You have heard how she abandoned her promising banking career for an uncertain foray into Agriculture, and you must have also read how she was unperturbed about people’s reaction and opinion about her decision. Well, yes, she left the bank for the bush and she is still there pursuing her passion. As would be expected, she is happy about what she does, and has been making tremendous progress in her Agricultural business.

Felicia Abbey, a former banker with the United Bank of Africa (UBA) and mother of two, became a rave of the Internet and a household name when news of her decision to quit her career in the financial services sector to go into the agricultural sector. Though, seen then as a no brainer, that career call at that critical moment has paid off mighty.

Abbey spoke with Godswill Jumbo, Kristina Reports’ Publisher/Editor-in-Chief on her experience pursuing the realisation of her decision, the challenges and joys of being enmeshed in one’s passion, and some words of counsel to upcoming entrepreneurs. Enjoy the excerpts:  

Where did this much talked about story of ‘from bank to bush’ start?

Thank you very much. It started in August 2013, inside the boat as I was traveling to Port Harcourt that day. Earlier before then, I was like, I need a plan B, not just needing a plan B, at a stage I was putting it into prayer like asking God, what do I do in Bonny? Before I joined the banking industry, I have done all these small, small run-around businesses. So, I was trying to ask God to direct me on something that would be different. That day it was in the boat. It was as if, like this discussion we are holding, like a trance, somebody was talking to me, why not begin to process garri? I was like, garri??? A kind of shock. I said, garri? I woke up and just said when I got to where I was going I brought out my things and put it down on my diary. And I begin to pray, like my late bishop, Bishop Ademola Ade-Otoki, he would say ‘every word that drops into your mind, turn it into a prayer’. I said ‘God, if this is your voice then bring it to pass. Then all of a sudden, I don’t have fear again. That same year, after few months I was called by my landlord to come and buy here. Though I have my own inside, I can’t really do anything there. You know our terrain. So, I was called to come and buy here. I got this place and a little bit I wanted to deviate. This building somehow was not really meant for living but I later transformed it into a residential building.

When I got that revelation I was like, Oh God direct me. I began to make research on so many things. Though right now, that particular vision is just pending. It is pending because we don’t have access road, let me just say, access to dry land because, right now in Bonny, you can’t find a good dry land where you can plant cassava, maybe many acres of land that you would be harvesting, making your business and you will not run out of cassava. That is why that dream is pending. Though in our villages you can find such land. That was how the whole thing started. At the end of the day, I began to go out in the morning and come back in the night. I began to crave for fresh things. I like fresh foods, as in when you mean fresh not as in fresh fish, if you are cooking your vegetables, okra, pepper, all those other things, let them be fresh. So, I began to crave for them and I began to ask myself one or two questions. I don’t know how to get there but let me just concentrate on this one. Everyday the work is turning to something else. You work from Monday to Monday, you don’t even have any time for yourself. I don’t attend any function because if you invite me I will not come. I is always if you are not on duty, you are going for marketing. If you are not going for marketing, you will be in the office looking for files. A kind of triangular life. I was so fed up and I said no, I can’t continue my life like this. That was how I began to like think of an alternative like pursuing the dream of making garri. I said I need to leave this job and focus on the dream. People were like, how is the salary? This suit that we are wearing, I don’t know what is in that suit because if you ask me I can’t tell you. Suit deceives people. People are like, ahh! You that is working in the bank? I will tell them I am dying here, you people should help me. One or two persons will like ‘you leave that thing, this kind better work wey you dey work na im you go leave?’ Some of our Bonny brothers will tell me, ‘if you comot for here who go attend to us?’ At the end of the day I made up my mind. So, I just made up my mind that I would go. And my colleagues were like, ‘you want to leave bank work?’ ‘What do you want to go and do?’ And I said farm. They said farm?

