There are thousands of car wash outfits in Nigeria but the name CarSpa definitely stands out especially for people living (or that have visited) Lagos. This is because, once you are on the road, chances are that you would have seen one of their well branded vans that offer their mobile detailing services to their numerous clientèle crisscrossing the length and breadth of Lagos.

For those who do not know, "car detailing is the performance of thorough cleaning, restoration and finishing of an automobile both inside and outside, to produce a show-quality level of detail".....Wikipedia. And this is what CarSpa has been doing for 5 years, restoring and maintaining cars to bespoke levels.
It will interest you to know that the powerhouse behind this blossoming brand is an equally bespoke looking lady; Didi Okoli aka Didi CarSpa or Madam CarSpa as she is fondly called.

Yes, a lady owning and running a car wash all by herself in this our clime is no child's play.
We succeeded in tracking the ever busy lady down for an interview in the middle of an impressive boat detailing job which finally came to be on a perfect day March 8th, globally celebrated as the International Women's Day, a day set aside for commemorating the movement for women's rights.

Please read the scintillating interview below:

Naija Car Lovers (NCL).
Didi Okoli (DO)......

NCL: Great scene for an interview! Surrounded by boats and water.
We've finally made the time for this! Ok well I've taken you off duty so let's get started.
What motivated you to come back from the UK to set up this business here in Nigeria?

DO: I had always wanted to do a car related business because I grew up as a tomboy. I used to race cars with my Indian and White guy friends. We would go to shopping centre car parks in the night and have loads of fun racing each other or just showing off cars.
I used to have a black Mazda MX-3 sports coupe my first Japanese import, I love that car. To this day I still love that car. I had to pay ridiculously high insurance on it as it was a Jap Imp (Japanese Import) and I was under 21 but I was so happy to finally have it after months of scouring for the best one on the car sites.

NCL: Was it manual or automatic transmission?

DO: It was 4-speed auto 1.8L V6 engine.

NCL: Naa, proper racers drive manual transmission cars.

DO: Yeah I know but I didn't get it as a racer, it was my personal car. I just used to take it there and show, we would all use different cars to race. Then my mechanic at that time, shout out to Jose, he would bring his Subaru. So you know how that ended! They form part of the police fleet and are used for high speed chases.
My younger brother started off with a Corrado and later got a Supra and that was whoa! That was everything!

If you saw my car magazines, it was a huge pile. You will come to the house and assume they were my brothers' but they were mine and that was a funny misconception.
Same way I'm a huge 'Gunner' (Arsenal football club fan) since I was about 8 when we both went to our first live game at the old Highbury stadium I think the energy and buzz stuck with me even though I don't remember the game. My brother isn't into football he practices mixed martial arts though and is on his brown belt - amazing!

Luckily we were free, no one ever told me, I couldn't do anything because I was a girl or vice versa. And I loved that, I didn't even know then I was a tomboy, I didn't even think that too, no labels, I just happened to like these things. I still had piano lessons every Saturday morning until I was 16 (got to grade 5 then stopped) and did girly things like shopping with friends but I've never liked going to the hairdressers and I still don't.
The car biz was always at the back of my mind but then I didn't take it seriously, you carry on with life, you go to school, go to Uni, you go to work, just carry on with life and slowly but surely you phase out lots of things you enjoy doing because of time, little things that formed you stop.
You just stop going to the car-meets people move on, you stop buying the magazines and they are relegated to colourful clutter.
You just fall out of things because the mundane routine of life takes over.
So I would visit Nigeria as a teenager growing up, I would always look at these beautiful cars, and think I would love to do a business that has to do with cars but I couldn't think of what. I didn't want to go back to school to learn stuff that had to do with repairs, I didn't want the risk of messing up peoples cars, I was just too scared so I thought the simplest thing I could do was just to maintain the cars instead. Why can't I just wash them and wax them?

