Innocent Chukwuma missed the engineering cut-off. He apprenticed in Nnewi spare parts and later built Nigeria’s first home-grown car maker.
From a ₦3,000 start in 1980 to the founding of Innoson Vehicle Manufacturing in Nnewi in 2007, Innocent Chukwuma built a company step by step.
Innocent Chukwuma was born in 1961 in Nnewi, Anambra State, the youngest of six children. After secondary school in 1978 he applied to study engineering, but while waiting realised he had not met the cut-off mark. He went to help his elder brother Gabriel in his medicine store.
The apprentice
Working with his brother, he found he had a natural talent for trading. In 1979 he became an apprentice to Chief Romanus Eze Onwuka, then the biggest motorcycle-parts seller in the Nnewi market. In 1980 he left and, with 3,000 naira from his brother, registered a business called Gabros International. By 1981 he was trading in spare parts, a lucrative business in south-eastern Nigeria, and in 1982 founded the Innoson Group.
Making things
He began importing motorcycles, taking them apart and reassembling them on arrival, which let him cut the price by about 40 percent. Noticing the amount of plastic on the machines, he started a plastics factory that is now one of the biggest in Nigeria.
In 2007 Innoson Vehicle Manufacturing was established in Nnewi. It is described as Nigeria’s first indigenous automobile manufacturer, producing vehicles for institutions including the Army and Police, and was commissioned with a multi-billion naira plant annex in 2024.
His route runs from a missed university place to a factory, and every step was a business he already understood.
