Dr. Adebayo Jimoh, a former Group Managing Director/Chief Executive Officer of Odu’a Investment Limited and currently the Chairman of Osun State-owned bank, Omoluabi Savings and Loans Plc, is a thoroughbred technocrat. Fondly called Mr Turnaround by admirers, thanks to his efforts in reviving the then ‘sick’ South West- owned business, Odu’a Investment Company Plc, he is a member of the Governing Council of Fountain University Osogbo, Chairman Synergy Cotton and Agro- Allied Limited and member, Board of Directors, Ibadan Business School, among others. In this interview with GBENGA ADERANTI, the son of a merchant of gold and diamond speaks about his growing up outside the country, why he left his job as a lecturer, the influence of his father on his business acumen, among other interesting issues.
You finished as the best graduating student in your faculty when you did your bachelor’s degree and repeated the feat at post graduate level. Why didn’t you stay in the university system as a lecturer?
It is true that I was the best graduating student not only in my department but also in the whole faculty. I had the best result and I was offered an appointment. I wanted to immediately take do master’s programme. I left the University of Ilorin to go to the University of Ibadan to do my MSc in Industrial Psychology with the aim of doing a doctorate. At that time, I was interested in being a lecturer. While I was in the University of Ibadan, I was also the best student in the class and the University of Ibadan held me and offered me an assistant lecturer position, so I stayed in the academics.
I started as an Assistant Lecturer in the Department of psychology. In the cause of it, I saw that I was more attracted to industry, at least put to practice the theory of psychology of industrial and organizational behaviour and of human behaviour. I thought I would just go to the industry for a while, but I went into industry and I got stuck. That was why.
Any regret leaving your job as a lecturer?
Not at all, I have no regret. In industry, I first of all joined John Holts as a management trainee in 1983, and I rose through the ranks in John Holts with lots and lots of exposure, lots and lots of training, lots and lots of assignments, lots and lots of tasks, lots and lots of projects that I had to deliver both within and outside Nigeria and within the team work, because British multinational companies believe in team work. I rose to the rank of group executive director in charge of group operations for Nigeria and West Africa sub-region. I was there for a while before another call came for me to move to Odu’a Investment Plc. So I didn’t regret exit from the academics. Rather, academics prepared me for opportunities to put to practice the theories in the class. So, there was a kind of town and gown relationship. They blended very well to assist me in my career path.
You speak like someone that did not grow up in Nigeria
You are probably right. My father was an itinerant trader. He found himself in the then Gold Coast in 1947, and he was involved in the exploration and mining of gold and diamond with the British colonial government in Ghana. Then, it was Gold Coast, and he used to travel a lot between the Gold Coast, Liberia, Sierra Leone and other foreign countries on boat or by ship. Because he had exposure and he had interaction with the British people. I wasn’t born in Nigeria; I was born in Ghana.
I was lucky, because of the exposure my father had. He immediately put me in an international primary and nursery school with 26 nationals in that school. Each nationality had a flag in that school. I was privileged to have attended Hectre International School, one of the pioneers of British international Schools in Ghana. I grew up with Europeans and Americans and I imbibed their culture. I was in Ghana for all my developmental years. It was at the point my father exited and came to Nigeria that I had to come to Nigeria. And when I came to Nigeria too, I was lucky. I had good education and I grew up through it. It was not as if I was born by a rich person or any privileged person, but by the wish of God.
Tell me about the influence of your father on your career.
You are quite right, my father was a businessman in Osogbo. He is late now. He died on May 1 this year at the age of 101 years. He was the Babaloja of the main market in Osogbo. Before he became the Babaloja, his Oroki Bread was one of the fastest growing bakery businesses in Osogbo. So he was purely a businessman. What he taught me was diligencealways do the right thing and always get prepared because the opportunity will come.
My father was a long term person. He would tell you that you don’t just get information and get prepared for today, whatever is readable, read it. Whatever you have to learn, learn it. Whatever you have to acquire, acquire it, because the opportunity will come. He also believed in maintaining relationship based on integrity. More important is the diligence part of it: do it right, make sure that whatever you cannot defend publicly, you don’t do it. Only do what you can defend. So, those were the traits I picked from him.
At the time you picked up appointment with Odu’a Investment Plc, the conglomerate was said to be ‘sick’. What situation did you meet and how did you turn it around?
I would give that credit of Odu’a turnaround to the leadership team that I was able to put in place; the support of the board I worked with. And it may interest you that in Odu’a, I worked with seven chairmen and more than seven boards. I worked with governors from all parties because I was in the saddle for nine years. The standard was four years renewable, but I had another year to brand up.
The team that I worked with was focused and they believed in the dream. And the dream was simpl: let’s make this place better than we met it. The first thing that we did to prove that it was possible was the Cocoa House which was built by our forefathers. At the time I came in as the group managing director, the place was abandoned and was dilapidated. All that you found in Cocoa House were rats and rodents, and the place was totally unkempt. I said this is an asset that we must revive. The reaction from some people was ‘nobody touches Cocoa House’.
