Why are Small Medium Enterprises (SMEs) in Zambia still stunted, unable to shake off the chains of SMEhood for generations despite years of financing and empowerment programs? What holds the millions of SMEs in Nigeria in the same place for decades notwithstanding massive federal and state preferential procurement projects? Is it lack of business skills; yet generations of South African graduates pour out of Universities and colleges annually with degrees in entrepreneurship? What about the age-old mantra of harsh and hostile business environments in Africa? What is the combination key that transforms a small business into a large and visible stable business outfit? Is it race, family, education, community or ethnic considerations? After learning about entrepreneurship in numerous accounting and business lectures; observing merchants leverage bank finance as a banker, and trying and failing and finally stabilising at my own business enterprises as a fabled SME for ten years, these THREE ANCIENT, ETERNAL SECRETS, that served past generations of merchants well, could just be that combination key. OLEANDER is a story of Ishmael Badat, who against societal expectations, quits his much-coveted job at a top bank in Lusaka, Zambia to FOCUS his energies on one thing; running his small family shop selling sweets. Badat & Sons diversifies into trucking; the very same mistakes all small businesses have made from time immemorial. With no future for his sweet shop, Ishmael must make another unpopular decision. Circumstances force him into exile in Durban, South Africa. He spends time under the tutelage of Mr. Krishna; a sweet and candy connoisseur at Maharashtra Sweets Pty in Durban. It will take grit, passion and divinity for Ishmael to survive the SEVEN years of apprenticeship. He finally attains MASTERY of the business of sweets. Ishmael falls in love with Mr. Krishna’s only daughter and elopes. With barely enough business mastery and funds, he must leave Durban for another city, perhaps another country. Ishmael’s dream of a sweet empire finally finds fertile ground in his new home, Lagos, Nigeria. How has Ishmael morphed from a small sweet shop owner 15 years ago to owning a regional sweet empire? Are there laws a small business owner must obey to graduate into a large corporation? What are these principles? Meanwhile, a conference of celestial beings has been taking place in a far-off galaxy. Here, these laws and principles of business are finally revealed and bequeathed to humans. In OLEANDER, every small business owner’s perennial and existential questions are explored and answered.