By Yemisi Suleiman
In commemoration of its second year anniversary PWAN Champion, a real estate and network-marketing organisation, an affiliate under the PWAN GROUP, recently awarded its realtors known as PBOs (PWAN Business Owners) who have made significant contributions to the growth of the firm over the years.
The event tagged ‘Champions Nite’, took place at the Eko Hotel and Suites in Victoria Island Lagos, had high profile stakeholders in attendance.
According to the organisers, this year’s Champions Nite was to celebrate the firm’s successes and to reward the ever-supportive realtors and best performing staff.
The evening began with a red carpet event that saw celebrities and industry giants from different walks of life adorned in colourful outfits.
Delivering his welcome address Dr. Benedict Abudu Ibhadon, the MD/CEO, PWAN Champion, carefully took everyone on a roller coaster ride from the inception and birth of the company to date; citing both personal and corporate experiences and how each step, each innovation, and each decision helped in shaping the company into what it is today. He further laid out the company’s plans and projections for the new business year to the amazement of everyone present.
Amongst top awardees for the night was Mr. Matthew Ogiede Audu who emerged as the 2023 Highest Sales Champion and was awarded a brand new Hyundai Santafe for his outstanding performance in the past one year. While Miss Odion Omoye Louisa was awarded a brand new Toyota Camry as the winner of a raffle draw, with lots of amazing gifts given out to staff of the organisation.
Other Awardees for the night- included: Miss Odion Omoye Louisa was awarded a brand new Toyota Camry as the winner of a raffle draw. Also, Aigbefo Edith, Ewomazino Valentina, Alice Agugwoma, Ihama Peace Ofure, Okonkwor Chinenye were all awarded a plot of land worth N3.5million each for their giant strides in sales and also in network marketing.
Staff of PWAN Champion were all awarded with Laptops, smart TVs, ACs, plaques, and certificates respectively, for their great contributions to the success of the company.
Gift items ranging from Refrigerators, to Water dispensers, Microwaves, Toasters, Blenders, Air conditioners, smart TVs, were gifted to hundreds of deserving PBOs who distinguished themselves during the last business year.
The highlight of the event was the birthday celebration of the Group Executive Director, Recruitment; PWAN Group, Dr. Micheal Akhuetie who also doubles as Chairman of PWAN Champion.
Speaking during the event, Ibhadon said: “PWAN is an acronym of Property World African Network (PWAN) Group with 50 affiliates under the company. Dr Augustine Onwumere founded the PWAN GROUP with his wife Dr Jayne Onwumere. The idea of this award night is not just to commemorate our two years anniversary but also celebrate our staff and PBO who have done well over the years. We awarded these deserving partners with cars, lands and other incentives to appreciate their hard work for the past two years. In less than two years, PWAN Champion has 16 estates in the market in seven locations in Nigeria. So the idea is to celebrate the success of the people that have helped to contribute to the success of the company. We develop and empower our marketers. I started as a marketer for the PWAN group in 2017 and grew through the rank to become a shareholder of the company and the Managing Director. So the platform creates an open opportunity for people to grow hereby, depopulating poverty in Nigeria and also give the youths a good means of income and livelihood without getting involved in fraud, drugs, prostitution, cyber crime etc. So these youths make money either by recruiting people to sell or making their own sales.”
Also speaking, Akhuetie the chairman of the PWAN Champion who appreciated the founders of PWAN Group for the revolution in the real estate industry said, “We have been able to empower a lot of entrepreneurs in the field of real estate marketing. The next one-year would be a revolution of providing accommodation as our vision is to make home ownership a reality for Nigerians. So we are going to go into buildings. This would provide shelter for the homeless.”
Akhuetie however noted that the major challenge of real estate in Nigeria is the high cost of purchase of either land or house. “This is what PWAN has managed to tackle by introducing network marketing into real estate with our installment paying system within agreed time duration. Some don’t even have to pay anything; all they have to do is build a team through network marketing. This makes it easy for everyone to key into the system with little or no income.”
He also appealed to the government to make flexible policies for real estate developers as some of the uptight policies make it difficult for developers to do much. “For example, if a real estate developer wants to develop an area with bad roads, fixing the road is usually the first priority but government policy restrains us from fixing bad roads until certain approvals are given. Now these approvals are not made flexible especially in Lagos.”