USAfricaBUSINESS: Dr. Prince Nwaorgu on why he relocated from Dallas to Nigeria to set up businesses

USAfrica BUSINESS Profile: Dr. PRINCE NWAORGU, pharmacist, CEO of D’Emporia mini-mall and NaijaBucks on “WHY I LEFT DALLAS TO SET UP BUSINESSES IN NIGERIA….”

Q&A by Dr. Chido Nwangwu, Founder & Publisher, USAfrica multimedia networks (Houston), USAfricaonline.com & CLASSmagazine  

Special to USAfricaonline.com, CLASSmagazine,  and USAfrica multimedia networks, Houston. Follow USAfrica at Facebook.com/USAfricaChido , Facebook.com/USAfrica247 and Twitter.com/Chido247

USAfrica/CLASSmagazine/Chido: Tell us about your mini-mall project.

Dr. Prince Nwaorgu: Our name “D’Emporia” is short for Du Prince Emporia which is a subsidiary of Du Prince Health Systems, Ltd.; a limited liability company founded by Dr. Prince Nwaorgu in 2011. D’Emporia is an American-Style mini-mall located inside Magodo GRA Phase 2, Shangisha, Lagos, Nigeria.  This “one-stop shop” Mall offers the following: Pharmacy, Supermarket, Celebration Palace (similar to an American Chuck-E-Cheese), Yogurt In Love (an American non-fat yogurt franchise), Naija*Bucks (a Nigerian version of Starbucks ), Boutique, a high-end Restaurant, Courtyard Cafe featuring a big carousel and a 5D Movie theater.

D’Emporia offers an amazing food and fun place for all that seek a unique, customer-service-oriented environment for shopping, relaxing and family entertainment.

What inspired you to undertake this project in Lagos, from far-away Dallas?

 It’s true that Lagos is a major economic center in Nigeria, but what inspired me to undertake this project is more than a place; it’s about my love for my country and the desire to do my part as a a patriotic citizen of Nigeria.  For years, like most, I have been critical of everything wrong with Nigeria without doing anything to effect the change we all seek.  In order to get off the sidelines and become a change agent, I thought it necessary to relocate back home and help create job opportunities for our youth who are graduating in record numbers without any job prospects. D’Emporia @ Magodo is hiring 60 new employees and there’s a plan in place to open more similar mini-malls in major Nigerian cities.

What should the average Nigerian need to know about what you offer? 

I do not believe there is an average Nigerian when it comes to our individual desires for a safe and authentic product; which D’Emporia guarantees to all our customers.  So to avoid selling fake products, D’Emporia procures all its products from the United States and Europe only. From our beautiful and clean store environment to our impeccably personalized customer service, D’Emporia exposes our customers to a shopping experience like no other.

What are your key achievements and challenges to date?

[Chuckling] The word achievement is an elusive one right now. However, opening this first location is a major step in that achievement direction.  Personally, I have opened and operated two successful multi-million dollar pharmacies in the U.S. Prior to that, I managed 25 pharmacies for a Fortune 500 company.  In 1992, I established Du Prince International which was a major procurement company responsible for supplying the then Nigerian military government with military man packs and IWL satellite phones.  But none of these accomplishments have been easy.  My biggest challenge was literally transplanting my wife and I from the United States to Nigeria.  It wasn’t easy, I must confess. But it’s doable and I encourage others to take a chance.

What do you do, professionally; and tell us about your leadership style and hopes?

I am a clinical pharmacist, with a doctor of pharmacy degree.  My leadership style involves motivating and empowering employees. My hope is that these employees will one day start their own businesses and our country will be better for it.

Any role models?

Yes.  I have many role models. One of them is the former governor of Cross River State, Donald Duke.  He [the Governor] taught me, through his own personal life story, that my star will shine the brightest in Nigerian skies than anywhere else. President Obama taught me that “we are the ones we are waiting for.” And the Lagos State Governor, Gov. Fashola proved to me that good governance is alive and possible in Nigeria.

I will like to say to anyone who believes that it will take a “Revolution” to change our country, that the Revolution has already begun. Many of the people who have relocated back to Nigeria are gradually effecting change in their businesses and communities and consequently revolutionizing the way some of our people see or do things. Yes, this is not a revolution of pitch forks and blood, but of sacrifice and patriotism.

Thank you and congratulations. © USAfrica/ChidoNwangwu, August 2014

• This exclusive feature will also appear in the August-September 2014 print special edition of USAfrica CLASSmagazine.

#Achebe USAfrica Founder Dr. Chido Nwangwu gets award for his works on#ThingsFallApart author Chinua Achebe from ASA-USA Dallas. Chido is completing the book on Mandela & Achebe: Footprints of Greatness. by Chido Nwangwu ISBN 978-0-9893970-0-1. www.MandelaAchebeChido.com

VIDEO of the CNN International broadcast/profile of USAfrica and CLASSmagazine Publisher Chido Nwangwu.   http://edition.cnn.com/video/#/video/international/2010/07/29/mpa.african.media.bk.a.cnn  

 and friendship hold lessons for humanity and Africans, USAfrica Founder Chido Nwangwu takes a measure of their works and consequence to write that Mandela and Achebe have left “footprints of greatness.”

He chronicles, movingly, his 1998 reporting from the Robben Island jail room in South Africa where Mandela was held for decades through his 20 years of being close to Achebe. He moderated the 2012 Achebe Colloquium at Brown University in Providence, Rhode Island.“I’ll forever remember having walked inside and peeped through that historic Mandela jail cell (where he was held for most of his 27 years in unjust imprisonment) at the dreaded Robben Island, on March 27, 1998, alongside then Editor-in-chief of TIME magazine and later news chief executive of the CNN, Walter Isaacson (and others) when President Bill Clinton made his first official trip to South Africa and came to Robben Island. Come to this island of scourge and you will understand, in part, the simple greatness and towering grace of Nelson Mandela”, notes  Chido Nwangwu, award-winning writer, multimedia 
specialist and founder of USAfricaonline.com, the first African-owned U.S-based newspaper published on the internet, in his first book; he writes movingly from his 1998 reporting from South Africa on Mandela. http://www.mandelaachebechido.com/

IF any of the Nigerian President’s 100 advisers has the polite courage for the extraordinary task of reminding His Excellency of his foremost, sworn, constitutional obligation to the national interest about security and safety of Nigerians and all who sojourn in Nigeria, please whisper clearly to Mr. President that I said, respectfully: Nigerians, at home and abroad, are still concerned and afraid for living in what I call Nigeria’s Federal Republic of Insecurity. FULL text of commentary, exclusively, at USAfricaonline.com https://usafricaonline.com/2011/12/17/nigeria-federal-republic-of-insecurity-by-chido-nwangwu/

USAfrica: BOKO HARAM’s latest killings sharpen divide for security team at Nigeria’s presidency. By Chido Nwangwu
https://usafricaonline.com/2013/10/21/usafrica-boko-harams-latest-killings-sharpen-divide-for-security-team-at-nigerias-presidency-by-chido-nwangwu/

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Dancing with “ghosts” of BOKO HARAM, President Jonathan, Sultan Abubakar and Nigeria’s national security. By Dr. Chido Nwangwu
https://usafricaonline.com/2013/04/05/dancing-with-ghosts-of-boko-haram-president-jonathan-sultan-abubakar-and-nigerias-national-security-by-chido-nwangwu/