When I was in Uni, I invested in a small hand car wash so I have lots of knowledge and experience in this regard. And that was just at the beginning around early 2000/2001 when we had the rise of the Eastern Europeans taking over the big car wash businesses in UK. To this day, one of my suppliers is someone I have known for so many years, an Albanian guy.
On my visits what would shock me was seeing the scratches, and the swirl marks, on these luxury cars, my OCD nature would want to restore them. So always I thought maybe one day that’s what I would do if I ever came to live here. I never thought of coming here to work in a formal job setting, the idea of working in a bank still does make me nauseous. Why come to such a different place and be stuck in an office? I loved my job in London nothing would have come close to that so best to trade it in for an adventure, an experience.
But the whole office environment, I find that boring. With Car Spa, I feel free now. Stressed but free from the confines of societies norms, don't get me wrong it's not easy but the feeling I have when I wake up each morning is different.
Life happens, we have dreams, wishes, bucket lists, we have things we want to do but things don’t always work out that way.
Sadly in 2010, a friend of mine died really suddenly and he was just 29 year old.
When that happened, I just went; bleep it; pardon my French, I’m just gonna do what I want to do because someone can be here one minute and gone the next minute.
His death was so shocking and upsetting and I didn’t know how involved I would be in the burial process, as a group of friends we had never lost a young person. I am naturally a leader, a bit bossy, so I literally took on burial arrangements along with his friends we learned that was the culture for the parents/elders not to be involved therefore we made it happen.
So from there I just thought, all the things I used to talk about with this friend, who was my good friend’s husband, he used to help me with things and support me with my business ventures. Back then I had different ones, so I had always had something going on so I just thought, if I was to die suddenly the way he did, apart from the fact that I’m dead, I know I would have been more frustrated due to the fact that I didn't get to do something I wanted to. So at the time, CarSpa was just a logo. And again, because I’m maybe a bit impatient and highly strung, I've got a lot of energy, even during holidays, I easily get bored. Nigeria is not a holiday destination in the real sense of it, when you've seen the world, you will realize it’s not a beach holiday it’s more family visiting and whatever, and even if it was a holiday destination I would still get bored.

So when I was here I would just go and meet people, you know, ‘fake it till you make it’ basically. I pretended I had the business already; so I would go and meet people in the lead-up to this business which by the way I had not started. I would talk about it as if I already had it, at the most I had on one trip back then in 2008 then was a Powerpoint presentation which someone kindly helped me do ‘cos then I sucked at such. I would just go around with a slightly different concept, I wanted to just do it only at shopping centres. That didn’t work out for some strange reason, the buy-in was there but the vision wasn’t quite shared which was a shame but I won’t go into that beyond this.
So when I went back home I thought ok, I will just adapt it so it could work in another way. One day I gave way to a branded van that repairs chips in windscreens and scratches and dents. I followed it and eventually got the guy to pullover and we had a chat about how his business operated.
I had this burst of renewed energy as the mobile thing sparked, the vans would do the job! And that’s how CarSpa came to life.
Sorry I talk a lot as you can see

NCL: That’s awesome. I wanted to ask you the secret behind your staying power in the business despite the ups and downs but I see the passion in you about the auto industry specifically automobiles and this is a key ingredient for any business owner to keep on forging ahead. So I guess the passion is what really drives you.

DO: Not only for automobiles, whenever I see planes I get excited too, it’s really weird.

NCL: Really, is it because planes are also mechanical and take people from point A to point B?

DO: I just love them, they're big powerful, loud machines, I don't get the train spotting hobby but I could do plane watching, I could sit all day and watch aircrafts taxiing, taking off and landing. Random lolll

NCL: So between planes and cars which one attracts you more?

DO: (Long pause) Hmmm, that’s a tough one. It’s like asking a mum; who is your favourite child infront of the children.
I might go for planes only because you don’t see them as often as you see cars. I’m so familiar with cars now, and you know with CarSpa, you can’t wow me with cars because I see the best of cars regularly.
I still get a buzz though.
I'm torn. Aircrafts for now.

NCL: I also have the same problem that you are having because I have also worked with cars for a very long time. Infact before any car can impress me it will be very difficult. For you, in the course of your job, have you come across any car that really tickled your fancy?

