A Successful Entrepreneur, Chairman Biochemical Limited, Golden Chance Lotto and other Business Conglomerate, Dr. Obasa in this interview elucidated with his personal successful experiences, spotlighted challenges an upcoming entrepreneur may likely encounter most especially in our strenuous business environment and basic tips required to make a successful enterprise.
The pioneer Executive Chairman of Onigbongbo LCDA, also recounted the successes recorded with the creation of the 37 LCDAs by the Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu led administration in 2003 despite the challenges and hostility by the then Federal Government Administration of former President Olusegun Obasanjo. Obasa noted that aside from increase in infrastructural facilities and amenities, the LCDAs have helped catalyzed economic activities of the grassroots people and have also increased their political awareness to demand for their rights and to take advantage of opportunities and privileges.
Furthermore, he gave his perspective on the All Progressive Congress (APC) Presidential Candidate, Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu, whose nomination of his running mate Senator Kashim Shettima, has been creating a lot of news because of the Muslim – Muslim ticket.
The Publisher cum Business Tycoon, most distinguished Dr. Idowu Osuolale Obasa rendered his sincere perspective with logical analysis and objectivity, he insisted that “Tinubu won the primaries not on the basis of his religious belief, which is personal to him. So if the Presidential candidate’s beliefs are not the basis of choosing him, why use religious standards to choose his Vice?” Obasa asked inquisitively
Please read and enjoy the complete interview:
LAGOS PANORAMA: As a successful entrepreneur please elucidate on the likely challenges that young entrepreneur may likely face.
DR. IDOWU OBASA: As far as my entrepreneurship engagement concern, I am slowing down, because one is getting closer to retirement and because I don’t believe I have to work till the last day, but I have been involved in a lot of things, we are into pharmaceutical production construction, gaming and little bit of hospitality business. Basically I worked on the premise that an entrepreneur should be able to work under any condition and still be successful in principle, at least.
My experience as an accountant and my exposures prepared me for these roles, even if I am not a doctor of medicine, it doesn’t mean I cannot invest in an hospital, because there are still some skills that we have, that are required to make that hospital a success, in terms of a business enterprise, because a private hospital is still a business organization, you still must look at your cost and income, you must make sure that the income is always higher than the cost, so the same principles apply. You can run a furniture factory or any business, more or less the same corporate governance principles is applied and if you are through to them, you stand a very good chance of success.
So in terms of my involvement, like I have said I have been involved over time in gaming, we have been involved in pharmaceutical production, our company Biomedical Limited, which is on record as the first indigenous company to produce intravenous fluids, we are now expanding into other areas of pharmaceutical production like syrups and all that, we have a quite large number of syrups in the market and very soon by the grace of God we are also going to come out with our own tablets.
We are also involved in construction, PPP (Public Private Participation) with government, we are involved in construction as partners with individuals too, there are individuals out there who have tracts of land, 10 acres, 20 hectares, in very good places, but they don’t have the knowledge and the capital to build them. We collaborate with them and we built based on agreement and we all share whatever is there to be done. We actually do that in large scale.
My own role there is to coordinate the resources because that is actually what an entrepreneur do, put the resources together and let them work for the good of everybody and for the good of the company, that is what I do, I’m like the facilitator as it were.
LAGOS PANORAMA: Wow, you make it seem so easy, but I know it’s not that easy considering the current business difficulties and challenges that one has to contend with, most especially unstable electricity supply, one of the bedrock of any entrepreneurship. How have you been able to combat these issues especially epileptic electricity supply as I have earlier mentioned to become a successful entrepreneur?
DR. IDOWU OBASA: You spoke about it’s not been easy, yes, if you see somebody who is a general, he has come through a lot, for every successful business that an entrepreneur is able to do, he has probably failed four times. Entrepreneur are never afraid of failure, they take failures as one of the possible thing, but you see, you are not successful because you have not failed, you are successful because you have not allow failure to stop you. We have a number of failed businesses too, but what is important for your successful business to be able to cover up for your failed businesses is very important, because if you say you are an entrepreneur you might just find yourself investing in anything.
Talking about challenges, working in this type of environment, a very hostile environment, not very encouraging environment and I would say in recent time it has become more so. Extremely discouraging environment.
