•Says I floated many businesses to avoid returning to poverty
Prince Samuel Adedoyin, a frontline industrialist cum philanthropist, will clock 90 years in the next five days; December 4, 2025 to be precise. Interestingly, nothing about the physical appearance of the Chairman, Doyin Investment Group gives any inkling he is on the verge of becoming a nonagenarian. Our correspondent, INNOCENT DURU, was shocked to be ushered into an office where the business mogul was comfortably seated, discharging his official duties with the agility of a youth. “You are welcome,” he said, in a vivacious tone as he stretched out his hand for a handshake. In the twinkle of an eye, Prince Adedoyin cleared his table, requesting that the interview should begin. Excerpts:
You will be 90 in a few days. How has life’s journey been?
My own life is to thank Almighty God. There’s no life without regrets, but through God Almighty, I have lived a fulfilled life. There is nothing to complain about but to be thankful to God. That is how my life has been.
Your parents were farmers. How come you did not choose farming for a living?
I started as a farmer, which I didn’t like because it was all about using hoes and cutlasses, going to farm without shoes, and so on at that time. I am still a farmer now, but it is mechanized farming. We have a farm in Kwara State. We have greenhouse farming, open fields. We have a cashew nuts farm, and so on. But it is all mechanized now instead of the primitive way of farming.
Why did you leave school after Standard 4?
That was the much my parents could afford. At any rate, the school there was then ended at Standard 2. I read up to Standard 4 at Iludun. If I were to go higher, I would have gone to Offa to finish the elementary school, and go to college.
Offa Grammar School was very popular. It was the school that people attended before being able to get to the university. But we were not made to do that because it was only every first son that was allowed to go to school. If you had four children, you would only train the first son.
It was me, when I was blessed, who trained all my family’s children irrespective of age or mother, because I was blessed enough to give them scholarship. And that was what I did for all of them to be able to go to school.
When you left school after Standard 4, what did you do next?
I came to Lagos. My father had divorced my mother and I loved my mother very much. She suffered so much for me and my brother that died. That made me to think that I could not live with my father. I had to stowaway and go to England. But I was not lucky. I was caught in Takoradi in Ghana.
I was travelling by sea. They kept us where they kept luggage and so on. I went from here in Lagos. The port was at Marina, opposite UBA. That was where we got into the boat.
Unfortunately, I was arrested in Takoradi. I begged one of the customs officers that arrested me to please use me as a steward because I could not afford to go back home. My father would cut my throat.
I was not successful as a steward, so I begged him to leave me alone. He was kind and left me alone. I worked as a vendor with Asanti Pioneer owned by an opposition paper. I sold meat before I started trading, I think with about two pounds then, and God gave me a breakthrough. That was how I came back to take my mother back.
You mean you already knew about japa in those days?
Well, I did japa, but not to go for work. My plan was to go to school. I just wanted to leave my father because he divorced my mom, and he was not kind to me then. He was hard on me. He was a hard person. He had a polygamous family. My father had three wives.
You said you have lived a fulfilled life. But looking back, if you have the opportunity, would you have lived it differently from the way you did.
I used to think so before, but categorising everything together, I decided to remove ‘but’ from my life. God has been kind to let me become what I am through personal learning, practising, and experiences. So when I put all my situations in a text or put them together, that is why I said I just have to thank God, because even if you work for a month, there will be ups and downs.
There was a time I could not eat or feed. That’s why I said I have lived a fulfilled life, because I’m sure that being news people, you would have interviewed some people may be in their 50s or 60s, and for you to be interviewing me at 90, without any defects yet, what complaint do I have to give to God?
That is why I said if I summarise everything, all I have to do is to thank God for the overall blessing, and where I have reached.
You started a business quite early, and you made success out of it. Would you say life was easier then than now?
If you are a Christian, you will know that there is nothing difficult for God to do. People also used to say that times were hard in those days too. But God Almighty, who knows everything from everything, made some of us very successful, and it still happening.
