Having led one of Nigeria’s fastest growing indigenous player in the maritime industry for 21 years, Ismail Yusuf, immediate past Managing Director of Inland Containers Nigeria Limited (ICNL), in this interview with TOLA ADENUBI, gives details of his initial fear of Lagos and how he became a business champion in West Africa’s commercial hub. Excerpts:
You recently retired from ICNL after serving as the company’s Managing Director. Give us an insight into your journey with the company?
My career with Inland Containers has been since 1991. In 1990/1991, I was a corps member and I served in the company in Kaduna. After my youth service, the company decided to retain me because of my good performance and I was the Assistant Accountant then because I studied Accountancy. After six months, I was transferred to Kano. Although I didn’t want to go to Kano because of the story we used to hear when we were young and I didn’t want to come to Lagos either because of stuff like hustling lifestyle, area boys and other things I heard about Lagos. I didn’t have a choice. It was either I resigned my appointment or I pick one of the stations to go. So I went to Kano reluctantly and I was there for another six years. I was an Assistant Manager in the Finance and Account Department then. I remained there until the accountant then was transferred to the Head Office in Lagos and I was asked to take over from him. I was there until I was asked to come to Lagos and I refused.
They said the vacancy that existed in Lagos will be given to my junior colleague and that will make him my senior. I didn’t want that to happen so I needed to pray to God to help me out of the problems in Lagos. I told my wife and I left on February 23, 1998 and resumed in Lagos as Head of Finance and Account of the company when the former Financial Head got another job and resigned his appointment.
I witnessed the company’s challenging period and contributed to its recovery. I was there when it had financial challenges. Actually, during the former administration, the General Manager was forced to resign and we got a Sole Administrator nominated by NICON Insurance because they were the majority shareholder then.
We were then working with the first Sole Administrator, Hassan Ibrahim. Thereafter, they brought another person who is now late. When he left, the vacancy was opened to contestants. The Chairman of the Board of Inland Containers then was a politician nominated by the Board of NICON Insurance. Luckily, it was a person I knew. He was a corps member when I was in Form 1 in 1977. He didn’t know me again because I was a young schoolboy during his NYSC year.
When the former Sole Administrator left, I told him that as the position was vacant, we should try the people in-house instead of getting someone from outside. Luckily, the day the Board was meeting, since I was acting Sole Administrator, I used to go there to present the quarterly financial position of the company which I did that day. When the issue of the vacant position was discussed, I was asked to excuse them. A lot of discussions took place of which I didn’t know. They eventually asked me to come in again and someone just stood and said congratulations. Courtesy of my former teacher, he said I had become the Chief Executive of ICNL. That was how it happened on November 15, 2002.
Since then, I have been paddling the affairs of the company although the company was in a bad shape; it was bankrupt and nothing was happening. There were a lot of liabilities on ground. The company also owed the staff salary of one year. I had to form a formidable management team and we met almost every day to discuss how the company will move forward.
The following week, I called my colleagues in Lagos, had a meeting with them and told them that we should review our tariff. I asked the question that how long have we been using the current tariff? They said it was up to eight years. I said it was overdue for review. We had to review the tariff to enable us to sustain and make money and we had to be efficient in what we were doing to make our customers happy with us.
I set up a committee to review the tariff. The members brought the tariff and they were adding 10-20 percent and I said it was wrong. As an accountant, I had done my calculation and I had seen the cost per unit. If we came with this recommendation, we will continue to remain in the same position. I picked the tariff myself and worked on it. I used about 120 percent increase. By that time, we were charging about N40,000 to over N80,000 per 20 foot and one by 40 was over N130,000 from over N80,000.
Before I went ahead, I had to play politics with it. After our discussion at the Head Office, I went to Kaduna to seek the support of my big customers. I told the biggest of them of whom I don’t want to mention. He asked if that was what I wanted and I said yes. He said they were ready to support me. He said they will talk to others but I was to get involved in a trade by barter with him. He said he will help me seek others’ support but I will provide employment to two persons. I told him to bring them. He gave me two CVs. One passed and the other didn’t pass. I employed the one that passed immediately. The tariff also went through.
When we used the tariff in 2012, from our losses, we made a profit of N100 million. In 2013, we made N17 million. In 2014, we made about N560 million. After I had paid the liability I met, of about N120 million, I came back to the staff that were being owed a year salary including myself because I was in Kano at that time.
The company used to pay us allowance of N500 every week to sustain us instead of paying our salary. When I knew that we had money, I had to pay off the staff arrears and everyone was happy. All those deductions from pension, taxes and those remittances which we were supposed to do which we had not been doing because of our inability to meet up were cleared. The company now came back to shape. Thereafter, I got a new Board of Directors in 2012 to 2013. They worked with me and I got full support from them to promote the company.
I am happy that as the Chief Executive, it was in my time a lot of things happened. I created a department of Human Resource. I also created a Department of Freight Forwarding and Department of Commercial for marketing activities. Thereafter, I registered a subsidiary of the company called Inland Containers Nigeria Limited Logistics which today will be a separate entity under ICNL as a subsidiary for transportation. We then pursued one of the branches of the company which is Kaduna Inland Dry Port. We have been designated as a Dry Port and it is the first in Nigeria today. It is also the first that is functioning though they have some little problems which is normal with new organisations.
Today, by the grace of God, I have retired as timely appointed by God and a new MD has been recruited. He assumed office on May 2, 2024.
How were you able to increase the volume of containers handled by the company?
When I came to Lagos in 1998, the volume of activities had reduced to about 400 containers in a year. The former Chief Executive was asked to resign the year before due to the dwindling fortune of the company. That is why we were unable to meet up with the daily and monthly obligations. When I was in Kano, I used to keep the register as an Assistant Account Manager. We used to get about 1,400, 1,500, 1,600 to 1,800 containers on yearly basis before it reduced to 400. Most of the customers had left because of the nonchalant attitude of the previous management.
After we took over, most of the customers in Kano were friends with us and we had worked together both in Kano and Kaduna, we had to go back to them and talk to them. They listened to us and came back. We were getting increased volume. In 2017 or 2018, the volume increased to about 23,000 per annum. I believe that if it were not for the present economic situation of the country, which includes high duty rate, lack of forex and higher exchange rate, some of our customers would have been able to go for import of foreign items. I think the company is doing around 1,300 or 1,400 containers per month now instead of our target of 1,800 to 2,000. I believe that if the economy improves, the import will also increase and Kaduna Inland Dry Port will also get their share from it.
What were those things you couldn’t implement before leaving as MD/CEO of ICNL?
After increasing the volume of throughput for the company, a challenge I had which I was unable to solve before I left was injection of capital into the business though the shareholders were willing yet unfortunately, we were unable to do it before I left. Another challenge has to do with expansion. My vision for the company is for ICNL to have a branch outside Nigeria, in one of the West African countries. That is one of our visions which we came up with in one of our strategy sessions in the past years but I was unable to achieve that largely due to insecurity issues.
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