CAN you give us an overview of the economy and how you are going to navigate through current challenges with a view to turning them into opportunities to give shareholders better returns?
I always believe in one thing, which is making the best out of a bad situation. Economic challenge is all over the world, but people will still navigate and get things done properly. I will give you a good example, which is COVID-19. Look at what happened as a result of COVID-19 and how people become billionaires. I did not say became billionaires because people are still making billions. I know what people are making in America and I know how many people made money in Nigeria. Some people sat down, thought out of the box on how to make the best out of it. What did they do? They started logistics and they became billionaires overnight. I remember growing up and seeing Odu’a as a conglomerate that was actually competing with the likes of the UAC of this world, but what happened? Odu’a had a property in England at number 51, Kensington Gardens and many more.
What I am saying is that the founders of Odu’a had vision, they had mission and they were probably in their 30’s and their 40’s. The likes of Chief Obafemi Awolowo and others built the Cocoa House, which was the tallest building in Africa, the first television station in Africa and the University of Ife through the funds raised from cocoa.
Some people came to Nigeria to take our palm oil and palm kernel in the 80s to Kuala Lumpur, they went as far as using those palm kernel to make chewing gum. So you think out of the box. Economic challenges are not meant to kill us; they are supposed to bring the best out of us. If there is a fire outbreak here today, we must look for a way of getting out of this place. So that is my own vision and my own point is that I do not think anything is difficult. It is just making the best out of it.
So, the parameter of challenges of economy and what we have done so far, we made about 150 per cent progress and do not forget that all of us came in on the May 7, 2020. I was part of it and I commend the governors for picking the right caliber of people, people with pedigree, unblemished track record. We have people that have worked in different industries as board members. I was in banking for almost 30 years before I went to serve as a commissioner in Ogun State for eight years and the records are there. My records are there in the banking industry. DrSegunAina, the immediate past chairman, was a banker and he left as a Managing Director while I left as a director in the bank. So we have things we are doing. We have a consultant with Accenture, who is doing his own thing. We have a Senior Advocate of Nigeria (SAN), we have a medical doctor who became a politician but still a professional and we have an accountant who became a commissioner. My own point is that how do we make the best out of it? First of all, you have to have commitment then secondly, the issue of integrity. Integrity is when you are doing the right thing when nobody is watching. We have come to Odu’a with a good mind, we want to serve the people, we want to make a name for ourselves, we will do it and that is the only way forward. You cannot sit down and say there is a problem with the economy and say there is no way.
