One of Nigeria’s leading logistics company Red Star Express Plc, commemorated its Twenty-Fifth (25^th) anniversary in Grand Style, recently in Lagos. The company began its celebration with the unveil of a 3D version of the 25^th anniversary logo few months back, embarked on a Corporate Social Responsibility tagged ‘SME 1000’ for upcoming entrepreneurs, organised a silver jubilee Annual General Meeting, amongst others. The peak of the celebration was however organised to appreciate staff, customers and all those who had in one way or the other contributed to the success of the company since its existence 25 years ago.

Considered one of the top logistics companies, Red Star Express Plc had been at the fore-front of touching and improving lives for 25 years, and providing quality delivery services people know and trust.

According to the Group Managing Director, Red Star Express Plc, Mr Olusola Obabori, “My number one objective is to make Red Star a bigger and more profitable company, which is why some of our initiatives right now are to open opportunities in sectors we are not currently operating in. With Nigeria coming out of recession, we are optimistic about the future of business.”

In the same vein, the Chairman of the Company, Dr. Mohammed H. Koguna, stated, “I would like to thank the founders – Sonny Allison, Patrick Nwosu, and Eddy Olafeso, for daring to dream; and for showing clearly that Nigerians can set up and run a company that would compete favourably with foreign companies”. He further commended the entire management, staff and customers for their loyalty and selfless service delivery over the years.

Speaking on the 25^th anniversary theme ‘Building for the long haul’, the Executive Director, Sales & Marketing, Red Star Express Plc., Mr Victor Ukwat, said, “The difference we have made in 25 years is in our services and continuous innovations to leave our customers satisfied at all times”.

The Guest Speaker and Chairman, First Bank of Nigeria, Mrs. Ibukun Awosika pointed out in her speech that, having values pays. According to her, having great values and abiding by it has great reward for a length of time, your value system will protect you on your worst days. It will preserve in times of trouble. Let your vision live, let it grow, let it continue to be a value creator. A company that wants to build for the long haul must have the courage to embrace change, your life is a stage and you have an audience. Someday, the things you do as a company would speak for or against you, if you teach people to cheat for you, they will cheat for you.

She reiterated that, having the right values and not compromising pays. It’s about raising entrepreneurs within the enterprise. The importance of making employees vision sharers to keep the business growing is very important.

Maher Hasbini, Managing Director, Middle East, Indian Sub, Africa & Turkey Region, FedEx also graced the occasion.

In the euphoria of the celebration, the anniversary cake was cut, website was unveiled and awards were given, amongst other activities to make every invited high-spirited activities of good cheer.

Red Star Express is a licensee of FedEx (Federal Express), and one of the most reputable companies in the Nigeria logistics industry. Incorporated in October 1992, the company provides a portfolio of logistics solution which includes domestic and international deliveries, freight forwarding, integrated warehousing and haulage services, information and document management, e-Commerce order fulfillment services. Red Star became an Associate of TNT following the acquisition of TNT by FedEx in 2016.

Ford Motor Company in collaboration with its local distributor, Coscharis Motors, has announced its participation as a supporting sponsor of the Next Titan, an entrepreneurial reality show.  A brand-new Ford Ranger will be presented as a prize to the overall winner of the competition to start their new business or to support their existing business.

“We are delighted to be part of the show once again. In 2016, Coscharis Motors sponsored the show for the first time and gave away a brand-new Ford Escape to the winner. The company is proud to support young talented Nigerians by improving mobility and enabling them to run their business more efficiently,” said Abiona Babarinde, General Manager, Marketing and Corporate Communications at Coscharis Motors.

The Next Titan is a global standard television platform and is designed to educate young Nigerians about entrepreneurship, encouraging them to consider this as a career goal and reduce the high rate of unemployment. Sixteen participants, between the ages of 21 and 39, will battle one another in various business tasks, such as strategy, sales, marketing, promotions and others, for ten weeks. During the competition, participants and viewers will get exposure to real life entrepreneurial challenges through informal training and learn from top business leaders. These learnings will be of great use to those who wish to start their own business or grow current businesses. The Next Titan premiered on 08 October 2017 and the winner will be announced on 10 December 2017.

