The Igbo people of South Eastern Nigeria have a traditional business model that has been in existence for centuries, known as the Igbo Apprenticeship System, IAS.
The apprentice system is commonly referred to as “Igba-Odibo/Igba-Boi/Imu-Ahia/Imu-Oru”. It is a framework of formal and informal indentured agreements between parties that ultimately facilitates expanding entrepreneurial communities within the Igbos. This model has worked for the Igbos everywhere they are found.
At the Alaba International Market is an electronics market located in Ojo, Lagos State, Nigeria. It is the largest electronics market in Nigeria, and indeed West Africa, with a more than $4 billion yearly turnover. Apart from the sales of electronic products, the market also deals in the repair of home appliances. It is predominantly Igbo-dominated.
More than half of the Igbo traders located in the market used or are using the traditional system of working for a master, known as the Igba-Boi, literally “to serve another” or “Imu-Ahia” meaning to learn a trade. After serving, the master sets up a business for his mentee or apprentice, or settles him with cash equivalents. Experts say this method is a unique and effective way of promoting entrepreneurship, calling it a practical model for stakeholder capitalism that could deepen management accountability, competitiveness, and profitability while anchoring shared prosperity.
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This is Emeka Egwuekwe, a prince in Igboland. He owns a multi-billion Naira furniture company in Abuja, Nigeria’s capital. He says his story is not different from that of other respondents. According to him, even as a prince born with a silver spoon, he served his father for seven years in his workshop before he set out to start his own kind of business.
Emeka believes that this system has seen the Igbo people’s’ wealth grow, arguing that they accomplish one thing: a largely equal community where everyone has opportunities, no matter how small.
The Igbo Apprenticeship System is a business philosophy of shared prosperity where an apprentice not only doubles as an apprentice and mentee, but also as a competitor and it has been successful in the growth of small and medium-sized enterprises, SMEs in Nigeria and in the diaspora.
As the President Bola Tinubu administration seeks for innovative ways to create employment for Nigerian citizens, all options according to entrepreneurs like Emeka should be on the table. Perhaps it is a system worth emulating across the country.
(Editor: Terverr Tyav)