First let start with manufacturers, most manufacturers depend on foreign import for their raw materials, in a situation where you can’t even get sufficient forex to buy at a reasonable rate, the situation where you are compelled to buy forex from the so called the alternative market which actually is the main market now and the official market had become the alternative, in that kind of situation where the forex rate gallops, what kind of planning can you do, though planning is essential, how can your plan and action look alike. A manufacturer who depends heavily on forex but is unable to access the forex, even if you want to pass on your costs to the consumer, there is just that far you can go before it becomes difficult for you and this affects a lot of things, not just the manufacturers, we are in building construction, we build, how many of the things we used for building are found in Nigeria today. A lot of things we use are imported, and what rate do we buy the forex for importation.
There is problem of foreign exchange. There is problem of unfriendly regulations, every industry has regulators but when the regulations strifeful, rather than encouraging, it makes business very unattractive.
There is also a problem of manpower quality, it has dropped significantly, hence you do not find situations where people ought to give the basic quality service are able to do so, forget about their qualifications, the qualification don’t match the quality of what they will give you. So you have to keep training and re-training every day. That problem is there, everybody who knows how to do something these days among the youth are the Yahoo people, the few who don’t are already abroad, or on their way to go. It’s an important problem if you don’t have the right quality manpower to be able to achieve your goal, then you have a problem.
The problem of Security affects business in a way that is so significant as to become unbelievable. There are parts of the country you can’t even hope to transfer people to and even these places where people are, they are not even sure. This afternoon I was informed that one of our staff in the construction area whose job is to produce paving stones for the buildings, I was informed that he has just been released by kidnappers and they asked for a ransom of five million Naira, eventually he was able to raised one million Naira for them, a man who produces paving stones for us.
So the issue of security has become a major problem making it difficult for companies to achieve their goals. Sometimes we give vehicles to staff and they tell us please don’t brand it, I don’t want to be kidnapped. Yet when you give vehicles to staff and you brand it, you are trying to enhance your own visibilities, but you won’t insists on branding it because if they now kidnap him, he would now say but he told them not to brand his car. What kind of a country are we in?
I am listing these things so that you know that is not only the issue of light, which of course power is very significant, is just one of the gigantic monsters that we are contending with. All of them very gigantic, a single one of them is enough to bring you down and we have about eight of them to contend with and you are still expected to report a positive outcome. No security, everything is expensive, some are even not available. There are some of our operations where we look for spare parts, we find it so difficult to raise spare parts, and when we get some of them are from China and sub- standard sometimes, you know with Chinese products you have to know which one you are buying and which one you are not buying. Sometimes they will give you those that are good, sometimes they will give you those that are not so good. Things that are never use to happen, they are happening now. So the business climate is survival of the fittest, even the companies that are reporting profits are reporting some optimal profits, they are not meeting what they ought to be meeting by way of profit, all because the business environment is exceptionally hostile. It makes things very difficult but we have no alternative, are we going to do without working? Is not as if we have alternatives, we have to do business, we have to work, so it goes on like that but this is not the best of time at all.
LAGOS PANORAMA: That takes me to my next question which is the issue of insecurity that is pervading all over the country, the recent Kuje prison attack, a lot of people have criticized the Federal Government for having kept hardened criminals such as terrorists in a medium facility like the Kuje Correctional Centre, Abuja, instead of a maximum facility and there are different narratives to what actually happened, what do you think can be done bearing in mind that we have less than a year for this administration?
DR. IDOWU OBASA: Is the security issue really a military challenge? Is it about matter of knowing military tactics? Is it about that or indeed whether there is a will on the part of government to tackle this problem? Yoruba adage says “Baba jona, eem bere irugbon”. The problems are deeper than whether it’s a general that is running the government or not. Are you aware that people are wondering whether government is not implicated one way or the other? In a prison environment where for some strange reasons they withdrew all the military guards 24 hours before the attacks and people are wondering why? Nobody has been able to explain why they removed those military guards. Nobody has been able unable to explain why they kept all the terrorists in one location, there are so many prisons in the country.
When Chief Obafemi Awolowo was sent to prison, he was sent to a prison on an Island, so these things are not happening for nothing, they are happening for a reason and in this season there more questions than answers, too many questions begging for answers and you have to ask yourself why are these things appearing to be coordinated, why are they having deliberate outcomes, why are those who are supposed to be giving us explanations, why are they appearing bewildered by the things that are happening. People who we look up to give us explanations, they are the one asking questions.
