Penultimate Friday ,The Group Chairman, G-TONIA Companies , George Obinna Okeze welcomed Online Reporters Association of Nigeria ( ORAN) team to his office headquarters. He was inducted as ORAN patron and presented award for hardworking and coming out successfully well in 2021 in logistics and transportation business.
The team also caught up with him to talk about his chain of businesses in Nigeria and abroad.
Read excerpts below:
Can you please tell the people out there who exactly you are?
I thank God for my life .My name is George Obinna Okeze.The Group Chairman, G-TONIA . G-Tonia means, George and Antonia. My name is George and my wife’s name is Antonia. G from George and Tonia from Antonia. What we are trying to do is to grow Nigeria economy from the grassroot. We are not here to compete with anybody. We are here to make the economy viable from the grassroot. In G-TONIA we have subsidiaries. We have G-TONIA transport and logistic, G-TONIA foods , G-TONIA healthcare, G-TONIA school of languages, G-TONIA hospitality. I need to explain more on all these things more. What we are doing in G-TONIA transport is to deliver services to Nigerians by taking them to a point and another at a very good and affordable rate.The business is challenging considering the road network of Nigeria and how it is currently. And the economy has been affected by convid-19 now , it has not be easy. We are trying to do our best to ensure that people get the best from us. We hope for better economy in Nigeria and the world so we can improve to render better services to our customers. In the nearest future, we are planning to partner with some companies from India to build some thing like a ‘school circle’ in Nigeria here, whereby it will serve the people in schools to move them from point to the other at a very affordable rate. That discussion is on going now and hopefully our dreams comes true on it and that’s on G-TONIA transport. We also have G-TONIA foods. It is divided into two products which is the bakery. We have started now and is called G-TONIA loaf and what you are seeing here today is about to launch, which is called G-TONIA water. And we want all our products to be in every home in these country at avoidable price. Where the man on the street can afford same thing with the man in air-conditioning. Our target is to make thing easy for Nigerians . And we have G-TONIA rice. It is a product of G-TONIA farms and livestock. We have 50kg,10kg, 5kg, 25kg. What we are trying to ensure is that every products are affordable. We want to flood our rice in the rural market so that people can have food to eat at affordable rate. This rice is proudly made in Nigeria. So we are here to make this country a better place for all of us. The people at the top can easily get what they want but people at the bottom can’t easily get what they want so we are trying to make it available for everyone so , at the end we can all smile.
How many years have you being operating transport business?
Just two years, it is all about dedication and God. As I said earlier. Endurance, prayer, surely, we will get there. If we look at what is going in the industry we wouldn’t had wanted to start. But we believe God been on our side we can over come every obstacles.
Tell us about the challenges?
There are many challenges. Bad roads,no money in the economy, cost of maintenance of vehicle parts. What we use to buy at lower rate are now high. The high cost of diesel and PMS and you need your vehicles to be on the road all the time,so there are many things we face. We keep on facing the challenges because we need to move the people and products even with all the challenges we face. We keep on praying for a better Nigeria.
Tell us more on G-TONIA loaf?
Lagos is a big place. Even in this our domain,We have about three million people.The strategy we are using is to ensure our bread is in every home. And our pot,where our bread is make we call it pot because is both where the bread for the rich and poor is make. And everything is of same quality. So if you are buying our bread as a rich man, it is affordable. A poor man can afford what a rich man is buying. We didn’t compromise, everything is of same quality. People from parts of Lagos are coming to buy the bread but we need to concentrate more on the area we are, so we can sell our product more and buying flour is not friendly at all. The price of flour has sky rocket and it has caused lot of baking companies to close down because they can’t afford to buy the flour. In our bakery we trying to shrink our production rate. Because it won’t be a good thing if can’t pay your workers. So we try to keep pushing for the best.
There is G-TONIA oil filter, How do you come about this?
We are into transplant. Vehicle spare parts . Buying is consuming me badly. Transport is something you do every day and you need to do maintenance everyday to ensure that your vehicle keeps staying on the road. Major things you change in a vehicle is oil filter, brake pad.These two things are very important to your vehicle. So what I did was to talk with my partners abroad and break it into Nigeria market at a very good rate. So every Nigerians can afford to service their vehicles at very cheap rate.
How do you distribute it?Do you have guys in ladipo,Owode,Oyingbo?
Like I told you, am not in the market for competition. I will sell my brand. God is on my side. One thing is sure, quality is key . If you are selling in Alaba,Oyingbo with time the people will choose what they want. I can’t go to China and bring nonsense. Whatever I sell, I use it . My bread, water, oil filter, are all what I use including GTonia pharmaceutical.
Let’s talk about health care issue now. With all the doctors we have in Nigeria, we have not being able to come out with a drug that will fight COVID-19. We also have the trado medical experts, Till date we’ve not being able to see anything coming from them?
Nigeria is bless with professionals same as their oversea counterparts. The problem is that, is our government listening to them? Do we give them chances to tackle this epidemic? We don’t believe in ourselves. Look at China they believe in them selves , that is why they can move forward. We need to start supporting our own. Change the mindset of nepotism and hatred. Make use of our own and market our product to the out side world.This vaccine can be make here but as long as we don’t give it a chance in believing our doctors and scientists we keep searching out side world.
– Tijani Adegbola, Peter Iruobe
