
The Chairman, Cubana Group, Obinna Iyiegbu, also known as Obi Cubana, has expressed his willingness to create over 5000 fresh jobs for Nigerians with the unveiling of his bitters brand of alcoholic beverage, Odogwu Bitters. In a meeting with journalists in Lagos during the week, the prolific entertainment businessman said the new investment would gulp between N2 billion and N20 billion in the next 24 months. Describing Odogwu Bitters as a drink for all classes of people, Cubana said one of the decisions taken on the product distribution was trust as the firm is prepared to empower people without startup fund but trusted to return the money.
The businessman also elaborated on taking the new beverage beyond the shores of Nigeria, saying he had already started exporting to some African and European countries. He also disclosed his intention to hit the United States with the drink, and also making a big statement by placing the advert in Times Square.
Not left out in the empowerment plan are the consumers, who would have to imbibe the Drink and Destroy (DnD) culture in order to check criminal elements from faking the product. According to Iyiegbu,
We deploy high quality technology to blend it and we have even added some other ingredients such as honey and ginger to improve its quality, yet the price is at par with others in the market. “Our marketing strategy is such that Odogwu Bitters will be sold in major countries of the world. Already, we are making plans to sell it in the USA, United Kingdom, South Africa and other countries. I assure you, white people will take Odogwu. And that means foreign exchange earnings for the country. So, apart from creating employment opportunities locally and empowering critical sectors of the economy, we will also generate forex for the country.
“The current capacity of our factory is 200,000 cartons a month. Our first production was 100,000 cartons. But to my amazement, these were exhausted in less than 48 hours. So, we have already started making plans to increase our production capacity. We are looking at doing 1million cartons in a month. That means increasing our current capacity five times. Now, we have about 300 employees. By the time our new factory comes on stream, we will have no fewer than 5,000 employees.”
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