Business genius and its enabling factors: the making of Oladele Fajemirokun

A review of The Making of Me: My Odyssey in Business by eminent scholar Prof. Adebayo Williams in Lagos

It is said that if a man is diligent in his work, he will walk before kings and here we are today.

Notable members of the Fajemirokun clan of Ifewara and Ile Oluji who are here in full force today, the author’ children, distinguished occupants of the front seat, illustrious compatriots in the hall, particularly our former colleagues at the then University of Ife, members of the Launch Committee who have worked diligently and extremely hard in the last three months, the author, Chief Oladele Fajemirokun, the latest member of Nigeria’s fraternity of the pen, and of course my friend and sister, Edith his beloved wife, the woman I call the author’s much better half, I welcome you all to this public unveiling of a remarkable intervention in Nigeria’s body politic and economic order. My review is titled, Business Genius and its Enabling Factors: The Making of Oladele Fajemirokun.

 

Establishing the framework

 

This is an unusual book by an unusual man and it deserves an unusual review. I am not interested in banal plot summary and tedious iteration of events and happenings. I am only interested in the author’s robust thoughts as they course through an eventful and tumultuous life and as they establish business paradigms even as they proffer answers to why Nigerians and Africans find it very difficult to grow business and why entrepreneurs of genius are rare in Nigeria. Let me wager right from the world go that this book is destined to become a classic of its genre.

Nigerians often look towards foreign entrepreneurs and business magnates for inspiration and visionary guidelines when we have them in abundance here. But like plants growing among thorns, the hostile climate cripples their genius and inhibits their aspirations. This is the touching story of a man who refused to be squashed and throttled by his environment, indeed of a man who rose defiantly to overcome crippling limitations in order to dominate his environment, as they say in military parlance.

As it has been observed, talent does what it can but genius does what it must. Whether you like this self-driven man or you don’t ; whether you endorse his ruthless boardroom wars, his fierce independence of spirit and contempt for emotional incontinence when it comes to taking critical decisions about human company or companies he chaired or you don’t , you will have to stand up at the end of it all that here is one hell of a man.

Let me start by making some confessions. When my friend of forty eight years, beginning from October, 1971 when we met as fresh undergraduates at the then university of Ife called me as usual in the dead of the night to inform me that he has written a book, I thought it was a literary joke carried too far. Why would this fellow after succeeding in the business world now be making an unwarranted incursion into a field exclusively reserved for the likes of the reviewer? Whatever happened to the division of labour?

I rubbed my hands in relish, recalling a famous passage from Job: “My desire is that my adversary has written a book”. My blood warmed at the prospects of a memorable literary slaughter. This is the last time he would ever attempt to put pen to paper, I vowed to myself in the dead of the night. But after reading the first few pages, it turned out that the joke was on me. The fellow could not only write, he writes very well indeed, so much that his friends are now insisting that he should write a sequel to this fascinating and bewitching account of growing up and succeeding in one’s chosen field. It is an unsentimental education.

The second major surprise is that the author has lived this long to witness this glorious event. I never expected him to survive this long, given his earlier heroic exertions in the department of anti-establishment delinquency and deviancy. I am sure that the author is also surprised that I, myself, have lived this long. During the struggle against military despotism in Nigeria, the author used to send private emissaries to me to inform me that he was willing to smuggle me out of Nigeria at short notice.

The author himself brilliantly characterised this rebellious trait as “positive deviance” and we must grant him his infinite capacity for inventive phrase-making. I say this with all sense of responsibility because I was myself an active participant in those stormy events which brought us together at the barricades of youthful protest against authorities.

Many will understand the motive and motivation of some of us who were perennial social outcasts. But I have never stopped asking myself whatever would have brought the son of Nigeria’s most fabled industrialist at that point in time from the plane of prosperity and privileges to the portals of students’ protests and the path of continuously fomenting trouble and tormenting the university authorities.

But once again, it has turned out that these were active and vital ingredients in the making of an acute social conscience, the early stirrings of uncommon empathy and emotional intelligence which allow him to connect to people and to identify with the plight of the poor and underprivileged in the society. It has also fuelled his abiding contempt for the social and political disorder that has embroiled Nigeria since independence.

Contrary to widespread insinuations and all appearances, it turned out that the author did not grow up with a silver spoon and neither was his path smoothened by the immense wealth and influence of his fabled father. Dele Fajemirokun is the archetype of the driven self-made man.

Appropriately therefore, this memoir opens with an account of growing up in a sweltering one-room apartment of a tenement house in Eletu Iwase in the bowels of central Lagos under a self-driven and ferociously focused father who was slowly transforming himself from a demobilized soldier who had seen action in Burma to a hell-raising trade unionist and eventually a successful entrepreneur. It is the stuff of magical self-transformation and a tribute to the can do spirit of average Nigerians.

It is said that looking at a king’s mouth, no one would imagine that he ever sucked at his mother’s breast. Life was not rosy at all. The author took in some hard lessons about how harsh and unforgiving life can be for the weak and weakling. It was the equivalent of living in an urban zoo. The author had to slug it out, sometimes with bigger boys who learnt their fistic trade literally living on the streets. When they beat him up and inflicted tell-tale cuts on him, his enraged father added his own punishment for allowing himself to be so pummelled and browbeaten.

