Dozy Mmobuosi: The Nigerian Mobile Mogul Who is Connecting African Farmers to the World


Dozy Mmobuosi through his Tingo Mobile, manufactured and distributed over 9 million mobile phones to farmers in Nigeria with a 36-month payment plan. Plans on issuing credit facility to farmers after the conclusion of its South Africa-based Yekani Manufacturing.

The world is getting to a tipping point where individuals and economies are beginning to understand that the only sustainable means of survival is to change the ways we do things. And for Nigeria, it is to change from the obsessive reliance on oil to a diversified economy starting with agriculture.

Far too many years, the boom in demand for oil, made it easy to forget the good old days when agriculture was our core economic component. But with the world ditching the idea of fossil fuels and adopting other grading means for power generation, many economies, including Nigeria, are rolling up their sleeve.

So, it is only about a little time before we begin to see a large pool of unemployed graduates and subsistence farmers seek financial inclusiveness through mechanized farming, which can only be possible through connected efforts with global communities.

Seeing the challenge yet the impact the agro-business presents to the Nigerian community, a mobile venture capitalist; Dozy Mmobuosi had gone ahead of time to provide a revolutionary product for Nigerian farmers. 

In 2017, Dozy Mmobuosi unveiled the NWASSA agri-business credit facility that enabled Nigerian farmers to connect with the international community by profiting from the global repository of information about the agribusiness. 

Before the Dozy Mmobuosi‘s NWASSA innovation, it was almost impossible for agribusiness entrepreneurs to get access to any credit facility of this kind. Not alone to think of dealing with the double-digit interest rate that the Nigerian money market is characterized. 

But with the NWASSA innovation, the Nigerian mobile mogul, Dozy Mmobuosi through experience with other countries, wanted to bridge the gap by first providing a data-enabled device with a 34-month payment plan for Nigerian farmers.

>>How to make money from mobile app>>

Dozy Mmobuosi Explains How NWASSA works.

To roll out this initiative, Dozy Mmobuosi through his company, Tingo Mobile partnered with insurance companies, cluster of farmers through various groups and with the government through the Ministry of Agriculture to obtain data that would be relevant for this initiative. 

NWASSA was only a part of the series of initiative that Dozy Mmobuosi introduced to the Tingo Mobile ecosystem through several partnerships that empowered Nigerian farmers by first bridging the communication gap with farmers and the international community.

Through this project, over nine million Tingo-branded mobile phones were produced and distributed, with payment spread through 34 months. That is, a farmer was able to secure a data-enabled mobile phone with just a monthly deposit of 1000 One Thousand Naira only. Such facility was not possible anywhere in the world but only through a Dozy Mmobuosi initiate.

Dozy Mmobuosi Explains The Reason Tingo Mobile Closed Its Nigerian Assembling Plant For a South Africa-based Manufacturing Plant.

Even though there was a plan for the NWASSA program to offer credit facility in cash to help the Tingo agri-business community, it had a fallout with suppliers and other stakeholders due to the foreign exchange gap.

Before the fallout, Dozy Mmobuosi’s Tingo Mobile operated two assembly facility in Nigeria before they were shut down due to several challenges that made it impossible to operate these facilities in Nigeria.

According to Mmobuosi, the gap in foreign exchange, and suppliers misconduct were among the many reasons that pushed Tingo mobile manufacturing plant out of the country into processing an acquisition for a South Africa-based assembling plant, Yekani Manufacturing where it will be operating from Q4 2020.

Such decision, according to Dozy Mmobuosi was beneficial to sustain the company through the thick and thin as it helped it cut the cost of generating its own power and still have to deal with procurement officers of questionable character who connived with vendors of Tingo mobile to inflate invoice and contracts leading to the involvement of law enforcement agency in Nigeria.

Being the CEO of the company, Dozy Mmobuosi, was saddled with the tasks of getting through and settling all ongoing legal process.

Dozy Mmobuosi is currently operating Tingo Mobile from his China manufacturers and through his Connecticut, United States office while waiting to complete the formalization of his acquisition of the South Africa-based assembling plant Yekani Manufacturing in Q4 2020.

Faith Nte

Faith Nte is a Content Writer and Personal Finance Blogger

Recent Posts