Chief Oseni Elamah is a man of many parts. He is the Executive Secretary of the Joint Tax Board (JTB), the Okaoivbiore of Benin Kingdom, the Gimba of Auchi Kingdom, a Knight of the Order of Saint Mulumba in the Catholic Church and a member of the Nigerian Institute of Policy and Strategic Studies. Until his present appointment as the Executive Secretary of the JTB, he was the Executive Chairman of the Edo State Revenue Service. He turns 60 on Sunday (March 24). As part of activities to mark the occasion, he fielded questions from a group of reporters. Excerpts:
Q: Sir, yours has undoubtedly been a remarkable life, rising from very humble beginnings in Auchi in Edo State to becoming a successful accountant with name-recognition at the national level. Can you please share some of the memorable milestones with us and the values that propelled you to success?
A:Thank you very much. I think first and foremost, I’ll like to give gratitude to God Almighty for his grace upon my life, for being born into this Earth. I also pay special appreciation to my dear parents, my father Alhaji Nasiru Dodo Elamah and my mother Alhaja Salamatu Mary Elamah.
I was born in Auchi, born a twin with a twin sister and I started my primary school at a very early age. I had previously had an interest in reading Architecture. I had in fact gotten admission to the University of Nigeria Nsukka, but my Uncle, Chief P. S. Salawe, was more interested in me reading Accountancy. He wanted me to toe his own career path, being the Auditor General. I think he was also instrumental to my being able to secure an in-service training from the Bendel State Government when I got admission to Auchi Polytechnic to read Accountancy. On that basis, I spent about two months in Nsukka before I had to come back because I now had an in-service training to read Accountancy, so I proceeded to Auchi Polytechnic.
On completion of my Diploma Course in Accountancy in Auchi, since I was on in-service training, whenever I was on holidays, I came back to work. But on completion, I now decided to take a step further by undertaking the professional exam to qualify me as a Chartered Accountant.
In 1998, during the administration of General Abdusalami Abubabakar, I was with the pioneer Group Managing Director of NNPC Chief Aret Adams, who was a mentor to me, when he was called to take up the position of the Special Adviser on Petroleum to the Head of State and he requested that I go with him to Abuja. On getting to Abuja, I was then appointed a Senior Special Assistant to the Head of State on Petroleum under the Office of the Special Adviser on Petroleum. So, I worked closely with the late Chief Aret Adams in the Petroleum Ministry until the transition to civilian rule ushered in the Olusegun Obasanjo administration in 1999.
I then went back to Lagos and with my friend, Femi Osunde who was then working with Captain Hosa Okunbor in a comapny called Hoselyn Oil and Gas and with my assistance we were able to secure a $12million contract to build the Oredo flowstation facility in Benin, and I was then made the Executive Director in charge of Business Development. It was from there that the late Chief Aret Adams requested that I should join him at Multinational Expertise, and I was asked to develop a new business line. In doing that, we had a joint venture relationship with an international oil field supplying Company, Craig Energy Services based in Aberdeen Scotland and with that we formed the company called Multinational Craig Energy Services and I was appointed the pioneer Managing Director and Chief Executive.
In 2002, we moved to expand the capital base of Multinational Craig Energy Services, and we had just finished a Board Meeting before proceeding on a family vacation with my family to the United States. But about two weeks before I travelled, I had gone to Abuja on the instruction of the late Chief Aret Adams to submit a proposal to the then National Social Insurance Trust Fund (NSITF) where Comrade Adams Oshiomhole was the Chairman and also the Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC) President.
The proposal was on how to assist the NSITF to better grow its membership contribution so that they could deliver more services to workers. I went on that mission and on getting to submit the proposal, I met with the Managing Director of NSITF, Alhaji Abba Aji, and the then General Manager, Finance and Investment, Ahmed Rufai, who later became the Managing Director. By the time we finished the meeting, I then met with Comrade Adams Oshiomhole who noted that the proposal looked so convincing but that the only challenge was that the company may not have the people to translate the proposal into reality. He then asked if I would want to come on board and take up an Executive position. I told him there and then that I was not in a position to give him an answer but instead he should speak to my mentor who sent me.
He put a call through to Chief Aret Adams who told him they would meet on his next visit. I went back to Lagos to honour a meeting and after the meeting, Chief Aret Adams personally dropped me off at the Airport from where I proceeded on my scheduled vacation with my family. But, just the next week after I got to New Jersey, I got this call, a very sad news, to the effect that Chief Aret Adams, on his way back from Port Harcourt where he had gone to flag off a community Trust Fund for the first indigenous Marginal Field Development Company, the Niger Delta Development Resources, had a stroke aboard the Aero flight from Port Harcourt and he was taken to the hospital. Unfortunately, by the next morning, he had transited. This devastating incident was one of the saddest moments of my life, and till date, when I recall the good memories of Chief Aret Adams who had mentored me to what I have become today, I am moved to tears with grief.
