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‘I write, speak to inspire’

By Gregory Austin Nwakunor
21 July 2019   |   3:06 am
Somi Uranta loves writing. He started writing in his teens in faraway Opobo, a town in Rivers State, made popular by the famous slave boy, Jaja, who later became a great king and nationalist.

Somi Uranta

Somi Uranta loves writing. He started writing in his teens in faraway Opobo, a town in Rivers State, made popular by the famous slave boy, Jaja, who later became a great king and nationalist.

Today, Uranta, who is currently a Ph.D student at the University of Lagos, is a proud author of many books and articles in both local and foreign journals. He is also an activist and environmentalist whose concern is the despoliation and degradation going on in his home state, Rivers and other oil bearing communities in the Niger Delta.

According to him, writing is his first love. “I feel a sense of fulfillment whenever I put my thoughts together for the benefit of the reader. I believe we are not reading enough as Africans that is why I am currently touring schools and giving out some of my books to young people to change the narrative that Africans don’t like to read. Despite the hitches, it is a project I love and I have decided to dedicate my time to encouraging young people to read”.

Uranta is also a speaker whose speaking engagements are essentially geared toward motivating and encouraging people. He believes that by engaging people even in less formal situations, he can show how to transmute an ugly experience into a beautiful one. He insists that he has the capacity to get out the best in the worst of situations. For him, his happiest moments come any time he encounters people he had mentored or encouraged by word of mouth and through his books, doing incredible things in their fields of endeavours.

In his writings, he opines that mankind do not have what it takes to declare a situation good or bad at first instance because situations come neutral as it is well known fact that what is perceived to be good today may in another circumstance and time, become ugly.

He adds that when God created the universe, His creations were unnamed until the first man on earth named them in what could be termed the longest and most elaborate naming ceremony in the world. Whatever name Adam gave to each creature, stuck. Little wonder Shakespeare posits that there is nothing either good or bad, only thinking makes it so.

But he is also an entrepreneur. In fact, he loves to call himself “a job creator” because he creates jobs almost on a daily basis at his different business premises in Lagos and other places. He is a strong believer in the time-tested dictum that businesses grow from needs arising from human interaction. So, for the serious minded entrepreneur, if he finds a need, he fills it and thus, business and opportunities are created. He is also a lover of systems and processes because he is of the view that business should run on its own and also has a life of its own. For him, if a business depends solely on the owner, and for any reason, the owner is indisposed; the business will automatically run down.

Irrespective of the precariousness of the Nigerian economy today, he believes that Small and Medium Scale Enterprises, (SMEs) can actually help mitigate the present hostile economic atmosphere especially through wealth creation and reduction of unemployment.

However, Uranta insists that businesses would do a lot better if the government addresses issues of power, multiple taxations, extortion, discrimination and other things that negatively affect the ease of doing business in Nigeria. He also believes that periodically, people who provide services should be appreciated and encouraged so as to do more for the good of all. That is why on Sunday, August 25, he will honor dealers and apprentices of Akilo Spare Parts and Machinery Dealers Association in Ikeja for excellent service delivery.

All things considered, books and allied materials give Uranta the greatest joy and that is where he invests the chunk of his energies. He is the proud author of A Date With Failure, Don’t Quit, Contradictions, Man, the Creator of His Experience, Turning Failure Into Fortunes and Trial to Triumph.

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