Any project designed to touch lives of masses can’t fail – Akindele, Autoreg boss
By RASHEED BISIRIY, Published: Saturday, 20 Mar 2010

Mr. Bola Akindele, the Managing Director of Courteville Investment Limited, is the brain behind Autoreg, a new vehicle licensing arrangement that has eliminated touting and counterfeiting. He speaks with RASHEED BISIRIYU on the project, banking experience challenges and his new pet project.

How did you come about Autoreg?

It started about four and a half years ago after I had left banking. I did a survey of the business environment in Nigeria, trying to see where I could make the difference using banking experience. I found out that electronic solution is the way to expand without having to invest heavily in infrastructure. I brought that into Courteville, which started as a business advisory body. We were looking for products and services that could appeal to the masses. One of the few we settled for is the motor vehicle licensing. I realised that there are a lot of vehicles in Lagos. I don‘t know how many. I started researching into the population of vehicles in Lagos and found out that it was not easy for motorists to get the service and that it was also difficult for government to provide the service. There are intermediaries called touts and counterfeiters, through which government was losing a lot of revenue. Apart from counterfeiting of the product, there was a

lot of delay in processing it. We saw those problems as challenges of coming out with a solution that could address them. We also thought of a name that would be suitable enough to attract and the attention of both government and motorists. That was how we came out with Autoreg, which is an acronym for Automated Registration. We knew that it would not limit us to motor vehicles but we just started with motor vehicle administration documentation. It was a solution that could cover all aspects of motor vehicle documentation including vehicle licence, hackney, driver licence, road worthiness and insurance. They are all the items you need to have with you in the car while driving.

What is the level of progress the product has attained?

It has been very successful in Lagos. In fact, Lagos State Government has requested that we add two service lines. We started with vehicle licence in February 2007 and by December 2007; we added auto insurance and hackney. Now, we are about to add another two to expand the solution. It has been very successful in terms of meeting the objectives from the government part as well as the motorists. We have expanded the processing points from 38 to almost 1,000 centres in Lagos State alone. Motorist can now access the product about 100 metres from anywhere they operate. We did this by leveraging on our relationship with institutions such as banks and establishing a very strong network of independent outlets to service people, including Sunday and public holidays. We have set up a data base that comprises almost two million records in Lagos State alone. We have increased the revenue generation by almost 300 per cent for the state. We have simplified the process and it takes about five minutes to obtain the document at the processing point.

How did you sell the idea to the government?

It was not an easy thing. Lagos State was our flagship state. We needed to be successful in the state before extending the service to other states, other West African countries and the rest of Africa. We also know that Lagos has the most challenging environment in terms of power and level of compliance to traffic rules among other things. It took us 15 months to fully establish in Lagos. We had to go through the then governor‘s office to demonstrate how it would work, Ministry of Transportation and Ministry of Science and Technology. Even at the point of the governor‘s approval, some other people in government said they did not believe so much in the scheme. But in the first week of operation, it was like what everyone had been waiting for. Everybody, including the initial skeptics was ready to identify with the project. Almost a year after we rolled out in Lagos, Anambra State came on board. That was in March 2008. Currently, we are in 12 states. We expect at the end of this year, we should be in 18 states. Ghana has invited us and we are thinking of taking it to other West African countries.

We started the process of getting the project established in Lagos the same time with the Federal Capital Territory, Abuja. But it has not taken off in any form in Abuja.

What is responsible for that?

Bureaucracy. You can see how difficult it can be working with civil servants. It is not enough to think that they would accept anything you consider good.

What specific problems are hindering the approval of the project for FCT?

Since we started the negotiation, three ministers and three secretaries of transport have been appointed to take charge of affairs there. Each time we get there and meet new people, we have to start all over again. Each person wants different things to get convinced and things have not really taken shape.

What strategies did you deploy to ward off touts who were feeding fat on the old system?

What we did was to make the business unprofitable for them. We also made it unprofitable for the motorists to go to them. We made it more expensive for the motorists to patronise the touts. It is expensive to counterfeit the new document and if you try, it will be so obvious that everybody will see the difference between the fake and the genuine one. The first law enforcement agent you meet will be the first to arrest you. That was always difficult in the past.

What are the other benefits of the Autoreg to motorist?

It will be impossible for your vehicle to be stolen and registered in the same state where the Autoreg is established. It is also important to note that nobody can change your title without the government of the state being aware.

Can we use it for tracking?

You can track the owner of the vehicle but not for tracking a stolen vehicle. And with what we have provided the Federal Road Safety office, vehicle inspection office, it is possible to verify the authenticity of any vehicle document from anywhere in Nigeria remotely using our auto detecting device.

Why have hackney and auto insure products not been as successful as Autoreg?

Hackney has been successful in Lagos but it is not so visible because it relates to commercial vehicle operators. They are not as many as the private vehicle owners. In fact, they constitute between 30 and 40 per cent of the number of vehicles in the country.

But the same cannot be said of auto insure?

Auto insure is not an insurance policy. It is a marketing platform under many insurance companies come together to issue their vehicle insurance at the Autoreg centres. They know that people have embraced Autoreg and they will need to obtain or renew their vehicle insurance too.

If Autoreg had failed, did you have any plan B for a breakthrough in your line of business?

I had done my research. I was confident that it would succeed. Once you have an idea and you believe in that idea, you will do everything necessary to convince people about. Besides, what we set out to do was to touch the lives of the masses and we were convinced that the through Autoreg we could do that. It is far better than the old arrangement. It removes touting, faking and loss of revenue. There was no way it could have failed.

Why did you leave your rich banking job for uncertain private business life?

I must say that I studied Animal Science in the university before I veered into accountancy. I later qualified as a chartered accountant in 1990. I later had masters‘ degree in Banking and Finance. I was at the Central Bank of Nigeria as bank examiner. For five years, I was a chief inspector. I established credit and risk department of Oceanic Bank and was also the bank manager. I found out that while at the CBN, despite the enormous I was doing, I was only exercising about one quarters of my capacity. In 2002, I was at the Fountain Bank as commercial bank expert. I left to set up Couteville in 2004. The key factor was that most of us are entrepreneurs. For instance, at the level we were working, we took the risks of decision making. Anything could have gone wrong, we would bear the consequences. It was just right for me to set up my own business. All the experience, energy and expertise would be better harnessed in my own company.

How much was required to start the business?

I had some reserve from banking to set up the company.

What is your next challenge?

My new assignment is to make Nigerians appreciate the value of e-commerce. And I am working hard on this project.