Her story is the proverbial rise from grass to grace. Her doggedness, determination and steadfastness paved the way for her.  At 70, Ms Lucy Jonah is a reference point in the league of successful entrepreneurs, especially in the area of commercial printing and publishing. Recall, the CEO of Prompt Enterprises, Nigeria handles printing jobs for virtually all the banks in the country prior to the crash of the capital market recently. Her company worked for all the issuing houses in the country in addition to other top companies.

So far, Lucy has authored four books including EHIANUKA (God Heard The Gossips). The book is an expose on her life; her failed marriage; her start up in life and lots more. She spoke with Effects about life lessons in this interview.

You had a humble beginning but today you are a successful businesswoman, can you tell us how you started, did you start with 10,000, 100,000 or more?

I didn’t even have N10, 000 when I started. I actually went out of my way to write my autobiography, which I did just to motivate people. To let them know that determination, hard work, resilience together with the grace of God can go a long way.

When you say successful, what is successful for one person may not be successful for the other. When I consider the fact that I started with absolutely nothing, I have the cause to be grateful to God. I left paid employment because I was sick for a long time. For about seven years, I couldn’t function. Infact, I thought I was going to die. Each time I went back to work, I relapsed and meanwhile, the little money I had I used it on medical treatment. So, things got to a stage that I had to leave paid employment. When I was leaving employment I wasn’t sure of what I was going to do but I had it in mind that I knew a few companies I could do supply for. I didn’t even think where the money would come from. Unfortunately, I left employment and I was not paid my gratuity. I had already left before I realized I was not going to be paid after working eight years in the organization and the condition of service says gratuity should be paid after 5 years. I needed to survive, my health was not good, I was offered a number of employment but I said to myself, do I wait for a new job today I’m out of work and tomorrow I have health issues. I stepped out to look for something to do. I have so many dependants, I had to pay my house rent, run my car. I even owed the bank. I had to take money from the bank to supplement my treatment. It was a long story but thank God for today.

Your type of business is reserved for men, how have been able to succeed in that terrain?

I would say I was one of the few women that started printing. When I went looking for jobs then because I was marketing my products myself, men would sneer at me. I went to a big company in those days for printing jobs when I started afresh. The men looked at me and burst into laughter. The man in charge spoke in a language, he didn’t know I understood. He said look at this one, instead of her to say she’s looking for men she said she’s looking for printing job. I pretended I didn’t hear what they are saying. They said among themselves, give her the printing job. You know she won’t be able to do it and with that, she won’t come back. They went to the warehouse, gathered three samples and told me ‘we are giving you a maximum of two weeks to produce the job as a sample. If you do it, we give you more.’ I was leaving but they were making jest of me that they had gotten rid of me. Within a week I produced the job.

and brought it. They were shocked. They said okay, we can’t allow her to throw away her money like this, then they gave me a printing job. These are the kinds of obstacles that I came across.it took a lot of courage, a lot of determination for a woman to stand her ground in a world that is dominated by men.

You were 70 years old last year what is the secret to your good looks?

It’s the grace of God; a clean mind; trying to avoid trouble as much as possible, contentment.  I don’t expect too much from life. I do exercise, I don’t go to gym any more but I have a trainer that comes to the house. It became expensive because of the downturn of the economy. I also have a sauna in my house. I do my sauna once a week. I live mostly on fruits. It isn’t the consciousness that I want to look good, I have a stomach that cannot tolerate a lot of food so I had to work out what I can eat that my stomach could tolerate. I take a glass of smoothie everyday that is usually made up of four vegetables, four fruits blended together. That is my soft drink. Let me also warn you, that is not the secrets because I know people who are also doing that. Whatever we are is the grace of God.

Most women hide their real age? For you to claim 70 years I believe you but you don’t look it.

I don’t hide my age because I started struggling early in life as a teenager, therefore why should I hide my age. Infact people who knew when I started struggling will think I’m more than 70 years because of the time I started struggling. I have wonderful children; whatever I’m not able to do that now that I’m older, my children do it for me.

You are fashionable too, what informs your dress sense?

