 I am a maid in Gambia product. I'm an African product. Why are we saying Africans are saying that it's not possible on the continent? Well, it's because probably a lot of reasons. One, the right policies are not in place to encourage Africans, you know, to develop themselves and then to explore opportunities. I'll give you a good example. Things like investor. Investor is synonymous to Western or somebody outside of Africa. My name is Mustafa Anjai, commonly called TAF. I started about 47 years ago in my career as a carpenter and over the years I have worked in every field in construction and facing a lot of challenges which I just turned into opportunities. Over these years, I have always had big dreams but the biggest dream I've had so far my vision over the next 20 years is to develop one million homes across Sub-Saharan Africa. Whilst some might find this very challenging, I just believe in the quote from Nelson Mandela which says, it always seems impossible until it's done and inshallah it will be done. I'm smiling a lot. Please forgive me. It's not my fault because I found myself in the smiling coast of Africa. As soon as you land in this beautiful country, everyone welcomes you with a beautiful smile. I mean, some of you will be wondering, Maya, you've been to Gambia. Sundays in the Gambia is super popular beach in the Gambia. Brought me back to the Gambia. If you don't know who TAF is, then I guess you just subscribe to my YouTube channel. Mr. Mustafa, the Gambian that is making a huge impact in Nigeria. I went to Nigeria and I met an interview TAF. He built one of the biggest estates in Nigeria. The story I'm going to share today is about a Gambian man who moved from Gambia, came to Nigeria to build this biggest estate in Potacot that you've seen on your screen. And he told me that he's not from Nigeria, he's from the Gambia. So, you know what? I always wanted to know how it all started for people so that you would believe their story. So I had to trace him back to his roots. So this is the first house I built. This house here is the first house I built. Three bedrooms, with a living, dining, kitchen, and two toilets. We are the Madiba Mall and he loves Madiba with all his art. If you're from South Africa, you know what you need to do for me? Like this video and share it because this man adores and celebrated Mandela as his own. That's what I call TAF, the Pan-Africanist. I mean, he always crossed borders. Can you believe it? He's from Gambia. He built estates in Nigeria. He's doing some in Sierra Leone and different parts of Africa. I'm scared, but I have to knock. Should I say my billionaire uncle? It's good to see you again. Good to see you, Maya. Whoa! How are you doing? No, have a seat. Thank you. Can I sit down? You know, when I meet billionaires like that, I get to shake you. You're not talking now. You're not talking. Wow. I had to put on this cloth just because I was coming to meet you because people were saying that, oh, put some respect on wealthy people's name, dress officially. But I didn't forget my slippers, though. Yeah. But see you in T-shirt. I think I will change my T-shirt. But you know for me, really, it doesn't matter. I mean, you don't judge a book by its cover. But some protocols do demand that you dress properly. For example, if you're going to see the president, protocols demand that you dress up to a certain look. If you're going to see a minister, the same. Well, here, you're coming to see an entrepreneur who really dressing is not the issue. The image is not the issue. What is important is the content. So over the years, I have learned to dress easy. I'm very comfortable with what I wear. And because I am running around the sites all the time, I am comfortable in my T-shirt and my joggers and my sneakers. With always my baseball card to cover me up. If you're watching this video for the first time, you probably don't know who Mr. Mustafa Anjari is. I mean, even sitting here right now, it's such a privilege to sit beside him. If you should, if I should give you the chance to introduce yourself. I mean, if someone is watching this video for the first time, who are you? I am Mustafa Anjari and everybody calls me Taf. Taf is short for my name, which I have also adopted as my company's name when I started it some 32 years ago. But I am an African entrepreneur, very obsessed about construction, which I started long time ago, but now into development and then real estate development. I am the man who has this huge dream with a huge heart to develop one million homes across Sub-Saharan Africa. Building my houses in every country, which is the 54 countries in Africa. How many countries have you built in so far? I've built in Nigeria. I have built in, well, Senegal just a bit and also the Gambia. And are you coming to Ghana anytime soon? I don't think so. I personally think that Ghana is too saturated. I mean, the competition is too tough. I go into Greenfields. I go into areas where everybody abandons. Where everybody says, no, no, this place is a tough place. There's no market. And then I bring it up. For example, when you met me in Port Harcourt. So when we came here, very few people believed in us. They thought, oh, no, no, that's another fly-by-night or a 419 as we say in Nigeria. Oh, he's a scammer. He's saying he doesn't need any money. All he needs is just the land. Even the land, let him see. And actually, even the land that I was given was all muddy. This is river state. River