Kola Afolabi would be counted among Nigerians who have contributed a lot to the growth of marketing management practice in Nigeria. His book, Essentials in Marketing Management Practice, is an encyclopedia of marketing management practice in Nigeria. Afolabi, who turned 60 recently, is currently a managing consultant at Excellence Management Support Services Ltd. Before retiring into consultancy, he was the Chairman of Odua Printing and Publishing Company Limited; Product Manager, May and Baker Nigeria Plc; Marketing Manager, Doyin Pharmaceutical Ltd; Assistant General Manager WTN Plc, among other corporate responsibilities. The National Executive Council member of the National Institute of Marketing of Nigeria had during his research in marketing come up with some additions to marketing mix; the findings that attracted marketing practitioners to him. He was also in the team that accredited the marketing programme of both Covenant University and Yaba College of Technology. In this interview with GBENGA ADERANTI, he recalls the challenges he faced as a growing up child in a polygamous home and marketing practice in Nigeria, and why he would not venture into partisan politics
All things considered, you are a Lagos boy. What memories of Lagos in the 1970s and 1980s do you have?
I will first of all want to correct the impression that I am a Lagos boy. I am home boy from my home town, Iragbiji. Yes, I have been in Lagos as a student and as a resident, employee and community leader.
To answer your question, between when I first came to Lagos in January 1978 and now, there is a whole lot of difference in terms of human traffic, vehicular traffic and even security of lives and property.When I came in 1975, I was working in Apapa and was living with my uncles, Chief Bisi Lawal and Uncle Toke Lawal Ijesha. I was working with them in Apapa. I was working in the quality control department of a pharmaceutical company in Apapa. That means before they started production at 6 am, I must have done the analysis of the quality of the materials. That meant I must get to the office at 5.45 am. And I had to trek from my house to the expressway to join the staff bus. There were no hassles. But it is a different ball game all together today, especially in terms of security and even traffic flow. Anybody who wants to resume in Apapa at 6 am or 6.30 a.m now must leave home not later than 4 am. That would be quite strenuous. I think the government and society need to do something about this because it takes a toll on the health of the society. Then there is also the problem of environmental pollution right now.
What were the hurdles you faced to get to where you are today?
The number one challenge was the fact that I am the first born of my father and mother. My father is of blessed memory. Not only that, I was born into a polygamous home. My mother was the first wife. At the time my father died in 1992, I could count 21 children behind me, some from my mother and others from my stepmothers and maybe one or two out of wedlock. My father was an illiterate, but he was a successful bricklayer at that time. Being the first child in such a large family is challenging because as an African man, you have to be your brothers’ keeper.
Secondly, a polygamous home is where you see unhealthy rivalry at its peak. That was the environment I was born into. One of my father’s wives at that time saw me when I was three or four and said, ‘Little boy, only God knows who will be the eldest in the family.’ You can imagine a stepmother saying that to a little boy. The rest is history.
In another instance, the moment I was to enter secondary school, one of my father’s wives walked up to him and told him that whatever money he spent on my secondary education, she must be given an equivalent of it to save for her two-year-old daughter. You can imagine that type of thing. The woman in question was unnecessarily hostile to me and my biological siblings and even called my mother by her first name, saying that it was only when she had a male child in that house that my mother would have peace. For the woman to give us peace, my mother was washing her clothes. It was that bad. That was another challenge.
On November 28, 1975, my mother was heavily pregnant and it was Ramadan period. It was my mother that would prepare food for the entire house, as at that time, I was aged18. My mother was preparing food in the night when she suddenly fell into labour. She didn’t call anybody until 5 am. My father didn’t sense any movement and wanted to know whether the food was ready. He came to wake me up, and asked where my mother was. I said Mama was in the kitchen. On getting to the kitchen, my father saw the pot of yam on the fire, but Mama was nowhere to be found.
We started opening the doors to the various rooms in the house and found my mother dilating in one of the rooms. That was a day I would never forget in my life. We had to rush my mum to the hospital. When we got to the hospital and my daddy was knocking on the door of the health centre, my mother asked me to remove the nylon on her head gear and put it on the floor. That was where she got delivered of the baby. That was the only day she didn’t cook for the family.
Those were some of the challenges I faced growing up, and there were many more. But to God be the glory, in spite of all this, I am fulfilled. This was the hostile environment that I grew up in. Very unfortunately, my mother lost her own father when she was seven years old and lost her mother when I was one year old. She didn’t have anybody to fall back on in her own family house. That was the reason I became resolute in my life that should God spare my life, I would try to get my mother and siblings out of all challenges and poverty. With all sense of humility, I would say that I’m fulfilled in that regard.
