SOMBA K’E/YELLOWKNIFE
Yellowknife engineer, businessman, and philanthropist Fola Soboyejo’s recently published book “Due Season: To whom it may concern,” outlines a business case that can be made for entrepreneurial investment in Africa.

Foundation work underway at the Ogan School Project in Nigeria. Fola Soboyejo, Yellowknife engineer and business owner, has been involved in charitable programs in Africa. He sees opportunities for Canadian entrepreneurs in Africa's booming economy. - photo courtesy of Fola Soboyejo

Due Season is a collection essays drawn form Soboyejo’s more than 25 years experience in Nigeria and Canada.

A professional member of both the Northwest Territories and Nunavut Association of Professional Engineers and Geoscientists, and the Alberta Association of Professional Electrical Engineers, Soboyejo moved from Nigeria Canada in 2001 to escape the political and moral chaos that followed the 1993 coming to power of general Sani Abacha.

After several years of working in Canada for several major companies, including Diavik Diamonds as a senior electrical engineer until 2009, Soboyejo returned to full time work with Plan-Eng Consulting Inc., the engineering company he and associates originally formed in Nigeria in 1998.

With offices in Yellowknife, Edmonton, Lethbridge, and an affiliate office in Lagos, Nigeria, Soboyejo has not let his physical location limit the scope of his business endeavours.

Since returning to Plan-Eng, Soboyejo has been involved in large and small commercial projects, across Nunavut, the NWT, Yellowknife, and Alberta.

He has never let go of his concern from his homeland, remaining involved with two charitable foundations in Nigeria, the Ogan School Development Project and the Soboyejo Turning Point Foundation.

The Ogan school development projects is the expansion of an inadequate school in southeast Nigeria where 200 students currently share two classrooms.

The Turning Point foundation is a platform for long-term projects, providing on-the-ground needs assessments, and financial and written literacy programs.

Both charitable projects are funded through the umbrella charity, Bridges of Hope, an independent, registered Canadian charity.

The foundations were begun before the recently infamous violent attacks on citizenry in northern Nigeria by the religious fundamentalist group Boko Haram.

“The fact that education is being attacked by Boko Haram is all the more reason to support education,” Soboyejo said. “We must not succumb to ignorance and wickedness.”

But Africa is not just a place for charitable endeavors.

Soboyejo points to the rapidly increasing African gross domestic product as an often overlooked possibility for Canadian investors.

With a 2013 GDP of $510 billion, Nigeria has risen, according to the Economist magazine, to 24th in the list of world economies, ahead of Belgium and Taiwan.

With an average GDP growth rate of more than eight per cent in 2012, Soboyejo describes the country as ripe for investment opportunity.

“Right now, I’m linking a solar power company in Ontario with an resort owner in Nigeria,” Soboyejo said. “The resort owner built the place 10 years ago, but because of unreliable power networks has been running on diesel power.”

“When I brought up the idea of solar power with the owner he was interested,” Soboyejo said. “The owner is also thew owner of an electrical engineering company, so he wants to market the technology more widely.”

The Ontario connection, who Soboyejo keeps confidential for competitive reasons, had been to Nigeria before to explore business opportunities, but returned, Soboyejo said, empty-handed.

“This kind of information cannot be found in the newspaper. It's not enough to go there, you need to know the right people and have a sense for the right timing.”

Corruption and risk are real concerns in many parts of Africa, Nigeria included. Soboyejo explained the best way to avoid becoming implicated in unscrupulous arrangements.

“I would advise someone to focus on the private sector and private sector projects, or world bank projects, rather than state government projects,” Soboyejo said.

A further help is to work with regional chambers of commerce, or to work with consultants who know the lay of the land and have an ear open for investment or contract opportunities.

Other businesses Soboyejo said he’s working with at the moment include a Scottish oil and gas service company with interest in Nigeria, and an Albertan contractor he had previously worked with on three southern Alberta projects.

Soboyejo clients generally own medium-sized companies of 50 to 100 personnel. He does his consulting work through Plan-Eng Consulting in Yellowknife.

“It’s not for the cowardly or the naive,” Soboyejo said. “Guarantees are for God, but we will do the due diligence to help make things happen.”

Information on the Ogan school foundation is found at www.oganschool.wordpress.com.