state, there's no land. So we had to sand field 650,000 cubic meters of sand to be able to, where you are now, this was all water. At high tide, it'll be 2 meter high, 2 meter deep of water. So we had to sand fill it. You know, from the river, we pump it at times about 2 kilometers away. We'll get a dredger and dredge and fill it up compacting. So real engineering really happened here. I mean, even some Nigerians will not do business in Port Harcourt. But I went there, and what that means all the time is that you break the glass ceiling. Where there are challenges, I turn those challenges into opportunities. So what country are you looking for at last? Oh, I'm looking into Sierra Leone. For good reasons. I think Sierra Leone for me is virgin. I have never seen landscaping as good as what I saw in Sierra Leone. So I think the government also is ready for business. So I have been there three times. I have met the president. I have met the minister of lands. And I've only signed an MOU with them. And this time, we're not building estates anymore. We're building cities and micro cities. So we hope that by the end of this year, before the end of this year, we'll start with our first one. So, you know, better again. Every time we do something, it's better than the one we've done previously. So Sierra Leone is my next top. Let Sierra Leone's be ready. It goes in the diaspora. And we're going to build the biggest city and estates in Sierra Leone. You know, before I go into details, I mean, a year ago I met you in Portacourt. We want to know, I mean, after our video, what happened? After our video, a big thank you to Wadi Maia. You really cost trouble for me. I'm getting, you know, mails from every corner of the continent. Yeah, people are saying, oh, yeah, yeah, please, can we partner? Can we do this in my country? You know, South Sudan, you know, Sudan itself, Somalia, South Africa, Namibia, Congo, Kinshasha, everywhere. People are just sending in mails. Oh, we want to partner with you. But what we do is we take one step at a time. So after Nigeria, what we did was when we met me, I came back here. So when I came back here, what I did was to walk on the first city called the Tough City. The Tough City will be the biggest city in Gambia. In terms of size, it's twice the size of Banjul, Banjul is the capital city. So what we're building now, in Gunjur, a Sifo area, it's a new city, which is 500 hectares, with 5,000 housing units. And we've already started. Now that we have it running, my next step is Sierra Leone. Then after Sierra Leone, when we started, then we'll move into other countries, depending on how the country has its priorities right, meaning creating an environment for people like us to come and invest. You know, when I went to Sierra Leone, I was a bit disappointed to the extent that I had to cost, like I did a video just to cause a bit of controversy. I'm in Sierra Leone, and I've been crying for one good week. Like, I just want to live because any time I go out, I just feel like crying. There's no longer civil war in Sierra Leone. Ebola is over. So why are African diaspora of Sierra Leone descent not coming back home to develop the country? Telling the diaspora to come back home. So knowing that you're building a city in Sierra Leone, it's a good one. I mean, but I hope you got the Sierra Leone through my videos down. Did you get the Sierra Leone out of it? No. Sierra Leone is not true. Actually, Sierra Leone, I got to invite from the president. But I will tell you what happened in Sierra Leone with your video. Yeah, the president actually invited me about twice. He called me. When are you coming? When are you coming? But then the ambassador, the ambassador here, the high commissioner here in Gambia, walked into my office one day with all her staff that Mr. Ngyai, we want to take you to Sierra Leone. Okay. You know, she's a retired school teacher and she behaves like a school teacher, like a school teacher, the head teacher. She came in to give me instructions that Mr. Ngyai, we are taking you to Sierra Leone. So I told her, ma, I am going. And I told my staff I must go to Sierra Leone. The way this woman behaved, to get me to Sierra Leone, I have to go. And I must say that I am pleasantly surprised by the reception I got in Sierra Leone. But what happened? When I went to see the minister of local, the minister of lands and housing and something, you know, when I went to see him, I walked him and the man just jumped off his seat. He says, what? This is unbelievable. It was only today that I called all my staff that we need to go and find this Gambian that I saw on this video, you know, done by this Ghanaian YouTuber to come and invest here. So he immediately went out and called all his staff, took me to their conference room and said, guess who I have here? The Gambian that I was telling you is here. So yes, thank you very much for promoting us out there. And I hope with this video it will be much bigger. Exactly. And we hope you get a commission out of it. Yes. I personally want to know yet, so far, how many houses have you built? We've built about 2,500 houses since we started. And the goal is to build a million? A million. We need to build a million homes. Tough. I'm in the Gambia right now and I really want to know how it all started. Yeah, I'll tell you where it started. It started with the house that I own myself, my first house. The first house that I built. So this is the first house I built. This