Cosmas Maduka is a man who knows a thing or two about overcoming adversity.
By the age of six, Maduka had survived bombs and bullets. It was in the dark depths of that civil war over the failed secession of Biafra – a civil war that saw 30,000 dead and more than a million refugees. His home state of Anambra was right in the thick of it; it was the base for relief flights to the beleaguered Biafran population. This drew airstrikes by Nigerian warplanes.
“We had a bunker outside our house which we ran into during times where the military opened fire and dropped bombs with their fighter jets. We did not know whether we were going to survive to see the following day,” says Maduka.
One day, as the young Maduka walked to the market, soldiers opened fire, killing scores of civilians. Again, Maduka was lucky to escape with his life. Soon afterwards his mother sent him away to safety to live with his grandparents.
In these tough early years, Maduka had no idea who his father was until the day he was led to his funeral.
“The best I knew of my father was the day I saw a man lying lifelessly in a suit… It was like a festival, people were exceptionally kind to me that day and whatever I asked for, I got,” he says.
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The sad celebrations faded into struggle and grinding poverty. Maduka became a street hawker to provide for his family. Every morning, at 5AM, Maduka would wake up to sell bean cakes on the streets with his older brother, Pius, to feed his family.
In a small step up from street life, Maduka began life as a lowly apprentice in his uncle’s motorcycle business. It was a sour first taste of the motor industry that was to make his millions decades later.
The motorcycle workshop job was poorly paid and after seven years of service his uncle fired him – the severance package was less than $400. In these difficult times, Maduka hugged to his heart two guiding principles.
“Firstly, no matter how careful you are things are always going to happen that you never anticipated. The second lesson is don’t ever take a risk you cannot discount.”
Both principles were the rich harvest of a bitter and expensive worst day that will forever haunt Maduka.
“Sometime in 2011, I was sitting in the office and my phone rang, it was a kid brother from my state who was in the oil business who said he wanted me to assist him. He had some difficulties in raising money for a project. I tried to talk to him and counsel him and at the end of the day he convinced me to come and see what he was doing,” says Maduka.
“I went with my wife and I was fascinated looking at how far he had built his business. He was looking for a line of credit. I was sitting in two publicly quoted banks owning about 70 percent equity in one of them. I tried to get the bank to support him but they refused, so I said I would guarantee the transaction. I told the bank to put the credit under my name and I parted with over $300 million.”
The approach came from Ifeanyi Ubah, the CEO of Capital Oil and gas, for a loan to import petroleum premium spirit. Maduka took a calculated risk.
“We did things systematically. The first consignment came and within 45 days we cleared the shipment. We did it for the second one too and that went well but I didn’t know he was goading me. Before December 2011, he came with six documents saying if I did this for him he would be eternally grateful. We had done several transactions and they were all successful, timely and he paid at the correct time so I had no issues.”
Maduka opened a line of credit to guarantee the loan for Ubah to secure his goods for the six consignments but, to his horror, the goods never arrived in Nigeria.
“The guy went abroad and connived with the shipping company and sold the vessel offshore. Every month interest of N300 million ($972,000) was dropping into my account,” says Maduka.
He was left liable and had to sell his entire stake in one of the financial institutions, where he was a director and had a controlling share, to pay off that debt.
“My franchise was threatened because this was not something we planned for. That is why when we talk about success, you can never be complacent and say that you have arrived because there are always obstacles you meet along the way. An entrepreneur must continue to reinvest into his business and keep reserve capital because there are shocks that you are going to meet that you never anticipated,” he says.
Today, Maduka is the President and Chairman of Coscharis Group, franchise holders of over eight luxury automobile brands and one of the largest distributors of spare car parts in Nigeria. The company also has interests in real estate, banking, technology, medical equipment, petrochemicals, elevators and agriculture. He stresses the importance of trust and loyalty to his 300 staff. Clearly, he doesn’t want them to suffer as he did in the motorcycle repair shop a lifetime ago.
The lessons from his worst day also led to a wiser, more cautious Maduka whose mantra today is never take anyone at face value.

A Mistake  That Cost  A Million  A Month

Thousands walked along the rain-soaked road. Their faces covered in dirt, some in blood. Their eyes cried for safety. Thousands more added to the 1.6 million of displaced people in South Sudan – desperately fleeing some of the worst violence in Africa’s newest nation.
In December 2013, South Sudan’s then vice president, Riek Machar, fled to the bush amid accusations from President Salva Kiir of trying to stage a coup. The truth of what actually happened is still unclear.
Nevertheless, Machar did not go alone. An experienced military leader, he took with him an army of rebels.  An inter-tribal civil war has ravaged the newly-formed country ever since.
South Sudan is one of the world’s least developed countries; born out of Africa’s longest running civil war. In 2005, a peace deal ended the war and six years later, the country gained independence. The oil-rich region of Unity State saw a lot of commercial investment during this time and offered the country hope of prosperity. At the outbreak of war, this area would become a fiercely contested prize.
Six months into the conflict, I investigated what was happening in the region, the extent of the conflict, and whether it was safe for aid workers to carry out their vital work.
North of Bentiu, the capital of Unity State, government forces positioned themselves to retaliate against the rebel soldiers who had occupied a small village for the previous three days. Locals had spent 72 hours living in a shared nightmare. Machar’s rebels arrived under the cover of darkness, announcing their presence with automatic gunfire aimed indiscriminately at men, women and children.
Nothing remains more vivid in my mind, from my time investigating the conflict, than hearing the horror of the survivors describing the violence. They claimed that children had been raped and hanged. Entire families were burned alive in their thatched huts. Only a handful managed to escape the massacre.
The recapture of the village did not end the horror for the survivors. Those who could not flee would be victims to the next group of occupying war fighters.
It was a story shared by civilians throughout South Sudan. The United Nations has accused both sides of ethnic cleansing and widespread forced displacement. Looting, sexual assault and torture was also said to be rampant.
The use of child soldiers has been widespread. Often as young as 10, these children are used for frontline and support roles, sometimes for sexual purposes. Unicef estimates 12,000 children are currently being used by the armed forces and are “increasingly vulnerable to violence and to sexual abuse and exploitation”.
Nearly two years later, more than 2.2 million people have fled their homes. The conflict has affected neighbors on all sides, with refugees seeking a safer and better quality of life. Multiple peace treaties have been broken by Machar and Kiir. A country which has so much to offer, culturally and commercially, is slipping ever further into chaos.
With the latest accusations of both sides breaking the August 2015 peace treaty, it’s yet to be seen what the future holds for South Sudan. Hopefully there will be a mutual commitment to peace so the millions of displaced people can finally return to their homes.
&#8211; Daniel Wheeler

