This is an awe-inspiring story of a 23 years old entrepreneur, Grace Abah Akum, a Mass Communication National Diploma holder of the Nassarawa State Polytechnic who makes 'Smoothie' for a living. Grace hails from Orkamuo in Ogbadigo local government area of Benue State.
The young woman, instead of joining the bandwagon of girls roaming the streets of Abuja decided to take the bull by the horns by following her mother's trade for survival.
My mother is a trader back home in Benue, and while growing up, she has instilled this passion in all of us, so there's no way any of my mother's children will be lazy, all we do is sweating our way to survival.
Grace who'll be 23 this October joined her sister, Blessing who opted to start bringing fruits to Abuja after her first degree, "My sister studied English education at the Benue State University and instead of wasting time looking for job, she began to do fruits business, bringing fruits to Abuja in large scale.
And after my secondary education, I joined her in 2016 and was combining my Mass Communication studies while helping my sister in her business before I finally started mine.
The hardworking young girl began on a small scale making fruits salads and taking it to the National Assembly, "I don't know anyone there, I just woke up one day and decided to take my fruits salad to the Press Corps at the National Assembly Abuja and from there, someone advised me to add smoothie for variety, and that's how it all became big", she enthused.
According to her, the Smoothie are in variants, there are some mixtures like Dates, Pineapple, Banana, Apple, Avocado and little Mango which give men extra strength and make them fresh, while some others are strictly for weight loss and so on, it depends on what you want but fruits are good for the body generally.
Grace who owns Smoothie Republic is now a household name in the business, she supplies her clientele at the National Assembly on a weekly basis and also has a stand at Jabi outdoor leisure garden where important people drawn from all walks of life work-out almost everyday.
The young lady is so comfortable that she has brought 2 of her younger sisters from Benue to join the business, "had to ask my younger ones to come and support me as the business grows, am not sure I can work for anybody again, how much will they pay me", she told Enquirermag.