house. This house here is the first house I built. Three bedrooms, with a living, dining, kitchen and two toilets. Whoa. So it was the first house I built. Actually when I built it, it was a time that I was employed and it took me six years to build this house. Six years? Yeah, six years to build this house. How long does it take you to build a four-bedroom unit now? I can do it in three, four months. When we really want to hit it, three, four months we can build it. And I built my first house when I was 26 even before I got married. So... At the height of 26, where did you get the money from? I was well paid by the company I worked for. I was being paid like an international staff and I was saving. I had the culture of saving money. So yeah, I built my house at the age of 26, 27 and at 28 I got married. So did you sell it? No, no, no. I'm keeping the house. I still keep it. My niece is living here. So yeah, I keep it for family and I cannot sell it because this is my first house. This has to be passed on to my great-grandkids. How long did you stay in here then? I stayed in here from, I think about 1989 all the way to maybe 1995-96. But you started a taff company in the year 1990? 1990. I started in 1990. So when I started the company, I was living here and then across here, this land belonged to my uncle and I had a small office there and that's where I started. Just one small office and a place for a secretary. But in the meantime, let me tell you about my office here where we are. This is my office and I have moved offices from one place to the other because I was very heavy on construction doing the work myself. I used to work in a construction yard but now we are more of a development company so we don't need to have any construction yard because we subcontract our construction work. So this is a mall and also office complex. So retail and commercial. Free floors, the ground floor is all retail and there are also smaller offices. What we have seen recently, we have seen small outlets in there about 22 square meters, 44 square meters and the people are renting out and doing some small businesses. Then on the first floor, we have our own operations where our sales and marketing and the operations for tough Africa global is. We also have some tenants there but then on the second floor where I am is the executive floor. So this is where I am and there are also executive offices. Now when I was doing this some years back some people thought that it was too far others also thought that there wasn't a market for it because if you walk in here you will feel like you are in Washington or you are in London or you are in Dubai. It's done properly, that's what I mean. Then for that reason we now understand that there is a demand for this and we are now building two towers in the institutional area where a lot of these are and then location wise it's in the middle of the urban area. We are building two towers which is called the Taft Twins. After building the Maribor Mall where we are now with our offices we just found out that there is a demand for good offices. So we decided to build the Taft Twins. It's two towers and each of them will have 7,000 square meters of retail and office space. So two of them put together is 14,000 square meters of retail and floor space. It will be the most modern office and it will be a smart building and it will be a green building too. I mean, is it almost done? How long is it going to take then? We have another eight months and then the first offices will be ready. Okay. What else do you want to show me? Well, apart from the workers there is nothing much to show you here but we will go on and I will show you the other things that we are doing. Staff, let me understand. You built your first house. Is it because of this house that inspired you to start a real estate company? Well, I built the house first but this is my business. I was in construction but real estate I really started when I went to America on a program called EI Entrepreneurial International. The American government gave me a program to go and see how developers were working. So I was inspired. Because being, you know, doing some development. So when I came back I built my first units I really, I was renting out at first then later I built some to sell. This is Keria Bagin apartments. It's four masonets, two-bedroom and three-bedroom. Okay. This I built in 1991 after I was sent on a training program in the U.S. by the American government on the EI it's called Entrepreneurial International where they expose, you know, young entrepreneurs from the third world to go and see how things are done in the U.S. So I was attacked to a developer in Las Vegas and actually he was developing and selling but I couldn't sell at the time so what I did was I bought this parcel of land because by then I started making money from my business then built these two units, these four units but not to sell but to rent it out because there's a demand for rent. So I kept it as an investment portfolio so I was renting it out and up to now it's within the family business that we rented out. How many plots is this? Well this is one plot as such. We don't have here standard plots as such. Okay. But it's one plot very old as you can see we can fit in a pool and then we have these, they are masonets so you have on the ground floor you have a living room dining, a kitchenette and a toilet and then on top you have two bedrooms and they share the toilet. Maya, this