3, 2, 1: An hour with #NHBi’s Mark Amaza!

Been quite a while I worked on the 3, 2, 1 Series on here, thought I’d bring it back with an interview I had a lot of fun with!

In these unfortunate days when the fear of Boko Haram is the beginning of wisdom (and the wrinkling of your nose/shaking of your head at our government that seems powerless in the face of these terrorists), I thought about how I would feel if I had family in any of the troubled spots. Immediately I knew I wanted to find someone like that, and as God would have it, Mark surfaced!

Mark Amaza studied Environmental Management at the Abubakar Tafawa Balewa University, Bauchi, after primary and secondary school education in Maiduguri, Borno State. He runs MINDcapital, a strategy, branding and innovation consulting firm he founded four years ago.

He is also a blogger in his spare time, where he writes about politics, entrepreneurship, education, self-development and other random ideas on his blog, www.markamaza.com.

He also contributes articles and opinion pieces to a number of sites, including The Scoop, Nigerians Talk, Love Nigeria and The Herald. He has also been published in YNaija, YADA Magazine, Nigeria Dialogue and Omojuwa.com.

Mark is the curator and brain behind NHBi (No Holds Barred interactive), a chat show on Twitter every Wednesday night by 9pm. Brilliant stuff!!

Show loads of love and give a warm welcome to my guest, Mark!

FGS: Welcome! Want to tell us about #NHBi, what inspired it and what the vision is?

Mark:  It was quite spontaneous, I was tweeting one night on relationships and then the next day, @Rosanwo asked for my opinion on money and relationships. And from there, it became a weekly thing. Right now, we’re all about making it a platform where young people can talk on all topics of relationships and sexuality, and also working on monetizing it

FGS: Talk us through the format of the show please?

Mark:  we have 45mins for d guest to talk about a chosen topic, and then 45mins to answer questions and comments

FGS: What’s the response been like? Numbers?

Mark: Excellent! It’s been wonderful! We’ve reached an average of 30K accounts per episode; our last episode had 51K accounts reached, and about 2K tweets.

FGS: Massive! What’s the most popular topic you’ve had?

Mark: I think the one we had on sexual addiction and relationships last season.

FGS: I think I can remember it, the guy who talked about not being able to get enough. Interesting bit for me was the way he got over it, just by deciding to. Anyway, when you’re not moderating sex and relationships related questions, what do you do??

Mark:  I run MINDcapital, a management consultancy. We advice clients on strategy, branding, innovation, business planning and business process improvement

FGS: So, what problem would I come to you to solve for me?

Mark:  If you want to start a business and you need advice on how to, or you want to introduce a product or service and you need to build a brand or a strategy. Basically, any management issues except HR and accounting. You can find us here http://www.mindcapitalng.com

FGS: How’s business?

Mark: Business is good, moving gradually

FGS:  Let’s talk Boko Haram. What are your thoughts? Off the top of your head

Mark: Hmm, that’s a complex one. Boko Haram is complex. It has become a cover for many different people to do their evil: the Federal Government, politicians, the military, ethnic supremacists.  And yes, there’s the real Boko Haram…

FGS: Yes, there is. If you could, how would you tackle it? Three things.

Mark:  There has to be that political will to take on everyone involved; there are too many bigwigs are involved, and they’re protected. So how would I tackle it? One, take action on the intelligence that’s there. Two: secure the borders. I don’t have a 3

FGS: Ha ha ha ha!!  Ok… Tell me about your (recent) trip to Maiduguri, capital of Borno.

Mark: Compared to say a year ago, things are much better. There are less checkpoints, there’s ease of movement, except everyone is apprehensive about the civilian JTF (Joint Task force). Though they’ve helped immensely, if care isn’t taken, they could be another Boko Haram

FGS: they are armed right? This civilian JTF?

Mark: They are armed, and mostly on drugs. They use weapons like cutlasses and axes and knives.

FGS: oh wow. How does it feel having family in Borno? No holds barred please (lol)

Mark: I’m not scared anymore. I was very concerned for my younger brother who’s in the University of Maiduguri, especially when 3 of his friends were killed about a year ago. He left for his industrial attachment in March and so I am more at ease. Almost everyone close to me has left.

FGS: So, Borno’s no longer on your mind?

Mark: No, it is. But it doesn’t bother me that my folks are there, because things have gotten much better. My only concern is seeing things improve so much that another Boko Haram doesn’t happen years from now.

FGS: True. Maybe you can give me a tour sometime, I hear I can buy quality gold there…

Mark: Yeah, you can, although I don’t know what quality gold is. Lol!

FGS: Thank you for chatting to me Mark

Mark: Anytime!

Want to read more of these interviews? Go here, or here, or here, or here! Do you want me to interview someone you believe is doing great things? Say so!