So the issue of security is a very horrible reality but coming down to how these things will be resolved, it is clear that there is need to overhaul the security system. It is clear that we need to decentralize our entire security system, totally decentralize, of course when you say that, they will say you are talking about restructuring, so what is wrong with restructuring. You know that an over centralization of the security network, has led to its weakening. So if the word that you give to a suggestion to strengthening it by decentralizing it, if that word is called restructuring so be it. You can’t be moving around as if we don’t see what happens in other climes, because of the tragedy of the military misadventure into our polity for over thirty years our structures became heavily centralized, our thinking became heavily centralized. So we have a Lagos state governor that has no power over the Police that can be compared to an Inspector General of Police sitting in Abuja, as was demonstrated not too long ago. We have all sort of situations which with an improved and restructured system of Policing, intelligence gathering, a restructured system of deployments would resolved. But of course if you suggest that, they would think you are trying to take their pot of soup, so they would rather expose the people to an environments of fear and insecurity which is what we have now. This over centralization people are benefitting from it because of the power it provides, so they are not worried about what happens to the generality of the people.
LAGOS PANORAMA: If you check our national budget the Ministry of Defence takes a big chunk of it.
DR. IDOWU OBASA: Yes but of course, for different reasons is not reflected, nor the huge sum of money spent on the Police is also not reflected, so in terms of security, I think people are living one day at a time with the hope that they survive till the following day, nobody can claim to be confident of anything beyond that and you remember they first attacked the President’s convoy, in a country where they attacked the President’s convoy, common, common, common…
LAGOS PANORAMA: Some narrative even alluded that that was a way to create distraction on the attack of Kuje prison because it happens barely some hours after.
DR. IDOWU OBASA: Anything could have happened there, was is it not also in that place that there was a train hijacked and people were kidnapped? So these are challenges, not just to businesses or businessmen but even to people who are living their lives. People who have farms cannot go to their farms any longer, people have abandoned their farms.
LAGOS PANORAMA: Recently, the Zamfara State governor had reasoned to the fact that the people should go about having their own licensed weapon to defend themselves.
DR. IDOWU OBASA: Chaos, that is risky for chaos, look at how people are gunning themselves down in the U.S., that is risky for kiosk. So at end of the day, we think that the security problem has developed of a typical problem and over centralized state can only produce these kind of problems and of course our political elites are absolutely responsible, and in this regard I refer to the system of checks and balances, that’s supposed to help the government to run, the system is not working, if you really want to know the irresponsibility of our political elites it’s there you’ll know. Theoretically there’s a system of checks and balances.
The fundamental issues are there, one of the things that has occurred to us recently, is to start a five year campaign for the return of the Nigeria political system to the Parliamentary system of government, the Presidential system is too powerful, it is too centrists oriented, it is not working and absolutely expensive, absolutely exceptionally expensive. It is a campaign, it’s going to take some time, because it would remove power from some people’s hand, they won’t like it.
LAGOS PANORAMA: That’s the Regional Government?
DR. IDOWU OBASA: All those things will come to back, we have had a Parliamentary system before in this country, we don’t have to go too far and nobody could say it failed, it was rather truncated. There was steady progress then.
LAGOS PANORAMA: Yes, the regions were moving at their respective pace then.
OBASA: It was truncated by the military, who imposed themselves upon our polity and held on to the jugular for thirty years and they are still holding us by the jugular now, even now, so we have a President who says he cannot wait until next year to go back to his farm but he can resign now.
LAGOS PANORAMA: Perhaps the assembly should do the needful?
DR. IDOWU OBASA: No, since personally he wants to, then he can resign now, without anybody forcing him. He has said it like two, three times now, that he’s just tired, he wants to go. A very good farewell party, very good voluntary retirement party. If I say I’m tired of this seat, I can resign and leave, but saying it without doing it, because there is a provision in the constitution that says you can resign out of old age, being tired, out of too much wahala in this position, so if he keeps complaining, that he doesn’t like the position, we say ok, why don’t you just put in resignation or is it that difficult too (laughs).
LAGOS PANORAMA: Lagos Panorama watchword is Progressive Society, hence, we have been focusing on Grassroots Sustainable Development and the promotion of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) at the grassroots over the years, this brings me to the creation of the Local Council Development Areas created 2003 by the Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu led administration, of which you are one of the Pioneer Chairman of the LCDAs, precisely the first Executive Chairman of Onigbongbo LCDA. As one of the active participants can you give the justification and impact on sustainable development for the creation of the 37 LCDAs in Lagos state?
DR. IDOWU OBASA: The creation of the 37 LCDA’s by Tinubu was a master piece, in terms of bringing governance closer to the people.
As an active participant, I can tell you that it is the local authority anywhere that is closest to the people of their day to day level, their feel of governance and their feel of government is improved the more you break it down.