One unique thing is this: I don’t know where the confidence was coming from but I am this kind of person that anytime God is involved, I have a strong heart. As per, nothing is happening, just go ahead and do what you want to do. The thing is that I have looked round Bonny. What is happening and what is not happening in Bonny? It is only in this Agric sector that nothing is happening. Nobody wants to even venture there. When we were growing up, you know if you go to this waterside you are talking about now, in the days of my secondary school, I go to school, I come back, my aunty will say, ‘Oya, carry fish go and sell’. Her husband just returned from fishing. These things were available then because people were cultivating. Right now, nothing, nothing. So, I just said, okay, if that is the case, let me just do the extraordinary, which is let me go into this farming.

I was transferred 2016 November to Abonnema. So, I went there and while I was calculating myself, I was also thinking of how to do it. A kind of short term stuff that will fetch or recoup. So, I planted one or two things. I planted Ogu (pumpkin leaves) there, I planted pepper, I planted scent leaves, and okra, all those things. They came out small, small, especially the pepper did very well. So, that was what happened. I now made up my mind to come and establish the business well, as in go into it properly. That was how I left the banking industry to the farm. Before then I know I met this lady, Mrs. Ibimina Jumbo. She was like doing small, small. We were also interacting on how to go about it. When I came back that was how I started. By this time, because it was August 24th, 2017, that was when I left the bank. I followed the normal procedure. So, it is two years now.

So, two years down the line, how has the journey been?       

Well, it has been a great one and everyday I begin to love what I am doing. I begin to love it not because of mainly the things I get. Yes, we work for purpose, they say the aim of business is to maximise profit or to make profit but, in this case, I am so glad that a Bonny woman, in that matter, and people will always say ‘Hmmm, God forbid, me I not fit try this kind thing. Leave bank work, say wetin?’ Those suits are just hanging there, I hardly wear suits. Beside when I was not working in the bank or anywhere, I like, you see these my toe nails, they grow very well, I don’t like putting them inside shoes. So, wearing shoes was just like killing myself. But right now, though, we have not gotten there I think that if we continue like this and have a better place to farm.

Are you saying that you are deriving that satisfaction in finding your purpose in life?

Yes, I don’t know the word to qualify it. Deep down in my heart, look at my son, he will tell you that sometimes, he will pray that rain falls so that his mummy will not go out. I will tell him ‘shut that your mouth’. (Laughs) No, no, no, you can’t keep me in the house. Like, last year, by this time I was in the house, that was my first year, the experience was not wild. But this time, I said, no. Now, I have a small portion of land somebody gave to me that he is not using yet. So, let me go and do something there rather than staying in the house. The only thing I have, I told you I have tenants here which you will later see. That is the business I do right now as I am in the house now. But to God be the glory I ventured into something three weeks ago and I think I have a better result and it is giving me joy. These are the vegetable I told you I planted two weeks ago, these are pumpkins. (Shows reporter on her phone camera). I planted more today. I did some yesterday.

When you plant these crops how do you evacuate them, as in market them? Do you have customers who buy direct from you or you have to go retail them yourself?

I have customers that come to buy. I have this woman or young lady that sells at the market there, she comes to buy. And right now, as we speak, the vegetable market is there but we don’t have it in the market. Even if you go to the market right now, what you will see there are not really what you will like, like the fresh vegetables you need to cook or use for your food. They are mostly worn out unlike the fresh ones coming from the farm. I don’t like that retailing of a thing because sometimes you end up having problems with people. Most times, like sometimes, my neighbours, they will say, ‘please, please’. And I told them, ‘you people should gather yourself. I can bring N500 worth of vegetables for you and you share it among yourself’. That is what I do. But mainly we sell to the wholesale people and they retail for the customers. 

Apart from the pumpkin leaves, what other crops do you do and which animals do you rear?

I have goats and chickens now in my poultry, just in my backyard here.

You do both the meat and the eggs?

