solar system professional are expected to come with.

We would bring them here and we would have seminar, worship with this elected officials. Any Nigeria Citizen interested in Exporting and Importing in IT business, and other professionals. The project is to bring these officials. spoke to the commissioner and a couple of people in government in Lagos, Calabar A whole lot of different people and the Ambassador that was working with us in New York City, the Consul General. But few months later, he died and this slowed down the whole programme, and from that trade mission we transit into bringing a processing plant to Nigeria. There is a company called Agility. Agility is a warehouse company.

Some of the tough challenges that we encountered, which include, location, and land, Agility solved that problem for us.

Inside that warehouse we would create a processing plant. Ghana is close to finishing now. We are in a free trade zone there now, Ghana is really moving fast.

The construction of the Cote d’voir, just started. I just received whatsapp message few minutes ago and the Nigeria own is a little bit challenging. They started the Nigeria own before the Cote d’voir, but is very challenging.

The Go Africa is going to be processing cashew, a cashew processing plant, Cocoa, peanut sesame seeds — it is going to be solely for export and this is something good. The major benefit of these processing plant is adding value to African products.

What is paining me personally is the fact that there is this huge raw materials in Africa but they are just exported out raw, processed and sold back us.

If there is little that we can do to alleviate this problem, I will give everything, one hundred percent for it. These processing plant is going be adding value to African products.

Challenges faced by Africans in Diaspora

There are lots of challenges, Africans face. First of all, that is not your home, secondly, the language. I have seen so many people come to America, probably having masters degree in English and when they land America-common hello to somebody they say….what do you say.

They still do not understand. This is somebody with a masters degree in English, but when he gets there, they don’t understand him.

Sometime, if you can even write they have problem in your writing, so language is one of the big proble.tn or challenges. It is noryour place and we are quick to become a victim of the society. For example, when some of this street boys or area boys, we have them, there too, know you are an African, automatically, inside their head, you are weak, and you become their target.

You will be the first they want to rob, just because you are an African, you do not look like them or you do not walk like them, It is just like here in Benin and somebody from Ghana or Mali is living within us here, even when we are all the same African, you can see what is going on in South Africa.

The government benefit that is out there, most people do not have papers, work authorization, green card. Even though there are some programme that you can take advantage of even if you do not have papers, people are so scared to even take the initiative to go out to ask of these benefits, because they are scared they will be deported.

I have seen so many people too, even medical doctors, from here, when they get to America they cannot pass their medical board examination. They will take it for four to six times before they finally pass them.

For example, I was going through my wife question, my wife is a registered nurse, she studied nursing in Nigeria before she went to America. Before she came to America I will be sending her sample questions, and while reading some of the questions and one of the question is if it is advisable give Macaroni and cheese to a diabetic patient.

Then, somebody, like my wife had never known what is macaroni and cheese which is a type of food that is very common just like Eba. But when you see Macaroni and Cheese, you do not even know what that is and what is the composition. Those are some of the challenges. For Africans, it is even easy for Nigerians, because they are English speaking country. But for people from Senegal or those Francophone countries, there are so many challenges that are some of the reasons of setting up the African Advisory Council, they come in and help the African Community.

How do you achieve your goals?

The Only way to help the Africans is through elected officials and in the African Community, we have some friends in politics who are people who sit down with us to hear our problem.

Our congress man Adriano Espaillat is one of Africa’s friends. People like the Bronx Borough President Ruben, Leticia James, Michael Blake, an Assembly member, and a host of politicians. They see our problem, and reckon with us and they are willing to help. These are policy makers. Like I said earlier, taxation without representation is a big problem in African Community, so they are out there trying to change some policies and listen to us.

When such a politician is up for re-election or morning from one position to another or bidding for a different position, we would rally round and make sure we support one of our own.

I am also a member of the United African coalition, which came out from the Africa. Advisory Council.

The African Advisory Council have so many limitations, because it is under the government. There are so many things we cannot do. We cannot be too politically involved because it is under the government. A couple of us inside came out to form the United Africa Coalition. It is purely a political organization, a political machine that will put behind any politician that we feel that are our friend.

 We also are there to handle the political side of it. Things we cannot do with, we use the coalition.

   The Go Africa team has politicians supporting us and helping us to reach our goals. We do fund raising, for the politicians.

The Nigeria politics and America politics is not quite the same. In Nigeria politicians share money for the people but in America, the people donate money to the politicians. We do fund raising for these politicians to enable them do their adverts, pay their workers.

The Halem Street festival

Coming from entertainment background, I consider myself a retired promoter, with massive experience in Entertainment. That was why I was picked to come on board to represent Africa, so I can handle most of their entertainment part of it like the artiste performance and management of the stage. Go Africa street festival is bringing Africans together and some entrepreneur like fashion designers Africans who own stores, those who sell food, own restaurants, come together and we block a whole street which is given to us, with different canopies and there is a lot of music, food vendors, It is usually huge, organized by Daddy rich production. I have helped a lot of up coming Nigeria artistes who are struggling there in New York City, helped to promote them and most recently what went viral was the Edo Convention in Washington DC. I was the one who wrote in the social media that they were going louse flavour to show case the event. This did not go down well with me if we want to promote Edo Culture. I was happy it was taken out of the programme.

Eubaldus Enahoro is Deputy Editor with the Nigerian Observer