I cut short my trip, my family vacation, left my family and took the next available flight I could find through Paris back to Nigeria. When I got to Nigeria, by the time they did the burial, it was then that Comrade Oshiomhole informed me that the late Chief Aret Adams after the meeting they had, had given his go ahead that I should proceed to join the NSITF.
I was there till 2007 when Adams Oshiomhole ran for the Governorship of Edo state. Immediately he recovered the mandate, I was the first to be appointed under the Edo State Government of Comrade Adams Oshiomhole to head the Assets Verification Committee which was charged with the responsibility of ascertaining the assets and liabilities of Edo State as at when he took over, and also to help chart a way for the new government that was coming into place to ensure that there was value for money for Government money spent. This was to ensure that there is transparency and accountability in all Government transactions. At the end of that exercise, I was appointed a Special Adviser on Fiscal Governance and Project Monitoring. I was there till July 2011 when I was made to take up the position of the Chairman of the Edo State Revenue Board. That was where we started the Internally Generated Revenue (IGR) reforms, where we put together the Legal Framework that was eventually passed by the Edo State House of Assembly and signed into Law, giving birth to the Edo State Internal Revenue Service and I became the pioneer Executive Chairman of the Service.
Q: Wow, that has been a most eventful and interesting journey; and it is memorable and inspiring. On that note, I like to ask how does it feel to be 60?
A: Well, I think honestly, I don’t feel anything different now. Sometimes when I look at some of my pictures. I just see 60 as just a number. I feel it is just looking at the fact that there’s still a to be done. I just see it as a very short period given all that I’ve narrated. I believe that God has given me a special calling and endowed me so much with good health and some unique talents that I believe he wants me to use in being a blessing to my fellow human beings and also impacting the society.
And I believe that as one attains this age, I want to try as much as possible to give back to society from the blessings that I’ve received myself from God.
Q: At 60, do you have any regrets? Or in other words, given another opportunity, what would you have done differently?
A: I think at 60, it’s a lot of gratitude and thanksgiving to God. What experience or what I’ve gone through in life is something that has already been ordained by God and I have found no regrets whatsoever. If I were to live my life again, I believe that the way I live it will equally be in the hands of God. So, like they say, we human beings are just like pencil in the hands of God. He will use us as he has so destined to. The only thing that is left is for us to be very prayerful so as to be able to access that which God has destined for us. So, I have no regrets but instead I have so much of gratitude and so much of appreciation and so much of thanksgiving.
Q: Sir, your youthful and athletic look belies your age of 60. Can you please share with us the secret of your youthful look?
A: I think the secret of my youthful looks is a key that is in the hands of God and to be able to get access to that key you need a lot of prayers. So, first of all I am very prayerful to God. I start everyday with prayers and thereafter I also am addicted to working out, engaging in early morning exercise and getting fit. I go to the gymnasium. I have a very regimented routine. When I finish doing that, I do my morning preparation, take my bath, get ready for work.
Because of the way I work outside the home with my family, I am not used to having breakfast at home. I go with my breakfast pack to the office and my breakfast is just basically oatmeal, fruits and vegetable, juice and that may just be what I need for the whole day or until I close from work.
But I think what is basically responsible for my youthful looks apart from the blessings that God has given me through my parents is that I also maintain very disciplined eating habits and disciplined lifestyle. Normally what happens is that there are certain things that I will ordinarily not be interested in eating, but over and above that, it is a blessing from God to be of good health.
Q: Sir, you are credited as spearheading the bold reforms that catapulted IGR from a mere N300m a month to close to N2b in Edo State within a relatively short time as the chairman of the State Internal Revenue Service. How did you do it?
A:Well, thank you very much. You call it a feat, but I think it is something that you should plan and work for. Whatever you achieve is what has been envisioned, so one was very clear as to the vision that one wanted to attain in going to the Edo State Internal Revenue Service.
Having had the opportunity of serving as the Chairman of the Assets Verification Committee and also as the Special Adviser on Fiscal Governance and Project Monitoring under Comrade Adams Oshiomhole, it was very clear that I wanted to demonstrate that it was possible to make Edo State work for the citizens of the State and to add value to their lives. Therefore, the government needed all the resources it could muster to execute so many of the laudable social and infrastructural programmes.
Starting from one’s experience in the previous assignment that one had had both in the private and public sectors, I believe that it was those experiences and given the enabling environment that was provided by the Governor, Comrade Adams Oshiomhole and the confidence and trust that he had in me as a person, enabled me. Furthermore, working closely with young men and women who were fired to building a career for themselves and making their own little contribution towards the development of Edo State, we were able to achieve the results we achieved.
