Sam Maduka: The ethical transport business operator

With over 21 years in the transportation business, Enugu State-born business mogul, Dr. Sam Onyishi Maduka, is the Managing Director of popular transport company, Peace Mass Transit Limited. Challenging as the transport business may be, Maduka’s company has withered the storm in the past years and still rendering quality services to its customers. In this chat with MUTIAT ALLI, Maduka opens up on what has kept his company growing and challenges amongst others. Excerpts:

How do you manage the competitive nature of the sector? 

I am an ethical operator in the sense that I mind my business. I don’t do anything to undermine other people businesses. I do my competition by working on the road worthiness of my vehicles and by making my firm friendly and I believe in making money through turnover. That is when my profit is low and my turnover is high. I do my competition on the road while some people do theirs on the social media. When your vehicle is involved in an accident, they go and edit it ten times and use it as breaking news. Every day, they post our vehicles as being involved in accidents. We have suffered a lot of social media campaigns.

What edge do you have above others in the transport sector?

The edge I have is that my customers believe in us, despite all this social media campaign. It is because these people have tested our service for many years and they know who we are. We are not going to join them in this social media campaign because if we do, we are going to kill this sector. By the time you start posting my pictures and I start posting yours, this will kill the business and that means our passengers will leave all of us. We are the largest flight operator in Nigeria. It can be investigated. By the time you check Lagos, Port Harcourt, Onitsha, Ibadan, Kano, Kaduna, Abuja, then you know who is who in Nigeria. All these while, they have been lashing us and I just kept quiet because I have so much respect for my colleagues in this business. That is why I am encouraging the Federal Road Safety Commission to come up with a clear term of assessing safety of transport companies and publish it yearly.

What drives you as a businessman or as an entrepreneur? 

Well, as a road transporter, it is by divine guidance. It is not like I sat down and wrote a business plan or said I wanted to go into road transport. I came into road transport out of hardship. I was a bus operator, bus driver, motor parts dealers, but didn’t know God was preparing me for a big operation. I thought I was undergoing hardship. I thought I was working to help my mother because I am the first out of seven children and my father died early when I was in class one. After secondary school, I couldn’t go to the university immediately, so I went into business to support my mother and I didn’t know God had a project for me. I came into this business by divine guidance and since I realised that it was a calling from God, I see it as a ministry and I approached it from the point of view of service to God and humanity. I see transport as my ministry and I use it for service delivery.

How old is Peace Mass Transit?

Peace Mass Transit is 21 years now.

How much of your set goals and aspirations have you achieved?

I have made a success out of the opportunity God has given me. One is that I have run road transport business for 21 years and I have never slept in any hospital in any part of the world. That tells me God is running the business for me. I took my first holiday about six years ago. What other achievement are my looking for? I am not owing anybody.

For the past 21 years that you have been plying your trade as a transport company, what would you say commuters know your company for?

For us, our passengers see and, I think, know us as a transport company that uses the best of buses, the newest buses, all the time; the best quality brand new tyres and we give fares at encouraging tags. We are among the best because we take safety very seriously and I am proud of what I am doing.

In what areas should government intervene in the transport business sector of the country?

They just have to come in immediately. Government should make roads motorable and that is killing the business. We are contributing to the economy of Nigeria and government should not forget us. Another major challenge for us is electricity.

What do you need that for?

We run a workshop and an assembling plant licensed by the Federal Government. I find it difficult to accept that a country that prides herself as one of the oil producing countries in the world is still importing petroleum products. That is one area we also need to work on. When we import everything, we are breeding unemployment and that, in turn, breeds militancy.

What lessons can the younger generation draw from your success story?

I believe that is hard work but success does not come from hard work alone. I have always believed in God. Through the social media, people wished that we pack up in business. The accident they keep peddling happened when a truck left its lane and killed our driver and about eight passengers. The facts are there and even the police and Federal Road Safety Commission exonerated us. My drivers have all been good, if not, how did they grow the business from two buses to 3,000 buses? How come they grew the business to make us the best in the country? Accidents must be treated individually.

As a company, what measures have you put in place to minimize road hazards?

As at today, we remain the first to bring in the speed limiter into this country and we took it to the Federal Road Safety Commission. They adopted it. The former Corp Marshall, Osita Chidoka, came to commission it for us then. PMT remains the first transport company to train over 2,000 drivers in the Road Safety Academy. I always tell my drivers that a driver is more important than a doctor who would work on one patient at a time, together with other nurses, but a driver has the lives of many people in his hands. Passengers should also respect the drivers. If passengers see a driver as a friend, the driver would assume he is carrying his family. Very soon, we are going to start a campaign that would educate passengers on safety measures.

How do you unwind?

It would be difficult to answer because, like I told you, I had my first holiday six years ago. I love spending my time with my wife and children. I also like table tennis. I am not a very sociable person that goes out to drink. Talking about what I like, I would say I like thinking once in a while. I talk about God.