With a new single and several business ventures, budding singer, song writer, model and entrepreneur John Angela Chioma, better known as Annjay, is one artiste to look out for this year. Speaking with Ovwe Medeme in this interview, the former journalist says that she is not willing to compromise her dignity for a shot at fame. She also talks about other issues including career, love and marriage.
WE just entered the second quarter of the year. How has it been so far?
2017 has been a great year so far. I recently launched my hair line called Annjay Hair. I also launched my official website called Annjay’s World. Also, I will be releasing a new single soon so I would say that 2017 has been about work and more work.
What is the new single titled?
The new single is titled Man No Be God and it will be dropping in a few days time. I call it a reality song because I have come to realise that some humans play God; a lot of people would die because of the greed of others. Humans don’t forgive easily. Everybody’s destiny is different. God is above everything and he can change someone’s destiny in a second.
What other tracks have you released so far?
I have released a couple of singles. Among them are Gbakodoro, Fly High, Fall in Love, and Do Me Right.
How is the venture faring?
It’s doing well by the grace of God. We have our clients across the globe. We are into Brazilian virgin human hair, eye lashes for women. We have other products coming out soon in the market.
How does combining business and career sit well with you?
I would say that it is the grace of God. Also, I’m a time-conscious person which simply means that I don’t joke with my time. It hasn’t been easy but it has been worth it.
What business challenges have you encountered?
There have been challenges of exchange rate and a declining economy. This is really affecting business a lot as many people often complain about it. But we hope things change soon in Nigeria as many investors believe so much in the Nigerian market and Nigeria as a whole.
Aside hair, what other business are you into?
We have some good products that will be hitting Nigeria market soon. And I believe Nigerians as a whole will benefit from this wonderful brands. That’s all I can say for now, but the general public should note this and keep their fingers crossed.
What is it about being a musician that thrills you the most?
When I see myself singing to thousands of people, it makes me feel fulfilled. Also, working with positive-minded people from different backgrounds is great. Singing as a career is beautiful but one needs to take things easy because once you are there, a lot of things might get into your head that could make you lose focus. So, I am staying grounded to make sure I remain the person I used to be.
What message do you propagate in your music?
I have positive messages in my songs. My producer and I sit down together and work on my music properly even before going to the studio. Music is not something you rush; it requires a lot of work and time.
What inspires you when you mount the stage?
I would say my passion. The passion I have for my career drives me to give more when I’m on stage. I have it planted like a seed inside me and it can never die. I am not the type that sits down and looks for a way out.
Artistes are known to take performance-enhancing substances. What is your source of energy when on stage?
I am aware some artistes take drugs to help them perform on stage, but as for me, I don’t do anything or take drugs to get inspiration. I don’t need any substance to perform on stage. I remember many people have asked me this before during interviews; what I don’t know is why the drug questions keep coming.
What determines your stage fashion?
I look at the concept of the event and that would help me to decide what I’m going to wear while performing on stage. If it’s corporate, church or entertainment event, I will dress differently. You don’t expect me to dress the same way I dress to an entertainment event to a church or corporate event. So, it depends on the event. All I want people to know is that I’m doing my job. Nobody should judge my dressing because I want them to understand that’s what entertainment is all about.
Would you drop your career because of marriage?
This is one subject I don’t like talking about because I want people to know that sometimes in life man proposes but God disposes. The future is not predictable as it’s in the hand of God and, again, nothing lasts forever. I like my career and business very much and I don’t intend to quit. I do my best and leave the rest for God as usual. Everything I’m doing today is with the grace of God.
Are you married or in a relationship?
I’m not married and I don’t like bringing my private life to public domain. My music career and business have nothing to do with my love life. That’s the way I see it. Marriage is a beautiful thing but I don’t like talking about it because that’s not the main thing right now.
What attracts you to a man?
First and foremost, he must be a God-fearing person. Also, he must be compassionate. The way a mean treats others tells a lot about him. He must be smart and intelligent and be willing to help me build my career, business and family.
How has your modelling career been faring?
It is going fine. So far, I have modelled for some clothing companies and in music videos. I have also modelled for slimming supplements by Nature Hero, a New York-based company.
What defines your fashion sense?
I love to look good and comfortable. I don’t follow trends as long as the outfit looks perfect on me. Nobody should expect Annjay to follow trends anytime or any day because I’m the wrong person to expect such from.
What fashion item forms a larger part of your wardrobe?
That will be shoes and sunglasses. I like them a lot. If you enter my room, you will see different types of shoes all over the place. Sometimes, my mum will jokingly say ‘my daughter, how do you manage to wear all this leather on your legs’?
What fashion item can you spend a fortune on?
I can spend my last kobo on shoes, sunglasses and perfumes. I don’t joke with them.
What stands you out on the red carpet?
My outfit and the way I carry myself. And you know that red carpet is another major work in entertainment industry. If you are not looking good, sorry you are not fit for red carpet. I’m not perfect but always trying my best when it comes to that.
What lessons has life taught you as a musician?
Life has taught me to be strong, always expect challenges, never give up and don’t depend on anyone except God.
What is the naughtiest thing you’ve ever done?
During my school days, I was having an argument with my course mate and before you knew it, she turned it into a fight. Before I could say anything, she hit me on the face and immediately I gave her back and she held my clothes and she started shouting, ‘you go kill me today or I’ll naked you’. That statement put me off that I tore the shirt I was wearing by myself, leaving only the bra and Jeans on me and I beat her up. I was a tomboy; I had another shirt in my bag that I quickly changed into. She was plump so she felt she could intimidate me with her size, not knowing that lepa no be disease. But that was then and not now.
How much will make you go nude in a music video?
No amount of money will make me go nude. Rejecting such offers doesn’t make me an unprofessional entertainer. But the truth is that whether I go nude or not, what will be will be. For instance, after going nude and people pick interest in working with you with millions and later disqualify you because of your nude movies or video.
Which would you consider your first love; music or journalism?
Both of them are my first love but journalism came first. Journalism prepared me for everything I’m doing today. I’m a journalist anytime because I know how much both careers work together.
As Lagos celebrates 50, Alhaji Femi Okunnu, 84, former Federal Commissioner for Works and Housing and a true-blood Lagosian goes down memory lane with Gboyega Alaka on events that led to the creation of the state. He also spoke of the Nigeria of yesteryears, where ethnicity and religiousity had no place, and Zik, an Igbo, was elected by a largely Yoruba-speaking people to represent them.
You are a Nigerian and a true-blood Lagosian; what’s your reaction to those who say Lagos is no-man’s land?
There is no no-man’s land. There are always some people who are original settlers. In the case of Lagos, it’s a misnomer to say Lagos is a no-man’s land. It’s rubbish. Absolute rubbish! Lagos was peopled by the Aworis and Awori land spread from Badagry through to Ota. They settled mostly in Ikeja, a division of Lagos. The Idejo chiefs, the white cap chiefs, who are the land owning chiefs, are basically Aworis and some of them are now Obas. I’m talking about the Oniru, The Olumegbon, Aromire, Oluwa, Ojora, Oloto and a couple others. After them, waves of immigrants, from today’s Niger State, started trooping in. I’m talking of the Tapas, the Nupes. I have Nupe blood. My father’s mother was a daughter of a Nupe man, Umoru from Idunsagbe in Lagos Island. Mind you, I’m talking of my great, great, grand-father; so you can imagine how long we’re talking about and how far our history dates back in Lagos. The Oshodi family of Lagos were originally Tapa. My wife is an Oshodi; Oyekan Oshodi. The Chief Imam of Lagos and all his great grand fathers were Tapa, owing to their vast knowledge in the Quran. Now, you would not say they are not original Lagosians because we’re talking of a history that dates back well over three hundred years.
Later we had another batch of immi grants over a period of time – those who had been taken into slavery in the North and South America and the West Indies but who had been freed following the abolition of slave trade about 170 years ago. Some of them also came in from Freetown, Sierra Leone. That’s where we have the Saro, Eko connection. They settled in the Olowogbowo area.
Then we had the Binis from Benin (present Edo State). They invaded Lagos and settled in the best part of what we now call Isale-Eko. Oba Ado and all successive kings of Lagos are of Benin. You won’t say they are not Lagosians because we are talking of hundreds of years ago.
So you can see that it is the latter day immigrants, who are full of the nonsense that Lagos is a no-man’s land.
What about the Brazilian connection?
Yes, I was coming there. The Brazilian Quarters were made up of another set of returnees: the Agustos, the Dasilva, Marinho, Pereira and their descendants, who returned from Brazil and other parts of South America. So when you talk of indigenes of Lagos. These are the people who arrived Lagos Island and environment over two hundred years ago. So there is no controversy over the indigenes of Lagos. It is complete ignorance.
You are saying that even the first Oba met some people in Lagos…
The Binis took over the reign of Lagos by conquest. The Aworis were there before them. They were the original settlers. Iga Idunganran itself was a gift to Oba Ado by Oloye Aromire, a white cap chief. He owned the land that the palace occupies till today. That is why till today, we have sections of Isale-Eko with Bini connections. When you hear of Idumota, Idunsagbe, Idunmaigbo, Idun-tafa; the word idun had bini origin. And then we had some chiefs who came with King Ado. That is another wide area. But suffice to say that Obanikoro, was a medicine chief who came with King Ado; so is Ashogbon. In Bini, it is Asogbon. There is also Bajulaye, who originally was Bazuaye. So the Bini connection is very deep. As a matter of fact, the corpses of all the obas, from King Ado through to Oba Adele I, who died at about 1834, were all taken to Benin for burial.
You were one of those who fought for a state status for Lagos about fifty years ago; what spurred you?
Let’s start from the beginning. Britain had three colonies in what is now present day Nigeria; not two as has been mistaken over time. The first was the Colony of Lagos, which spread from Epe, Ikeja, Awori land, Agege. When Britain colonised Lagos in 1861, it established its government, first in Freetown and later in Accra. Lagos colony was part of the West African Settlement, as the British called it. At about 1888, Lagos colony came under direct rule from London. In 1900, Britain then acquired two other colonies, Northern Nigeria on 1st January 1900. Britain then proclaimed the Protectorate of Northern Nigeria and the Protectorate of Southern Nigeria; making it three colonies. Those born in the then Lagos Colony, whether Epe, Bad or Lagos Island or Mainland, were full-blooded British citizens, with British passport and all the rights of a Briton. However, those who were born in Northern and Southern Protectorates were British protected persons, not full blooded British citizens. I’m making this distinction to show the distinctiveness of Lagos. When people talk of Lagos being part of former Western Nigeria, it is false, it is distortion of history. The present Lagos State was the British Colony of 1861. When in 1922, Sir Hugh Clifford established the first constitution; it was only for the Southern Protectorate and the Colony of Lagos. The North was still being administered by a separate organisation. In 1945, Sir Arthur Richards, who succeeded Bernard Bourdillon established a constitution in 1947 and created the three regions: Northern region, comprising the old Northern Protectorate, with its large size, almost doubling the size of the rest of Nigeria; the Southern protectorate was divided into two: the Western Region, Eastern Region; with River Niger as the divider. But Lagos remained as Lagos colony, with a commissioner as chief executive. Sir John Macpherson became governor of Nigeria in 1948; he convened the Ibadan conference in 1950, which led to the Macpherson Constitution in 1950. It was in 1950 that Lagos Colony, comprising Lagos Division, Ikeja Division, Epe Division, Badagry Division, as it had always been, was merged with the Western Region.
