Friends and family members insisted on celebrating Dr Titilayo Fowokan when she turned 50 on July 19, hence the corporate no-nonsense lady had no choice but close all the books for a party at the Blue Roof Events Centre of Lagos Television House on Saturday, July 20th. There was no stopping the music as she danced all day.
Dr Fowokan has come a long way, and she felt the only way to show her depth of gratitude to her Maker was to show gratitude for attaining the golden age. She also had a book she had been writing presented to commemorate her birthday.
Expressing gratitude to the Almighty for how far she has come, she said: “I just bless God. I look at my life and I see how faithful He has been to me. Many people do reach 50, but I look at what I have achieved health wise and the rest, and I feel grateful.
“I have a husband that understands. And even though we know that couples have rough edges, we disagree to agree. He understands. He is everything to me.”
The corporate woman indeed has every reason to celebrate. She is at present the Group Head, Strategic Tax and Compliance, Dangote Industries Limited. In that regard, she is in charge of the tax affairs of the Group within and outside Nigeria. She is also involved in organising trainings, facilitating training sessions and delivering papers on selected topics on taxation, accounting, fraud examination and controls.
Fowokan sure has traversed the corporate landscape of Nigeria after she began her exploits in higher education with a National Certificate of Education (NCE) from Ogun State College of Education where she studied Mathematics and Physics, graduating in 1988. She then proceeded to Ogun State University where she graduated in 1992 with a Second Class Upper Division in B.Ed. (Mathematics) and was the best graduating student in the department of Curriculum Studies and Instructional Technology (CSIT).
She holds B.Sc. and M.Sc. degrees in Accounting from Saint Monica University Cameroun (SMOUNC), Masters in International Business Law (LLM) from University of Cumbria, Carlisle, United Kingdom and Ph.D. in Accounting with specialization in Taxation from Charisma University, Turks and Caicos, British West Indies.
Once a professional accountant with Price Waterhouse in 1994 (Now PwC) where she was employed as an Audit Assistant, she later rose to the level of a tax manager before leaving the firm in 2005. At PwC, she was instrumental to the development of International Assignment Services (IAS) focused on Expatriate tax management and also responsible for the retention of fresh graduates directly recruited into Tax and Corporate Advisory Services Unit of the firm.
She later joined the firm of Akintola Williams Deloitte in 2006 to develop the Tax Advisory Services and Global Employer Services Units of the firm. She worked for three and a half years in the Tax Unit of Deloitte before she left the firm as Senior Tax Manager in December 2009 to join Oando Plc in January 2010 as the Group Tax Manager.
After working for six years in Oando Plc, she moved to Dangote Industries Limited in April
2016 as the Head of the Dangote Group’s Tax Department.
A chartered accountant and chartered tax practitioner with more than 23 years of experience in audit, accounting and taxation services, she has, among others, significant experience in preparation of accounts for small and medium sized companies, Audit and Business assurance services, Tax compliance and consulting services for both corporate entities and individuals.
But she believes she could not have been all that without the love of both parents.
She said: “My mum taught me self-confidence. She was a hardliner.
“I would also like to give credit to my dad who I recall was tough. He is the late Chief Adebisi Lawal. He taught us how to struggle for what we wanted. He was s seasoned printer even in his last days, and he left his printing company for my elder brother and sister to manage. He groomed us to be go getters!
“I consider myself a Lagosian,” said Fowokan. “I am born and bred in Lago. I am a product of Apostolic Church Grammar School, though I had my university education in Ogun State and served in Akwa Ibom State. But I have spent most of my life in Lagos. Nursery and secondary education was in Lagos. I got married in Lagos and now I live in Lagos (laughs).”
For memories of her childhood, she recalls her mother’s protective nature.
“We were warned about boys early in life (laughs). We had a closely knit relationship. My mum was firm. She would come out and lock the wire gauze gate we had and chase the boys away. We had opportunities to have fun.
“My mum just wanted us to know that we could be independent and not jeopardise our future. I bless the name of God because I was so fortunate to have had a double promotion in my early school days.”
However, she recalls an incident back in school days that left her thoroughly embarrassed as the Punctuality Prefect.
She said: “I was the punctuality prefect, but I forgot the key one day and everyone was outside. I got some good beating on that day. When I got home and told my dad, he said, if you didn’t offend, you would not be beaten. My father’s friend was there, and immediately said the beating was too much, but my father stood his ground, that the beating was okay.
“Ours was a house of girls, apart from my dad and brother. Growing up with girls was interesting. We basically were all handy. One person weaving the other’s hair, the other doing something for another. We were basically indoor people, but we followed our elder ones to parties.
Dr Fowokan cannot but talk about her engineer husband and her family. “My husband retired in 2016 to become an entrepreneur,” she said.
“We have a family business. We are into fish farming and farming. He looks after the family business. We have a son and also a nephew who is now our son by virtue of the fact that he has been with us from a tender age and we have been able to give him good training.
“So, we are four. But my house is always full because I am always having people around me. I just want to bless God for my siblings. They made me feel that 50 is beautiful. That has kept me this long. Also some of the people that I have been mentoring.”