is the first estate that I built this is the first one that I bought the land and built five houses, five units here and then sold them out and the reason why it happened was that I was in the US again and on a program with the World Bank and the Gambian ambassador at the time appealed to me that look there are Gambians who would be sending money home but they don't have houses so whether you start just buying the land or building it complete as what we are doing now so I came in as a trial bought this parcel of land and built five units and they were sold out immediately. So I guess this was the birth of the Tav city. Real estate development this is the birth of the Tav city, what do you see now with 5,000 houses we started with five houses this is the second estate that we built after we built the five houses in Kololi Rambamba and it's low cost housing the government gave us the land of 10.5 hectares and we built 210 affordable houses but then it was low income housing but low income but nicely all done 300 square meters for every plot and then two bedrooms and three bedrooms in dollar times at that time two bedrooms were being sold at $15,000 and three bedrooms were being sold at $20,000 What do you mean by government allocated land doesn't mean that you got this land for free? Yes what happened was at the time no private individual was investing in housing delivery affordable housing delivery so government wanted to encourage the private sector to invest in housing so that it can be affordable so government allocated the land and then we obviously built it up and then margins were low and that was why it was affordable in dollar times at the time a unit was being sold here at $190,000 so the value of the land that was calculated was passed on to the buyer and not the contractor I think we need to give a big shout out to the government at that time and I think this should be done across the continent because I feel like the real estate business especially in Ghana is extremely expensive knowing that you have to buy a house four bedroom house for over $200,000 The way forward for two out of Africa if you want to do affordable housing and house your citizens you cannot have the developer buy the land because once you buy the land then it is a cost on the project and you just pass over the cost to the buyer so what the government should do is they should take the land and then invest it in the development and then stop the developer not putting a cost into the final price as part of the land as part of the project actually it is still happening the government is contributing the land the government is contributing the land what about the project you did in Nigeria the government contributed the land so it was affordable part of it was for public servants so it is a condition all the time any time government contributes the land they have a say on the price they will say okay look for this category of people who are nationals you cannot sell the houses more than this price and then in some cases even they give you duty free concessions in Nigeria we had what we call a pioneer status so they gave us a tax break for a certain number of years so that's what happened so government needs to contribute to make housing affordable if I ever come to Gambia or I go anywhere no one has to tell me that this estate belongs to Taf you know why? the colors we need the colors because we have a lot of dust storms here very sandy so for that reason we make these colors in the dirt but one thing I love about your estate is the fact that you always plant trees and flowers in every estate that I've seen that you own it all of them let me tell you one thing about flowers flowers is the makeup that the women put on their faces can you imagine a woman without any makeup? I love my woman without makeup anyway mostly they put all their makeup so that's the same thing if you build houses without flowers without green it's bare so the makeup is the flowers the trees and it's good for the environment so we plant as much flowers and as much trees as possible estate number what? estate number 4 this one actually we bought the land from a local owner 20 hectares of land and this was in 2017 so we bought the land 20 hectares and we did 375 units and again sold out quickly in 18 months we all sold out what we did was part of it was readily built and then the other part was sites and services the reason why actually it's got sold so fast after 2017 there was a lot of confidence that was built and gambes wanted to come back people who were away started heavily into housing tough you saw the third estate one for $15,000 how much did you sell this one for? these ones we were selling for about $30,000 $35,000 and again the size of land we even went a bit smaller we have a unit here that is under 200 square meters of land and then built about 70 square meters and people bought it and they are living it throughout this journey of building what has been the major challenge that you face as a developer? in the Gambia the major challenge is labour skills labour is the major challenge we have a tradition of French speaking countries coming into our country like Senegal to come in and do all these technical works so I would like to appeal we need more carpenters we need more messians we need more plumbers there is a major challenge today and even in building we don't have the young people now going for technical skills and how do you overcome these challenges