“I want to share a simple du’a that I used to make repeatedly, asking Allah to invite me to Makkah.
Alhamdulillah, Allah answered it. I’ve been travelling back and forth to Makkah almost every month (except during the Covid period)“
We've developed a very corrupt and wicked mentality in this country.
One thing I've learned as a business owner is this: never run your business purely on trust. Put systems in place, be strict, and follow procedures.
Since August last year, I've been trying to clean up the mess some employees created in my company. After carrying out an audit, we discovered that we lost about ₦40 million to theft alone.
One of our managers in a state office was diverting fuel funds from a filling station account we regularly deposited into. That person alone stole about ₦5 million.
Then came the drivers. We normally authorize 40 litres of fuel for top up in Kano. Some of them would collude with fuel attendants. Instead of dispensing 40 litres, only 25 litres would be supplied, while the cash equivalent of the remaining 15 litres would be shared between the driver and the attendant.
This became a serious problem because our vehicles would break down midway due to low fuel. The drivers would then claim the fuel was bad or that the vehicle's fuel consumption was unusually high. We would end up sending additional money for fuel while passengers were stranded on the road.
This really affected our revenue, we dropped below 60%.
This is coming out after collecting investors funds.
Not only were they stealing from the company, they were damaging our reputation and driving customers away.
When we investigated further, we discovered that on average we were losing about ₦15,000 per vehicle daily through these fuel schemes. Across the fleet, that translated to roughly ₦225,000 to ₦250,000 every day, nearly ₦7 million monthly on fuel alone, excluding the maintenance costs that resulted from these practices.
We also found another manager who would underreport passenger numbers. If a vehicle carried five passengers, he would report three or four and pocket the difference.
The amount of damage a few employees did within a short period almost broke me. It was a painful lesson.
Today, I understand that as a business owner, you must have controls, audits, accountability, and consequences. Trust is important, but systems are more important.
Be delusional in your du’as this Ramadan. Ask for the impossible. Ask for what scares you to even say out loud. Ask shamelessly. Believe fully. You’re not asking people, you’re asking Allah, the Lord of the heavens and the earth. Nothing is too big for my Perfect Rabb🤍
Make this Ramadhan personal. Stay focused. Pour your heart out to Allah and tell Him everything. You cannot keep repeating the same mistakes. Do not only ask for the Akhirah, ask for the Dunya too, ask for everything. Allah possesses all that we need 🤍
Ya Allah, bring my focus back, make me focus on you and not on your creation, take control of my life because I have already done so much damage to it, lower my gaze from that which make you angry, remove all arrogance in my heart and make me humble.