DO: I like classic cars, they're beautiful.
The vintage racing car from the old film chitty chitty bang bang is the first image that comes to mind perhaps because of all the sentiment attached to old movies that remind you of your childhood too. That film would come on every Christmas.
My nephew has a mini replica picked up from a vintage shop. It's a real work of art.
I have a customer who has some beautiful classic cars. And do you know what, there is a lot of personality in those cars, there’s history, there’s life, there’s a story behind such cars. You just don’t know and they are not always perfectly shiny and brand new they have character. There’s just something about that car, I don’t know, there’s a soul to it. I remember growing up, we used to have this green Volkswagen Beetle in the back of the house in front of the garages. I think it was an aunt’s or uncle’s car, I’m not sure because I was young and I remember been like 6 or 7 and getting into it with my brother and cousin and we would teach ourselves how to drive, well it was a stationary vehicle but we knew the basics. We knew the first gear, neutral, reverse, we knew the clutch pedal and that was how we taught ourselves.
So by the time we were like 11/12 years, we were ready to move that thing. And it's funny, 'cos the first time I drove I just got into a car and drove nervously. I didn't want to waste too much money on driving lessons, when I just knew...I’ve got this. (General laughter). Once my confidence built up I was actually driving my little red Renault Clio to driving lessons parking it on another road then walking to my friend's place to meet my driving instructor. He knew I was driving because of the bad habits I had already picked up. So the lessons were to learn the textbook techniques to pass the test.

NCL: But that was not here in Nigeria?

DO: No, it was in London, everything was in London I only moved here in 2012. I didn't grow up here or visit as a child. I often wish I did though.
I remember one night I was driving with my good friend Tasha, we were about 16/17 and using her mums little run around Rover Metro. We didn't have our provisional license and I was confident on all the quiet roads till we accidentally came to the wrong side where what was ahead of us was a main road and we needed to cross over to get to another back street road that would take us back to her place, that's when we panicked. And it was quite late, we sat in the car procrastinating to go or not to go.

NCL: Hahahahahahaha, I wish I was there to have a good laugh.

Do: We were very nervous and also praying not to get caught. But we found one guy walking and luckily he moved it for us. People watching thought we may have stolen the car for joy riding but it all ended well and now adds to my car tales.

NCL: So none of the recent models cut it for you?

DO: Not really, I see Rolls Royce everyday now it is like just about any other car to me. I’m never going to say no to a Range Rover, though I don't like the Evoque. It's too girly for me. I love the Sports but prefer the Overfinch. It's not as common. I remember Wayne Rooney got one of the limited edition vehicles. I prefer them to MLs. I had a C Class (Merc-Benz) Sports Coupe, my last car before I relocated to Lagos .....and maybe one day a white Overfinch Range will be my portion. (Laughs). White because less washing ironically.
I like big trucks too like the Ford off road models or those American monster trucks but I doubt I would ever have one, with my hair short as it is I don't want to give out the wrong vibes

NCL: Amen, that Range will come to pass.

DO: I love the utility that SUVs offer. I don't like things I can't move freely in just like the dress I am wearing presently, I actually have my T-shirt and Jeans here in my bag to change into.

NCL: So in a car, which do you prefer.... performance or luxury?

DO: Performance, performance, performance.

NCL: When exactly did you start CarSpa?

DO: April 2012 was when we went out for the very first time. But February 2012, was when I started training the boys.



Culled from www.naijacarlovers.com

even Jesus sermon on d Mount wasn't dis long.

mejai:
even Jesus sermon on d Mount wasn't dis long.

This one pass sermon, this is what the Bible meant by "taketh it by force"

In order news, op if you have the contact of this lady, I won't mind if she takes me out for dinner two is a company three is a crowd, make una shift

Even exclusive interviews on newspaper no long reach this.

I'll love to meet this woman professionally.

EgunMogaji:
I'll love to meet this woman professionally.

Wait in line sir, I came here before you