then? we have a technical training centre now within our foundation where we take young people we train them with skills and we employ them but apart from that you know in West Africa so we see quite a number of other nationalities coming in you don't have people coming from Nigeria from Sierra Leone because again on the other way around when we went to Nigeria I took there 400 Gambians and Senegalese 400 of them because of the speed that we wanted to get the way we wanted to get jobs done we had to bring in a lot of labour so Senegalese are very skillful and we took a lot of them there I would just want to tell you that you are an inspiration let me ask this question what are the core values behind your success? well I think hard work number one if I use it too if any young person who is watching wants to be successful the combination that you must have is to work hard and be honest these are key values that if you have it I see no reason why you shouldn't be successful Mr Taft you used to be a carpenter I mean you said you go to America you come back you get inspired and then you come back you get so much inspired in America and then you come here and then exhibit it and then it works out let me know at some point you ever left this country lived or brought all your life never the longest time that I've lived outside of Gambia is when I went to Port Harcourt and I wouldn't even stay more than a month without coming home so at any one time I have never I cannot remember staying more than three months out of this country everything that I know that I have been trained, learned everything that I have heard in my life I made it in this country so it means that it's possible to make it in the Gambia oh yes I keep telling people that look I am a maid in the Gambia product Gambia can be part of me because everything that I can boost of today that is now going over to other countries it was all made in this small country called the Gambia so what are the use of Gambia doing wrong then well the thing is I think they want to get too fast I did my apprenticeship and my apprenticeship was to work first as a carpenter then from there I was employed and I was honest with my employers then I started working and you know I just went you know step by step you know in life life is a ladder and not an elevator you know in the ladder you go one step after the other but life is not an elevator where you just go in press a button and it takes you to the last floor no that's not life it seems estate number five is still under construction yeah it is under it is under construction and it's over 600 units on this wall 600 yeah 600 units this is called Tulip Gardens and it's the one we built after Dalaba so we always try to take a huge step so from 375 this next one is over 600 what really inspires you to do what you do because I feel like I need to know you start from 5 the next you move to 200 now we are at 600 I guess your next project will be 5000 or 6000 yes you know what inspires me that there's a demand I mean putting a roof over people's head it's a basic human right so there's a demand and for business we need to supply these houses we need to find a way ways of supplying these houses so because there's so much demand it's never enough what you build what I've noticed is that all your houses that you've shown me that you built are all affordable are you known as the affordable man yes affordable housing is a specialty if you want to go upmarket please don't come close to us if you want to do social housing we cannot do social housing we do affordable housing and therefore that's why we built houses like this when you talk about affordable housing what is your price range then affordable housing let me tell you now everything I do it's at the African level and I think research has shown that if you want to build anything less than $10,000 or $15,000 that will be classified as social housing and government needs to do a lot to bring the price down now affordable housing is in the bracket of around $25,000 $30,000 going up and that's where it's for the middle and upper middle class then the high end luxury will start from maybe the $100,000 going up so this is your 600 project, 600 unit project what is the next one our next one we're not doing estates anymore we're doing cities this is the last one because we're not doing anything less than $1,000 anymore we don't involve in any project that is less than $1,000 so now anything we do we don't do estates we do cities and micro cities so what city are you doing at this very moment tough city is what we're doing in Uganda do you mean tough city yes I would love to go there but before you take me there let me ask you my final question I mean Niger was not a city the one you built in Nigeria that I came to see that's not a city, it's an estate it was 40 hectares of land you had a school in there yes we had everything but it's still an estate but a city is different what is the definition for a city a city is where you have everything live, walk and play that is what a city is I was playing football when I was in Potahakor yeah but you were not working there there were no offices there were no industries but in a city you have to have industries, you have to have a hospital you have to have university you have to have a high school, primary school and also residential that's the model we are putting out now tough, I want to see I'm so excited right now and can you take me there let's head out