I believe that there is still a whole lot more that Edo State Internal Revenue Service is going to attain given the crop of committed and dedicated workforce that we were able to put in place that are leveraging on Information Communications Technology in delivering quality service not just to the Edo State Government, but to taxpayers and to other major stakeholders in Nigeria.
Q: That leads us to the next question. You are currently the Executive Secretary of the Joint Tax Board (JTB) which encompasses amongst others, all the revenue authorities in the Federation including the Federal Inland Revenue Service (FIRS) and the various State Revenue Authorities, including the FCT Internal Revenue Service. What lessons do you think can be borrowed by these revenue authorities to deepen the tax net?
A: I think it is actually a rare privilege to collaborate and support one of those that I will call the prime movers and the pioneers at carrying out major reforms in Internally Generated Revenue (IGR) of various Governments. The current Executive Chairman of the Federal Inland Revenue Service (FIRS), Mr. Babatunde Fowler, who also doubles as the Chairman of the Joint Tax Board (JTB) was the pioneer Executive Chairman of the Lagos State Internal Revenue Service (LIRS) where the IGR reforms were midwifed by the then Executive Governor of Lagos State, Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu, and he was at the forefront of carrying out those reforms.
I think currently, Mr. Babatunde Fowler has demonstrated exactly what he did In Lagos and is deepening those performance at the FIRS. For the first time the FIRS generated the highest revenue ever of about N5.3 trillion for the year 2018, and in the new year with further deepening of those reforms, it is targeted that the FIRS will be able to generate between N8-N10trillion in year 2019.
What most people don’t really realize is that the money generated by the FIRS is for the entire Federation, both the Federal, State and Local Governments in the Federation Account. So, it is adding value to the various tiers of government in their revenue drive; and I think his chairmanship of the JTB often shows us that working in collaboration with him and from the various experiences that we have gathered I think we cannot have a better opportunity than now for us to be able to help ensure that the various revenue authorities do not need to re-invent the wheel, they just have to take off from the experiences we have, and using those recipe and with greater commitment and dedication, I think they can also generate revenue that are sustainable for the development of various States.
The collaboration among the various revenue agencies and critical stakeholders initiated by Mr. Babatunde Fowler is geared towards having an inclusive tax revenue administration system in Nigeria anchored on treating the taxpayer as king.
Q: That is just fantastic. Moving away, from revenue issues now, you were seen as enjoying a special relationship with the late revered monarch of the great Benin Kingdom, Omo N’Oba N’Edo, Oba Erediauwa, even though you hail from Auchi. He even made you the Okaoivbiore (Head of the Youths) of Benin Kingdom. What was the chemistry between you?
A: I think I was just privileged. Like I said, whatever happens to me in life has already been destined by God, it’s just for you to be able to be get the key to it. With prayers you get the key to what has been so destined. My first major encounter with our father the then monarch of Benin Kingdom, Omo N’Oba N’Edo Oba Erediauwa, was when I was an audit clerk. He was then the Crown Prince of Benin Kingdom and also the Commissioner for Finance of then Bendel State, and I had the privilege of carrying out the cash audit at the Ministry of Finance under his office. That was the first time we met. There was an incident that did occur when he referred to me as “my auditor”.
Many years later when I went in company of Comrade Adams Oshiomhole who was then contesting for governorship of Edo State, to the Palace and was being introduced, he recalled again to say “Is that not my young auditor?” I said I was the one, and he was wondering what I was doing in politics and I said I wasn’t actually in politics, that I only escorted a friend and brother to pay a visit to him at the Palace. Of course, he recalled that first encounter as an audit clerk when I had come to do a cash survey and I requested for proper retirement of a certain amount which His Royal Majesty (His Royal Highness then) had already passed on to his Secretary for retirement, but who instead kept the cash receipts in his drawer; and because I made the enquiry, he proceeded to report me to His Royal Highness. It turned out that what the Secretary had planned to use to intimidate and punish me became a blessing and elevated me, and I found favour in the sight of His Royal Highness.
So, when Comrade Adams Oshiomhole now came on board, he watched severally my sessions as Chairman of the Assets Verification Committee and also as Special Adviser on Fiscal Governance and Project Monitoring while monitoring projects. On one of thoseoccasions, he sent for me and asked to find out what government was doing especially regarding the Airport Road when they said they were going to bring down the Palace Walls. I explained what we were doing. He was so impressed that there and then he requested that one of his daughter work with me so that she can get to learn some things and gain some experience, and she did. The way I was able to mentor her, I think His Royal Majesty was very pleased and asked that as a mark of appreciation they should offer me some traditional beads if I would accept. I said I would be so humbled to be given some traditional beads by His Royal Majesty, and when I went on a thank you visit, I told him how pleased I was and that I am ready to serve in any capacity as a way to support him.