In 1952, the City of Lagos, comprising Lagos Island, Lagos Mainland, Apapa, Surulere, which was largely farmlands, up to Yaba was made the Federal Capital territory. The orthopaedic Hospital was the boundary, and that was the Lagos Queen Elizabeth met when she assumed the throne in 1952. The rest of Lagos, namely Badagry Division, Ikeja Division and Epe Division were left in the Western Nigeria and named the Colony Division of the Western Nigeria. Ikorodu by the way was part of Ikeja Division.
Did you have to clamour for General Gowon to create Lagos as a state?
Gowon actually had very little of the agitation for a Lagos State. The agitation for statehood for Lagos started around 1950, when Lagos was taken out of its exalted position as a political unit and merged with the Western Region. That led to the slogan, Gedegbe L’Eko wa (meaning Lagos Stands on its own, don’t merge us). Gowon at that time had not even got admission into Barewa College. However, after the two coups of 1966, Nigeria was asunder. The various regions wanted to go their separate ways. The Eastern Region, led by Ojukwu, said it was definitely pulling out. He declared a Republic of Biafra in May 1967; but on that same day, 27 May 1967, Gowon abolished the regional set-up and proclaimed 12 states of Nigeria. Lagos became one of the states and the Colony Province which had been ceded to Western Nigeria was merged with the Federal Territory and Lagos was thus returned to its original state.
In fact the people of Lagos, as far back as 1914, didn’t want the Lugard amalgamation of that year, which brought it together with the two protectorates. Lagos had enjoyed British judicial system for almost a century; the people had enjoyed direct trading with the British and the rest of the world, trading in slave trade, ivory, ogogoro, even before it formally became a colony. Lugard forced his will on the people and the records are there in the newspapers published at that time.
Let me give you another historical aspect to this whole story. Lord Lugard wanted two divisions of Nigeria apart from the Lagos colony, but one official, Mr temple –Temple Road Ikoyi was named after him, who was next in rank advocated the division of Nigeria into six. He suggested three in the north, three in the south. So when people talk of six geo-political zones, there is nothing new about it (See Map). He suggested Western Province, Central Province, Eastern Province, Benue Provinces, Hausa States and Chad Territories. If Temple’s idea had held sway, Nigeria would have been a different country entirely because each would have developed at its own pace.
Let’s talk about the prominent people in the clamour for a Lagos State.
The leading lights included H M Alli Balogun, a lawyer, Mrs Latifa Makanjuola, Mr Kasali Aremu, the eldest child of the Ajiroba of Lagos, Karimu Kotun, a distinguished lawyer. There was also Adelumo Akintoye, one of the sons of Oba Ibikunle Akintoye, and TOS Benson, who had just arrived from England. These were people who championed the cause before my time. Incidentally, I took interest in the whole affair and used to watch the proceedings of the Legislative Council at Marina between 1947 and ’48. That council consisted of five nominated members each from the three regions and three elected members from Lagos. Election was by property franchise, and Dr Nnamdi Azikiwe, Zik, was elected not by Igbo-speaking Nigerians, but by largely Yoruba-speaking people. The other two were Prince Adeleke Adedoyin, whose father was the Akarigbo of Sagamu and Ibiyinka Olorunibe, the only son of the soil, who became the Mayor of Lagos. The emphasis I want to draw here is the uniqueness and metropolitan nature of Lagos even as far back. Zik was the darling of the people despite not being Yoruba, and we used to call him Arisiki iwe (wealth of education). Lagos of that time was devoid of any kind of ethnicity and religious differences. It was Lagos for all. Nigeria will never ever be a great country except we step down the ethnic differences and leave religion as a matter of the heart.
Lest I forget, Oba Adele II also backed up the allegation for Lagos State by the letter he wrote to the colonial government around 1956. I have a copy which was sent to me by the present Oba.
Tell us about your contribution as a member of the Federal Executive Council
After the first coup in January, the various military governors, looking for peace, encouraged what was then called Leaders of Thought meetings. There was one for the elders and another for young persons like me. The foundation of Nigeria had been badly shaken by the two coups and Gowon, who became head of states in 1966 quickly organised a constitutional conference of people to sit down and map out a new Nigeria. The conference consisted of five delegates from each region and five advisers from each region. Lagos Federal territory had two delegates and two advisers. The Elders Conference in Lagos nominated Prof Teslim Elias, who was at that time not only a member of the Federal Executive but also Dean of the Faculty of Law, UNILAG; and also Chief Bajulaiye, Eletu Odibo. Alhaji Jakande and I were in the youth section. Dr Elias and Alhaji Jakande were delegates and Chief Eletu Odibo and I from the youth sections as advisers. We met from August till about December, deliberating on the kind of Nigeria we wanted following the military coups. The Eastern delegation didn’t want to compromise. Best, they wanted a confederation; separate army, separate currencies, separate foreign affairs, separate customs. The North also stood by a confederation, led by Sir Kashimu Ibrahim, who was governor of the Northern Region before the coup. Chief Awolowo, who had just been released by Gowon, was leader of the delegation from the West. I think the East had Prof Eni Njoku and the Mid-West was led by Anthony Enahoro and Lagos was headed by Prof Elias. Through the influence of Lateef Jakande, Lagos was tucked into Western delegation and we found ourselves with the West. Chief Awolowo also advocated a confederation. Only Enahoro advocated a federation. Chief Tayo Apata, my late friend and Prof Billy Doudley of the University of Ibadan were extra advisers to Mid-Western delegation and incidentally personal friends of mine. The three of us all from Lagos combined and the two of them from the Mid-West delegation put pressure on Tony Enahoro to stand for the federal system of government. Western delegation and Lagos submitted a joint memorandum. As concession to me, because I was a thorn in the flesh of combined West and Lagos, they conceded two pages to me in their paper, for federal system of government. I was part of the drafting committee. Lateef Jakande was for confederation, which was the demand of Chief Awolowo.
The North broke the ice at the ad-hoc constitutional conference and Sir Kashim Ibrahim; their leader announced that they were going back to federation. Remember, the northern delegation consisted of likes and unlikes. Aminu Kano wouldn’t stand for anything less; Joseph Tarka wouldn’t stand for anything less. Dr Elias then stood up to announce a breakaway from the West to announce that Lagos was for federation. Chief Awolowo, in fairness to him, also said he had always been a federalist. But the East was adamant on confederation. This was in 1966. All along, some of us from Lagos were meeting. We had been working on what it meant to be a state. Did we have the wherewithal and sufficient income to sustain a state? Recently in an interview, I mentioned some non-Lagosians, who made it possible for Lagos State to be a reality but who are not being given any credit. They were public servants. This is aside Gowon, whose role has not been acknowledged. Broad Street, which one government renamed to honour him, was reverted. We rejected the hand that fed us.
Well, you are a respected voice and in a position to correct that.
Well I hope my voice is respected. And that’s why I’m saying this publicly. One of those non-indigenes of Lagos is Philip Chiedo Asiodu. He is a personal friend of mine and a contemporary at King’s College, whose wife incidentally was Mrs Pereira, a Lagos girl and my aburo. He was one of those fighting for us inside the government. Then there was Allison Ayida, who became Secretary to the government of Murtala and Obasanjo. He used his influence as chief adviser to Gowon to help realise the dream of a Lagos State. Without them, there would be no Lagos state. They helped to persuade Gowon to have a twelve state Nigeria and break the northern region into six. Thus Lagos colony, which had enjoyed separate administration from any other region or part of the country since 1861, aside the 1950-54 adventure into the Western Region, became a state and Mobolaji Johnson became the governor. Before then, he was administrator.
Alhaji Femi Okunnu
What role did you play as the federal commissioner for works and housing?
My role was to assist the governor in moulding his government, especially the civil service, with the assistance of two of my big brothers in the Western Regional Service at that time: the late Shamsi Thomas, who became head of civil service in Lagos and A B Johston, popularly called Abba J. They were top civil servants in Ibadan; and would travel from Ibadan to my house in Yaba. That’s where we built the civil service of Lagos state. On the creation of Lagos State, FC Opoka, the Municipal Treasurer became his Perm Sec, Finance. Shamsi Thomas went straight to Works and Planning. Gowon allowed each governor to have seven commissioners/ministries. Anyway, I played a part in getting experienced civil servants in the Western Regional Service and elsewhere to return home. I was federal commissioner at the time and helped Bolaji to administer his ministries. All the functions of Lagos affairs under Yar’adua’s father as Minister for Lagos affairs, such as Water Works, Planning etc. I handled them all from May 1967 to March 31st 1968, when states were allowed to appoint their commissioners. And let me say this very clearly: throughout Bolaji’s tenure as governor, we worked together very closely; Bolaji as governor of Lagos state; I as Federal commissioner for works and housing. I’m saying this because there is no friendship or harmony between the current governor and the Federal Minister of Works and Housing; and I really hope that they would henceforth join forces to work in the interest of Nigeria and Lagos. That is my message to them.
Dr. Yemi Ogunbiyi is the Chairman, Governing Council, Obafemi Awolowo University, Ile-Ife, Osun State. The former Managing Director of the Daily Times Newspaper who also worked as a Director at The Guardian Newspaper celebrated his 70th birthday recently. Together with Professors such as the Nobel laureate Wole Soyinka, Kole Omotoso, Biodun Jeyifo, Ogunbiyi was part of the drama and literature department of Ife. He currently serves as the Chairman of Tanus Communications, a company he founded after he was sacked at the Daily Times by the same friend who gave him the job earlier following his sack at The Guardian by another friend. In this interview with Dare Odufowokan, Assistant Editor, the Chairman of University of Ife Governing Council, talks about his life as a business man in the private sector as well as his relationship with erudite scholars like Soyinka, Jeyifo Omotoso.
You turned 70 recently, how does it feel?
I don’t feel any better than the way I felt last month or last week. For me, I will say 70 is a number, it is just the way you feel in yourself that determines what you make of it. I feel good and I am quite happy to be 70 in a country where it is actually not very easy to live in. The feeling is that of being grateful and happy.
Looking back, I asked myself, how have you fared? And I give myself a pass mark. I say to myself, you have fared well. This is because I never dreamt the way my life turned out. I just set out to make the best out of life and here I am today. I feel blessed in many ways. In fact, I am really blessed in many ways. So, I feel good and happy to be 70 years old.
Your stint as a University don is one of the things we know about you. Back in Ife when you joined the likes of Professor Wole Soyinka, what was it like in the Humanities then?
I don’t think there was really much to life back then other than the leadership as provided that time by Professor Ojetunji Aboyade, who was the Vice Chancellor. He was a very liberal mind. His type of leadership made it easy for us in the humanities back then to dabble into all kinds of things. There were robust debates about the future of humanities in this country and we saw so many of us the younger ones gravitating towards the leftist ideology and picking us do so many things along the way.
But it was easy to do that in Ife because under Aboyade, Ife encouraged all kinds of things. As a matter of fact, he provided the platform for us to thrive. I recall an incident when the military administration under the then Gen. Olusegun Obasanjo wanted Aboyade to round up some leftist ideologists in Ife and hand them over for no reason, Aboyade said no. He insisted that it was not in his place to do that. Such leadership made us see the sky as our limit and we thrived in the humanities. It was good for the system, the students and the scholars.
I am not so sure if that was the situation at that time in other universities. And of course, so many young brains went to Ife then, people like Prof. Kole Omotoso, Dr. Chidi Amuta, myself and many others, Ife was a place to try and reach our potentials.
Back then, twice monthly, we held brainstorming sessions and a lot of intellectual debates happened. And this was very good and nice. That was the scenario in Ife back then.
Your leaving the University came as a surprise to many of your colleagues and students back then. What informed that decision?
