PH yields ground for ‘3G Summit’ as business owners chase grit and grace

As Port Harcourt grows bigger into reckoning as the business intelligence and talkshow headquarters east of the Niger Delta, more opportunities have continued to pour into the city.

Now, business owners in the Garden City have been charged to build their enterprises with faith, grit, and grace, and to raise their mindset beyond their immediate location, if they are to survive and grow in a tightening economy.

The charge was the thread running through the maiden ‘3G Business Summit’, themed: “Ascend 360”, which drew more than 300 business owners, professionals, and young entrepreneurs to ‘Celebr8 Event Centre’, Olu Obasanjo Road, Port Harcourt, for a day of practical strategies on business growth, leadership and personal development.

The free, one-day summit was convened by a Port Harcourt-based, faith-driven entrepreneur, Thelma Ekuge-Oki, through her community platform, the Christtalker Community, and it climaxed with the award of business grants to young entrepreneurs.

Speaking on the significance of the event, Oki described it as the fulfilment of a long-held vision to impact lives through entrepreneurship, insisting that the free summit was itself an act of grace.

“Entrepreneurship is the truest test of faith,” said Oki, who said she came into business from a banking background.

Top personalities present were Chris Oarhe and his wife Stephanie, founders of Hilltop International Christian Centre, PH.

Delivering the opening charge, Oarhe drew on the example of nations that rose deliberately, citing China’s journey over three decades through acquired knowledge, preservation of its own systems, personal and national discipline, technology and exports.

“When you attend an event like this, you should expand the horizon of your possibilities,” he said.

The summit brought together speakers and panelists drawn from business, finance, human resources, media and entertainment, who between them emphasised building with clarity, developing capacity, maintaining consistency and strengthening relationship capital as essential ingredients for business success.

Ijeoma Ndukwe, a food processing entrepreneur, shared how pap, a single household product, was reinvented, packaged and pushed into corporate markets and export.

She urged participants not to despise small beginnings, recalling that her own manufacturing venture began from a simple household product before it grew into an export business that once shipped a full container abroad.

“Do not be product focused. Focus on the dream, focus on the assignment,” she said, harping on the true meaning of resilience.

Rosemary Udu, a human resources leader, told professionals that a degree was no longer enough, pointing to technical skills, digital literacy and soft skills as the new differentiators in a job market reshaped by artificial intelligence.

Other voices on the bill included Grace Ofure, a business strategist, Nora Nelson, a finance guru, K.O. Baba Johnsen, the popular comedian, and Ella Ezeadilieje, a social media figure, known as Veronica’s Daughter, who spoke to the place of personal development, visibility, and consistency in building a modern brand during a panel session led by Chioma Ezenwafor.

The one-day free summit also featured the award of business grants to about five young entrepreneurs, in line with the convener’s stated goal of moving beyond one-off assistance to equipping young people in the Niger Delta with the means to build for themselves.

Oki said the platform was designed to give data-driven support, grants, business creation and clarity to participants, rather than serve as a one-time ceremony, promising that subsequent editions would continue to bring speakers who sharpen the minds of attendees.

Observers at the event described the maiden outing as a sign that grassroots and faith-driven enterprise platforms are gaining ground in Port Harcourt, and a further indication that the Rivers State capital is reasserting its place as a centre for business, capacity-building and enterprise despite the economic headwinds of recent years.