There was a memorable occasion when he was driven out of the house to go and even scores with his assailant who had made a short shrift of him. After surprising his opponent with a combination of fierce scratching and biting, our man returned home like a wounded puppy that had survived a terrible mauling. This was as close to a war zone or hell as it could be and the author was often found with his pockets bristling with razor blades, stones and other weapons of offense and self-defence as the case may be.

It was a character-moulding furnace, a purgatory of fire and brimstone from which emerged a fully formed man with a permanent disdain for elitist pretensions, shabby social-climbing, aristocratic inanities and other social shenanigans favoured by the rich and thoroughly spoilt of the society. As he will put it on page 263 of this engrossing memoir:

“But thanks to my late father’s strict and firm supervision of my upbringing, the paramount issue was that, despite my increasing affluence, I would not raise spoilt children who would grow up with a warped mental mindset of “aje bota” “.

These are the traits of sturdy independence, social conscience, forthright compassion and passion for social justice that he would take to Secondary School at Loyola College, Ibadan until one trouble too many compelled his no-nonsense father to banish him to the rural precincts of Gboluji Grammar School, Ile-Oluji for his Higher School Certificate education.

But the genie of rebellion against injustice and courageous advocacy for political equity was already out of the bottle and will never be put back. These traits would later propel him to the front ranks of student agitations at the then University of Ife. It was at this point that fate and destiny conjoined the two of us. There were very close shaves with the authorities indeed.

One thing to note is that unlike contemporary children of the rich and privileged who tend to shun student agitations for the cosy cocoons of leisure, privileged students of our time actively participated in struggles against military autocracy and local tyranny.

I must single out for honourable mention, Prince Mosunmade Akin-Olugbade,  Bolatito Ladapo, the late Moyo Ogundipe, the late Isola Filani, the late Onome Ibru, Curtis Olujimi Adeniyi-Jones and the likes of Tosin Ogunkeye. Dele Fajemirokun participated fully in these youthful exertions and was part of the daring anti-establishment gambit to install the hell-raising Adeniyi –Jones as president of the students’ union in 1973.

In February 1978, two years after graduating from the NYSC and three years after leaving university with a degree in Business Economics, fate was to deal the author an intriguing card with the death of his famous father while on a Trade Mission in Cote D’Ivoire. Conventional expectation was that the younger Fajemirokun would join his father’s business empire and carve a niche for himself in the family trade. But the young man shunned instant fame and established brand for the brutal anonymity and obscurity of working and trading in Kano.

This was another demonstration of militant self-belief, independence and a capacity for long-term projection rather than short-term gratification and self-indulgence. In the event, the passing of the father catapulted the young Dele Fajemirokun at the age of twenty eight into office as the Group Executive Director of his father’s business empire, Henry Stephens Group under the chairmanship of Professor Ayo Ogunseye.

But for the restless and immensely motivated young man, this was not the end of history as normal people will expect but the stepping stone to a new phase of history. Yet despite the glamour and outward allure of buoyancy and liquidity, the Henry Stephens Group was severely encumbered and cash-strapped. Virtually all the properties were under crippling mortgage. According to the author, he also faced some internal hostility owing to the nature of a polygamous set up in which the prima Dona had died intestate.

Very soon, Dele Fajemirokun exited from his father’s group to carve his own niche and specialized brand. Filial obligations to his late father made him to ensure that the financial obligations of the company had been fully discharged and the heavy debt-ridden overcast dispelled. Thereafter, a very lucky break through the instrumentality of Chief Akanbi Oniyangi, the then Minister of Communication in the Second Republic, suddenly saw the young entrepreneur awash in big time cash.

Rather than resting on his oars and sitting back to enjoy his new-found fortune, Dele Fajemirokun leveraged his cash into a deal which enabled him to acquire the controlling shares in a telecommunication venture. T-CAS blossomed into a giant in the industry and a veritable cash-spinner. In a matter of time and in a manner of speaking, the young man from the slum of Eletu Iwase has transformed into a modern day Nigerian Croesus who turned everything he touched into gold.

After this, there was really nothing stopping him. His restless energy and compulsive gambling streak which is part of the integral nature of business genius pushed him further and farther afield into strange and uncharted waters. Business deals followed business deals. Sometimes, our man would wake up not knowing which capital of the world he was. His driving motto which should be a lesson to all aspiring Nigerian business titans is that huge tomes of cash should never be left lying fallow and fat in bank vaults at the mercy of parasitic vultures and financial predators.

But it is not all glittering success. As it should be expected, there were the odd failures and daring double-crossing, such as the failed shipping venture and the moribund project to convert cassava into industrial starch. Dele took it all in the chin. There were protracted litigations and bust-up with friends and business associates. There was a scary moment when he was only lucky to escape the searching scrutiny of a telescopic rifle in far-away Virginia.

It should be placed on record that he refused the offers of a lucrative oil block. He also at the last moment recused himself from an arms deal which could have made him even fabulously richer, a development which brought howls of derision from a sitting military president. Even for the son of a discharged soldier, this was a bridge too far.