That is not controversial in any way. I was asked to come and help at The Guardian at the beginning in 1982. Dr. Stanley Macebuh invited me. Incidentally, I was due for a sabbatical leave which I initially wanted to spend abroad.
He suggested I spend the leave trying my hand on something new at The Guardian. And I liked it after one year. But I was going to go back to Ife. I didn’t plan to stay put. But Mr. Ibru, the Publisher said I should stay on. He wondered who will continue the things I’ve just started then. I had started the Literary Series then. I had started the interviews with world leaders then. We had done Gandhi, Nyerere, Sankara, and a lot of them. He said I should ask for an extension of my leave. But when I asked for an extension, the university turned it down. So the choice before me then was to either go back to Ife or resign. So, I resigned and Ibru paid back a year salary to the University on my behalf. That was the practice then. If you resign, you refund a year salary to the University. I think he paid N14, 000 a year. It was a lot of money then. So, that was how I stayed put in the newspaper business at The Guardian.
You’ve been in the classroom and the board room. What are the similarities and differences?
There are so many similarities and so many differences. But the bottom-line for me is that wherever you find yourself, be it classroom or boardroom, do whatever you have to do very well. Avoid cutting corners and put in your best at all times. Most importantly, be ready to learn.
When I joined The Guardian, I had no training in newspaper business. I didn’t go to Journalism School. But I was willing to learn and I learnt a great deal. I said to myself, how am I going to learn as soon as possible. I was made Magazine Director soon after I joined and I decided to spend a night in the production room for me to see how the process of magazine production runs. When I was doing that I wasn’t thinking that someday I will be the Managing Director of Daily Times; I just wanted to learn and I did.
There is a joke about me while I was new at The Guardian. In those days, whenever I was given an editorial to write, I usually spend a lot of time getting it down. Then they will tell me that the problem with me is that I was yet to transit from the University to the newsroom. They said I was writing the editorial as if it was a paper. They will say write this thing let us publish it. There was no time for footnotes and crosschecking again and again. But that wasn’t the style where I was coming from.
It was a most difficult transition for me. Gong from an academic to writing for a newspaper. It was tough and I had to learn to adjust to the new realities of a newsroom which was pretty different from the classroom. But again, like I said, because I was willing to learn, I was able to surmount whatever difficulties I encountered in that transition.
Eventually, yourself and Macebuh lost your plum jobs at The Guardian. What happened?
We were fired. Mr. Ibru, who at the time was a very good friend of mine, sacked us. It went that I was sacked, myself and Macebuh, for selling sugar. Somebody wanted to sell sugar to Cadbury and asked for our assistance. And myself and Stanley went to see Dr. Chris Kolade who was the Managing Director of Cadbury and told him a Lebanese friend of ours wanted to sell sugar and had promised to give us some money if we helped him. We didn’t have money. In fact, both of us had no house of our own at the time and we felt it was a good thing to make some money. The Guardian was not selling sugar, so we saw no conflict in what we were about to do then.
So, the sugar was sold and Mr. Ibru got to know about it. Surprisingly, he said we were guilty of some form of conflict of interests. It was on the basis of this we were taken to the Board and fired. When I was sacked, I was in Pakistan interviewing Benazir Bhutto for the paper. And I was sacked just like that. I felt bad but I was fired.
Meanwhile, this was the same Ibru who did so much for me. When Stanley (Macebuh) first approached me to join The Guardian and I couldn’t come, he also waded in and urged me to come.
He spoke to people to convince me to come over. But obviously when he asked us to leave, he had a good reason for that. I didn’t really feel I deserved the treatment back then because I saw no conflict in my selling sugar and getting sacked. I was not given a right to defend myself too. The decision was taken in my absence. I don’t know why he did that but then; we got over it and became good friends again before he died.
From there you moved on to Daily Times…
Yes, I was fired by The Guardian on Friday and I resumed at the Daily Times on Monday when President Ibrahim Babangida appointed me the Managing Director. When I woke up Monday morning, I was thinking of where to pack to because I had to vacate the house I was living in which was owned by Ibru. I had no house of my own at the time.
But Babangida asked me to resume at the Daily Times on Monday. Chief Segun Osoba, who was the man at the helm had already shown interest in politics and we knew he was going to leave to go and do politics. So, on Monday, Babangida said “Yemi, when you finish selling sugar send me your CV.” I thought he was just making jest of me. But he gave me that appointment and that was it.
At Daily Times, you initiated radical changes. How easy was that to achieve?
Let me say the changes at Daily Times was not just about me. I must say categorically that I had the pleasure of working with very cooperative staff back then. The then Editor, Onyeama Ugochukwu was a wonderful partner in the quest to turn around the place.
The workers supported the initiatives and that made it very easy. The different unions were carried along at all the stages.
It was something we did as a team but it wasn’t easy. I found out that a whole lot of things in the system were outdated. We sought to change all these and of course there were some resistance. Anywhere you attempt to introduce change, there will be resistance. People don’t take to change easily.
But because we carried the unions and everybody along, we were able to get things done.
I wasted no time in telling them I wanted to computerize the place for two reasons. One, we needed to be more efficient in our production and secondly, we needed to reduce our staff strength. Daily Times at that time was over staffed with so many people loafing around doing nothing.
So, bringing in the computers will help us streamline the place and make the system more efficient. I had a staff strength of about 2,000 when we took over and we had to trim it down to a thousand.
We needed to cut cost but getting that done was tough. I told the unions I wanted to double staff salary. But I added that to do that we needed to lay off a thousand staff. They initially said it was impossible but eventually, when we started turning out the paper in a matter of time, they liked it and cooperated with me.
Note also that we didn’t buy new machines but cleaned up the old ones and equipped Times Press better for greater performance and efficiency. The morale, when I came, was low, so we needed to do something about that. We worked on the attitude of the workers and that led to a more efficient workforce which helped us in the turnaround effort a great deal.
And why did you leave Daily Times again?
Again, I was fired by my friend, President Babangida. Up till today, we never discussed why he fired me. But I think I know why he did. I suspected the President was not ready to leave office at the time he had promised he would leave. And he suspected that the Daily Times might not support him. These are just conjectures. I am not sure because we never discussed it. I had jokingly told him at a reception before that time that it is better he keeps his word on the transition.
But in fairness to Babangida, it wasn’t just about him not wanting to leave but more about the people around him willing to spend some more time in power. And at that time, Daily Times had bounced back and people were already respecting its opinion as a medium. So, no government would play with such a medium. That is why I say these are conjectures.
You set up your private firm after that. How has the journey been?
Ironically, Tuesday May 2, 2017 was the 25th anniversary of TANUS Communications, the company I established after leaving Daily Times. That’s amazing. May 2, 1992, that was when we set up the company. I was jobless. I had been fired and I had no job and I needed money. So I had to do something. Going back to the University, I thought of that and even got a chance to go to Harvard on Fellowship. But at the end, I wanted to do something on my own and I started with TANUS.
We produced very lovely calendars when we started and we still do. At Daily Times, I’ve learnt that printing calendars was big business. And we did books for people and organizations. Our first big break was when Prof. Jubril Aminu gave us a book to do for NNPC. We made a lot of money back then and bought cars and all that for our workers. We continued to wax stronger by the day and 25 years after, we are here now.
Largely, I made a success of the business because I was focused and determined. I had offers from banks and other places to come work for them but I would rather do what my heart dictates. Although I did consultancies for some organizations, I was more committed to building the company and making a success out of private business. I brought all the experiences I had garnered working at the University,
The Guardian and Daily Times to bear on the company and it paid off. I could have done other things but I didn’t want to. We gave it our best shot and when we now started doing text books, whaoow! our business boomed.
I owe a lot to former Governor Rotimi Amaechi in that regard. He really gave us a lot of opportunities in that area of printing books for Rivers State. Donald Duke too tried for us. He gave us books to print for Cross Rivers State some sixteen years ago. Other states too like Adamawa were also forthcoming and we have done several projects with several of them ever since. School textbooks are our main focus now.
Would you say your stint as a University Don impacted on your life and achievements when you left for the business world?
The impact would be to say working with and socializing with the likes of Jeyifo, Omotoso and the likes in Ife inculcated in me the principle of being very focused. I tell you, BJ is a very focused individual. He was well determined too. In fact, some of the benefits we enjoy today in the University were things that were started by Jeyifo. The autonomy being enjoyed today by Universities was started by Jeyifo’s group in ASUU. Nobody remembers that now. He had a Volkswagen: he would drive himself to distant places, Calabar, Benin etc, to attend meetings and still come back and take his classes.
It was hectic for him but he never wanted to miss his classes or have someone else take them for him. He was also supervising several higher degree students at the time. But because he was focused, he ploughed on. He was taking all these classes and was also the President of ASUU and these were the defining years of ASUU.
So, if I was impacted by BJ and my other colleagues at Ife, it was with being focused and determined against all odds. We never believed in cutting corners back then in Ife. I would say I left Ife with that principle. I say this all the time, even to my children. And I think they have learnt that from me, the four of them.
You are one of the closest associates of Prof. Wole Soyinka, who was your teacher. How did the teacher-student relationship blossom into that of confidants as you have it today?
He was my teacher. He is my elder brother. We are very close. I seek his advice. I give him advice. That is the way it has always been for a long time. We are really into each other. I believe in him and he trusts me. But he was first my teacher before any other thing. We are just close in that regard. I see it that I am just one of his students that he can come for my opinion on issues. There are times Prof would just come and say, ‘Yemi, what do you think I should do here?’ And he wants my honest opinion. And I would oblige him. And he likes that.
I am close to his children and he is close to my family. We are family in many ways than one. I think it has grown stronger and stronger over the years. You know, as you grow older, you go back to your old friends and old ties are made stronger.
Would you say your childhood influenced your life in any way?
Yes. My mum influenced my life a great deal. She was such a hard working woman. Well focussed too. She had no western education but she was an astute business woman who was a distributor in those days while my father was a renowned tailor who built suits for expatriates in Kano back then. They were such a hard working couple.
This influenced me a great deal when I ventured into business later in my life. My mum thought us to respect people and relate with people well. And my father, he was a very friendly person. He makes friends quickly. I took that from him. He had such a wonderful circle of friends. When we were in Kano, people were always gravitating towards our house and a lot of money was spent on feeding and hosting people. And my mum will cook and cook. But it was all done happily.
At 70 now, I am fulfilled with my life. I have a family that showered me with so much love as a child. I have the good luck of having another family that is showering so much love on me.
I am twice lucky and I am enjoying it. When I was in Ibadan studying, I met a lady who was studying English too. We got close and eventually got married. She continued the tradition of showering love on me the way my mother did.
She is now the Iyalode of Remoland. She is actually my best friend because my life would have been different without her. I owe a lot to her and she will forever mean a lot to me. Then 27 years ago, I met another lady. That wasn’t planned at all. But it just happened. Something happened and one thing led to another, we became friends and she has two kids for me. And then she became part of that tradition of love. She spoils me with so much love also. I have a wonderful family and my children are very close even though they are from different mothers.
You remain close to you roots in Ipara and Remoland as a whole. . .
That is an interesting observation on your part. You just said so. Bishop said so too and many people have said that before. Well for me, nothing is as important as giving back to a society that has given me so much. I am very proud of my Remo background and I am always eager to be identified as such.
Initially when I started going back home, both my parents said ‘what is your business with Ipara? You weren’t born there. You didn’t grow up there.” My father, though born in Ipara, didn’t go back there when he returned from the north. He died in Lagos and my mother would keep preaching caution. But I was determined to identify with my roots. The truth is that I found some kind of peaceful base in Ipara. And to cap it all, the town made me the Balogun of Ipara.