It was then that the issue of being given a chieftaincy title came about, and if you correctly recall, in Benin culture and tradition they don’t have honorary chieftaincy title they just throw about to people. It’s on record that chieftaincy titles in Benin are so documented that once a title is given, it’s not repeated anywhere unless the holder is no longer alive.
For me coming from Edo North or Auchi didn’t really matter to His Royal Majesty because he had already taken me as one of his sons, and having lived in Benin over the years and my close relationship with some members of the royal family, he had no hesitation whatsoever and that is how I was conferred with the Okaoivbiore of Benin Kingdom by His Royal Majesty Omo N’Oba N’Edo Oba Erediauwa and the rest is history.
Q:This relationship has also extended to the current Oba of Benin, His Royal Majesty, Omo N’Oba N’EdoUku Akpolokpolo Oba Ewuare II. Could you please enlighten us on your relationship with the present Oba Ewuare II?
A:Thank you very much. I just mentioned that even as I was being given the title by Oba Erediauwa, I had been in close relationship with the Benin Royal family. I recall my first encounter with the current Oba was when he was a Crown Prince. I was assigned by my late mentor Chief Aret Adams to carry out a feasibility study towards the setting up of an independent petroleum marketing company, and that marketing company was actually for the Crown Prince. It was eventually established in Benin and since then we’ve been in close contact.
Of course, when we came to Benin under the Comrade Adams Oshiomhole administration, His Royal Majesty was then serving as the Nigerian Ambassador in Rome and he had extended an invitation to me and my wife to visit him, and we did visit him; and each time he was in Nigeria, I went to see him.
By Benin tradition, the Obaship is one. The Oba is not made, the Oba is born. So, from day one that the Crown Prince was born he was destined to be Oba. So, the transition from Oba Erediauwa to Oba Ewuare II goes along with all that is associated with the Benin throne. Therefore, the Chiefs that were appointed by Oba Erediauwa were automatically Chiefs of Oba Ewuare II. For me, since I’ve always been in close relationship and my determination and willingness to support the Palace, it is predicated on the fact that I have demonstrated a level of commitment, honesty and integrity in handling all assigned traditional duties and functions that has been given to me and that is what has endeared me to His Royal Majesty Oba Ewuare II who has zero tolerance for dishonesty and lies. Therefore, I think I am just in my natural habitat being with His Royal Majesty.
Q: You are known to be a good family man. What is the secret of your happy marriage of about 27 years?
A:The secret of our happy marriage is that we have made it into a tripod. That is my wife, myself and our creator, our God. We have found out that the more we draw closer to God the more we draw closer to ourselves.
In this marriage for 27 years, I think I’ve mentioned it to my late mentor before he passed on, in all that I have been able to witness and achieve and experience, I think my wife has actually been the talisman.
She is a source of happiness, she is a pillar of support, she is a bundle of joy to be with, she is selfless and above that, she is committed to serving God. In all situations, she’s been the one supporting myself and the family with prayers, she intercedes on our behalf always. She is not materialistic. She is a very natural person. She is just modest in her expectations and her material wants. Instead, she craves more for her spiritual wellbeing and that of the family. So, my wife is the secret. I always tell her that she’s my twin sister, so she’s the source of my happiness and the source of my success.
She’s been involved in marriage counselling for couples coming up. In her position as the President of the CWO in our parish she takes time to do this and she lectures, and she counsels. Like I said, I can’t remember having a disagreement or quarrel with my wife going into the next day and not even a third party.
Q:On a lighter note sir, how do you relax, how do you wind down? What relaxes you after all the stress and effort of work?
A:Well, like they say, all work and no play make Jack a dull boy. Just as I like working hard, I also like to relax. Like I spend time in doing exercise, I play golf, I do a lot of reading, I listen to news. I also engage in mentoring. I relax with friends, once in a while if there is a party. But I don’t go to night clubs, but if somebody is celebrating, I join in celebrating at social events and I spend a lot of time with elderly ones. I take a lot of words of wisdom from them and then of course I take joy in empowering young men and women, gives me joy and satisfaction, those are the kind of things that make me relax.
I also enjoy sharing good jokes and good times with my wife and children. We always have something to talk about, to laugh about. Each time I remember the jokes and good times we share, no matter how far away I am from home, a smile always come to my face. On a recent trip to New York with my wife, we were watching the television where they said for One dollar a man can marry a wife. It was such a funny episode and each time we remember it, we just laugh. And then my kids also are a source of joy and relaxation to us because of their endeavour and they have also imbibed the values that we have treasured over the years. These are what actually give me a lot of relaxation.
