By The Qoheleth
Samuel Maduka Onyishi was one of those discouraged from proper education because of the poor system who later became the vanguard of promoting education in Nigeria. SMO as he is popularly called is an extraordinary Nigerian patriot with the goal of taking the country to the appropriate level especially through entrepreneurship education.
Dr. Samuel Maduka Onyishi was born in Nsukka, Enugu State. Owing to the loss of his father in his first year in secondary school, an incident that forced him to assume the role of pseudo breadwinner to his family consisting of his widowed mother and siblings. He attended Enugu Road Primary School, Nsukka and was later admitted into Bubendorf Grammar School, Adazi, in the present-day Anambra State.
It was reported that he once contemplated tearing his certificate because education seemed to mean nothing then given his reality of life. But this mindset was changed a few years later during his encounter with a kinsman who was two years below him in primary school. He returned to school later in life and got admission to do a Diploma Program at the University of Nigeria, Nsukka, and subsequently, a degree program in Social Works and Community Development. He later got a Masters in Business Administration (MBA) in Entrepreneurship from the Institute for Transformative Thought and Learning at the Doctoral Research Centre of the University of Arizona, Phoenix, in the United States.
He established Peace Group of companies among which is a transport business which he started with only two buses during his university days. The transport company later metamorphosed into 4,000 fleet of vehicles.
In 2019, May & Baker Nigeria Plc, during her Annual General Meeting appointed Dr. Samuel Maduka Onyishi as its new Non-Executive Director.
A year later, Governor Ifeanyi Ugwuanyi laid the foundation for Samuel Maduka Entrepreneurial University, in Agu-Ekwegbe in Igbo Etiti Local Government Area of Enugu State founded by the already successful entrepreneur. Maduka University in Enugu, Nigeria, received its operating license from the NUC on June 9, 2023, paving the way for admission of students. On 7 January 2021, He took over Actis’s share in C&I Leasing through his company Peace Mass Transit to own majority stock worth about 55.82% of the company’s shares.
As part of his Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) to his immediate community and home town, Amaukwa, Nsukka, Dr. Onyishi sponsored the constructing of 1.6 km road. The commissioning of the road was attended by the then Executive Governor of the State, Hon. Ifeanyi Ugwuanyi, and the then Vice Chancellor of the University of Nigeria, Nsukka, Professor Benjamin Chukwuma Ozumba.
He is also the founder of the Samuel Maduka Onyishi African Entrepreneurship Foundation (SAMOAEF), an organization which among others, have given scholarship annually to more than 150 students from different institutions in Nigeria.
Dr. Samuel Maduka Onyishi has received many awards from different sectors in the country and beyond among which are Outstanding Nigerian Advocate on China/Nigeria Relations by Chinese Association of Nigeria, Business Integrity Award by Business Hallmark, and Honourary Doctor of Business Administration from Enugu State University of Science and Technology and from his alma mater, the University of Nigeria, Nsukka.
To cap it all, he was honoured by the government of President Goodluck Jonathan with the award of Member of the Order of the Niger (MON).
Dr. Samuel Maduka Onyishi is an extraordinary Nigerian with an extraordinary vision.