Finally Sir, at 70 what are your expectations in the years ahead?
I will just keep working and living my life. I will keep playing golf like I just played this afternoon. I will keep doing all the things I enjoy doing. I travel a lot and I will keep doing that so that I will remain healthy. Above all, I am committing myself to the Yemi Ogunbiyi Anglican School so that I can contribute my quota more to the development of humanity. That is the school named after me in Sagamu by the Anglican Communion.
Obviously; no politics for you?
No, not again. I am well past that. I will keep giving advices where necessary though. I tried politics in the past; it was not just my type of game. I wanted to be Governor of Ogun State but I had to forget about it. Not just my type of endeavour. I think it is too violent, too dirty.
The Managing Director of the Niger Delta Development Commission (NDDC), Mr. Nsima Ekere, a former chairman of the board of Ibom Power Company of the Akwa-Ibom State government and the state Emergency Management Agency, in this interview with Shola O’Neil, S’South Regional Editor, talks about the pain of running a trust-deficient intervention agency, the N570million vehicle ‘scandal’, among others Excerpts:
On outsiders’ perception about Niger Delta youth
When you come here and you see people talking the way you are talking, it tells me there is hope. Virtually the entire world knows Niger Delta youths for confrontation and for making unreasonable demands. When I came in here and met a very different environment it gives me a lot of hope. What people know us for is aggression, street harassments, kidnappings, violence, blowing up pipelines. That’s what being a youth in the Niger delta is looked at and that’s how people see us.
Presently, Dangote is building the biggest refinery in the world and when I was in secondary school they taught us that one of the things you consider when building an industry is nearness to source of raw materials. That is a multibillion dollars investment and they are building pipelines for piping crude to the refinery; spending billions of dollars on a pipeline taking it to Lagos.
Why is that so? It is because nobody wants to put that kind of investment in the Niger Delta because of the impression they have of our youths. Just imagine the economic impact; multiplier effect of that investment in the economy of the Niger Delta. Thousands of jobs will be created directly and indirectly. Spending that huge amount of money in the Niger Delta will change our society, our lives and communities. And that is just one out of several.
There is this advocacy that SHELL (SPDC) should not relocate out of Rivers State because they were about doing that. Virtually all oil companies are doing that: Agip operates from Abuja; MD of Shell is in Lagos, MD of Chevron is in Lagos and virtually everybody is out of the town. I came into Port Harcourt in 1990 and served (NYSC) here. I was here for 17 years. The MD of Chevron was here in Trans Amadi, AGIP too. This is the effect that the perception that we have given to the world about the Niger Delta is having on us.
I had a meeting with a group at a hotel sometime last month and there were ex-agitators. Immediately I began to explain to them why they should change their behaviour and behave well so that it would be good for us, they said, ‘no we can’t beg them (oil companies) to come; if they want to go let them go’. They do not get it! It is a mind thing; if the mind is right, the attitude will be right and the outcome would be marvelous. There is the saying that your attitude determines your altitude in life. For you to have the right attitude, you must have the right mindset, education – formal and informal. If we do this, we will see that all these things that we are complaining about will begin to fall into place.
Niger Delta youths’ view of the NDDC and attitude to work
Let me digress also and talk about a few things I have been seeing in NDDC. Some youths come to NDDC with this sense of entitlement – it is my blood; ‘it is our thing; we fought in the creeks and we made this happen and they used to do this for us’. I asked a simple question: NDDC started about 16 years ago and everybody has been complaining about the effect of the commission on the society, if you want me to come and do what the others have being doing, that means at the end of the day when we leave, nothing would have changed. There would still be no development on the ground for anybody to see. So, if we want development and results, then we must begin to do things differently.
You are going to start hearing stories that this new MD, they don’t like him. They are very good at sending text messages that tomorrow they are coming on with a protest to NDDC. What I hear happened before now is that the former management would call them quickly and give them money and they would go. Once one group hears that you did that to one group today, the next day another group comes and before you know it NDDC money is going.
From the first day we stopped it. When we get that text message that we are coming tomorrow, sometimes the security agencies tell us, ‘we hear there would be a bloody, massive protest tomorrow’. I will say, ‘let them come’. I am willing to go and address them when they come. I am not going to give them any money. When nobody gave them anything they stopped.
Then there are these groups of young boys who stood around the gate of NDDC harassing people up and down. From the first day I came, I noticed that they would line on the street and be hailing you, calling you ‘Master’, and ‘Good man’ etc. In the first week, one of my aides thought he was being nice and going to please me, gave them money. I called him and warned him never to do that again. My thinking initially was that if two weeks they see nothing dropping they will stop, but they didn’t. I heard that they had given them jobs, send them to training, they finished the training and came back to still stand at the gate. I believe in sustainable development. If you are empowering somebody, do it in a sustainable way because if you are giving money and you stop, tomorrow they are back.
That is on one side. I am also having a lot of cyberbullying. I have people that go online and they would post all kinds of things: ‘Nsima Ekere is this and that’. I just ignore them. Then there is this particular guy, he would post and say, ‘he is very corrupt and he did this and all kinds of this’. The last one and I got a text message from him: ‘Check my blog, I have just posted something. Don’t you think it’s time we talk?’ I responded: ‘Go ahead and do your job’. Blackmail should not be a source of livelihood.
Plan for internet connectivity and hub in the Niger Delta
One of the things we want to do is to have the IT connectivity in the Niger Delta. We have had several meetings and there will be more meetings. The marine cables that brought internet from the US and other parts of the world to Africa, brought the same capacity/bandwidth to Lagos for Nigeria (175million people), as in Sao Tome, with less than 70,000 people. So they have the same capacity as Nigeria and there is a lot of wasted capacity there. So the meeting we have had in the last two weeks is working with Galaxy Backbone, a federal government owned company, to go to Sao Tome, get marine cable and pipe that excess capacity directly to the Niger Delta.
We have set up a technical committee working on this and they will present their report to look at it. We want to make this happen. We have two years in the life of this board and management. We don’t have that much time. I want to be able to achieve this in two years. That is one of the things we want to do.
We must begin to work on the mindset of our young people and let them understand that criminality is not the right way to go. As far as I am concerned, most of this so-called agitation is not agitation; it is criminality. We must begin to differentiate between agitation and criminality.
How youths can make the best of every situation
I will like to share with you the story of my life. My mother was a teacher, so I started primary school relatively early. In our days to graduate at 21 was a big. At 21 I was already out of university and doing my youth service. I was deployed to one of the federal services. Then I was involved in an accident that changed my life.
I had a very good friend, God bless his soul. He had this beautiful Peugeot 504 car and in those days that was a good car. One day, he was travelling, so he left his car with me for the weekend. On Saturday evening I went to a party with friends. I had a flat, which again was a big deal when I was young. After the party, there were some girls who didn’t want to sleep; they wanted to go back to their houses. I said let me go and drop them. I am happy this happened because it changed my life. I went and dropped them and this was around 4, 5am. The street to my house was being renovated and there was this heap of chippings that the contractor kept for the work. I dozed off and drove straight into the heap of chippings and the car was damaged.
Later I took the car to fix and the estimate was N700 and I didn’t have the money. My salary was about N180 naira, but I knew that I wanted to fix the car. I said ‘I must raise the money to fix this car’. So apart from my regular salary coming at the end of the month, because I am a real estate person, I said I must begin to do other things to ensure that I raised the money. And guess what, in less than two months, I raised all the money I needed to fix the car and more, just by working. I now said to myself, ‘so this is possible that if you do not just sit in your office and wait for the salary at the end of the month, if you take initiative and decide to run around, things can actually happen!’ That was it.
I finally just managed to hold myself for one or two more years and I resigned. By this time, I had raised up to N4,000 and that was when I came to Port Harcourt. I had a car, Peugeot 505, and N4,000. I rented an office for N1,500 (per annum), bought two tables and a secretary’s table and I started my private practice. In less than six months I started generating money and the rest is history.
My challenge to young people is that they should look for innovative ways of living their lives and the options and opportunities are so much out there. You would not imagine what you can do with your life with a little bit of innovation and drive.
On failures of past NDDC programmes
Most of the things that the NDDC has come up with over the years are things they want to use to appease those that are causing trouble. For me, it is encouraging other people. I hate to see that we are rewarding truancy more than good citizens. The scheme they had was to just take some of these boys and say they clean street, control traffic and they call them NDDC volunteers and pay them money at the end of the month. If you keep doing that for 50 years, you can’t see the qualities that we have and values we add to the society.
On the problem with NDDC scholarship programme
Unfortunately, we discovered that the NDDC hasn’t paid our scholars who are abroad. There is this funny policy (of the programme) where you first go to the school, register and then send an invoice from the school. The invoice is what is then used to process the scholarship and sent to you. The question I asked when I met with the team is that ‘I used to think you must pay some fees before you are registered in the school’. They said, ‘yes’. I said, ‘why do you put the cart before the horse?’
Anyway, that is what the policy is. When they send the invoice, we now give their account details for processing and payment of tuition fees to the school. But because the scholarship is worth $30,000, if your school fee is $20,000 or whatever it is, we pay the balance to the scholar for upkeep. The scholar is also to send his/her overseas bank details to be able to access this fund. As at (the time) only 32 of 200 scholars that won the scholarship last year have complied with that. So, 168 have either not yet sent in invoice or account details to be able to get that money. I directed that the 32 who met the policy guidelines should be paid. The appeal for those who have not yet met the requirements is to try and hasten it so that theirs can be paid.
But going forward, I am going to change that policy, because if you grant somebody scholarship you want them to benefit from it; you don’t want to put roadblocks to prevent them from benefiting. The challenge has been – from what we hear – that a lot of people know that for you to get the scholarship, you come with a letter of offer of admission in some selected courses.
On the N560 million vehicle controversy
Since the present management came on board we have not bought one vehicle. I am driving my personal car and my two executive directors are driving theirs. Any time my chairman comes into town he uses his car. The supervising minister for the NDDC, the Minister of Niger Delta Affairs, has visited a couple of times on official visit to Port Harcourt and we don’t even have cars to send to the airport to bring him. We were just in the process of buying the vehicles. These days before you do anything you have to go the BPP. We wrote to them and they gave us certificate of no objection to buy the vehicles and we have that. The process is that once you get that, you take it to Federal Executive Council; they will deliberate on it and if they approved, they will give approval before you can buy. That process is ongoing and it is not completed.
Why there are suspicions about NDDC expenditures
I will be the first to admit it that the narrative of the NDDC over the years has been horrible and we are trying to change all of that. All we need is understanding from stakeholders and everybody. It hurts you when you know that you are trying to do the right thing and people just bad mouth you and say all kinds of things – it hurts. I am a human being and sometimes I am like, ‘maybe it is really not worth it trying to change anything; we should just continue…’
This is not how to support public officers with good intention to function. When we got into NDDC, we said for the first three months (there should be) a freeze on all contracts. I didn’t award one single contract, not because I couldn’t, but we didn’t do it. We have now advertised over 370 projects that we want to award. That is because if we don’t do it now the budget year is virtually ending. It is supposed to be March ending but now we have extension to May. If we do not do it most of what should have been done in this year in the budget would be lost; it would not be done.
Issues of NDDC corruption in the past
The problem is we don’t usually take stock and set the right governing structures in place. The reason NDDC was as corrupt, as it was, was because there was no international best practice in the ways things were done then. That is why we came up with the 4Rs to reform and restructure NDDC because we believe that everything must be done properly and we must all commit ourselves to the proper way of doing things.