What happened at that time being that this was a novel idea, there was that subtle competition amongst us to deliver, and everybody wanted to deliver in order to justify the creation. Ikeja for instance was split into three, everybody wanted to outperform the other person, so there was a pace that was newly established, that’s one advantage.
The other advantage is that even if one the Chairman didn’t get its acts right, others will.
Three the access to government was closer, easier for the people so that they could question government better. There were Local governments that had their headquarter 30, 40 kilometers miles away from some parts of the same Local government, frankly it wouldn’t have been easy for them to deliver or even for the people to reach out to the Local government, because is not all parts of Lagos that are urban. By splitting them, you splits them into manageable councils, it allows for speedy acceleration of development and again it was a practical demonstration of how to decentralize power. Instead of holding it in ones person’s hand, diffuse to others so that their own idea…, for an instance there were three of us who were chairmen in the old Ikeja and we came up with three different ideas, instead of just the ideas of one person. There were now three manifestos, three different ways of doing things and we’re able to compare, okay, that one, he is doing this, let me also do this. You will realize that the pace of development at that time was very high, and because he was a very active participant as a governor, he was not an aloof kind of governor, he was an engaging governor, kind of governor that was always involved, he would sit with you and you won’t know that you’ve already started a meeting, but you’ve already started a meeting, and because he was a very good listener, he could convert your ideas into programmes, and at the same time he expected you to prove yourself, to demonstrate what you could do, so there was that allowance for you also to show that I have this idea which is different from the other person. There things we created that were not necessarily created by other Local government, there were things that they created, that we didn’t create. There were things they do, that we didn’t do, but it allowed, it was very interesting I tell you. But I think it came from the fact that he knew that you have to breakdown these Local governments into smaller structures that could be better managed, more easily approached and accessed, smaller structures that can be compared among themselves. So it was a very good move, other states have copied all these things because it succeeded, all the opposition to it was purely political and mischievous by the way, very mischievous.
LAGOS PANORAMA: Perhaps it also created room for rewarding system for the civil servants at the Local government, for example in a situation where you have 20 Head of Personnel before you now have 57 and also other positions down the line?
DR. IDOWU OBASA: Well that, for the career people, but I was even more interested in what get to the people, what they delivered to the masses of the people, for example every ward was meant to have a primary healthcare center, instead of the 10 wards original in Ikeja, we now have 18 wards, which meant additional 8 primary healthcare centers were required and because of that the primary health care system in Lagos state actually matured, and it formed a very good foundation for the entire healthcare delivery system in Lagos state, which I can tell you without any fear of contradiction is the best in the country.
LAGOS PANORAMA: Wonderful, well gradually, we are moving to politics which you have been trying to avoid. Fortunately we have just discussed about Asiwaju Bola Ammed Tinubu, the All Progressive Congress (APC) Presidential Candidate whose nomination of his running mate, Senator Kashim Shettima has been creating a lot of news since he was announced. What is your perspective to this?
DR. IDOWU OBASA: The word that comes to mind is that in politics, there is too much mischief, the first thing is the religious inclination of even the Presidential candidate himself is not such an important thing. All of us are thrown into a certain religious context by birth, which is an accident. For many of us it does not define us and it does not define whether we are going to be able to deliver on electoral promises. So Tinubu is a Muslim, there are people that will tell you that he is not a practicing Muslim. I’m not even talking about his Vice, but him, there are people that will tell you this man is not a practicing Muslim , so ok he was born Ahmed and so what, which means what is going to do as President, may not necessarily be tainted by Islamic ethos, isn’t that what religious is about. For those who claimed they are Pastors, why we look at them as Pastors is that we expect them to live by certain religious standard, that are beyond people like us. I’m a Christian but I’m not a Pastor, so if I go out there to the Club this evening, today is Friday and I go and take wine, I don’t expect Pastor to come, because he has said he is a Pastor. He shouldn’t be joining us also to be taking wine now. So does somebody say if I want to be President I’m going to turn the place into a Church, because I happen to be a Christian? Does it mean that as Tinubu is a Muslim, if he becomes President he’s going to turn Aso-Rock into an Islamic Center, if the answer to that is no, then his religious beliefs are purely his personal business, because this is a secular state and we expect therefore, that he is not going to use his religion to rule. We are not expecting our President just because he happens to be a Muslim to turn the country into a Muslim state. If that is so, suppose he chooses a man who doesn’t believe in God, does that mean he cannot be a President in Nigeria or a Vice President in Nigeria? It is a non-issue in a country that is secular, in a country that does not have an official religion, Nigeria does not have official religion, you people don’t understand what that means, somebody’s personal beliefs becomes secondary, if he is a fanatic then we may begin to wonder whether his fanaticism may not affects his judgement. Is he a fanatic? I’m still talking about the President because when we want to be mischievous, we so overate the role of the Vice President as if it is not the direction in which the President goes that the Vice President will go. Osinbajo can only exercise so much power as much as Buhari gives him. He has chosen a Vice President who is not a fanatic too, their religious belief are their bloody business, personal. The question to ask is that, if the act in a manner that suggest that their religious belief cannot be kept to themselves, then we do have a problem, not only with the Vice Presidential choice but also with the Presidential choice. So when they want to talk, they say but the man does not pray five times a day, that is when they want to be mischievous, when they also want to be mischievous, they will say but the man is not a Muslim, as if the man is an Imam, is Tinubu an Imam, is Shettima an Imam.