In chronicling all this, it must be said that Chief Fajemirokun’s grasp of details is truly impressive, bordering on the intimidating. He has the memory of an elephant. His power of recall is a tad short of the miraculous. Nothing escapes his close scrutiny and merciless attention, not even the minor infractions from growing up or the major affronts in blessed maturity. Fajemirokun is not a man to cross lightly and I shudder at the fate of some of the people brought out for swift judicial execution in this unforgettable memoir.

 

The Paradigm

 

The lessons of this book are legion and they will be discussed for many years to come. But since we are principally concerned with how and why business and businessmen tend to fail in Africa, we must focus in closing on why Fajemirokun has succeeded where many others have failed. These are the vital ingredients and enabling factors in the making of an extraordinary man and business titan and we beg to isolate four of these factors.

First is the author’s own theory of positive deviance. It is an amazing formulation brimming with paradoxical gaming and oxymoronic bravura. There are many of our youths that we often dismiss as eccentrics, outcasts and ne’er do well delinquents when in reality these precociously gifted children are merely honing their gifts for future exertions, when in reality there are merely privileging emotional intelligence with its social savvy and power to connect with the outside world over book intelligence which is solitary, isolated and hidebound. Fajemirokun’s exemplary life and amazing success in the business world is a glittering tribute to the power of positive deviance.

Second is the influence of genes in determining the scope and power of genius. We often wonder why successful businesses in Nigeria do not survive the first generation whereas in England and Europe you can have bakers from the eighteenth century, tailors from the seventeenth, book retailers from the sixteenth and bankers from the fifteenth. What do these remarkable families have that we don’t that has enabled them to survive from one generation to another?

Genes are ultimately destiny. You cannot give what you don’t have. Till date, the Fajemirokun clan has produced four generations of outstanding money-spinners. First was the founding primogenitor the Orunto of Ifewara himself, a warrior-farmer who is still known in Ifewara almost a century after as Baba onikoko. The next was his son, Daniel, Dele’s grandfather, who was taken as a youth to Ile-Oluji by his mother after a fierce family feud over inheritance and became an enormously rich farmer like his father.

A driven man who combined prodigious feats of working with prodigious bouts of drinking, Baba onikoko was an exemplar of the feudal economy of production marrying many wives to boost the work-force on his farms. Thus labour at home complemented labour on the farms, a feat of procreative and creative ingenuity.

His grandson, Henry Oloyede, Dele’s father, leveraged the warrior-genes he has inherited from his ancestors to become a youthful soldier in Burma, a fiery trade unionist and a successful business magnate. In Dele Fajemirokun, the great grandson of the founding avatar, everything has come together to produce an unusual man and an extraordinary business magnate.

Thirdly, our European traducers often point at our inability to valorize capital and delay instant gratification as the bane of business in Africa and Nigeria. The African appetite for immediate and conspicuous consumption is a historic curse. With our ancestors, rather than devise means of storage surplus products such as, corn, yam, plantain and sorghum are turned into alcoholic beverages with orgies of drinking followed by orgies of wild fornication. From the chronicle above it is clear that the author is totally averse to premature gratification and self-indulgent pleasures.

Fourthly and finally, it can be seen that the author’s ruthless business strategy is akin to the theory of permanent chaos or war-gaming in business. This is as close to creative destruction as it can get. His numerous boards and chief executives are kept permanently on their toes. He is completely devoid of emotions when taking tough and harsh decisions about the future of the companies he chairs.

Not for him any sinecure indolence or unearned preferment. The red card is permanently flashing and all positions must be continuously merited and justified. There is no free lunch anywhere. This is how to run modern companies and nations and we will do well to learn from this great man.

On a last note, it is said that behind every successful man, there is a great woman. The author pays effusive tributes to his wife who since they met thirty seven years ago has been the bedrock of emotional stability for a man who can be driven and very difficult. According to the author: For someone to marry a man like me, somewhat unpredictable, with a restless and hyperactive mind, is a story of resilience, understanding, acceptance and perseverance”. We must salute the exemplary courage of this woman, a paragon of beauty both inside and outside.

 

Concluding Remarks

 

I warmly recommend this book. Fajemirokun writes with a delightfully crisp and captivating style, making the book a racy and riveting read. Once in a while, you are arrested by an amazing turn of the phrase or by a powerfully imaginative summation of people and event. For a man supposed to be drilled and grilled in the starchy milieu of business and cost-weighing this fascination with the written word puts the writer in a class of his own among business moguls.

There is a befitting irony about this which sums it all up. For a man who grew up very much aware that he would never be able to match his father’s verbal flourish and capacity for flamboyant oratory of the self-made unionist, Oladele Fajemirokun has honed his own peculiar gifts by turning himself into a powerful master of the written word.

Good old Henry will be smiling in his grave. This is indeed the making of a unique business man and the odyssey of an exceptional Nigerian. It will serve as a source of inspiration to many Nigerians aspiring to distinguish themselves in the business world.  This may well be the most enduring gift of Chief Oladele Fajemirokun to his compatriots. I thank you all.