Oodu’a Investments Limited, the business arm of five Southwest states, has been a story of successes and failures over the years, but, according to its Group Managing Director/Chief Executive Officer, Mr Adebayo Jimoh, the conglomerate is well on course to transforming the social and economic landscape of Yorubaland. Jimoh, who is retiring next month after nine years in the saddle, spoke with BISI OLADELE
Nine years as the GMD/CEO of Oodu’a Investments Limited. How has it been?
It has been a very interesting, challenging period and more importantly, it has been a period of getting to know the needs, aspirations and demands of the Yoruba nation and focusing on fulfilling some of the needs and aspirations of the Yoruba people. I thank God that within the nine years, I have done a bit and I am much fulfilled.
You said it has been interesting and challenging. How interesting?
It has been interesting in the sense that one taught one knew all but Odu’a Investment Company is another school entirely where you have to learn a lot about the people’s culture, the way the Yoruba want their assets to be utilised and their desires and their urge and passion for empowerment and progress. The Yoruba as a people are very assertive. So, for everything you do, they are questioning you and you may not have the answers. That’s why I said that Odu’a is a school that teaches you how to satisfy the needs and the aspirations of the Yoruba people. You will be learning all over again no matter what you think you know. So for me, it was a worthy experience and very, very interesting one as a student.
You also said it has been challenging, how challenging?
Well, challenging in the sense that when you get to a place, you need resources to work with and the resources come in the form of human capital, that is, the human index: the people, the financial resources, the funding and the intellectual resources, that is, getting to understand the strategy that you need to use for whatever you want to do. In terms of the resources of people, we’ve had to really identify among our staff, our skill gaps because I saw that we have human resources ready to contribute their quota but the challenge is that they have some training needs which I saw as skill gaps that we require to fill up. Based on that, we have to organise a program deliberately to improve on the skills and the capacity of the staff so as to be able to meet with the challenges.
In terms of the financial resources, it is never enough because of the type of decadence that most of our assets and properties were when I came into this company. It was an eyesore and rather than complaining, what we have to do is to utilise those resources through some financial engineering to now identify what I call “our priorities” and how these priorities could be met using the resources. And of course, the financial opportunities are out there from the financial institutions but you have to prepare a sound, bankable document, good proposal that will be acceptable to the financiers, partners to enable them join hands with you to bring those decadent assets back to functioning because we have to put our assets to optimal use. They were in a state of decadence because they were not meeting up with the expectation of the users and as such we have properties but they were not sweating. And to make these properties sweat we have to add value to them. So we had to look for resources to do that.
Then, the third aspects which I see as the intellectual capacity that is identifying how to do it. What we did was to organise a retreat. Immediately I came into Oodu’a nine years ago, we organised a business retreat to redefine our mission and vision, get our core values well spelt out and change the mindset of the people who will contr-ibute to achieving the set goals and objectives because no matter the resources you’ve had, if you don’t have the people and you do not have what I call “the road map” as to how to navigate the road you will get lost and if you don’t get lost you might even take a longer time because the longer you wait on issues the more expensive it will become. So we had to set all that. That was what I called “the preparatory stage.” It took about three years to get all these things in place. Then we fired on when we got settled for what I called “the foundation.”
How did your employers respond to spending three years to prepare the foundation for a structure to be built? How patient were they?
Actually, that was a period of storm and stress in the history of this company. Communication is so important. We kept on informing our stakeholders, especially the committee of governors at every stage we were. So, they knew that there was a need for us to clear the ugly table and have a clean slate as it were, to commence our activities. Mind you, at that period, it was not as if we folded our arms. We were putting up our business plans together, seeking the necessary approvals, making plans with partners, seeking the buying-in of our various partners and along this period of time, embarking on intellectual development and getting the right people who believed in the vision. So, it was a gamut of activities going on simultaneously. It was at that period we recapitalised Wema Bank in 2008. It was at that period we paid a N10 billion debt that we met that O’net owed WEMA Bank. And we had a challenge: either pay the debt and keep Wema Bank standing or do everything to make it impossible to pay the debt and WEMA Bank crashes, O’net crashes and Oodu’a is in trouble. But we chose the former by making sure that we paid the debt.
Coming from the private sector to a quasi public-private company like Oodu’a Investment, what were your expectations when you were applying for the job?