There were so called demons and all my predecessors since the place got burnt just abandoned it. I said I would not abandon it. I’m moving into the last floor of Cocoa House. We moved in after rehabilitating the entire Cocoa House, which now stands as an edifice for Odu’a even for the Development Agenda for Western Nigeria (DAWN) Commission. I gave them the 10th floor. I want to believe that the place is fully occupied. Before we moved in, the place was totally abandoned. That was the first test that there is nothing that it is not possible if you are determined.
When we had achieved that, we went into real estate development. The greatest asset we had was the location, and in real estate development, the first thing you want to look for is the location, because that is what you are selling. Most of our assets were in good locations, but they were thoroughly ran aground. So we went into what you call Property Redevelopment Programme (PRP), and we started with the Orange Court that is in Ibadan. We built an estate on a property that was formerly occupied by a bungalow of three-bedroom with a large compound.
When we finished Orange Court, we went to Almond Court. We did the shopping complex, then the big one, the Shoprite Mall of the old UTC building, which Odu’a used to use as its head office. When we finished that in Ibadan, we built a Shoprite Mall in Apapa, Lagos, the Apapa Mall, through a partnership programme.
So, to answer your question on how we did it, it was the belief and the spirit of leadership and the team with sincerity of purpose and the support of the governors and the board. That was what we did to get Odu’a back to a level where we were no longer borrowing to pay salaries. We had a good number of staff. We established Farmer’s Academy in Oyo, in Osun to train our youths in modern agriculture, which has now become the major focus of all states in agriculture.
Odu’a saw that at that time, there was the need to imbibe knowledge-driven agricultural practices as against old subsistence level of agriculture. We gave out scholarships to poor but brilliant students from western Nigeria. At the time I left, we had given scholarships to more than 1,000 students in universities. Some of them were physically challenged people. Subsidiaries that were not initially doing well, which I knew and the management knew were not doing well, were not within the growth sector of the economy. We had to wind them down and focus on new areas. We couldn’t do everything; we created the platform for the next leaders to build on.
You are involved in many organisationsLafarge, Fountain University, and other places. How do you manage your time?
Time management is the function of the mind. The mind has to understand that there is nobody that has more than 24 hours in a day, but people could turn the 24 hours to very profitable, fruitful and productive level while others would waste it. If you look at the board that I served and the institution that I served, they were very strong institutions, and I tried as much as possible to prioritise my business. I also have my own private business. I’m into agriculture. I export cotton. We supply support for fishermen and the Lagos State Agricultural Service input with outboard engines, water pumps to support agriculture. That requires our ability to effectively manage and prioritise our needs. I still gave time for my own entertainment, my own leisure and my own vacation.
If you look at equipment servicing and manufacturing which you mentioned, the country seems not to be doing very well in this area. What could have been responsible?
Nigerians had been used to what I call disposable method of living. We never had the concept of maintenance that is providing after sales service for most of the things we do. And there is no country that develops without providing basic infrastructural development. And no infrastructural development can happen without supporting equipment, and these equipment must be properly managed, serviced maintained, and well implemented in line with the warranty policies of the manufacturer. The area of equipment that we do now is in agriculture equipment support. We do fishery agricultural support, we provide those services and training for people that will learn and buy into it.
There is no country that will transfer technology to you. You either acquire it or steal the technology for your country. A very simple example is in equipment that we supply the northern market right now. The first set of equipment was brought in from China. Subsequently, our local engineers are now fabricating those equipment and they are performing similar functions like the imported ones. It is necessity that has created that invention. You can no longer get FOREX. So the disposable behaviour of our people has changed now to maintenance and adaptable behaviour and what I call exploration. So we have also become inventors. Our people are inventing simple basic equipment, and I believe we are going to go further.
What you are saying in essence is that there is a future for this country in terms of equipment manufacturing?
I tell you that that there is a big future for this country if we continue to support and train people on what I call skill acquisition, and it is a basic SME project the bank of industry is supporting. It is a project where technically minded students from secondary schools, vocational institution and polytechnics are trained in the art of maintenance of equipment, and they are now fabricating those equipment and the equipment are performing similar functions as imported ones. It may interest you that in the northern Nigeria now, ploughs, hoes, disks, harvesters, wheel barrows which used to be imported are now being fabricated and now produced and used by the local people.
Modern processes are in place now with some established fabrication centres including agro allied food processing machines for slicing food products, for harvesting food products, for cutting, for drying, for baking. Nigerians have started doing this. So there is a lot of future in that area and probably the shortage of Forex is a blessing that has made us think on how to support agro allied industry, which is our greatest strength but for so long forgotten because of oil.
Tell me about something you are not going to forget in a hurry as the GMD of Odu’a Investment?