The Managing Director of the Niger Delta Development Commission (NDDC), Mr. Nsima Ekere, a former chairman of the board of Ibom Power Company of the Akwa-Ibom State government and the state Emergency Management Agency, in this interview with SHOLA O’NEIL, S’South Regional Editor, talks about the pain of running a trust-deficient intervention agency, the N570million vehicle ‘scandal’, among others EXCERPTS:
On outsiders’ perception about Niger Delta youth
When you come here and you see people talking the way you are talking, it tells me there is hope. Virtually the entire world knows Niger Delta youths for confrontation and for making unreasonable demands. When I came in here and met a very different environment it gives me a lot of hope. What people know us for is aggression, street harassments, kidnappings, violence, blowing up pipelines. That’s what being a youth in the Niger delta is looked at and that’s how people see us.
Presently, Dangote is building the biggest refinery in the world and when I was in secondary school they taught us that one of the things you consider when building an industry is nearness to source of raw materials. That is a multibillion dollars investment and they are building pipelines for piping crude to the refinery; spending billions of dollars on a pipeline taking it to Lagos.
Why is that so? It is because nobody wants to put that kind of investment in the Niger Delta because of the impression they have of our youths. Just imagine the economic impact; multiplier effect of that investment in the economy of the Niger Delta. Thousands of jobs will be created directly and indirectly. Spending that huge amount of money in the Niger Delta will change our society, our lives and communities. And that is just one out of several.
There is this advocacy that SHELL (SPDC) should not relocate out of Rivers State because they were about doing that. Virtually all oil companies are doing that: Agip operates from Abuja; MD of Shell is in Lagos, MD of Chevron is in Lagos and virtually everybody is out of the town. I came into Port Harcourt in 1990 and served (NYSC) here. I was here for 17 years. The MD of Chevron was here in Trans Amadi, AGIP too. This is the effect that the perception that we have given to the world about the Niger Delta is having on us.
I had a meeting with a group at a hotel sometime last month and there were ex-agitators. Immediately I began to explain to them why they should change their behaviour and behave well so that it would be good for us, they said, ‘no we can’t beg them (oil companies) to come; if they want to go let them go’. They do not get it! It is a mind thing; if the mind is right, the attitude will be right and the outcome would be marvelous. There is the saying that your attitude determines your altitude in life. For you to have the right attitude, you must have the right mindset, education – formal and informal. If we do this, we will see that all these things that we are complaining about will begin to fall into place.
Niger Delta youths’ view of the NDDC and attitude to work
Let me digress also and talk about a few things I have been seeing in NDDC. Some youths come to NDDC with this sense of entitlement – it is my blood; ‘it is our thing; we fought in the creeks and we made this happen and they used to do this for us’. I asked a simple question: NDDC started about 16 years ago and everybody has been complaining about the effect of the commission on the society, if you want me to come and do what the others have being doing, that means at the end of the day when we leave, nothing would have changed. There would still be no development on the ground for anybody to see. So, if we want development and results, then we must begin to do things differently.
You are going to start hearing stories that this new MD, they don’t like him. They are very good at sending text messages that tomorrow they are coming on with a protest to NDDC. What I hear happened before now is that the former management would call them quickly and give them money and they would go. Once one group hears that you did that to one group today, the next day another group comes and before you know it NDDC money is going.
From the first day we stopped it. When we get that text message that we are coming tomorrow, sometimes the security agencies tell us, ‘we hear there would be a bloody, massive protest tomorrow’. I will say, ‘let them come’. I am willing to go and address them when they come. I am not going to give them any money. When nobody gave them anything they stopped.
Then there are these groups of young boys who stood around the gate of NDDC harassing people up and down. From the first day I came, I noticed that they would line on the street and be hailing you, calling you ‘Master’, and ‘Good man’ etc. In the first week, one of my aides thought he was being nice and going to please me, gave them money. I called him and warned him never to do that again. My thinking initially was that if two weeks they see nothing dropping they will stop, but they didn’t. I heard that they had given them jobs, send them to training, they finished the training and came back to still stand at the gate. I believe in sustainable development. If you are empowering somebody, do it in a sustainable way because if you are giving money and you stop, tomorrow they are back.
That is on one side. I am also having a lot of cyberbullying. I have people that go online and they would post all kinds of things: ‘Nsima Ekere is this and that’. I just ignore them. Then there is this particular guy, he would post and say, ‘he is very corrupt and he did this and all kinds of this’. The last one and I got a text message from him: ‘Check my blog, I have just posted something. Don’t you think it’s time we talk?’ I responded: ‘Go ahead and do your job’. Blackmail should not be a source of livelihood.
Plan for internet connectivity and hub in the Niger Delta
One of the things we want to do is to have the IT connectivity in the Niger Delta. We have had several meetings and there will be more meetings. The marine cables that brought internet from the US and other parts of the world to Africa, brought the same capacity/bandwidth to Lagos for Nigeria (175million people), as in Sao Tome, with less than 70,000 people. So they have the same capacity as Nigeria and there is a lot of wasted capacity there. So the meeting we have had in the last two weeks is working with Galaxy Backbone, a federal government owned company, to go to Sao Tome, get marine cable and pipe that excess capacity directly to the Niger Delta.
We have set up a technical committee working on this and they will present their report to look at it. We want to make this happen. We have two years in the life of this board and management. We don’t have that much time. I want to be able to achieve this in two years. That is one of the things we want to do.
We must begin to work on the mindset of our young people and let them understand that criminality is not the right way to go. As far as I am concerned, most of this so-called agitation is not agitation; it is criminality. We must begin to differentiate between agitation and criminality.
How youths can make the best of every situation
I will like to share with you the story of my life. My mother was a teacher, so I started primary school relatively early. In our days to graduate at 21 was a big. At 21 I was already out of university and doing my youth service. I was deployed to one of the federal services. Then I was involved in an accident that changed my life.
I had a very good friend, God bless his soul. He had this beautiful Peugeot 504 car and in those days that was a good car. One day, he was travelling, so he left his car with me for the weekend. On Saturday evening I went to a party with friends. I had a flat, which again was a big deal when I was young. After the party, there were some girls who didn’t want to sleep; they wanted to go back to their houses. I said let me go and drop them. I am happy this happened because it changed my life. I went and dropped them and this was around 4, 5am. The street to my house was being renovated and there was this heap of chippings that the contractor kept for the work. I dozed off and drove straight into the heap of chippings and the car was damaged.
Later I took the car to fix and the estimate was N700 and I didn’t have the money. My salary was about N180 naira, but I knew that I wanted to fix the car. I said ‘I must raise the money to fix this car’. So apart from my regular salary coming at the end of the month, because I am a real estate person, I said I must begin to do other things to ensure that I raised the money. And guess what, in less than two months, I raised all the money I needed to fix the car and more, just by working. I now said to myself, ‘so this is possible that if you do not just sit in your office and wait for the salary at the end of the month, if you take initiative and decide to run around, things can actually happen!’ That was it.
I finally just managed to hold myself for one or two more years and I resigned. By this time, I had raised up to N4,000 and that was when I came to Port Harcourt. I had a car, Peugeot 505, and N4,000. I rented an office for N1,500 (per annum), bought two tables and a secretary’s table and I started my private practice. In less than six months I started generating money and the rest is history.
My challenge to young people is that they should look for innovative ways of living their lives and the options and opportunities are so much out there. You would not imagine what you can do with your life with a little bit of innovation and drive.
On failures of past NDDC programmes
Most of the things that the NDDC has come up with over the years are things they want to use to appease those that are causing trouble. For me, it is encouraging other people. I hate to see that we are rewarding truancy more than good citizens. The scheme they had was to just take some of these boys and say they clean street, control traffic and they call them NDDC volunteers and pay them money at the end of the month. If you keep doing that for 50 years, you can’t see the qualities that we have and values we add to the society.
On the problem with NDDC scholarship programme
Unfortunately, we discovered that the NDDC hasn’t paid our scholars who are abroad. There is this funny policy (of the programme) where you first go to the school, register and then send an invoice from the school. The invoice is what is then used to process the scholarship and sent to you. The question I asked when I met with the team is that ‘I used to think you must pay some fees before you are registered in the school’. They said, ‘yes’. I said, ‘why do you put the cart before the horse?’
Anyway, that is what the policy is. When they send the invoice, we now give their account details for processing and payment of tuition fees to the school. But because the scholarship is worth $30,000, if your school fee is $20,000 or whatever it is, we pay the balance to the scholar for upkeep. The scholar is also to send his/her overseas bank details to be able to access this fund. As at (the time) only 32 of 200 scholars that won the scholarship last year have complied with that. So, 168 have either not yet sent in invoice or account details to be able to get that money. I directed that the 32 who met the policy guidelines should be paid. The appeal for those who have not yet met the requirements is to try and hasten it so that theirs can be paid.
But going forward, I am going to change that policy, because if you grant somebody scholarship you want them to benefit from it; you don’t want to put roadblocks to prevent them from benefiting. The challenge has been – from what we hear – that a lot of people know that for you to get the scholarship, you come with a letter of offer of admission in some selected courses.
On the N560 million vehicle controversy
Since the present management came on board we have not bought one vehicle. I am driving my personal car and my two executive directors are driving theirs. Any time my chairman comes into town he uses his car. The supervising minister for the NDDC, the Minister of Niger Delta Affairs, has visited a couple of times on official visit to Port Harcourt and we don’t even have cars to send to the airport to bring him. We were just in the process of buying the vehicles. These days before you do anything you have to go the BPP. We wrote to them and they gave us certificate of no objection to buy the vehicles and we have that. The process is that once you get that, you take it to Federal Executive Council; they will deliberate on it and if they approved, they will give approval before you can buy. That process is ongoing and it is not completed.
Why there are suspicions about NDDC expenditures
I will be the first to admit it that the narrative of the NDDC over the years has been horrible and we are trying to change all of that. All we need is understanding from stakeholders and everybody. It hurts you when you know that you are trying to do the right thing and people just bad mouth you and say all kinds of things – it hurts. I am a human being and sometimes I am like, ‘maybe it is really not worth it trying to change anything; we should just continue…’
This is not how to support public officers with good intention to function. When we got into NDDC, we said for the first three months (there should be) a freeze on all contracts. I didn’t award one single contract, not because I couldn’t, but we didn’t do it. We have now advertised over 370 projects that we want to award. That is because if we don’t do it now the budget year is virtually ending. It is supposed to be March ending but now we have extension to May. If we do not do it most of what should have been done in this year in the budget would be lost; it would not be done.
Issues of NDDC corruption in the past
The problem is we don’t usually take stock and set the right governing structures in place. The reason NDDC was as corrupt, as it was, was because there was no international best practice in the ways things were done then. That is why we came up with the 4Rs to reform and restructure NDDC because we believe that everything must be done properly and we must all commit ourselves to the proper way of doing things.
Mrs. Temie Giwa Tunbosun is the Managing Director/Chief Executive Officer, Lifebank Group, which provides blood for hospitals especially in cases of emergencies. In this interview with Bukola Aroloye, she speaks on her vision for the company and her management style. Excerpts:
Can you tell us about yourself?
I’m 31 years old and a mother. I’m a Nigerian but was raised in the United States. I was born in Osun State where I grew up. I lived in Ilesa and Port Harcourt. My dad taught in the university and when I was about 14 years old, I left Nigeria for the US. Five years ago, I decided to come back home after working at the World Health Organisation (WHO) and all over the world. I felt I should come back home and have been here ever since with my son and husband.
The idea of a lifebank is really alien to us. What is the difference between your type of bank and the commercial banking system?
