Olugbenga Ladipo, Managing Director, Academy Press Plc, had a chat with Femi Ayodele during its 50th Annual General Meeting, AGM, held recently in Lagos. He narrated how the firm has been able to weather the storm for 50 years and predicted the fate of print/printing in years to come

Academy Press held its 50th AGM recently, how has the journey been?

Yes, I think I have to make a slight correction. It’s been 50 years since AP was established but in terms of the years of operations, it is 49 years now. AP will be 50 years in operation next year and we need to differentiate that. Incorporating a business is not as fundamental as starting operation. Of course, we had our 50th AGM recently. Even if you are not in operation, the law requires you still hold an AGM that was why an AGM first came before we started operation.

As for the journey so far, we have actually not deviated from the original objective of setting up the company. The only thing that has changed is the size because we have expanded over the years and of course, we have also improved on the technology. The objectives have not changed because we set out to actually fill the vacuum of a large scale printing establishment in the country and bridge the importation of printed materials. That was the main objective which we still stick to because the printed materials are still being imported largely. The industry is also expanding so we continue to expand to catch up with that and it involves change in technology because customers are ever demanding the best in terms of modern day production.

Can you give a short account of how AP was established?

AP is a combination of foreign and Nigeria entrepreneurs. Up till now, foreign investors are still being asked to come and invest in Nigeria. Fifty years ago, Nigeria was looking for foreign investors to come to Nigeria and it took one American coming to Nigeria to look for opportunities and he was the one that brought others, including the Nigeria partners and other foreign partners from United Kingdom, UK and Canada to establish Academic Press. They studied the situation and they noted that there were no standard printing press in Nigeria and that formed the area of interest. They saw a vacuum that needed to be filled because the major book publishers; Longman, University Press, Oxford, Macmillan were not producing in Nigeria. None of the books that are being used in the school system are being produced here, they are done abroad. These gentlemen, being aware of the way things were done overseas, took the burden of importation from the book publishers but regrettably the book publishers are still doing a large portion of their jobs outside. I said regrettably because it is not on the account of inadequate capacity but other fundamental factors.

So what are these factors that are responsible for jobs flight abroad?

Let me say that over the years, things have been changing and to the extent that one will accept that the developed countries have always been ahead of us. If you go abroad, if that is the basis for delivering better job you’ll want to. In terms of speed of delivery- the concentration of better facilities in the developed countries could easily give the impression they need to go abroad. But what we have is a situation where we are not as advanced but we are able to compete favorably and meet up with the customers’ demands in terms of quality and speed. And mind you, if you are producing in Europe, the distance alone is a barrier because you cannot just produce and deliver it the second day here. These are bulky materials- you have to spend some time to get them here. These are not the critical reasons for customers going abroad. The most critical reason is tariffs paid for those materials. The jobs being done abroad attract no tariff, so that makes it a complex situation. If you are importing the same product you don’t pay tariff. If you are printing as a printer you pay tariff despite the fact that you use the same materials.

•Olugbenga Ladipo

While this one is importing the finished goods, the other is importing the materials to produce the finished goods and now have to contend with tariffs ranging from 50 to 65 per cent. If you complete your production, your products are likely to be more expensive than the man that pays no tariff. So there is an attraction to go overseas because to a large extent decisions are determined by economic considerations.

If I get some things cheaper and there is no barrier going ahead to get it, why should I want to patronise the local industries? So we blame the tariffs which is under the control of the government and all we have to say to the government, its agency and other relevant people that are concerned is that they remove the tariff on the materials so that we can have the same playing field. With this, we will be able to compete favorably. So this is one of the major challenges we have apart from the problem that are faced by other industries which we won’t really complain about because it affects every sector, you just have to adopt your own mechanism to guide against the effect.

When we talk of poor supply of energy, we talk of road infrastructure; transportation. These affect every industry/ business, including importers of finished goods.