The Grass to Grace Story of Cosmas Maduka

Some sixty years ago (on 24 December, 1958) in the city of Jos, Plateau state – a region which is most commonly referred to as the middle belt of Nigeria, a certain family was blessed with a male child. Mr. Peter with Mrs. Rose Maduka was a poor couple from Nnewi, Anambra state but whom settled in the renowned city of ice – Jos. The Maduka’s named the child Cosmas and the boy had to get used to the hardships as he grew, having come from a poor family. By the time Cosmas was four, his father gave up the ghost and his not so rosy life became even more uneasy. Two years after his father’s demise, Cosmas had to drop out of school in a bid to support his mother. So by the time he was six, Cosmas was already an entrepreneur. He used to help his mother to hawk Akara (bean cake – a widely known food made from beans) in order to maintain their existence. This pattern of hawking lasted a long while until many years later when he went to work with his uncle as an automobile apprentice.
While he worked with his uncle as an apprentice, a time came when he was wrongly accused and was dismissed by his uncle. By this time, Cosmas was seventeen (17) years of age and had with him the sum of two hundred (200) naira. With this money, he co-founded a company with his friend whose name was Dave. They named their company CosDave which was a reflection of the duo’s names. For certain reasons, the company CosDave which was a spare parts company folded up in no distant time but young Cosmas refused to relent in his struggle to make it big in life. He struggled to raise the sum of three hundred (300) naira and in 1977; he went on to found the Coscharis Motor. This company also focused on the sales of automobile spare parts. According to him, the name of his company was derived by putting together his first name and that of his wife, Charity – having gotten married at the age of nineteen (19).
His breakthrough in business started in the year 1982, when the Federal government of Nigeria granted import license to ten (10) motor companies and his company – Coscharis – was selected among the ten. From then, his business had a massive positive turnaround and today, Mr. Maduka’s Coscharis group is a conglomerate that has a net worth of over five hundred million dollars ($500,000,000). Coscharis is a leading distributor of different brands when it comes to luxury cars including but not limited to Range Rover, Ford and Jaguar. The conglomerate boasts of several subsidiaries which include Automobile Sales and Services, Auto care and Auto Components, Petrochemicals, ICT, Manufacturing, Agric and Agro allied business sectors.

The year 2015 was indeed a great one for Coscharis motors as that was when it was awarded the license to be the sole distributors of BMW cars in Nigeria. It was also the first company to build a plant where it could assemble Ford Ranger in Nigeria. Furthermore, at the Marketing World Awards that was held in Ghana, Coscharis motors bagged the Auto Brand of the year award.
In 2016, 5000 hectares of land was approved by the Anambra state government for Coscharis Farms to cultivate rice. Since then, the rice project has been said to have generated not less than three thousand (3000) jobs. Today, the Coscharis group is rated amidst the top 50 most successful brands in Nigeria.
Cosmas attributed his success in life and in business to such values as hard work, commitment and humility which are fundamental factors to the success of any business. Cosmas is a board member of many notable and reputable organizations. For twelve years (between 2000 and 2012), he was a director in one of the leading banks in Nigeria – Access Bank Plc.

Awards
In 2003, the University of Nigeria, Nsukka honored Cosmas with an honorary Doctor of Business Administration (PhD).
For sixteen years, he was the President/Chairman of the Nigerian Table Tennis Federation (NTTF). It is worthy of note that while he was president, Nigeria paced ahead of the rest of Africa in all table tennis events.
His love for sports is also notable in the fact that he led the Nigerian team to the popular Atlanta ’96 Olympic games, then to Athens 2000, and to Sydney 2004 and then to Beijing 2008.
Having completed an Executive Education Program at Harvard Business School, he was inducted as an Alumnus in 2012.
Also in 2012, Cosmas received the national honor of Commander of the Order of the Niger (CON) by erstwhile president Goodluck Jonathan.
In 2015, Mr. Cosmas was featured in Forbes Africa TV Series “Worst Day with Peace Hyde”. At that time, his net worth was estimated at five hundred million dollars ($500,000,000). It was also reported that he was swindled in a business transaction by Ifeanyi Ubah of Capital Oil – a transaction which was to the sum of twenty one (N21, 000,000,000) billion naira.
Cosmas has also appeared in an interview by Zain Asher on CNN Marketplace Africa.