The commercial banks saves your money. When you go there, they keep your money for a while. Our type of bank keeps your life safe. We feel that life is valuable and every life is bankable in Africa and is worth saving. We make sure not a single person dies for what could have been prevented. The reason I started this company is very simple. Every year, about 26,000 Nigerian women die from hemorrhage meaning they have a baby after which they start bleeding. When hospitals cannot stop the bleeding, they eventually die. That is one of the highest causes of maternal mortality in Nigeria. Children who die from malaria don’t really die from the sickness, it’s the anemia from malaria that kills them. One of the sure ways to stop anemia from malaria is to transfuse and make sure the person can continue living and kill the virus.
Death from major surgery, kidney disease, people with sickle cell anemia are caused by lack of blood bank in Nigeria. So many people die because they couldn’t get access to oxygen. When children have anemia and needs oxygen but the hospitals doesn’t have, they die. So Lifebank is a medical provider that provides essential medical products required to save lives. Those essential medical products are blood, platelets, plasma, oxygen, vaccines. Those things need to be brought to the hospital faster. For us at Lifebank, that’s what we deliver. It is faster, cheaper and safer.
What has been the response from Nigerians to Lifebank?
If I hadn’t left Nigeria, I wouldn’t have started this because I would have believed that Nigerians would not support it. Nigerians are the most loving and ready to give out free. I have been surprised that people have responded to this business positively.
What has been government response?
It has been mixed. Some state governments are buying into it and want me to bring the business to their states. We have states like Osun and Oyo but there are some state governments who are not so keen. However we believe as we grow, more state governments would turn to us.
Where do you see Lifebank in the next five years?
Lifebank would be an amazing company. We are going to save many lives. We wish to be in every big city in Africa. We are going to be in Accra, Cairo, Johannesburg, Nairobi and Kigali and other cities.
How do you source for these bloods?
We have tech and servicing companies. We have suppliers who are basically bloodbanks whose jobs are to find people donating blood, test it and keep it safe pending the time someone will need it. We have 30 suppliers and we know where most of the bloods in Lagos are. We have logistics system where when hospitals discover blood on our platform, we go and pick the blood and deliver to them.
Can you tell us specifically what motivated you to start this kind of business?
When I was about 22 years old, I came back to Nigeria for the first time since I left and I was working in Kano, Kaduna and Jigawa. My team and I were in a small village outside Kano and we found a young girl who had been in labour for three days. Everyone around her was just waiting for her to die because there was nothing they could do for her. So I had a very bad reaction to it and was depressed for weeks. I couldn’t leave my hotel room and cried. It was the first time for me to see the human cause of bad development. She was 24year old then. She lived but the baby had died inside her. I couldn’t stop thinking about her so after I left Nigeria, the situation really affected me. I had my child in the US though it was difficult as I almost died. I was so lucky to have access to health care so I decided I was going to use my life to help women.
You have been working with a team so tell us what has been your management style?
I have two ideas about management of people in Nigeria. There are some people who require you to be their friends and talk to them and there are those who want to be alone and deliver their objectives. My management style depends on the people I’m dealing with. Sometimes I’m serious, sometimes I’m funny. I try to be flexible. I don’t think managers should have one management style so you need to be flexible and adapt your management style to fit different people. I’m very free with them. I believe I can’t build a company alone and can’t even do 10 percent of what the company needs. There are people who will do the rest 90%. I see them as my co-founders because they help me build the company. I’m free in terms of comparing myself with other Nigerian bosses. My workers know how much we make and how much we pay out. This is because I want them to feel ownership of the company. They should see it as their company. I treat people with respect.
How do you motivate your staff?
We’re a young team and don’t have lots of money so I can’t use money to motivate them. I treat them with respect and very respectful of their time. I make sure they understand the vision of Lifebank. We’re not selling shoes and bags but what we do every day is safe people’s lives. It’s high stakes. So for them to understand the vision, they need to feel like super heroes and feel like they come to work every day saving people’s lives from the sales person to the admin and technical persons; they’re here to save lives.
What is your philosophy?
I have different philosophies for various stages of my life. In terms of my work, my philosophy is that there should be a difference between impact and social value. Companies who make money and bring impact to people’s lives are the ones that will survive. I don’t think companies who are obsessed with just money will survive. My thesis is that there shouldn’t be a division between companies who are saving lives and companies who are there making. Money that is why we built Lifebank.
Technology is going to help deliver very good services without lots of money. Nigeria is broke and this is an opportunity for us in terms of what new ideas and opportunities we’re going to introduce. If in the past, to start a new hospital without technology costs N10million, with technology, you’re going to spend N5million to start one now. Having a recession is an opportunity to restart and do something better.
Can you tell us the most toughest decision you have taken on the job?
Letting go some staff that are not good for the company is my toughest decision. I consider my staff as family members so firing a family member is not easy especially when they are nice and are not terrible people and have not stolen anything but are not competent in terms of the position they hold.
What has been your most favorable decision?
Every day I come to work is amazing because I get to do different things. I know that everything I do goes into saving someone. I don’t know who they are but knowing that everything we do is going to save someone is incredible.
What makes you tick?
Being useful to my community makes me tick. I have lived a privileged life and I have always been sure that with the privileges that I have had, there is a deep responsibility to dedicate my life to making my community better. I use all of the privileges life have given me to possibly drag my country into a better way of doing things.
What attracts you to people?
I like kind and diligent people.
What has been your husband’s impact on your business?
My husband has been fantastic. We are partners in our lives. In terms of business, we are co-founders and he helps me in terms of my work. We are lucky to have each other because he is very supportive. He looks after me.
The Minister of State for Aviation, Hadi Sirika, in this interview with Abuja Bureau Chief, Yomi Odunuga and Augustine Ehikioya, talks about the closure of the Nnamdi Azikiwe International Airport, Abuja, national carrier and many other issues. Excerpts:
Let’s start by asking you about the reconstruction of the Abuja runaway. Are positive that the deadline will be met?
Of course, the deadline of six weeks closure will be met. I am very sure now that we have done a week; everything is going to the plan. The contractor has mobilized since and everything is looking good. As a matter of fact, I just ordered that we should put countdown clock at the entrance of the Airport, so each time the contractor is going in there, he is conscious of the countdown and the time. I will also put one for him in his office so as he sits in his office, he sees the countdown. Beyond that, that is just a way of spicing it up, just to create some fun. But the truth is that we have three layers, three sets of consultants. We have the main consultant that we engage for the project, which are private sector consultant. We have got the in-house consultant and the ministry of information in my office had also established some team which created another consultant and these are noble people, well trained, well skilled in project management and they are the consultants for the project. I receive a daily brief from them.
Aviation sector, even before you came in, really put people in doubt as to whether Nigeria really has the capacity to run a thoroughly professional aviation sector. Since you came in, we have witnessed some ups and downs; in what ways do you think your ministry can intervene to make the sector more competitive and professional?
I don’t believe Nigerians don’t have the capacity to run the aviation sector professionally. A lot of Nigerians are well trained aviators, they have seen it all, made names outside the country and have also helped run the industry within the country for a very long time. Of course, it is not perfect just like any other industry. What the ministry is doing to ensure that the industry is run more professionally and also in such a manner that is done very well by engaging the private sector is that we set out our goals. We came in as a government whereby we want to see aviation industry that is forward looking, it is professional, it is led by the private sector, it is in such a way that it is able to connect people and businesses, countries and towns, continents and nations and of course, provides the link to tourism and so on. That is our vision and all of these cannot happen except we do what we think is necessary to put it straight. So, we thought of our airports which are the gateways, we thought of concession to ensure that they are well built. I thought that this is very clear from the onset and we have not gotten there yet but I think we are getting there. We also thought of establishing a national carrier. This national carrier is private sector driven. I don’t even like the name national carrier, may be Nigeria carrier because it is going to be 100 percent private sector. If government will take any stake if necessary, it may not be more than three or five percent. But we will ensure that it is private sector led and driven and that national carrier would connect with other carriers and make alliances and do what is necessary to reach out to other airlines around the world.
Let us look at the human elements that has made the aviation to be what it is in Nigeria today; a situation where airlines that are initially believed to be functioning well suddenly collapse due to probably lack of aircraft or sometimes, they said the government is not helping by giving them soft loans to buy airplanes and all that, what exactly is your ministry doing about that? Secondly, let us also look at the issue of flight delays, people have said it is because there are no concrete sanctioning measures.
Delays and cancellations are not new to aviation and they are not also unique to Nigeria. What is bad is though is if those delays are things that can be avoided. For example, anywhere in the world, you can have delays due to weather, even in the US, Russia, UK, etc. You can also have cancellations for one reason or the other. And we put mechanism in place from my ministry or Nigerian Civil Aviation Authority, they have not made it public on how you are going to seek redress or how a passenger can insist on his rights, may be because we have consumer protection unit in the NCAA which is alive and have treated so many issues. So, we have things in place. It is just that may be information as regarding to delay and so on is that once it is something that is an act of God and not within our powers, there is nothing we can do but if they are things we are caught doing with negligence, for sure we have mechanism of dealing with them. Recently, we fined about three airlines and they paid because those things are there.
Going back to the national carrier, how soon should Nigerians be expecting this?
Very soon; it is a process, it is not something that once you say now and it happens the next day. By the way there is Infrastructure Concession Regulatory Commission (ICRC), there is also Bureau for Public Procurement (BPP), there is also Bureau for Public Enterprise (BPE). All of these government agencies were established in a situation whereby once you are venturing into something like this, they will have a role to play. You have to appoint transaction adviser, you have to go to BPP to get clearance, ICRC to get clearance, you have to take it to Council for approval by the presidential council, then the bid, then you get to the process of getting cleared.
So going through the advertisement, going through the short listing, going through the ICRC, going through the BPE, we are now on our way to the council and once council approved, they come back to us for the transaction adviser to do their outline business case which will now be taken to the government to approve and it becomes full business case and then from the business case we go to the market. So, it is a long process that is why since I came we have been talking about concessioning national carrier and nothing happened. People think we are just sitting down doing nothing. We are going through the process so that we would do it according to the law but it takes time. I am thinking at the end of this year, we should be able to have both airport concession and the national carrier.
When you came up with the idea of closing Abuja Airport for six weeks, did you ever imagined the kind of protest and disagreements from different quarters?
Yes. People sit there and criticize and they think that you can just wake up from your bed and decide to close Abuja airport, no. Firstly, we saw what was wrong with the airport and the runaway as well, we went there and we thought of all the possible ways we could do it without total shutting down. Some of the options were to work in the night from 12 midnight to 6am, may be an hour before the flights would have been an ideal thing but the 3,600km runaway is completely gone bad. If you do that procedure, you will be doing may be only 10 metres a day across and so, if you divide that 10 by 3,600km, it is 360 days. The minimum you can is one year and within that one year, there will be raining season.
Two raining seasons and before you finished, the remaining runaway would be so dilapidated that you cannot use it. So, that was out of it. If it was spot repairs, may be five or six portions that are bad, then you can shut it down at night, repair it and by the time you do that for two, three weeks, you would have finished those spots and an overlay which is really pretty simple.
You can be doing that at night until you finish because the main architecture of the runaway is still intact but this one is gone bad so, we cannot afford that. We called consultants, they went there and saw what it is and advised that there is other way we can do it.