Tell us about your education…
When I got to Lagos in 1978, by September of that year, I got admission to go to England to study Administrative Management, and part of the conditions for admission was a deposit of 10 pounds. So I went to Owena Bank to pay the money. But by the time I was to cross to Creek Road where I was working, something just came to my mind; it was as if I heard a voice. It said, ‘Look boy, it is as if you want to go to England. If you get to England, you will study Administrative Management for three years. You have the opportunity of working for two years. But within those five years, you might have run into a lot of wealth or a lot of good things but the situation might have been bad for your mother or she might have died. At that spot, I resolved not to go to England again. Till this morning, I have not collected my money back from the school. That was the reason I had to go to Yaba College of Technology. That was my first sacrifice for my siblings and my mother for the sake of their tomorrow.
You spent many years in the North. What were those years like?
While in Kano as Area Sales Manager (North) for May & Baker, because I had already mastered the terrain, any sales target that the head office gave to me and my territory, within three weeks, I would have met it if I had not already met it in two weeks. So, what would I do with the rest of the idle time? I don’t like idle time. That was how I went into private business—fashion designing. This tailoring of a thing, I did it to help fellow human beings. I grew up to invest in fashion because that was what I was denied of while I was growing up. Not that my father would not want to do it; the stepmothers would not let me be. But when I grew up, each time I tried to dress to match, it is a way of showing appreciation to God.
One way or the other, I could create an idea of fashion. I remember the period that I was in Kano, I would take my dress to ‘No Man’s Land’ in Kano and I would tell them to do only the design for me, and I was paying them. I was surprised that one or two weeks after I had done that, I would see the design on another person. In the process, my sister got into fashion. Today, for every 10 dresses you see on me, no fewer than seven or eight of them came from her.
What is your attitude to polygamy and how do you handle women’s advances?
This is my personal opinion for people who can read between the lines. The one that is suitable to them, they should take. I am a product of polygamy, but to be very sincere, it is a tall order to succeed in a polygamous home. You can only see a few men who have had the opportunity of managing polygamy very well, and I want to say with all sense of responsibility within the limit of my own exposure that one of them I know has managed polygamy very well was His Royal Highness Oba Adeyemi, the former Akinorun of Ikirun. I am yet to see others.
Polygamy is no other thing than being in serious rivalry. The women are in serious rivalry and sometimes the lives of the children are in jeopardy. Because of the bad experience I had with it, I became resolute when I was growing up and I made a covenant with God that should I have the opportunity of taking a wife of my own and we were blessed with children, I would not go into polygamy. I entered into that covenant with God when I was 10 years old. My marriage is about 31 years old. I will not advise people to go into polygamy.
How come you are friends with many politicians but you are not holding any political office?
It is the act of God. I admit that I am friends with many big time politicians, dead or alive. One of my mentors was the late Dr. Kusamotu. I wanted an elective position to run for the position of House of Representatives between 2011 and 2012. I made conscious efforts to articulate what I wanted to achieve. I think politics is murky water. The experience was nothing to write home about. One hour to the election, I was asked to step down. That was the bitterest experience of my life, which I don’t pray to witness again. Yes, I wanted it one way or the other, but God knows why and I don’t begrudge anybody.
One way or the other, I don’t hold any political position. But in my professional practice, very few of the individuals in government who know my worth as a consultant patronise me, and whatever I am paid, I do the job.
Do you still have plans to contest any election?
No. Not at the age of 60. The reason is that I want to make more friends in my life, not more enemies. There is no elective position I can say I’m interested in now that people who are 15 or 20 years younger are not interested in. But if I get an opportunity where I can be useful to the society, for instance, I must not deceive you, I expressed interest in the position of Director General of one of the parastatals. And I want to say with all sense of responsibility that I will make a difference if I got a position of Director General of Medium and Small Scale Enterprises Organisation. There are quite a lot of ways you can help the society there because my MBA is with specialisation in international business with extensive research in world resources and trade.
You just made a public presentation of the revised edition of a book you wrote some years back. What are the new things in the book?
Let me tell you how the idea of the book started. I went to see an uncle of mine at the University of Lagos. He was a student of insurance. They were the first set of insurance undergraduates of the University of Lagos. While he was seeing me off, a senior uncle of his introduced him to another person. He said, ‘Meet my cousin, Gboyega Oyetola. He is an insurance guru.’ I didn’t say anything, but I was hearing the word guru for the first time. When I got home, I went to check my dictionary and understood that a guru is a specialist in his own profession. I resolved that day that in any profession I chose, by the grace of almighty God, I would make an impact.
