Okonkwo: update Igbo business model, don't abandon it
- Obiora Okonkwo, chairman of United Nigeria Airlines, says the Igbo business model needs updating, not replacing.
- He wants apprentices taught fintech, data and export skills, and firms to share facilities instead of competing.
- He cited his airline's tie-up with Air Peace as proof that collaboration pays.
Igbo businesses should keep the self-reliance and personal drive that built them, but add new skills and work together more, the chairman of United Nigeria Airlines has said.
Prof. Obiora Okonkwo spoke in Lagos at the annual general meeting of De Imperial Philanthropic Family, where he led a talk on adapting the Igbo entrepreneurial model to the global economy. The Sun reported his remarks.
His message was that the tradition does not need to be thrown out, only adjusted. Individual initiative and a long record of commercial success remain strengths, he said, but they are no longer enough on their own.
New skills for apprentices
Okonkwo's first suggestion was to widen the Igbo apprenticeship system. Apprentices, he said, should learn digital commerce, financial technology, data analytics, artificial intelligence, international marketing, business management, intellectual property and export procedures, while keeping the hands-on, mentor-led style that makes the scheme work.
He also faulted universities that carry out research without asking how it can be sold, and called for closer ties between campuses and industry. In the same vein, he wants stronger links between universities and markets, so academic knowledge can meet the practical skills of the informal sector.
Young people, he added, should be given room to contribute ideas, and firms should keep learning and testing new things.
Collaboration over rivalry
Okonkwo argued that modern production is too complex for businesses to go it alone. Shared production facilities, he said, would cut costs that small and medium enterprises currently carry by themselves.
He held up his own relationship with Air Peace founder Allen Onyema as an example. Many people expected the two airlines to fight, he said, but they chose partnership instead.
Very soon, you would be able to buy Air Peace tickets and fly United Nigeria Airlines with it.
On exports, Okonkwo said that while studying in Russia he could buy goods from many countries but not from Nigeria, because Nigerian products did not meet the required standards. Selling abroad, he said, means meeting rules on certification, packaging, quality assurance, export paperwork and intellectual property.
He pointed to the Aba Export Group lab, set up under Abia State Governor Alex Otti and commissioned in 2025, as an example of support that helps firms standardise, package and brand products for export. The lab's first focus areas include agricultural products and fashion apparel.
For ordinary Nigerians, the stakes are jobs and income. Small businesses that can sell abroad earn more and hire more, while apprentices trained in digital and export skills stand a better chance in a crowded labour market.
What happens next
Okonkwo's proposals are advice, not policy. Whether the apprenticeship system takes them up, and whether more firms follow the airlines' example, will depend on business owners and state support programmes like the Aba lab.