I have some of my children, despite all odds now, who have employed 300 workers and are still being very successful. I think life is by luck, God’s guidance and blessing. So, to me, I don’t always want to say this time is worse than now.
If we look at it, we would say that at that time, the value of money was stronger. How to live life was easier then. But even at that time too… when we rented a house, like the one of six by eight feet, where I first of all lived with my bed of three by six, there was a wardrobe and I had a gramophone on the wardrobe. That was where we played with the green fluorescent lights. I was one of the first few who could live in a room then. Yet, God did it.
So at that time, when people were not able to live in a room, I was able to live in a room. From a room to a room and palour, then to a flat before I was able to build a house in Ikoyi, and since then, it has been success all the way.
Did you go into philanthropy because of what you’ve gone through or it is just a part of you?
It is a part of me, because first of all, when I made the first money, the church that I built in my town is the one we are still using in Anglican, in Agbamu today. Although I now go to Redeem Church, I still maintain the church. The bishop of the Anglican Church is my very close friend.
Your grass to grace story should be an inspiration for young people who came from humble homes. What advice would you give to such people?
First of all, that one should be closer to God. Some people don’t believe in the power of God and His supremacy in life. God has allowed me to believe in Him right from the beginning, and I still do. And I think that is the backbone of my success. I think everybody should put God first in everything he or she wants to do. And if one believes absolutely in Him, there will be no going back. The foolish man says there is no God who can sanction him and peg him back. My God has not allowed them to happen to me.
What challenges did you face in the early stage of your business?
Capital. I started my business with 46 pounds. When I needed money to buy something one day, I approached Standard Bank for a loan of two pounds. We had so much stock and I needed to buy something quickly, and I borrowed two pounds from the bank, and it worked.
Standard Bank was all run by the whites then. From that, God has always blessed me to have more than enough to run my business.
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You are into different things. What led to that? Was it the fear of going back to poverty or trying to compete with somebody somewhere?
Not wanting to go back to poverty is my own main aim in life. I have not compared myself with anybody. No, I don’t want to suffer in life. I don’t want a setback. So I registered Jekoyemikale Oluwa (let it be well with me forever Lord) and Brothers. I still use it to pay my tax. That (the meaning of the name) is what has actually happened to me.
Was it a kind of vision?
No, it is my prayer. That is what I asked God to do. That was what I did then, and it is still happening.
Attaining 90 years, would you attribute it and the sound health you enjoy to the grace of God or some personal lifestyles?
I told you that everything that I have done is through the grace of God. There is nothing that I can call my own. Every blessing comes from Him.
But do you watch what you eat or engage in sports to keep fit?
It is now I do that. Before, you would first have to have enough to eat before thinking of dieting. At the beginning, there was nothing like dieting. But now I watch what I eat and what I take. But at that time, I ate whatever I saw.
You have a foundation that takes care of the less privileged…
That is what I do all the years of my life. I came from a poor area. The government in Kwara State does not help our area. So, I am the one who first of all built dispensary and maternity in the community. Later, I built a general hospital which I donated to the Kwara State Government to manage. But they didn’t even use a quarter of it. But behind it is where I’m building a school of nursing.
Is there anything more you wish to achieve in life?
If God allows me, I will help more people.
How do you feel about the menace of banditry in your state?
I feel the same way I feel about the whole country. I pray that God will help us to be able to tame those attacking Nigeria everywhere. Before now, it was not affecting Kwara. But now that it does, it makes people to feel the pain more than reading about it. I wish God will help Bola Tinubu to save the country from such attacks.
What is your advice to the younger ones about their lifestyle?
Drink right, eat right and do everything in the right way. Now I know that it can help to save life. Before it was God who helped me, but now, I eat according to medical directive. I wouldn’t say that was what saved my life. It was God that saved my life. But I know it is good to eat right, drink right, and do everything right.