My expectations when I was applying for the job was that Oodu’a was an institution that had some governance processes with set rewards and punishments, with set objectives and processes of achieving those objectives; a company that was very institutional in its approach to even business dealings. Some of my expectations were met when I came in. There were a few we had to work on and I can tell you easily that the first time I got into Oodu’a, at least that first week when I saw the way the company was run, I told myself that I have really come to work and I said to myself that I was up to the task
How will you describe your first day at work?
My first day was a wow experience. Is this the place?
Was that of disappointment or what?
Yes, it was a bit of surprise. I expected to see a well organised company but I didn’t see that. I was a bit disappointed. And that in itself was a big challenge for me and that was what I said led to our looking at the whole gamut again to see how we could make the place attractive to partners, people willing to work with us, banks that will come in, and have a decent environment and all that.
So, some of your expectations were met, some were not met?
Yes, some were not met.
Can you share with us a few of them?
In terms of the financial resources of the company, I was surprised that the company at that time was not able to meet up with some of its financial obligations like salaries, paying statutory bills and all that. Corporate responsibilities were not being met. And for me, that wasn’t the best for any institution worth its salt. Those were the aspects of the disappointments. But the good aspect of that was that there were people who were willing to be led, there were people who were expecting change. They were only waiting for a leader that will take them through. There were people that were expecting to get out of the rubbles. I can remember the first meeting when I introduced what I called the “Speaker Forum.” I told them in the forum there is immunity. Say your mind. Most of the ideas that we now translated into great works that a lot of people are commending today came from the same people that were in Oodu’a before I came here. And this one thing I keep on saying about the Yoruba: we are always an emerging group. We are ready to move and we are very painstaking; a group of people that with a trigger, will move mountains.
On the day of the commissioning of the Heritage and Cocoa Mall, the business arm of the AREWA sent delegates. What sort of relationship exists between Odu’a and such organisations?
Actually, I think the good news is that Oodu’a is now seen as the standard, the best international standard for any development finance institution; the original body that anybody will want to strive to meet up with. And if you notice that even on the international scene, on the African scene, we were last year rated by African Development Bank review of prudential standard and guidelines as one of the 10 best managed regional institutions in Africa. Oodu’a got the prize.
Talking about the regional bodies in Nigeria, there are probably only two now, the New Nigerian Development Company owned by the Arewa people and Oodu’a Investments Limited. And I can tell you that they have even been coming here for us to train them, to expose them to some of our practices, to tell them how we do things. So, they were very happy to come and witness the commissioning of the mall. They saw it as something they should also learn to do. And even at the NIPC – Nigeria Investment Promotion Council, they’ve given Oodu’a a seat there. We have a desk at NIPC in Abuja and we are working in harmony with the NIPC. So, the perception has changed. There was a previous perception of ‘don’t touch.” Now, there is a perception of “this is the model.” Oodu’a is the model that any regional body should look for and that’s why Arewa people sent their delegates to come here.
What other major breakthroughs can you remember?
Well, the major breakthrough I will say we have done which if we don’t see the result now, we’ll start seeing the result in the next five years, is our youth empowerment scheme. And this youth empowerment scheme is a deliberate project which the likes of Chief Obafemi Awolowo started in the 60s that gave birth to buildings like Cocoa House and a lot of projects and industrial estates. The southwest is an agrarian region where if we focus on our agricultural development we would develop a lot of agro-allied processing companies, not to talk of the revenue from export. But the last statistics that I have access to shows that the average age of our farmers in the hinterlands and the rural communities is between 65 and 70. The remaining youths are all on Okada (commercial motorcyclist) or doing other activities that do not add value to our natural resources, which normally for any nation to develop, the first thing you have to utilise is your natural resources.
We identified the need to establish farmers’ academy, skill acquisition centers in conjunction with some states. Those that came up to embrace the project were happy. Those states that didn’t embrace the projects are now running round to see how we can support them. The Ede Farmers’ Academy in Osun State in conjunction with Osun has trained more 1,000 youths in the art of modern agriculture. And I will tell you that when we went for the last graduation that was attended by the governor – Ogbeni Rauf Aregbesola, he was pleased to hear the graduands say that they now have their own farms in their rural areas and they brought their harvest. Some of them now plant and develop improved seedlings and they sell these seedlings. We have trained farmers that sell vegetables and from sales of vegetables and groceries they are now making money.