The Nigerian Society of Engineers met on this and agreed that the procedure we want to follow is the best. I was surprised when we went to the National Assembly, the President of the Nigerian Society of Engineers having earlier agreed said that what we are doing is wrong but he was countered almost immediately by the Council of Regulatory Engineers (COREN) who are regulator of Engineers. The president of Nigerian Society of Engineers never went to that runaway for one day, never carried out studies, he just woke up and went to the National Assembly and said what he said. But for people who have been there, COREN went there to check first, took samples and carried out test on the runaway and that is why they are supportive. I know that there is going to be protest but like I read on the social media, one guy was saying if you want everybody to be happy with you, don’t become a leader, go and sell ice-cream. What we are doing is it in the interest of the country.
After these six weeks, what are the other maintenance that will be carried out at the Abuja airport and other airports?
Abuja airport closure was for six weeks but the entire work is for six months and they will continue to work until they finish the runaway and make sure that the runaway is good. Government is thinking of doing another runaway so that these kinds of things do not happen. Just like we have in Lagos, we have two runaways in Lagos, we have two runaways in Port Harcourt, there are two runaways in Kano.
So, it is high time Abuja should have two runaways. We are doing quite a lot of things which people don’t see with the naked eyes but they are the things that make everything to work; the navigation equipment, communication equipment, radars that see every flying object and try to separate one from another one so that there is no collision.
These are the things that we have been doing silently and people don’t see. But you need something that will improve the security and safety of the passengers and the efficiency by which they travel. If you are able to fix the safety, efficiency and the security of travel, you would have achieved the intent and purpose of aviation. The remaining things are aesthetics- the air condition, the robust fantastic looking and terminal buildings and so on are things that are desirable, must have but they are not critical to the operation of aviation.
It is always said that people in your position work so hard, they don’t have time to relax. How do you relax?
Well, I used to create time for me to relax by playing polo or swimming in my house or visiting friends. Occasionally, before now, I go for holidays every three or six months. I will check out some places and relax but since I took this job, unfortunately, I have not been able to do any of those. I remember some two, three months ago, there was a polo tournament being played in Port Harcourt and I sent a team there with the intention to play but believe me, in the week long tournament, I was there only once and I landed Port Harcourt, I went to the field, I found them playing, I played for about 30 to 40 minutes and I got up and came back and I never went back until the end of the tournament. It is very difficult. I know that we need it for the brain to function very well.
What’s yours philosophy for life?
Keep it simple. Everything you are doing keep it simple. You have to be very sincere in what you are doing. I remember you or your colleague once asked me why is it that I don’t have my photos around the airports and agencies and I told them that the best picture I would leave behind is the work I would have done as a minister. My image and what I have done would not be out of the minds of Nigerians but if I become the worst Aviation Minister Nigeria ever had my photo would not change that.
Kolawole Oyeyemi a marketing communication expert is the General Manager, Sales and Distribution Division, MTN. Oyeyemi who recently hit the golden jubilee age in this interview with Bukola Aroloye speaks on his career path, management style, philosophy and his interesting pastime. Excerpts:
Turning 50
I feel very grateful for four fundamental reasons: the first is gratitude for the gift of life. This is because in an environment where life expectancy is low, (46 by WHO report), to be alive and well; sound in spirit, soul and body at 50 years is a gift from God I am eternally grateful for. Secondly, I am grateful for the privilege of an early discovery of my purpose and a progressive movement in the direction of vision fulfilment. It is gratifying to know that I am not too far from the milestones on the journey. Thirdly, I am grateful for a most loving and supportive family, friends, colleagues and fellow travellers. Finally, I am eternally grateful for the humble achievements of having made some impacts in my chosen career, humanitarian pursuits and ministerial assignment.
Career trajectory
In the course of my career, I have been privileged to have won varying awards in marketing creativity, professionalism and knowledge share. I have also been instrumental to several awards won by my marketing communication agencies. I won the Cadbury Creativity Award in my days in Cadbury Schweppes and was also a part of the team that won the Marketing team award. I was awarded the Marketing Professional of the Year 2012 by Marketing World Awards. I was awarded the Brand Icon of the Year 2013 by Brand Age Nigeria. In 2014, I got the Marketing World Awards Lifetime Achievement Award in Marketing. In 2015, Marketing Edge conferred on me the Marketing Personality of the Year 2014. I have also won varying awards internally in my company.
I was fortunate to be a two term President of the Advertisers Association of Nigeria; a body made up of Marketing Directors and Heads of Marketing of advertiser companies in Nigeria responsible for over 80 per cent of Nigerian advertising budget. This platform gave me the opportunity to provide thought leadership in the Marketing and Marketing Communication industry in Nigeria
I have also authored six books including the first Marketing Book of its kind by an African, reviewed and catalogued by the US Library of Congress. This book: ‘Kill Or Get Killed; The Marketing Killer Instinct’ has been endorsed by the Marketing and Advertising Institutes in Nigeria and adopted as a text book for Marketing and Mass Communication students by two Nigerian universities. I have also been able to touch a number of students across Lagos and Rivers states with my Foundation: Ignite Africa Leadership Foundation focused on youths and the revival of the Reading Culture in Nigeria. The Foundation has over sixty book clubs, over four thousand books in stock and boasts of an ultra modern library facility open free to the public.
Philosophy
Please God; Fulfil Purpose; Impact lives. By all means, do not live quietly!
Management style
I see the best in people and so focus on extracting the best out of them as a route to delivering personal and corporate objectives. I challenge and stretch those who work with me to exceed their expressed capacities. If you are not driven, you won’t enjoy working with me.
Pastime
First, my transparency and sincerity is infectious. Integrity is not negotiable. Those who work with me know that. Secondly, diligence is scripturally demanded. I live by this rule and so those who work with me are challenged to do the same. Thirdly, ownership mindset; success at work demands an ownership mindset where work does not end when you close from your physical office
Toughest decision
It was saying ‘Yes to God’ to pastor a church. I did not want to be a Pastor or be responsible for other people’s spiritual wellbeing. This was in addition to the fact that I had a good job in a multinational company and so didn’t need to pastor to earn a living. I also felt that there were enough churches anyway? I ran from God for two years but ultimately had to say “Yes Lord!”
Most favourable decision
Becoming a born again Christian. It changed the dynamics and trajectory of my life irrevocably positively.
Unwinding
Travelling, driving, teaching, reading, watching movies and listening to music
Inspiration
God’s love. Family love. Work love. Music. Joyfulness and seeing people happy and knowing that somehow I am connected to their joy gives me the high.
Passion
If I wasn’t working with MTN, I think I would have naturally ended up in the academic environment as a lecturer.
Traded skills
I am a very robust commercial strategist with excellent skills in Marketing, Sales, Integrated Marketing disciplines of Advertising, Public Relations, Sponsorship and Events, Media and Media management. I am also a speaker, teacher, writer and author.
Serving as ADVAN president
It was a privilege and an opportunity to serve. It was an opportunity to fulfil a part of my life philosophy. Providing leadership to a team of highly skilled and respected professionals was a humbling experience and a learning opportunity. The art and science of negotiations amongst industry stakeholders to reach consensus on widely varied issues were very profoundly defining for me. I worked with some of the best minds the Marketing industry and Nigeria at large can boast of. I am very grateful for the opportunity to serve and to add value to the industry
Advice to new entrants in the industry
You must make a strategic choice early in your career. Do you want the quick money or you want to build a formidable profile? Doing the latter makes you a humble lifelong learner. The money may not come early but you won’t lack either. When you’ve built up a formidable equity, you can then price for it.
Advice to government
Fix the socio-economic fundamentals. Bring the real sector out of coma. Diversify our revenue base. Plug leakages. Make real scapegoats of treasury looters. Communicate your efforts effectively.
Oyeyemi inside out
I was born in Ogbomoso, Oyo state. I attended Baptist Day School, Modakeke from where I proceeded to Saint David’s Modern School in Ife. I thereafter went to Christ Apostolic Church Grammar School, Akure from where I graduated in 1984. I spent one year at the Oyo State College of Arts and Science for my ‘A’-levels before proceeding to the then University of Ife, now Obafemi Awolowo University, Ife, where I graduated with a Second Class Upper Bachelor’s degree in English Studies in 1989. I went to the Nigerian Institute of Journalism for Post Graduate studies in Journalism, Advertising and Public Relations. I then attended various international business schools; Columbia Business School, New York; Cranfield, UK and Lagos Business School, Pan Atlantic University, Nigeria, for executive business education in Advanced Management, Strategy, Marketing, Sales and Leadership.
I began my career as a broadcaster with Kano State Broadcasting Corporation where I excelled and got the NYSC Recognition Award for exemplary performance in 1990 because of the innovation I brought to bear on my assignment at the broadcast station. I had a short stint with The Quadrant Company in 1991 where I was introduced to Public Relations practice. With a thirst to get into full Marketing Communication, I left The Quadrant Company to join Sunrise Marketing Communications in 1992. In 1996, I moved to Cadbury Nigeria Plc. as the Advertising Manager managing the Advertising and Promotions portfolio. Under two years in this role, I distinguished myself in the company and got the Creativity Award for innovation. A passion for full brand management saw me move into mainstream Marketing practice as Brand Manager for the company’s highest value brands- Knoor Cubes and Knoor Chicken Cubes. Again, I excelled and the brand under my watch sold the highest volume and delivered the highest value in its 20 years history then.
After this feat, I left to join MTN Nigeria Communications Limited as the Brand Manager, Business Market. I was behind the launch of several propositions and high impact sub brands before I was promoted into senior management to manage the MTN master brand and look after the sponsorship, events and media portfolio. I became General Manager, Consumer Marketing, and continued the string of excellent and creative brand management that led to many award winning Marketing and Marketing communication campaigns that grew both volume and value market share. During this era, the brand became the highest value brand in Nigeria and the Group brand the highest value brand in Africa.
I am currently in the Sales and Distribution division of the firm as the General Manager, Business Development with responsibility for developing strategies for business growth via both traditional and emerging channels, structures, systems, technologies and platforms to deliver business targets on market share and revenue.
The Vice Chancellor of Anchor University, Professor Joseph Afolayan, has had stints in many public and private tertiary institutions. The Professor of Civil Engineering spoke with Sunday Oguntola and Dorcas Egede on the difference the new varsity is determined to make in the education sector. Excerpts:
How has it been being pioneer vice chancellor of Anchor University?
I want to thank God for the gift of grace. The university is a faith- based university and it’s very clear we understand that without Christ, there is nothing we can do. So, we depend on Him on daily basis for what we do.
The P of a pioneer means principle. You have to be principled because challenges are there and requires somebody who is principled and focused. If you are not, you can’t have a goal and if you don’t have a goal, you don’t know where you are going.
So, the vision of the university is very clear and it takes a principle, single- minded person to follow the focus. What we want to do as a university is to have holistic training that will transform lives of students here, making them different. The grace of God has been helping us to keep our focus.
What is the difference in being in public universities and crossing over to the priuniversity and it’s very clear we understand that without Christ, there is nothing we can do. So, we depend on Him on daily basis for what we do.
The P of a pioneer means principle. You have to be principled because challenges are there and requires somebody who is principled and focused. If you are not, you can’t have a goal and if you don’t have a goal, you don’t know where you are going.
So, the vision of the university is very clear and it takes a principle, single- minded person to follow the focus. What we want to do as a university is to have holistic training that will transform lives of students here, making them different. The grace of God has been helping us to keep our focus.
What is the difference in being in public universities and crossing over to the priductivity will be much more better than what we have in public institutions.
What stands Anchor University out from the nearly 150 higher institutions all over Nigeria?
The training here is holistic just like humans have the body, soul and spirit. In most universities, the training affects peoples’ heads. You give them knowledge but it doesn’t go to the heart. What will make a difference here is our motto. Every student here we expect have godly character.
