I Became an Automobile Apprentice at Age 7 to
Escape Poverty
The Chairman/CEO of Coscharis Group of Companies
and sole distributor for BMW in Nigeria, Dr. Cosmas
Maduka, has a success story filled with intrigues.
Imagine a seven-year old boy going to serve as an
automobile apprentice because of poverty! Who
could ever have imagined the outcome of such for
this Nnewi-born business tycoon?
Tough beginning
At age four, Cosmas Maduka lost his father, and
therefore started hawking bean cake (akara) and
climbing palm trees before the age of five, to assist
his mother. Three years later when life became more miserable, his mother
had to send him to her parents to lessen the task of providing for him and the
other three children. By the time he was seven, little Cosmas was withdrawn
from Elementary Three to serve as an automobile apprentice to a maternal
uncle in Lagos.
“My maternal uncle lived at Ebutte-Metta in Lagos and had a store at 88
Griffy Street, near Oyingbo Bus-stop. He took me to work as an apprentice
for him, and people laughed at me and questioned what I could learn at my
age”, he recalls.
His uncle had no home of his own but stayed with a friend, and Cosmas spent
the nights in the store while he went home with the key.
Finding Christ
As common with many young people, Cosmas had along the line drifted from
the Catholic faith shown him early in life by his mother and had taken to
trivialities like smoking and drinking. He, however, found Christ again through
a friend who led him to the Redeemed Christian Church of God at Ebutte-
Metta while still in Lagos, and, this time, he was dead set on serving the Lord.
Having mastered his craft effectively by the age of nine, Cosmas would
single-handedly travel to Nnewi to purchase items for his boss and, by the
age of 14, he was smart enough to be sent to work in one of their branches at
Sokoto and, later, at Nnewi! Little Cosmas was actually working without any
contractual agreement with his uncle.
Something eventful happened at Nnewi in 1975, and that marked a new
beginning for young Cosmas. “While at Nnewi at age 14, we had a church camp
which I went for and when my boss came on the fourth day to the shop and
didn’t meet me, he sent for me and my elder brother that evening and then
gave me N200, saying I should go and concentrate on my new found faith.
“It was done to punish me, but having known a little about God, I looked at him
in the eyes and said, `God hardened the heart of Pharaoh to show His might in
the land of Egypt. I served you well, and I don’t deserve this. But if this is
what you have to offer me, five years from today, you will be amazed at what
you’re going to see out of this”, he painfully recalls.
Staying positive
He continues: “I’ve always been very positive from my childhood and this
often made people laugh at me to scorn. I still recollect those days at
Oyingbo Bus-stop when school children would mock me, and I would tell them
I was going to be better than them in six years. I do not know why I was so
confident, but the truth is that my mother inspired and encouraged me
always.” He thereafter teamed up with his elder brother who had concluded
apprenticeship to set up a company, Maduka Brothers, selling spare parts.
They had to part later due to ideological differences. His capital then was
N300.
The big break
With that, he started his my own enterprise by coming to Lagos to buy goods.
“I had my first breakthrough when I went to Boulous Enterprises to purchase
motorcycle spare parts. I stumbled on a new innovation, motorcycle crash
ban, and I bought several and then removed the address of Boulous from the
carton so that others would not know where I bought them from.
“I sold everything the next day and joined the night bus again to Lagos to buy
more. I did that four times in one week and my capital rose from N300 to
over N3,000. I settled down in marriage at age 19, and I ventured into
importation with the little capital I had. Lo and behold, I received the wrong
consignment and therefore, had a serious setback which left me indebted
even to my landlord for months. My shop was also locked.”
Dignity in labour
Having grown up to believe in the dignity of labour, Cosmas was not ashamed
to start all over. He searched out a scale which he got as a wedding gift, took
it to the market, and from everyone who climbed it, he got 10kobo. His wife
cried when she knew what her husband was going out to do every day. She
decided to pick up a job to support the family while Cosmas gradually built up
another business capital through the scale.
“I’ve made mistakes in my life, but the grace of God has been sufficient.
Unfortunately, when a lot of people look at me today, they think I was born
Coscharis. I believe life is not so much about what happens to you, but about
the opportunities and obstacles God puts in your way to get the best out of
you”, he says.
Coscharis evolves
Later on when he had gathered enough capital, Cosmas teamed up with a
friend, David, to set up a company called CosDave. “I formed Coscharis when
Dave and I also parted ways due to some ideological differences. Coscharis is
a combination of three letter words from my name and that of my wife,
Charity. The real breakthrough came in that same year in 1982 when the
Nigerian government decided to grant import licenses to ten motor companies
and Coscharis Motors was selected! We’ve continued to expand since then,
and we now have several subsidiaries”, he explains.
Success, a journey
From his experience, Cosmas advises: “You can start any mean job as a
stepping stone to where you want to be. The best skill you need is simply the
ability to manage money properly and rely on God for grace. Blackberry is
somebody’s brain child; same with Nokia. Unfortunately, many of us do not
want to have brain children. Truly, many young people need to be completely
reoriented because they have wrong conceptions of what it takes to be
wealthy.
“They hit the wall because they search for success in wrong places like Yahoo
Yahoo. Why not be practical about life if white collar jobs are not coming to
you as a graduate? Learn to set goals for yourself! There are millions of jobs
you could train yourself to do! If it takes serving as an apprentice, do it. Many
of us die of frustration because we do not want to pay the price.
“I have five children and I ensure they go to school in Nigeria despite that
some of them are American citizens, because I believe they need to learn
street smartness! My oldest son graduated from the University of Lagos, and
till age 25, he didn’t have a car because I didn’t give him any! He has done his
MBA abroad, and now works with one of the banks in Nigeria. He now earns
his own money and can buy himself whatever car he desires!”
Vanguard
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