The farmers’ academy in Awe has trained over 800 farmers within the last three years. The question is what would have happened to those youths without this training? And there is a lot of support coming from the Bank of Agriculture because they form themselves into cooperatives and also the FADAMA group. And some of the states are also giving them some quick intervention funds through some agricultural inputs. So, we are already investing into our society and environment through this capacity building. They are taught not just farming, they are even taught basic marketing; they are taught book-keeping, they are taught how to negotiate, they know entries. You’ve got to see their passion for agriculture and what we are saying is that we are preparing southwestern Nigeria for this.
One of the greatest moments, the best time that I enjoyed myself was when some of our graduates from Ede Farmers’ Academy harvested water melon and cucumber from their farms as well as onions and there was a toast of that at the Government House in Osogbo during the Ramaddan. So, we no longer depend on the northern farmers to eat onions, water melons and cucumber. There are farms now in Oyo State where people plant pepper and tomatoes and most of them are graduates that were trained by us. We are also encouraging skill training. Okada riding is not for the Yoruba man. It is an abomination. We are supposed to acquire skills that we can hand over to our children and that is one area I think we’ve made impact.
On the intellectual level, we have also introduced a programme called “Nurturing the Future Leaders” through a scholarship scheme that Oodu’a initiated four years ago. Today, we have given about 800 Yoruba indigent but brilliant students studying in federal universities scholarship. I can tell you that some of these boys and girls have come out with first class degrees. We have beautiful attestations, letters thanking us because most of them wouldn’t have been able to complete their education without the intervention of Oodu’a. So, that is why I’m saying that some of these things we are doing, the effect might not be immediate. In another five to 10 years, this scheme will now have a story to tell but for Oodu’a CSR we wouldn’t have been what we are.
Is there any other major breakthrough you can remember?
The others include the real estate development. A lot of our properties were not generating revenues. What we did was to deliberately put up a program we called PRP- (Property Redeployment Project) and we started from Lagos – the Oodu’a building in Ikoyi. We demolished what was on it and redeveloped beautiful apartments and we were getting more rentals. We came to Ibadan and we did the Orange Court, a beautiful estate from just one property, a dilapidated property. We were able to put up 12 apartments. When we finished that, we went to Almond to develop Almond court in Ibadan too. It’s a beautiful residential area. We did the Odu’a Shopping complex in Idi-Ape area. We just finished a project in Jericho which we have taken on. It is also some real estate development of our old estate. We are doing the Mango Court in conjunction with a partner. There is Kings Court and the crowning jewel is the Cocoa and Heritage mall at the old Sketch premises that was abandoned for about 15 years and even Cocoa House that was also abandoned for 18 year were redeveloped to. They have all now come back to life. And the good news is that for all these there is an effect of job creations. A lot of people now have jobs. The mall has created over 2,000 jobs and we are crowning it again with a mall that will be opened in Lagos which we are doing in partnership with a developer in Apapa. The mall is called Apapa Mall. It will come up in July this year by the grace of God. We’ll open that mall and Shoprite and all these people here have already signed to that.
There are a couple of other things we’ve done. In Ekiti State, we are reviving a moribund brick factory and that will be commissioned by the end of February. It’s in partnership with Ekiti State government. In Osogbo, to make commercial activities easy and to lessen the pace of getting the government urban renewal project on, we are developing what we call “Aje International Market.” In the first phase, we are building 600 shops. The shops are all ready and they will soon be commissioned.
You mentioned the development of the premises of the former Sketch newspapers. What is happening to Sketch? Some people are saying Sketch has been sold to Mr Jimoh Ibrahim. What exactly is the situation with the newspaper?
That’s not true. Sketch has never been sold and it will never be sold. If anybody is saying it has been sold to Jimoh Ibrahim. That is not correct because Oodu’a will never sell any of its assets. We’ll rather partner. What we’ve done now is that we have identified a crop of professionals in journalism who came together. We have signed an MoU with them. At least last week, their partners came from the UK to visit the new site where Sketch is going to be located to take measur-ement for the machines that will be brought to commence the publication of Sketch. And I want to believe that before the end of this year, Sketch will form one of the staples on the vendor’s desk. It’s a partnership program between Odu’a and a crop of professional journalists. I don’t want to mention their names. It is going to be located at the OPPC (Oodua Printing and Publishing) premises in Eleyele.
What will you regard as major challenges that if you had the opportunity to spend another nine years, you would want to confront head on?
