Tb Joshua makes more money than I do now–Maged Taan, MD, Alibert Furniture

Chief Maged Taan

Chief Maged Taan is a Lebanese and the Managing Director of Alibert Furniture. He tells ‘Nonye Ben-Nwankwo how he has been able to cope since he came to Nigeria 41 years ago

Why did you choose to come to Nigeria?

In life, you get used to something whether good or bad. You get used to alcohol even though you know it is not good; you find yourself continuing in it because it has become a habit. And you live with it. But to your question, I was born in Africa. I have spent all my life in the West Coast and I have been in Nigeria for 41 years.

But who brought you to Nigeria?

It was the late (Odimegwu) Ojukwu when he was on exile in Ivory Coast. It was through him that I came to Nigeria. I came and I discovered that Nigeria is big. I discovered that there are possibilities in the country.

Was it the furniture business that you had in mind when you came?

Oh yes. It was just this business and this is where I started. I remember when the Synagogue (church) came to open here, anybody asking for direction would be told that the church is next door to Alibert. Now, when people ask me where my factory is, I tell them it is next door to Synagogue. The pastor is making more money than I am making. It is obvious that when you establish a church, you make more money than when you establish an industry. When I came here, the population was less than 100. But now, we have over one million people here.

What was the relationship you had with Ojukwu?

I met him through a friend. I was younger then. Ojukwu used to speak broken French and I couldn’t speak English then. I met him at Yamoussoukro, the capital of Ivory Coast and we became friends. Any time I went to the capital, I must stop by to see him. He started telling me about Nigeria.

Did you come back together?

No. I came to Nigeria before he came back. I was one of the people waiting for him at the airport when he came back. We kept in touch when he came back and we had a good relationship.

How has it been for the past 41 years in Nigeria?

It has been good. I have friends here. I even got married here. My children were born here. My kids speak Nigerian languages. I didn’t marry a Nigerian though. You have Nigerians who marry people outside Nigeria, so it wasn’t a big deal that I didn’t marry a Nigerian.

We learnt you were made a chief in Nigeria…

Yes. The Idimu community in Lagos gave me a chieftaincy title.

By now, you should have adapted very well.

I have but my skin colour is still the difference. Even if I spend 300 years in Nigeria, a Yourba man will still call me ‘Kora,’ an Igbo man will call me ‘Onye Ocha’ and an Hausa man will call me ‘Bature.’ You are never really admitted into the society. But I have fully adapted. You cannot stay in a place for 41 years and you don’t adapt.

Are there times your skin colour has worked against you?

Oh yes, so many times. But it is not with everybody.

Do you have any regret?

No. I don’t have any regret. Originally, I am from Lebanon. Now, I am a Nigerian. I have my house in Lagos and I have another house in Abuja.

Do you understand any Nigerian language?

I do understand more or less. But I don’t speak. When you pass the age when you can understand and speak a language, it might be difficult. That is what happened in my case. But my kids understand the language.

Do we see you going back to Lebanon one day?

I don’t think so.

How has it been working in Nigeria?

I have about 1000 members of staff in this company. If I am not existing, they might have been in the streets. I am assisting the government to take off people from the streets. In some other countries, if you don’t have a job, the government will give you salary every month to feed yourself. When you get a job, they will not give you the salary again because your employers would have been paying you. Men in uniform always come here and tell me ‘don’t joke with me; you know I can close you down.’ They actually shut this place down six years ago. They said I should pay them N30, 000 and they came on a Saturday when the cashier was not around. But they insisted they would lock up the factory and they did. The duty we pay is twice more than what’s charged in other countries.

Could that be the reason why Nigerians working for you are treated as slaves as we learnt?

In this company, we have 1000 employees and we have thieves among them. We have all kinds of people. One of them misbehaved and we paid him off. He went and reported us and even put it in the newspapers that he was being treated as a slave. We replied to that. You can go round and see if we treat anybody as slave. Everybody is wearing uniform and working in a friendly environment. We give them all their rights. We don’t enslave anybody. You can make your underground checks.

If these challenges are as bad as you claim, one would have expected you to close your company down and leave…

We have been here for the past 41 years. When we came here, there was no road. We started with hope, thinking that things would get better. But things didn’t get better, they got worse. All the money I have made in this world is here. This is the largest furniture factory all over Africa. I cannot take it and go somewhere else. We are living in a place where somebody will come and tell us we should leave if we don’t like it here. We don’t get support from anybody or even the government. We don’t even get moral support from them. We always manage. That is what has been keeping us.

Are you saying that working in Nigeria hasn’t been profitable for you in all these 41 years you have spent here?

I have gained. I cannot deny that. But the beggars in the street make money. But if I worked so hard and suffered so hard anywhere else in the world, I would have made more gain. It is not an advantage to make money. Everybody works to make money. I am entitled to make money because I work hard. I am not just working for myself; I am also here to help the country. But there is no atmosphere of industrialisation in this country. The only way to save this country from area boys and miscreants is to create employment for them.

But you have been given good atmosphere to create your factory…

The duty of the government is to establish an atmosphere for people to come and establish industries. It is the only institution that can absorb people and give them employment. That is why a country like China is progressing rapidly. Countries like Pakistan, Indonesia are also progressing because they are creating industries and more industries. Some foreigners will come here and they will go and stay in five star hotels in Lagos or Abuja waiting for contracts. They don’t even want long term investment because they would say, ‘we don’t know what is going to happen in this country.’ The only investment in where they will make quick money. Some things that should be exported from this country are being imported into Nigeria. You go to supermarkets and you find out that carrot, green peas and even cucumber are imported. If the system is working very well, such things should be exported and not imported. If you land at the airport in Abuja and tell a taxi man to take you to Ministry of Finance, or NNPC, the taxi man will welcome you very well and drive you straight to those places. But tell the same taxi man that you want to go to the Ministry of Industry, the man will ask you ‘where is the place?’ You tell him to take you to the Ministry of Agriculture, he doesn’t know the place. He takes people to the Ministry of Finance and NNPC because that is where they go to ‘chop’ money.

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