The heart must be addressed. There must be transformation from within that is solid. It’s the foundation on which Anchor University is built, godly character and if somebody is godly, he will be very bold. The bible says the righteous is as bold as a lion.
So, we have character, then competence. If somebody has character and competence, he is very courageous. Before they graduate, if they have character which will help them to be competent, if they go for competition anywhere, confidently they should be able to perform and exhibit what they have learnt in the process of their training and re-training.
Universities are multiplying every day, leading to scarcity of professional/ competent lecturers. How does the university intend to attract and retain competent lecturers?
It is a question of the university’s standard. A university that has standards that people get to know will be marketable and people want to associate with standards. Real professionals who have what it takes to be a professional look for places where they can demonstrate their potentials.
Once they have universities that have focus, they know joining will not waste their intelligence. They will not waste the talents God has given them because there are places where people go where there morale will be played down and they can’t be at their best.
There are average people who they get to an environment that motivates them, they will come out of average to a higher level. While somebody that is not principled at a higher level above average can be brought down. It is a question of discipline. We believe very shortly, all the hands we need would come on board.
Students in private and faith-based universities are not allowed to unionise. Is it any different in Anchor University?
What is the purpose of unionism? In the context of unionism in Nigeria, what has been the practice? What positive things can be associated with them? Very few I dare to say. Most cases, people see unionism as trouble shooters and things like aluta.
They must do things by force, they don’t believe in dialoguing. When you talk of unionism here, I want to say we have it at a higher level; we call it communion. We live together in harmony, in fellowship. We interact.
Our students interact in lecture rooms, libraries, hostels and cafeteria. The interaction is there. In this place, nobody is caged. In the principle of Anchor University, we want to build people of solid character, dependable people that can move our nation tomorrow.
Anchor University has come to make a difference, to start from the grassroots. We build the culture of discipline into our students. Even when they interact, the interaction should be based on the fear of God. It is not the kind of interaction that will make them plan against the management or carry placards.
If they do, when they leave this place tomorrow you can be sure they will build on this kind of character to throw stones at places. But here with the training on the fear of God, I think we stand a better chance to produce people that can live in any society and still stand out with significant differences.
Many of these students have passed their formative years, how is it going to be easy to inculcate these values that many of them probably don’t have? Also, parents send their children to faith based universities thinking they will be fixed automatically. What is the possibility of that?
Those expectations of parents are excellent but what many of them don’t understand is that transformation of somebody’s life is in the hands of God and He has a way of doing it. That is why in our training here, apart from impacting academic knowledge, we also impact the knowledge of God through His words.
With God all things are possible. There is no heart that God can’t transform. That is the principle on which we stand. In addition to our academic programmes we have weekly Christian activities, where our staff and students will have opportunities to be exposed to the word of God.
What you hear will affect your heart. So when people hear often the word of God, the principles of godliness begin formed in them.
Our own duties are not to be chasing students up and down. We give them the board and those who are leaders will show them by examples. Examples go a long way in training people.
Many wonder if female students will be allowed to wear trousers. Will the university frowns at that, knowing that they are coming from that background or will the university insist from day one that they put off their trousers if they want to be on the campus?
This is a faith university and when you talk of faith it has to do with the mind of God. Our operations will search the word of God. Whatever God says, we want to implement. Now does the word of God support women wearing trousers? If He finds it so, then it becomes a principle we can adopt.
But if the word of God does not support it and this is a bible- believing university, we won’t negate the word of God. What is the purpose of dressing? There should be a distinction of gender. That is what the bible supports and that is what we stand upon in Anchor University.
Must all students attend weekly chapel activities?
If we must fulfill our mandate for holistic transformation in our training, it is mandatory.
Financing a school such as this is not a very easy thing. Do you intend to have some business ventures to generate funds?
We just started but the management is working on a business venture that can increase our Internally Generated Revenue (IGR). So, there is no way we can exist without such things. We have to find ways to augment our finance. We have very strong plans on the ground to go into other areas we can generate funds.
How affordable is Anchor University? Some people believe that so many faith- based universities start off with the tithes and offerings of the members and become inaccessible for the same members.
When you talk of finance, Deeper Christian Life Ministry is not a begging ministry. It’s a global ministry with influence. For the ministry to have stayed for so long before starting a university means there was a reason for it.
Every project anchored on God has a future. So the name of the university is not an accident and the timing of the university to come is a divine plan. So the proprietor has a divine guidance to kick start this university. Without mincing words, of all the private universities that are here, Anchor University, if not the cheapest, is one of them. What student pay here is well affordable and falls within the lowest in the environment here. What is the level of students’ enrolment since it took off in February?
Since we resumed academic works on February 6th, we have been having additional students on daily basis. Currently, we are between 90-100 students.
Universities in advanced countries have gone beyond conventional way of learning and are into research and development. How involved would Anchor University be in research and development?
That is one of the plans to make the university very strong and globally respected. A university that does not have research output is localised. Here, through linkages in term of research and staff exchange, we believe that Anchor University will come up on the platform very soon.
Very aggressively, our lecturers will do research because if they must make progress, they have to show evidence of that through their research activities. Our laboratories for science students are well equipped.
In fact our students at their own level we provoke them to innovative thinking at undergraduate level because the youths we have today are very sensible. If you know how to work and motivate them, you can do excellent works.
Which of the universities have you being linked to?
For now, we started with University of Lagos. We have some of our colleagues there who are adjunct staff, assisting with some of our lectures.
How about NUC course accreditation, how many courses have been accredited for takeoff?
In the three faculties approved (humanities, management and social science, natural and applied sciences) we have about 15 departments. All of them fully approved to start off while accreditation will come later.
People are bothered about the preponderance of faith based universities to produce first class graduates to the point they wonder if they are buying the certificates. How easy or difficult will it be here to get first class here for your students?
The university where the turn out of first class graduate is high, before people make comment, it is better the first class graduates are tested. Subject them to examinations to verify the certificates they have. If they are tested and they can’t perform, people should make their comment.
But if they do, then you have the answer. If we want character in our learning, we should not be giving out marks anyhow and our lecturers in their character are answerable to God. They can’t play away their time, leaving students and when exams comes, they give them marks, it won’t happen here.
In the first place, we expect our lecturers to be up and doing. What they teach every hour, you find it on the web page. It is accessible to the students. Whatever degrees we award here, we would be able to defend it and our students will be confident and competent to show they are merited. What they have paid for, they will be trained for it and if our students are hard working enough, if they merit first class, they will get it.
10 years from now, where did you see Anchor university?
In ten years’ time, you should mention Anchor University among the top five in Nigeria. That is our prayer and focus. The secret is to know what it takes to be there and readiness to pay the price to get there.
Babatunde Durosinmi Etti is the Commissioner for wealth Creation and Employment in Lagos State. He spoke to Yetunde Oladeinde during the week at the Civic Center in Lagos.
HOW did your background affect your outlook of life? I think a lot has to do with your upbringing. Humility, modesty was instilled in us as children by my parents. They were both educationists and they grew to become top Civil servants and our house was a Mecca of education. Even in the neighborhood and that was the way we were brought up as a kid. And whether you are a carpenter, a palm wine tapper, you just had to respect others; those were the values that were instilled in us while I was growing up.
What dreams did you have as a young boy?
I would tell you one thing and that is we all dream really. When you look at your dreams as a young boy, we always have all kinds of dreams but those dreams are never cast in stones. Anybody telling you it must be is not realistic. So, you must be guided from one particular point of view because you have different phases along your socialization path. So, your ideas and vision changes from one portion to another. Like my daughter, she started from Architecture to Chemical Engineering, to Pharmacy and got into scholarship but two days to registration, she asked if she could change. So, you just have to be conscientious because you don’t know where your dreams would take you.
These days the young ones have a lot of challenges and they prefer to go on the fast lane. This takes them into crime and other vices. What comes to your mind here?
I think it is because we got it wrong somewhere and I think we have to go back to how we got it wrong. Everybody wants to be a graduate, everybody wants to climb an illusionary social strata and that is why 30 per cent of what we have is from formal education. The remaining 70 per cent is from gender, church and your neighbourhood. So, whether we like it or not, you might even have a first class and still not get what you want. This is just like when you talk about poverty and how it affects the things we do or want to do. Poverty is the killer of the mind. If you allow yourself to be pulled down with poverty, then you won’t get the fulfillment that you want.
What lessons has life taught you?
Life is all about giving everybody an opportunity. Humility is important, you just have to be modest and all thinking. Experiences are basically lessons learnt from the past. However, it is not how much experience that you have but how effective they are in bringing others to the necessary path.
How do you relax?
I read a lot. I like to read books on development.
What is your typical day at work?
I get to my office at about 8 O’clock in the morning. I try to do all my write ups before I start doing other things. I go out a lot, going out to meet with our collaborators in terms of small business, companies and trying to look at how we can work together and cope with employability and also entrepreneurship.
When it comes to wealth creation, which group do you find most interesting to work with?
When you talk about wealth creation, it is very difficult depending on what indicators; you are using to be able to assess a particular group. But I would take a look at the important areas of intervention. Here I would put women first because gender is very important. For gender, we would need a lot of reorientation and when it comes to the artisans, I would say that they have been neglected for a long time and we abandoned them in this society and I think that they are the forgotten cornerstone. We need to do something about them because we lose a lot of foreign exchange because of the artisans.
What should the artisans expect from your Ministry?
We should project them more. Give them access to markets, give them access to capital and bring them from the informal sector, so that people appreciate what they are doing because their contribution to development is quite big and crucial for industrial development. I mean there is nobody who cannot do without the artisans; most of the works that you see around are the indirect works of the artisans.
You just said that you would be working with young people who left school about a year ago. How did you arrive at that criterion?
No, I didn’t say one year, I said one year upwards. You must have a baseline in terms of government interventions. We are looking at the different levels of the economy and looking at the importance of artisanship. Just before coming here, I had two programs today, one for a group of youths. For them, we are trying to put up employability skill. The second was to go and see what a small group was doing along the Lekki-axis , trying to get less privileged students and see how we could build their capacity and harness the opportunity that abound in their employability skills. For me, it is quite important because they own tomorrow. They also fit into the small business because a lot of the youths would be employed into small businesses. When the president of the organisation told me that there was going to be a chapter of NASSI, I was really excited and timely in terms of one of the initiatives that our Ministry was looking at. As you are aware, we opened 20 offices in 20 LGA’s basically the ETF office and also the employment centers.
As we turn in terms of decentralization, given the importance that this administration has lent to building up employability. When you do this, you cannot but talk about entrepreneurship. You need to be employable first, before you become an entrepreneur. They both go hand in hand. So, building those offices we also are looking at a situation whereby we would want to work with NASSI to capture small businesses and take them according to the local government areas by taking government down to the level of small businesses. This is the time when all small businesses need to come together because we all have a common goal. And unless there is a joint effort towards the advocacy, it won’t work.
The Ministry is the first of its kind right now at the state level. Lagos state is the only state that has a Ministry of wealth creation. The idea is that small businesses are the engine of growth. Lagos is where you have over 80 per cent of all small businesses. In the past small businesses have actually been marginalized. We believe that with a lot of things going on in Lagos, we have people coming in everyday and the challenges are there. We looked at it, and realized that if we foster small businesses, a lot of our problems are solved. One of the first things that we are looking at in the government is the enabling environment. How can we act as enablers? How can we work towards a situation where government understands the business of the small business, understands the constraints, wipe it away before actually thinking of access to capital. So, we are working on both sides and that is why this administration created the Employment Trust Fund, which is 6,25 billion which is available at 5 per cent per annum and the state government did not just create it for the sake of creating it or for the sake of politics.