Well, the major challenges that I will say that I faced during the course of my tenure as the GMD were the initial misunderstanding between Management and Board; not all the boards. I had the privilege, I don’t know if there would be any GMD that will have that privilege again, of working with six chairmen and several governors. And, in that course of situation you have various opinions. But our ability to relate meaningfully with all of them made us scale through. But there were some few thorns. You know some situations where some directors did not really understand what corporate governance is. And for those ones we told them that they either work with us or they leave us. And we are able to courageously maintain our stand. But by and large when such directors that came in the course of my tenure found out that what they were looking at was not necessarily part of normal corporate activities, they handed off. So, it’s been some ups and down but our relationship and communication were able to fill the gap.
Any other challenge?
Well, the other challenges include the normal challenge of lack of adequate resources, especially funding whereby we have to bend backward and forward to ensure that we achieve whatever we needed to achieve with very tough conditions attached. And I would have wished that the (owner) states at least for once revisited the level of share capital of Odu’a and try to put in more money and target such money towards upgrading the standards of our hotels to international standards. We have tried, we’ve done everything possible to get investors who will come and work with us. But for these hotels to become international standard we need tons and tons of money. So, I’m still appealing to the stakeholders to put in money and target the money specifically for hotel development and they will have very good returns.
In the course of your duty you’ve had to work with people, organisations and communities across Yoruba land. As you are leaving Oodu’a, what do you consider as the most important thing you have learnt from that?
What I have learnt working with our people is that you should never make a promise you cannot fulfill to the Yoruba because they never forget. And for me, I always weigh and understand the size of my cloth before I take any measurement. And I think it has been a very strong guiding principle in navigating the nine years. I have never deceived any man and I will call a spade a spade. The Yoruba man appreciates that in the long run. Initially, it could be painful but at the end of it they smile.
Having seen the resources, the people, the interest etc, what would you be taking home as a new experience that can form the content of your advice to maybe investors, governments, entrepreneur and other key sectors of the society?
I would say this in a simple way that having spend nine years and having gone through every nook and cranny, including the last mile in the southwestern Nigeria I see tremendous investment opportunities in the region, begging for resources and I want to appeal to our leaders to look more into investments that touch more on the lives of the people. And I can say that I have seen the current crop of our governors in the states trying as much as possible to take on infrastructural development because the infrastructural needs are always the stepping stones for attracting investments. And those investment opportunities that are begging to be addressed, if these infrastructure are not there, development will be impossible. So, I link the two together as kind of a value chain that has to be really addressed.
With your experience on this seat, if it were possible for you to be made the Governor of Southwest with executive powers, what would be your three top priorities?
The first one will be agriculture. The second one will be building up of infrastructure and of course, the third will be capacity building; developing the intellect of our people for industrialisation.
Lagos is not among the owner states of Oodu’a. Why?
Well, you see I want to probably step back a bit. I think that is now being addressed with the Development Agenda for Western Nigeria (DAWN). Through this regional integration, Lagos is already part of the southwest. So, it will not be right to say Lagos is not part of southwest. Geographically it is and with the DAWN commission, they have now commenced that. And I want to see a situation whereby Oodu’a and Ibile Holdings, which is owned by the Lagos State government, begin to work together. I mean if the Arewa people, the new Nigerian Development Company is in a kind of linkage with Oodua, what stops Ibile Holdings from doing so? So the platform has been formed with the regional integration project and we stand to gain by ensuring that we walk through this for socio-economic development. And by the time the socio-economic emancipation is well attained, it will touch on our political life easily without anybody forcing it.
How will you describe the future of Oodua that you are leaving behind?
The future of Oodu’a is very bright and I can say this with all sense of responsibility because a strong foundation has been laid. The perception of Oodu’a has changed and improved. The people are well prepared to face the challenges and nobody can come and lead Oodu’a and take it back to the dark days. The person will not survive a week. People have changed. People are happy. People want to see Oodu’a grow more and the future is very bright. But Oodu’a should continue to seize the opportunities, especially in this immediate environment, for there are several opportunities that we can work with.
There is an emergence of mega businesses in Nigeria today, symbolised by Dangote and the like. They are kind of businesses bigger than Oodu’a. Don’t you see them posing as a threat to regional business organisations like Oodu’a?
