Pa Moses Akande Onigbinde, the patriarch of the Onigbinde family in Jos and Bukuru, was born in Ogbomoso in 1903. He was from Ile Baale Ikoso at Oke A’aje, the eldest of the six children of the late Pa Oyerinde and the late Mrs. Oyenike Suboola Adika.
At the age of twenty, he had to leave Ogbomoso shortly after the demise of his father. As the eldest child, the responsibility fell on him to take care of his mother and his other siblings, leaving him no option but to venture out of his hometown in search of better prospects.
His first port of call was Ilorin, then the capital of Kwara State, where he stayed along with other towns in the north for a few years before finally deciding to move to Jos.
Arrival in Jos and Early Trading (1928–1929)
Like most young men of his age at that time, he was taken to Jos in 1928 by an uncle, the late Pa Oyewale, popularly known in the family as “Baba Jos.” He joined him there to learn the art of trading — the line of business most Ogbomoso people became adept in. He proved a fast learner, spending only a year under his uncle’s tutelage, which was unprecedented. In 1929, he left his uncle’s tutelage and started his own trading business, moving out of Jos to set up in Bukuru.
Trying His Hand at Several Trades
Before becoming a successful supermarket owner, Pa Onigbinde tried his hand at many trades:
- Barbing — He worked as a barber for several years but left the trade, unconvinced that the frequency at which people visited a barber’s shop was enough to sustain him so far from home.
- Shoe making and watch repair — He also dabbled into these trades.
- Photography — He was one of the earliest photographers in both Jos and Bukuru. As an entrepreneur, he opened a photography studio and, rather than waiting for customers to come to him, started a home service — one of the homes he frequently visited being the palace of the late Da Rwang Pam, the first monarch of the Berom people (Gbong Gwom Jos). This visit blossomed into a close, lifelong friendship between the two men.
In all these trades he travelled far and wide, making friends with people both high and low. His humility and friendliness as a “good mixer” fetched him many business opportunities and customers across Jos and Bukuru.
Founding Onigbinde Stores
He eventually decided to concentrate his expertise on the sale and distribution of provisions, leaving behind photography, shoe making, barbing, and his other trades. This set him on the path to becoming one of the first indigenous owners of supermarkets in Jos and Bukuru.
At the time, going into this business was uncommon for a Nigerian, since the trade was dominated by foreign giants such as Leventis, Kingsway, and other big names. Pa Onigbinde nonetheless went into it with the belief that he would succeed. He was a contented man who chose to make do with little gains in order to attract more customers, and registered with major manufacturers such as PZ and Lever Brothers to become a distributor of their wares. This was how he founded Onigbinde Stores.
Through hard work and determination, he built the business from a small distribution outfit into a giant supermarket in the central business district on Ahmadu Bello Way, Jos with branches eventually in both Jos and Bukuru.
His investments straddled trading, education, agriculture, and more. He was an employer of labour and, in a further mark of his entrepreneurial reach, was noted as the first to build an ice cream plant in Northern Nigeria, with branches in different parts of the country. He also maintained a farm in Ogbomoso.
By the time of his death in 2009, Pa Onigbinde had spent eighty-one years doing business in Jos and Bukuru, at the age of 106. He was a diligent and shrewd businessman whose contributions to the development and growth of the state were, in the words of the book, impossible to quantify. His footprints remain in the business circuits of Jos, where some of his children and grandchildren continue to keep the flag of the family business flying today.
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