Haunting Memories Of A Massacre

Sierra Leone is slowly getting over its long and brutal civil war. That’s what the World Bank statistics tell you anyway. In 2003, Sierra Leoneans, on average, could expect to live for a miserably short 42 years.  It’s now 48 years and rising. Gross National Income, or GNI, is also rising, up from $220  per year to $340. But, two-thirds of the population of six million still live below the poverty line.
In 2013, Sierra Leone finds itself in economic transition, no longer entirely dependent on external aid but still without a vibrant local economy. Although the war officially ended in 2002, it left a legacy of grinding poverty. Thousands of young people are homeless, mainly because of the poverty that high unemployment brings. Eleven years after the war ended, you still find orphans or war-damaged people who are unable to pick up their previous lives.
Hazel Chandler first visited Sierra Leone and neighboring Liberia in 2005 to make a film about the Liberian child rights activist Kimmie Weeks. Chandler is an experienced filmmaker, with an interest in making documentary films about challenging topics.
“I still find there are pockets of young men, alienated and angry, ready to go back to war. As soldiers they had money, a purpose, camaraderie and power. On the streets or in the provinces they have nothing.”
Chandler began filming with a dangerous street gang in Kenema, a large regional city North-East of the capital Freetown. When she gave the gang leader, Yumyum or Bad Man, as he is known, a hand-held camera to document his own life on the streets, an extraordinary thing happened.
“I fully expected him to film for a couple of days and then sell the camera. Yet, even when Yumyum went to prison and endured the most difficult of circumstances, he chose not to sell it for bail money. The camera became an expression of his identity and self-worth. He held on to it at all costs.”
The filmmaker quickly realized she was on to something.
“‘Yumyum’, my film, focused on the lives of three young men. Yumyum had briefly been a combatant. A-Class had lost his parents in the war, and KKDog had run away from an abusive uncle. Teaching these young guys to film and edit their own films, to document their own lives, gave them a purpose and a self-worth, which had been missing.”
After two years of filming the soon-to-be released documentary, she did what filmmakers are never supposed to do. She kept filming but stepped into the story and started to help her characters find schooling, jobs and a place to live.
From there, Chandler began to train homeless and poor people of all ages to film and edit, initially working in the offices of other charities.
“I found Sierra Leoneans living on the streets to be a talented and determined bunch, with a hunger for knowledge. They are pulling themselves up with grit and modesty and are a delight to teach. They have been the making of me, not the other way round,” the filmmaker explains.
Four years ago, alongside her son, Michael, she took the plunge to set up WAYout Arts, a charity dedicated to working with the street youth of Sierra Leone. In 2012, the WAYout Arts Hub finally opened in the center of Freetown. A music studio formed part of the Hub.
However, in tough economic times, charities worldwide were not being funded and were closing down projects.
“I think it was a happy coincidence of timing. I wrote to Strummerville, the Joe Strummer Music Foundation, when they were looking to donate outside the UK. They gave us the funds, equipment and the services to set up a music studio and taught our guys to be sound engineers,” she says.
Today, WAYout are recording street artists such as the Black Street Family. Previously, the 200-strong group was known as the Black Street Gang— among the most feared criminals in Freetown. Now, they have released an album, utilizing one of the few professional recording studios in the country.
As Chandler explains: “We won two out of the five film and music awards at Sierra Leone’s recent Human Rights Festival, and our reputation is growing. Our recorded music is regularly played on the radio and we have trained 600 young people, some of whom now work in the mainstream media. I am privileged to be a small part of that.”
In a final twist worthy of Nigeria’s Nollywood, the former gang leader Yumyum, who inspired both a documentary and then the WAYout Arts project has become Chandler’s adopted son. Yumyum is now known by his real name Amara and is regarded as family by both Hazel and Michael.
“Amara was the inspiration for everything, and he has changed my life. In Sierra Leone I am known as Mama Hazel; I fought the age and motherhood thing at first, but now I have accepted the role and I have a real sense of belonging.
“WAYout is helping people’s lives change, not least of all my own. When I’m in Sierra Leone I like who I am, which is a really nice feeling and which isn’t always true when I’m back in Britain.”   FL

Tag: Civil War

FORBES AFRICA SOCIAL MEDIA

A Mistake That Cost A Million A Month

Haunting Memories Of A Massacre

THe brit in sierra leone turning gangs into film crews