Five or six months later, I got an admission into the Yaba College of Technology. Because I had resolved that in my chosen profession I wanted to be a guru, in my year one at YABATECH, on my own, I was buying seven books for each of the courses. Early enough, I subscribed to the Institute of Management’s professional journal where gurus in different fields contribute. I wanted to learn from them.
I never knew I was going to be a consultant in life. My first book was not ‘Essentials in Marketing Management Practice’; it was ‘Success at the Interview’, and it was borne out of failure experience. Failure experience in the sense that as a member of an interview panel, a fellow wanted to take a sales representative and there was a young man from my own town who wanted to take the job of sales representative. He made a good grade in the university, but facing an interview panel was a challenge. And that is what I call failure experience. Failure experience could be by your own or other people’s experience. I now asked what is so fantastic about job interview? and I felt I should help the society. That was why I wrote the book ‘Success in Interview’. It was published in 1993 and revised in Year 2000.
On marketing, after I had worked as a sales representative, sales manager, product development manager, marketing manager and general manger, I resolved that with this experience, I would get back to the society in form of social responsibility. I resolved that I was going to write a book on marketing management. As at that time I was thinking of writing a book on marketing, the profession was almost about 70 years old. There were lots of practitioners in marketing and a lot of books on sales management and marketing management, so what difference was I going to make? Would I be saying the same thing that people had said? I think it was Richard Nixon that said that you must not do the same thing other people are doing and expect a difference. What difference do I want to make?
I said let me first of all research and see the need gap. So I had to start the research in April 2004 and I discovered four things. One, I discovered that 80 per cent of marketing and other professional books in circulation were written by foreign authors. Brilliant as the contents were, they did not take cognizance of the peculiarity of Nigeria and African society. That was point number. What would work for a practitioner in Europe and America may not necessarily work for us in Nigeria. Secondly, 70 per cent of the books in circulation were written by people in the academics, and I belong to the school of thought that experience is the best teacher. There is a difference between academics and practical experience. That was the second thing.
The third thing I discovered in my research that the career in marketing profession is only at four levels; nomenclature may differ. When you are starting a carrier in marketing, you start as sales representative. What you are doing is field servicing. The second level of the career is sales management, the third level is product and brand management while the last stage is marketing management. By the grace of God, all the four levels of the command I have passed through in my career. I felt let me now sit back such that when I’m talking of field activities, I will be able to say it in theory, I will be able to say it in practice, I will be able to put case studies and discuss questions. It was on the basis of that I wrote the first book. It was well accepted and in fact when I came up with that book, I came up with four other elements of marketing mix.
In this revised edition, I felt that not enough had been done on the banking industry, insurance and real estate. And I discovered that in politics, little did people know that you need marketing professionals to succeed, because there is a meeting point between politics and marketing of goods and services. I did a lot of job on marketing dimension on political environment. Then I did a research into banking industry; the evolution of banking, which dated back to 1894. Then I looked at the challenges of banking industry. Thirdly, I looked at the untapped potential in banking industry and, of course, marketing strategy to banking.
I understand you are on the board of the National Institute of Marketing…
I am a fellow of the Institute, just as a Senior Advocate in Law. I am their external consultant. They have given me the privilege of being the consultant on accreditation of marketing programme. In March last year, we did accreditation of the B.Sc. programme of Covenant University, and I think in October, we did the accreditation of the marketing programme of Yaba College of Technology.
I observe that you like wearing white and a peculiar cap similar to that of some politicians in Osun State. Why that?
I don’t know their reasons for wearing white. White one way or the other signifies purity. If you are a very meticulous person, then you can wear white. For instance, my number one colour for cars is white. And if you drive a white car, you have no choice but to wash it every day. It has become a part of me. For dresses, the white colour I wear makes me to be very careful. It informs my conduct and attitude to job. I want to be extremely careful. It helps me in my work and professional practice.
You have so many books here in your office, yet you have very tight schedule. How do you get time to read?
Number one thing that I have come to learn about life is that the illiterate of tomorrow is the person that stops learning today. That is point number one. Point number two, from experience, I have discovered that the only asset that you can have in life that nobody can put value to is your intellectual property. That informs my decision to buy books in diverse professions. Intelligence is knowing little about many things. It helps a lot. I don’t like being idle. They say make hay while the sun shines, though at age 60 now, I am slowing down.
