A Mistake That Cost A Million A Month

It was a bullet-pocked and bloody road to life as an entrepreneur. Millionaire Cosmas Maduka suffered through grief, poverty and loss; around the corner lurked his worst day that would lose him nearly a million dollars a month.

- Peace Hyde

Cosmas Maduka is a man who knows a thing or two about overcoming adversity. By the age of six, Maduka had survived bombs and bullets. It was in the dark depths of that civil war over the failed secession of Biafra – a civil war that saw 30,000 dead and more than a million refugees. His home state of Anambra was right in the thick of it; it was the base for relief flights to the beleaguered Biafran population. This drew airstrikes by Nigerian warplanes.

“We had a bunker outside our house which we ran into during times where the military opened fire and dropped bombs with their fighter jets. We did not know whether we were going to survive to see the following day,” says Maduka.

One day, as the young Maduka walked to the market, soldiers opened fire, killing scores of civilians. Again, Maduka was lucky to escape with his life. Soon afterwards his mother sent him away to safety to live with his grandparents.

In these tough early years, Maduka had no idea who his father was until the day he was led to his funeral.

“The best I knew of my father was the day I saw a man lying lifelessly in a suit… It was like a festival, people were exceptionally kind to me that day and whatever I asked for, I got,” he says.

The sad celebrations faded into struggle and grinding poverty. Maduka became a street hawker to provide for his family. Every morning, at 5AM, Maduka would wake up to sell bean cakes on the streets with his older brother, Pius, to feed his family.