Every woman loves something good but I don’t go for expensive things. I like to look good, but I don’t go in for very expensive stuffs. The shoe I’m wearing is about 5 years old but still looking new. One problem Nigerians have is that we are too wasteful. We throw away a lot of money. Nigerians throw away a lot of money. When you are throwing away 100-2000 naira you think its small money but by the time you gather 100-200 naira in 10 places, it gets into a very big amount of money. We are very wasteful, we spend a lot of money on fashion, and we want to be like the joneses.

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Why do you say we are wasteful in Nigeria?

I live in a community where people living around me are mostly poor people. I live in Shomolu, Lagos. I live in the very good part of Shomolu but the houses around me are not that …but come and see how they spend money. It’s unbelievable. How can a husband, wife and children in one room or a room and parlour; when they want to celebrate, they will buy a cow. It just looks like madness to me. Nigerians waste a lot of money and I see a lot of them around me. I see women who don’t cook in their homes they buy food. It’s more expensive to buy food than to cook. Its not that these women go to work, they stay full time in the house. We waste a lot of investible money in this country. I always preach in my house that whatever you throw away doesn’t come back; whatever you waste doesn’t come back too.

What has life taught you as a person?

Resilience, hard work, prayers and also I would like to say that difficulties fix you up. It fixes your character, it fixes all in you. If I didn’t go through all these things, I won’t be who I am today. I also want to say that it’s not every woman that is meant for marriage. The issue of marriage is excellent, but people should bear in mind that sometimes it doesn’t work for everybody.

Women maintain MRS once they are married and have children in the marriage but you have chosen the title of Ms. What informs that?

The problem is that women don’t have confidence in themselves. The truth is that when you don’t bear MRS they look down on you. But what does it matter? I have been able to prove my mettle. Initially, everybody was saying why drop the name but why should I keep a name that doesn’t belong to me? I still have a problem. When I put Ms Jonah or Miss Jonah they will change it to Mrs. for me and I will correct them. We have a problem in this part of the world. There are some people who are bearing Mrs. of their fathers name just to satisfy society. I know a lot of women they bear Mrs., that Mrs. is their father’s name because they don’t want people to laugh at them that they are single.

We have a long way to go. In the western world, it’s not like that. It’s only in this part of world that such a thing happens. Marriage doesn’t make a woman, it’s very important to be married but it doesn’t mean that once you are married your identity gets swallowed up completely. Until I wrote EHIANUKA a lot of women used to look at me somehow in my church because I belong to different committees in my church. When they are introducing themselves you hear Mrs., Chief Mrs, and when it’s my turn I say Ms. Jonah and they would all look at me. By the time I launched my book in 2006, those who are looking at me with disdain started having respect for me. My office became a sort of pilgrimage, they said I have a lot of courage to throw my life open. That’s the problem of womanhood. When you don’t throw your life open you don’t allow other women to learn lessons from your own life experience. I tell you that immediately I launched this book they now have a lot of respect for me. 

But you still look beauty at 70, why didn’t you give marriage another shot since your first marriage ended at age 22?

God forbid. Did you hear me? God forbid: I have been single virtually all my life. I was actually married for only four years and it will be a curse on me now. I have nothing to do with men, I don’t have business with them, and I don’t want them for anything aside for my business. At age 70? That will be madness. The moment I had my daughter I was done with men. It was the pressure from my parents that got me into having my son. Like I told women, they are depending too much on men and it’s the bane of women I don’t need a sleeping partner, I have been able to bring up myself to occupy myself with other things not the mundane things.

How do you relax?

I write and I sing. I’m not a chorister but I sing to entertain myself. I wake up in the morning to sing praises to God.

What advice do you have for women in business?

It is not easy. They should be ready to face the ups and downs. They must develop the ability to persist; ability to be committed to what you are doing even if it’s not working. Your ability to continue to think of a better way to do things, so the problem with women is that because they know they can depend on men, they may not be able to have that endurance, that persistence, that resilience that will make them to get to a certain point in life. My advice is, if you are a woman, you are going into business for the sake of business and you have a man that is providing all your needs, that is settled. But if you are going to business to carve a niche for yourself, get ready to ride the waves.