“We at Coscharis Motors are thankful that Ford believes in our mission and vision by providing practical support to our projects. We will continue to work together with Ford to build on skills development and training in the country, not just in the automotive industry but across the board in Nigeria,” said Babarinde.

“We are inspired by the courage and entrepreneurial spirit of young Nigerians and wish them luck during the competition,” he concluded.

About Ford Motor Company
Ford Motor Company is a global company based in Dearborn, Michigan. The company designs, manufactures, markets and services a full line of Ford cars, trucks, SUVs, electrified vehicles and Lincoln luxury vehicles, provides financial services through Ford Motor Credit Company and is pursuing leadership positions in electrification, autonomous vehicles and mobility solutions. Ford employs approximately 203,000 people worldwide.

A multi-million Naira Youth Farming Initiative that will engage teeming unemployed Nigerian graduates in rice farming has been launched by the Dangote Rice Limited in Kogi State.
This is even as the Company prepares to hit the market with One million metric tons of Dangote rice in 2018.
The Dangote Youth Rice Farm project, mainly an out-grower scheme for youths only was flagged off at the Lower Niger River Basin Authority, Kampe, Ejiba in Yagba West local government area of the state where youth have embarked on rice cultivation over 100 hectares of land.
The rice farm project, which was preceded by a special training for the youth farmers on the dynamics of the rice farming, will see the youths cultivating the rice paddy on a 100 hectares of land, which will then be bought over by the company for processing.
Under the scheme, the Dangote Rice Company provides the seedling, anti-pest-chemicals, and fertilizers while the Basing Authority provided the land for the young farmers.
The management of Dangote Rice led by the Group Executive Director, Mr. Devakumar Edwin flagged off the project while taking delivery of some rice paddy bags produced from the pilot project.
Mr. Edwin explained that the project is a new dimension to the efforts by the pan-African conglomerate, the Dangote Group, at ensuring food security and creating job opportunities in Nigeria especially for the youths saying this Initiative is in line with the vision and commitment of Dangote Industries Limited to create a new generation of agri-preneur that will revolutionize the Nigerian agricultural sector.
“We believe skill, knowledge, enabling environment, collaboration and linkages along the value chain are driving forces for economic empowerment and social development in line with the Federal Government policies. This project will address the skills gap in local rice production among unemployed youths by providing technical, organisational and financial requirements.”
He said it would also enhance domestic rice production to cover the large gap between demand and domestic production and to increase self-sufficiency of Nigeria and substitute imported rice by quality Nigerian rice brands.
Mr. Edwin disclosed that most modern rice mills in Nigeria presently operate at not more than 20% capacity utilization due mainly to lack of good quality paddy and that Dangote Rice aimed to change this situation developing and adapting out-grower schemes. According to him, the Dangote Rice Company plans to set up a 150,000 metric tons integrated rice mill and sale one million mt of parboiled rice by 2018.
The Dangote Group boss stated that the decision of the management to start the project was driven by two factors, one of which is the need for youth employment through empowerment to go into agriculture. “The youths are more vulnerable to crimes and other social vices when they have nothing to engage them and this in turn affect the nation negatively.
“The second factor is the need to strengthen the on-going efforts at producing rice for self-sufficiency so that we can save foreign exchange. By the time we will be doing one million metric tons of rice next year, no less than three million jobs would been created along the value chain.”
Mr. Edwin said the Kogi pilot project will cover four season of two years and will be launched in four other states soon.
In his own remark, the Managing Director of Dangote Rice, Mr. Robert Coleman urged the youth farmers to concentrate on the project and pay attention to details so that they would come out with good paddy yield.
He congratulated the farmers for the decision to partner with Dangote Rice noting that they have a solid source of livelihood for themselves and members of their families if they give their all for the success of the scheme.