What I will not forget in a hurry basically is the reaction and the usual attitude of the owners of businesses in Nigeria to foreign direct investment. A lot of owners of businesses, even Odu’a Investments shareholders, believe that whenever foreign direct investors, even local investors, are coming to support any business, they think they have come to take away their business. And I want to say this loud and clear that we should open our economy to investors and we should make the investment climate very conducive for people to support and people to operate within and not to be suspicious of every step that investors take to enhance productivity or enhance the GDP growth of our businesses. That has always been a problem, and until we have a mindset of yes, let’s trust these investors.
But I will say we should always verify facts. We will keep on losing investment opportunities to other neighbouring West African countries. When they come to Nigeria and we create all sorts of bottleneck in the system, they move to other countries that have less bureaucracy, people that have confidence and people that are open to foreign direct investment, and they establish their industries there. That is one thing we need to change.
You are currently the Chairman of Omoluabi Mortgage Bank. If you look at this state, majority of the people are civil servants and some of them have not received their salaries for a while. If they take loans from the bank, how are they going to pay back, considering the economic situation in the state?
Actually, that is probably the major reason why such banks are necessary in the system, because they are development finance banks. They are banks that support SMEs. They are banks that support first time house owners. They are the banks that want to support investors that want to develop the real sector. It is true that majority of the states in the South West are civil servant states, except for Ogun and Lagos, but they need to be well sheltered. They need to acquire investments that are centered on available raw materials in their localities. Not all of them can have access to standard deposit of other banks like bigger banks that are in the system.
The mortgage finance banks provide that interlude, the gap between the bigger banks and those that do esusu (daily or collective contributions). We target our customers in that region of market. First time house owners, professionals and artisans, they have better interactions, and I would say this to you, they are the most organised people. They form themselves into cooperatives and they know how to manage their cooperative and they hardly default if you make the system workable for them. And you can make the system workable for them by supporting and directing them in terms of how to apply the loans they take from the bank, and that is what we are doing.
Right now, Omoluabi Mortgage Bank has been upgraded. We are going to do recapitalization to increase our shares capital. We are working with some very strong institutions and the Federal Mortgage Bank to ensure that we support professional bodies and unions to have affordable housing for their people. By the time they retire, they will have a place to put their head.
What efforts are you making to see that Omoluabi Mortgage does not go moribund like other government schemes?
Definitely, it will outlive its founders. Omoluabi Bank was established in 1993 as a savings and loans scheme by the government, but as we speak now, Omoluabi is more or less like a private liability company. It is quoted on the stock exchange and it is highly regulated. We now have a strong system in place and the state government, which is the core investor, is already divesting their interest for private people to run. The board that I head was recently constituted with competent professionals to lead the bank. The state and civil service bureaucracy will definitely not be part of our portion.
If you had the opportunity to change something about your life, what would it be?
I think if I look at my history, I will say thank God for how far I have gone. I will say that what I will do more is to be more involved in youth development programmes, because the greatest problem we have now is the teeming youth population that is coming up without any direction, and that is the danger or a time bomb waiting to explode. I would have loved to be in a system where I would be able to make a lot of changes in the lives of the youth. But I don’t think it is late. I’m looking up to the opportunity to be more involved in youth programmes, though it could be expensive, it is something I’m looking forward to.
How was your growing up like?
My growing up was very good. I had very good friends. I grew up in a very good environment and my parents were very loving up till the time my father died, he was still loving, and I keep my friendship very strong. I have a good family, my wife, my children, I’m a grandfather and I’m very happy.
You have only one wife as a Muslim?
I have just one wife and I’m happy with her.
Tell me about Osogbo you grew up in and the Osogbo of today?
There is a lot of difference. Osogbo is growing and opening up as a trading and economic hub. The difference between when we were growing up and now is that now it is a state capital, and as a capital of a state, it comes with a lot of blessings in terms of people, infrastructure and in terms of lots and lots of facilities which we didn’t have then. But peace of mind reigned when we were growing up and the fast development being seeing now has created a lot of drive and pull of people coming to live in this place. I’m happy that the population of Osogbo town keeps exploding, and that is a very positive development for retail trading, for housing, for commerce and for industry.
The biggest news is that Osogbo today, in terms of per capital, has the best power supply in the whole of the country. So I’m saying that anybody who wants to establish industry and is looking at low cost of energy should explore Osogbo and Osun State.
Any political ambition?
I don’t have a political ambition. But I’m operating in a political environment and I have taken up political appointments. So, I will always be happy to be associated with politics.
While you were outside the country, did you at any time suffer any form of discrimination?
Yes, that is real. Discrimination in terms of being given equal opportunity, discrimination in terms of not having the opportunity to be put on the same playing ground, fees and bills. Fees that a foreigner would pay was always different from what indigenes pay, and I see that as discrimination. And you not being able to seek for some job positions which are reserved for indigenes even you are fully prepared, even when you have the capacity, it does not come your way. That is why I think it is very important things for us as Nigerians to grow our economy to the extent that we will have a need except for international appointments to seek menial jobs abroad.
What is that fashion item you can’t do without and how does your wardrobe look like?
I can’t do without a wristwatch. I have very few of them but they are unique to my taste and unique to my support.
