CEO of Multi-Trex Integrated Foods, Dimeji Owofemi is dead

The Managing Director and CEO of Multi-Trex Integrated Foods PLC, Dimeji Owofemi has passed on, TopNaija can authoritatively confirm.

According to Insider sources, Owofemi was found dead in his room on Thursday morning,  and the current suspicion is that he died of a heart attack.

Our source revealed that Owofemi was on 7-day dry fasting when this sad incident occurred. His nephew who lived with him confirmed he hadn’t heard him pray as usual in the morning. This curiosity initiated his decision to check on him in his room, only to find him lifeless.

An astute industrialist and passionate businessman, Dimeji Owofemi served as the Managing Director and Chief Executive Officer of Multi-Trex Integrated Foods Plc from 1999 till his passing on Thursday, October 1st, 2020.

Located at 29 Lagos – Ibadan Expressway, Olowora, Lagos, Multi-Trex Integrated Foods Plc is in the business of Cocoa Butter Export, Cocoa Cake Export, Cocoa Powder Production for local consumption, Instant Chocolate dry-mix and Chocolate drink

The company’s estimated asset is set to be over N10 billion, most of it in state-of-the-art machinery bought through multi-layered financing arrangements with NEXIM (Nigeria’s export promotion bank) Skye Bank, and supported by some foreign backers of the audacious entrepreneur, Dimeji Owofemi.

Owofemi, who was also the President of the Cocoa Processors Association of Nigeria (CPAN), believed that Nigerian banks lack access to the volume of funds required to bankroll the real sector, adding that those blaming banks for neglecting the manufacturing sector, should beam their searchlight elsewhere.

During his active years as an executive, Dimeji Owofemi also maintained a strong passion against incentives for the export of agricultural raw materials as he once publicly decried the blanket incentive given non-oil exports.

He was once quoted “As a local manufacturer, I turn raw materials into finished products. I use 100,000 litres of diesel to power my generator every month and I pay staff salaries. The exporter does not need a retinue of staff or warehouse. Even though we enjoy 30 per cent subsidy on raw materials, the percentage has already been swallowed up by the cost of manufacturing in this environment.”

The grim result? Some 212 of Multi-Trex Integrated Foods Plc staff, according to the report, are out on “compulsory leave without pay” owing to the adverse business atmosphere. Multi-Trex is only one of the hundreds, if not thousands, of struggling local industries which government policy continues to throttle. That must stop.”

Dimeji Owofemi is survived by his wife and children.