After a fruitless search for a white-collar job, Ubong Ekpo, a resident of Dape community in the Federal Capital Territory Abuja and a second-class upper graduate of political science, engaged in various small-scale businesses before he set up a car wash centre.
“I graduated from university of Maiduguri and served in Niger State for the compulsory one-year National Youth Service Corp . After my service, I decided to venture into a small business by opening a restaurant. At first, I started by selling roasted chicken by the roadside and from the little profit I made, I was able to secure a place to expand the business to include full bar services and football viewing center.
“Upon completing the project, I started sourcing for fund again to resuscitate my business but before I could do that, the owner of the land where I sited my business drove everybody away and erected a four storey building there, that was how the business crashed and I returned to square one”. “Setting up this business was a kind of challenging to me because I had little or no experience in it. I did a feasibility study and came up with a budget plan to start up the business but surprisingly, I still needed additional cash of almost half of my initial budget”.“It was hectic but eventually, I pulled through and started the business. This was at the peak of the lockdown and gradually things improved. Currently, I have two boys that are working with me and making a living out of it.