Mr. Bayo Ogundogba, Managing Director of BioColours Nigeria Limited, a frontline screen printing company of repute in Nigeria and located in mainstream Lagos mainland has attributed the seemingly slow pace in the development and modernization of printing trade in Nigeria to ‘the high level of greed that has characterized the mindset of industry stakeholders”.
According to Bayo who spoke with PRINTERS DIGEST Editor Samuel Nwaekwu in a chat in his Gbagada office “our problem is printers is not exclusively the government. I have read and hear people make comments about the sector. But I can say with all sense of responsibility and as a printer par excellence with proven record of integrity and quality service delivery since we began that the industry players – be it practitioners or stakeholders – themselves are only the architect of their own misfortune”.
Recall that at various fora, like minds have often call for bequeathing of lasting legacies for younger generation of printers. According to Bayo, “every adult or father knows that it is common sense and practice that as one ages, he leaves inheritance for the child or children. But the case of Nigeria and in particular the printing industry, is in sharp contrast to this as our people are becoming increasingly greedy, only desiring to amass wealth solely to themselves and without proper accounting”.
“Printing is very vast and as such, it is expected that everyone specializes. But look at this: in a single press, we have digital printing machines, CTP or CTCP as the case maybe, Colour Separation machines, Label printing machines, Offset printing machines, Dye-Cutters, Flatbed, Guillotine and cutters, and all sorts of presses from pre-press to post-press. There is no focus for this kind of printers yet the business owner takes all the job to himself, over-working labour. Not satisfied with the number of clients he already manages, he decides to send marketers out to the field to outwit competitors and even unseat established clients from their handlers by presenting proposals with lower pricing? This is a serious issue and will not help our trade in any way possible”, he added.
“As a person, I do not believe that it is only when I work my fingers to my bones that is when I will make it. I have also transmitted this mentality to the company and it has become our core values and that is why I can say boldly that we only service just five companies and we are satisfied with our business relationship. We do quality printing and deliver promptly. Delays in job delivery is just a product of inefficiency occasioned by too many workload. We are good with what we have and where we are today”, he noted.