Well, it’s even wrong for us to think we are regional businesses. I keep saying it. We must grow beyond being a regional business. We must be able to engage on businesses that will expand beyond the scope of our region. And I say to you the opportunities are there because we’ve laid the foundation. And that’s what Oodu’a should do. Oodu’a should now utilize the resources that are available. What are the resources that Dangote is using? Ibese in Ogun State. But he has huge funds. He has a lot of international capital flowing in. He has a lot of high level technology and he’s a committed man that sees business purely as business. And Oodu’a must see business purely as business devoid of political inclinations. When we were trying to put this Cocoa/Heritage Mall in Ibadan, can you imagine somebody questioning why we were putting it in Ibadan? Why not in my state? Whereas for any economic sense in the whole of the Southwest apart from Lagos, it makes sense to have a mall in Ibadan rather than in another town even if the town is a member of Oodu’a. So our thinking should be out of emotions. That is when we will also be able to do this mega business. Approvals should come without saying “me too.” Approval should be based on merit. We have gone through this type of challenges. When you want to do a project they will say why don’t you do it here? As if it is something we have to be scattering all over the place and not focusing but for courage and determination, some of these things would not have been possible. So Oodu’a should move from this regional thinking and emotional decisions to global thinking and the foundation has already been laid.
Oodu’a has invested in insurance, in banking, oil and gas, roofing, travel and tourism and all of that. Why not sports, entertainment and other areas?
Well, those are what I would say fall within CSR (Corporate Social Responsibility). That’s the way I see it and I know that sport is a big business. I mean, if for instance we have a club like Manchester United or Chelsea Football Club owned by Oodu’a, then every shareholder should be smiling to the bank. Isn’t it? But in our environment we need to be supporting sports, however I want to believe that by the time our premier league improves, nothing stops Odu’a from investing in a very strong team and being a big owner that would also turn it into real business. But as it is now, the Glo-premier league is still struggling. And again the government rules, interventions, am talking about Nigerian Football Federation, make it unattractive for any private institution to go into sport.
In other parts of the world, particularly the developed world, in spite of the phenomenal growth of mobile phones, landlines are still in good use. What led to the fall of O’net? Why is O’net not doing well?
It’s got some historical antecedents which I don’t want to bore you with. The initial technology that was bought in 2003 was a wrong technology, the CDMA. But we’ve gone beyond that. And in going forward, what we identified is that Odu’a Investment Limited, as it is incorporated now, will not have the capacity to run a telecommunication company. All we needed to do was to get a strong partner that has the technical and financial resources and management to take the company up. We tried; we advertised, we did all sorts of things; at the end we got Concave Limited. It is not as if Concave has done marvelously well but from the rot of the place they’ve been able to at least bring back that company to a level of acceptance. And they have now identified the niche which is the broad band internet services and data capturing through what they called the “Small Enterprise Development Scheme for their own telecoms playing low on voice line, on the voice business and only focusing on the data and broad band technology. However, on your question on land line, that is the future of O’net, I know that Concave Communications is addressing the issue of landlines.
What will you consider as your strength that helps you to succeed in leading people and other resources?
I was well prepared for this job and I think I came with the experience of having worked with various types of people cutting the across the whole country from my previous experience in John Holt Plc and of course my training as an industrial psychologist.
If you are to advise upcoming leaders, what would you tell them?
I will say to my successor, the incoming GMD that he must be prepared always and he must be ahead of his peers and even the team intellectually, emotionally and spiritually. And he must also learn the act of humility and contentment. But one other thing is he’s going to be prayerful so as not to step on the toes that are terrible. He will step on toes but make sure when you step on those toes you are able to say ‘sorry’ and you get on with your work.
How hot or cold is the seat of Odu’a GMD/CEO?
Well it’s a very hot seat but you can make it very comfortable by ensuring that you do what the people of the Yoruba nation expect from you. The Yoruba will not take any nonsense from anybody.
As a top executive it is normal that if you could actually increase the number of hours in a day you will do it. With the demand of this job, what’s your family life like?
Thank God my kids are grown up. They’ve all left school and I thank God for that. My wife understands the fact that I need to do more extra work and most times even when I’m asleep and the phone rings and I know that it’s a phone that is business related, I wake up to pick it up. She doesn’t like it but I tell her it could be an emergency. So it is taking a toll on me as a family man, especially having time for my extended family that I love to always see because of my parents, but I try as much as possible to leave Sunday – one day in a week – to myself and then I don’t attend to any other thing except my exercises. I go to play golf in the morning, eat with my family, visit my parents and my elderly friends because most of my friends are elderly
After Oodu’a what next?
I’m going home.
Are you fulfilled in life?
Very fulfilled.
