Even before his appointment as Chairman, Federal Road Safety Commission (FRSC), Felix Chukwu, businessman and politician, had carved a niche for himself on account of his philanthropist disposition and leadership of various organisations.
Toasted by his admirers as one with pleasant and unassuming personality, an encounter with him readily gives indication of one with great intellect and poise.
A scion of 94-year-old Nze I.N. Chukwu and a septuagenarian mother from Amuzi in Ahiazu Mbaise Local Government Area of Imo State, Chukwu had, through hard work, nurtured and grown his private business before his national engagement. He is, for instance, Chairman/CEO of Mcquintus Limited, an information technology (IT) company with international certification in Microsoft, Dell and HP range of computer and accessory distributorship.
The firm, he tells TheNiche, is providing IT solutions to various sectors of Nigerian economy with branches in Abuja, Lagos, Port Harcourt, Owerri, among others.
With outstanding experience in salesmanship, Chukwu is hardly deterred by obstacles, as he stresses rather that they are necessary for success.
According to him, in marketing, as in all careers of importance, success comes only after many struggles and countless defeats.
This, he insists, sees each struggle, each defeat sharpening one’s skills and strengths, their courage and endurance potential, as well as their ability and confidence levels.
To conquer failure and frustration, he believes, one must remain intensely-focused on the outcome, not the obstacles. This, he advises, is because success is determined not by whether or not you face obstacles, but by your reaction to them.
How did he find himself at the commanding height of the FRSC board and his vision for the agency?
Chukwu recalls that he had always been a very busy man running his businesses before he was fished out to be part of the FRSC revolution, adding, however, that the position is part-time, thus not interfering with the running of his chain of businesses.
He says: “I remain grateful to His Excellency, President Goodluck Jonathan, for finding me worthy for appointment as chairman of a very important agency as FRSC. As I have always said, as a person, I see the gesture as a recognition and appreciation of some of my efforts unknown to me.
“My vision for FRSC is simply in line with the mission statement and vision of FRSC. In fact, coming to the FRSC board, I discovered it is not an easy task. It is a very crucial and challenging assignment; an assignment that borders on making Nigerian roads good and safe, ensuring that vehicles that ply the roads are in good order and in line with acceptable international standards.The truth is that before now, I never understood the proactive contributions of FRSC to life sustenance when I saw them on the road; but today, I know better.”
He even provides insight into reasons behind the difficulty in getting driver’s licence, advising Nigerians to exercise patience. To him, it is an exercise that FRSC must not fail to get right, to achieve desired purpose.
“Yes, we are aware it is cumbersome; I mean the process of getting driver’s licence. There are bottlenecks here and there, but I also want to tell you that it is better to suffer a little inconvenience now and then have very good result than to have it done very fast and at the end of the day the purpose is not achieve. The purpose of the driver’s licence actually is to have a good database for road-users; to save ourselves from some of the avoidable anomalies. So, Nigerians must exercise patience with FRSC.
“For instance, if you commit traffic offence, it will be easier now to track you down. If you have a problem with the FRSC and they book you, we have a way of making sure we note such offence on your driver’s licence and at a stage, once you get to some point, we will withdraw the licence from you. So, because you know that FRSC will withdraw your driver’s licence and it is not possible for you to get another one, you will be very careful. If we withdraw your driver’s licence from you, you cannot go to any other state to get another one because nobody will issue such to you.
“Today, you can go to another state and get your passport, but by the time we perfect our system, you cannot get another driver’s licence if we withdraw it. With time, we will get a driver’s licence that will endure, that will enable us know who and who are booked. It will enable us know your data, know where you live, know the more cars you have and know how to catch you when we are looking for you. Instead of chasing you around, we just leave you because we will always catch you with your details that we have.
“We are going to have a very solid database which can be used by the police, by the State Security Service (SSS) and other intelligence agencies or by anybody to track down people. Like in this Boko Haram situation where they carry different bombs to go and bomb places, if this driver’s licence is well implemented, we will be able to track down many things. So we are trying to protect and safeguard so many things beyond road usage,” he said.
Given his background, he says he does not find it difficult combining business with his FRSC assignment, since it is a part-time appointment.
His words: “They only give me sitting allowance, and that is not enough for one to abandon his business. I have taken time to nurture and grow my business. I cannot abandon it. I have always been a businessman. I started business the moment I left the university. I started working with a company called Rapido Ventures Limited, a company that pioneered the sale of educational equipment, audio visuals etc. Then I was a salesman. I sold magnetic blackboards and other educational materials in the North – in Maiduguri,Abuja,Kano and Jos – and to so many universities.When I left Rapido, I set up my own company, Mcquintus Nigeria Limited. We are involved in computer business. It started as one-man business; but today, our staff strength is quite high.”
Chukwu holds the traditional title of Omekaozuo I of Odinaizuoha Autonomous Community of Amuzi, Ahiazu Mbaise, and the Nwannedinamba I of Lorji in Aboh Mbaise LGA of Imo State.