The eggs, yes, but not really as in large quantities. And that was last year. Last year was my starting point. I started last year, January. Even the goats, I started last year, January too. I just want to test run a specie of those chicken. It is norla. The norla is the half agric and half native. They said that the hens after five months they start laying (eggs) on their own. That was what happened. And that last year I had more than twenty something of them and they were laying. That was how I was able to sell some eggs. But this year, I talked to one or two persons, when they see the real nola, like the male (cocks) they get to this height, about two feet from the floor. So, they now begin to like, ‘please oh, I will buy from you when you bring new ones’. So, I bring in, I nurse them for five, six weeks and then sell them off to people that want to retrain. That is how we do it. That is why I don’t have much eggs this time to sell because the ones I brought in they almost bought all apart from the cockerel. The lady just sent the cockerel to me I don’t know but that was not what I asked for. As for the crops, we do cucumber, okra, pepper, tubers, like yam, cassava, then we plant corn. We just follow the trend. Last year, I test ran water melon and it came out well too.

Looking at what you have done, so far, it appears you are opening up new vistas of prospects for your business, especially, in this Agric sector. In terms of scaling up funding for what you do, how have you been able to go about that? Is it your personal funds or you are getting funding from the government or from the private sector, like banks?

I started all alone, right from when I left the banking industry, it will surprise you, (unfolds a letter) this was what I came back home with from my organization. I came back and started struggling on my own because I did not keep anything anywhere, like I told you earlier. When I made up my mind to go that was when I converted this place to a living place. By then I was living at Akiama; I rented a place, one bedroom flat. So, I said now that you want to enter this way you better cut your coat according to your material. So, I had to come and do all these things. After doing it, I had no money anywhere. I just came back and with the help of my brother. We were about traveling when they paid me this (amount inside letter of disengagement). So, when they paid me the money I showed it to my senior brother. He said, ‘what kind of nonsense is this, for almost nine years?’ So, he didn’t say anything. Later that year, around December, he called me to his place and said please, he has his own problems. I said, ‘no, I am not expecting from you. It is a decision I took on my own. So, I am not expecting anything from anybody. He now said ‘Ok, this is a little token I have for you’. He gave me N15,000. That was what I used to start my chicken runs. For the farming itself, I had to scout for money to do it on my own. From that first year to this day that I am sitting here with you there is nothing from anybody from anywhere. I am just doing my business all alone. And right now, I find more joy in it because it is what I want to do. One or two persons have talked to me about partnerships, though they are just individuals. They say, ‘Oh, I want to partner with you’. But because I know what is there – I had to let go of the white collar job to do it – so, you don’t say you are partnering with me and go and sit down in your house and expect me to share the profit with you. So, I don’t welcome it.

Why so? Are you looking at them bringing their own funds? Was that the idea?    

Yes.

So they bring in their own funds and that is their own contribution to the business?

Yes.

And you didn’t want it like that?

No, no, no.

You are putting in your own funds and you are on the field, so you equally expect the other persons to do the same…

Yes. Now, even while we were on the field, two of us were from Bonny while the other guy is from Ogoni. We were just like three persons that were just doing things in common. So, one time, we just said why not we look for a place and do cucumber and see what goes on? We tried it and it came out fine. So, at the end of the day you find out that you are just the only one doing the work. When it comes to harvest, you say let’s harvest now and someone will say ‘you people should harvest, I will bag them’. When it comes to bagging and now everything has time. I can’t go to farm in the morning except our planting season. If we are planting, I can leave my home let say by 7 or after 7 in the morning and come back say by 5 in the evening because sometimes in your field too you go out like that but it is not always. So, if we are harvesting the person should have time. If you go out in the morning from 8am till 12noon, 1pm, you should be rounding up. And at the end of the day somebody will just keep you there and you end up going back home in the evening again. So, looking at the whole thing I told them I said ‘look, I don’t want to quarrel with anyone. I did not quarrel in the bank. So, I will not come to the bush and quarrel’. The only thing is that by next year, everybody should just try, just put in more effort, go and do your own. Then we will later think if we will do the corporate one. That was how we just killed that one. The work was just being done by two persons while at the end of the day we share the money equally. I was the person that said, No, after harvesting you can’t carry. If there is another work I don’t like doing it is to carry something on this head. After bending down, carrying something on my head is a big challenge. And even if you want to carry, how many will you carry, and the distance. So, it is the young man that was carrying everything. So, after everything I said let us just add two thousand naira to his own money. So, it was from there I now said if we must do this, just go and do your own and I do my own so that at the end of the day we would not be frowning our face at each other. So that is just the truth about it.