Sharing the story of how she met her husband, she said: “I was a student of the college of education then, and he was just a friend. I don’t really think it was love at first sight.
“I moved to Lagos after that period and he also moved on. One day, he called me, we hung out, had some chit chat and all. We went on for a while again.
“Later on, he proposed and I said no! I told him we would just continue with friendship. He looked worried, so I told him to give me some more time. I used that period to pray to God. I wanted a brother, a friend, father and soul mate! And here we are now. God has been so faithful.”
Does that mean her husband has fulfilled all those roles?
“Yes, he has. I remember vividly when I was preparing for ICAN; he would come and pick me from the centre at 9pm and drop me at home before heading home himself. He really did offer some sacrifice of time for us.
“I also remember when we got married. I was wondering how I would cope with new responsibilities and children, but he told me he would wait.”
Dr Titilayo Fowokan went on to share with us some of the challenges that she had to go through with her husband as she journeyed upward in the corporate world.
“It has not really been totally rosy. Yes, my husband had to wait for me for six years without a child so that I could concentrate on my studies and work. But there was a lot of pressure, particularly because I got married at about 28 years. So, waiting for six years meant I must have been around 33 or 34 when I had my first child.
“So you can imagine the kind of pressure we must have gone through. However, we had each other and we survived it! And today, I have my PhD.”
On the challenges at the work place and how she copes with older men who work as her subordinates, she simply replied: “I would say I actually get along. One thing is interpersonal skills. Sometimes I use sir/ma for my juniors. If I notice in any way that it turns into disrespect for me, I put such persons in their place.”
Asked how she got to the high ranking position she occupies in Dangote Group, Dr Fowokan acknowledged that she started from the bottom.
She said: “I started with teaching. I am a trained teacher from a College of Education. I went to Ogun State University where I got a degree in Education, came out as the best graduating student with 2.1 (Second Class Upper). When I graduated, I started searching for jobs. So I saw job opportunities and a vacancy in Price Water House, one of the accounting firms now known as PWC, and I went for it.
“While doing that, I got a job offer to go back to my school and become a lecturer. So, there was a clash. I did the test at Price Water House, and when I got the confirmation that I would be given a job, I left the teaching job to concentrate on a corporate career job.
“Along the line, I discovered that I had a passion for tax work as an audit trainee. So I gave 25 per cent of my time to tax and 75 per cent to audit. I was the first to be promoted from audit senior to a tax manager in the firm. I had the opportunity then to say I wanted to groom others, recruit and train them. And that I did successfully before I left the firm.
“I moved to Oando Technologies and stayed for a year, then moved to Akintola Williams Delloite before joining Dangote.”
She also readily revealed where the passion for tax comes from: “The passion comes from finding solutions. Tax is dynamic. New things come up. New things happen. When you apply wrong approaches to tax, you get wrong results.
“Also, I get this question a lot and I also get to be asked how to advice young people on life generally. The thing is making the right choice. I could have got married at 20, but I prayed. I asked God for direction. So, God first, patience second!”
As a top management employee of Dangote group, Dr. Fowokan travels a lot. She admits that a lot of the time, she is on the road or in a plane. Her job position requires it. But how does she manage it?
“To tell you the truth, these days, my traveling isn’t as much as when I started my career. But now, if I need to travel, my husband understands.
“I do not even work as much as I used to work then. Now I have time to cook at home. That’s why my weekends are busy, because during the week, the ones my kids can do, I let them do. My husband is a cook, so he assists them. During weekends, I cook and put in the freezer. So Saturdays and Sundays are busy days for me.”
Fowokan’s hobbies include lending a helping hand to younger people, being a mentor, investing in undergraduates.
“In the church, I am a counsellor to the youth and teenagers.”
What vanities of life does she really care for or may not do without?
To this, she looked up and said after a while: “I’m a simple person not bound to anything. I can do without makeup or jewellery. I’m just a natural person.
“But when it comes to dancing, you will meet me there! I’ve received several awards in my church for dancing. At an early age my siblings would take me out and bet on my dancing skills. I love dancing, and my husband loves music too. Sometimes I just dance for him and he laughs and laughs. It makes him happy.”
With her vivacity and easy disposition to life, one could not help asking her the greatest challenge she has ever encountered and how she overcame it.
She was ever ready with a response: “Personally, I see challenges as activities that end up lifting you for greater good. However, the one trying time I had was that period I had to wait with my husband for six years before getting pregnant and having our first baby. Not that I wasn’t getting pregnant, but miscarriages here and there. It was a really trying time, but I got closer to God.
“Another challenge was in the early days, working in a male-dominated field. But it is not really male-dominated anymore. A lot of women are in the career now. I personally encourage a lot of women.
“Today, I’m having a meeting with women in taxation, and I am their chapter chairperson in Lagos. I’m currently a council member of Chartered Institute of Taxation of Nigeria. We had an election recently.
“I try as much as possible to make sure people around me are happy. I don’t see being a woman as a disease. In fact, I see it as a challenge to be able to make all the people around me happy. I get asked if I’m a man, because of the way I work and address issues of work. I don’t want to be a failure, and that has been my driving force.”