How were you able to overcome those challenges, especially, those parochial mentality, people’s comments about your leaving the bank to come and do this? And then the challenging business terrain and you as a woman having to go through all of this without a husband, male support or staff to work with…  

The thing there is that, one, coming from the bank to the bush, before I left my mind was settled and then I don’t have friends. Not like I don’t have friends, I have friends, you know the ones you wave, the one you greet, just that shabby, shabby kind of friends. Now, when I left this job, people were like ‘why did you leave?’ ‘Are you sure?’ I got angry and for some of them if I explain to you as per somebody I can talk to and you don’t want to hear, I tell them ‘go out there, I thief, na im make me comot’. You understand me? What I wanted to do last time was to snap this (disengagement) letter and put it out. Cos I was celebrating my two years in the business. But I held myself back. You don’t follow the way people talk. As you can see I voluntarily resigned without any issues. I didn’t commit any crime. I was not working as an office assistant. I was not working as a cleaner. I was working at the counter there for eight years and ten months. I worked in even the vault. In UBA, Bonny, the only table I did not work was the operations manager’s table, the customer service table and that of the manager. Those are the three seats I did not occupy. I was in every other one. And I believe I did not fail anybody. So, when I came out my mind was made up and I tried as much as possible to keep away from those people who don’t appreciate your value. I hardly go to functions. I avoid them because it is from our interaction that you will tell me what you want to tell me. Since I know I don’t have that shoe to attend whatever they are attending, I avoid them and I avoid anything that will bring us discussing. Funnily, even when you are on your own they will still come and tell you. So, it is all about you, what you have made up your mind to do. Sometimes, it is those elderly women that will come and after you attend to them, they will tell you ‘my daughter, you are doing well but this bank work you left it is not good’. I will reply them, ‘Ma, leave it like that’. I will ask them ‘Why asking me?’ ‘Why didn’t you ask me when I was looking a job, why am I looking for work?’ it is the same person that went to look for work that is the same person that said I don’t want to work again. I have not come to beg you. And by the special grace of God I don’t visit people so that you don’t think she is coming for help or anything. So, that was how I settled that one. I advise people to utilise every opportunity that comes their way. I dey train animals, so, most times, when I come market, I dey find animal food carry go’. ‘Ahhh! Igbo woman, you no go kill me’. That was how she reacted. Under the bags I was carrying that particular day were bitter leaves stems I would plant in my farm.

What is the net worth of your business as at now?

My net worth right now…starting from here: the ones here, the animals of a thing, everything here in my compound here is about four hundred thousand. Then you know I am using the farm own to service this one. Then the farm own is about five hundred and something thousand.

So we are looking at an average of about a million naira? From ten thousand to over a million in a space of two years.

Yes.  

That sounds like exponential growth…

Yes. After all, you are the CEO of your company and the company is doing well. It is not because of other people’s failure or success. I am not saying they did not work but you are the engine room. Even when others don’t make input you are there to ensure everything goes well. Look at my nails, since I came back I have not done my nails. I do the planting myself. You can come and dig the hole but I do the planting. You understand. But if I am paying him for digging the hole, paying him for planting that means whether you plant it well or not I will just end up not having anything. You have to put in something just like you said that even in the days of manna. When t falls you have to go out and pack it and prepare it for eating.