We should go to issues, a lot of things, they have said about Tinubu , they are not addressing the issues, ooh is very tall, ooh is not tall, he’s slim, ooh he’s old, ooh he’s healthy, ooh he’s not healthy. Who is healthy, who is not healthy? If they are going to tell themselves the truth, how many of them gave Buhari the chance that he will live seven years. The man is even shinning more than before (laughs), how do they know when somebody is going to die, how do you know, who arrogate that power to them. So this Muslim- Muslim ticket, I never knew that Tinubu was chosen as our Presidential Candidate basis of his religious belief, I never knew that, if that was the basis he was chosen, and we know is not, that’s when we can tell him, you must not choose so-so religion. He was not chosen as our Presidential candidate on the basis of his religious belief, why should we choose his Vice on the basis of his religious beliefs, what are they talking about, don’t they know logic any longer (laughs), it is a non-issue, in a situation, where you religious belief is entirely your own, private, tomorrow I can tell you that I’m no longer a Christian, I’m now a worshipper of Ogun. What constitutional offence would I have committed, in stating that I’m now worshipping Ogun. If I’m appointed to an office, Managing Director of so-so and so company, and they never asked me what my religion was, they just wanted to know about my competence. I now appoint a Secretary and they now ask about the Secretary’s religion, do they know what they are doing, was Tinubu made Presidential Candidate, because he was a Muslim, so why are they interested in the religion of his Vice, why should that matter, mischief, it is because of mischief. Tinubu was not made the Presidential Candidate because his qualification was a Muslim, no, is not one of the qualifications, if that is the case then the belief of his Vice also should not matter. You can profess to be something and be something else. When you see those forms that they fill, when I see religion I don’t fill it, is a private affair. I’m not applying to go to seminary, so we turn something that is purely a private affair that is inconsequential in a very sane world, we turn it to a national debate, and they will say they are debating, who is going to debate that with them. Let’s us go to something serious please.
LAGOS PANORAMA: The unending Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) strike, has been prolonged for too long, without solution in sight, what will be your advice to both the government and ASUU executives to end the imbroglio so that our youths can return back to school after over four months?
DR. IDOWU OBASA: There are two Universities that were started by the government that were not involved in the strike, Lagos State University and Osun state University, is not because they are State Universities, there are other state universities involved, Ago-Iwoye University is it a Federal University, is a State so is not because they are state Universities, is because of the way they hands off the management completely, and they told them that your funding is for you to find, your management is your business.
As long as the government continues to do what is doing, there will always be this strike one way or the other, is not about both sides, the problem here is the government, there are no two ways about it, the government should hands off and allow the Schools to run themselves and have some autonomy. Somebody sits down at NUC (national Universities Commission), the person does not know anything about what is happening out there and he makes all sorts of rules and all sorts fortification and all that, it’s not fair, is not correct, everything they want to centralized the power, and in the process its degenerates, that’s my view.
LAGOS PANORAMA: On a final note, can you give an insight to 2023 general elections?
DR. IDOWU OBASA: I want to say something about Bola Tinubu’s candidature that is the candidate of the APC.
I think we all know that Nigeria has a problem, the first thing is that I believe strongly, I’m not saying this on the basis of any fact, it’s just my own believe that if they are running Nigeria very well and everybody is happy, Tinubu may not have come out to say he want to contest. This is not based on any facts or discussion, it’s just based on my belief and people should consider that. I’m say this emphatically, that he deliberately distance himself from the rot for so many years. So is a rescue mission, people are concerned about does he wear Agbada, or is it suit that he wears. Those aren’t the issues, the people are not interested those things, the people are interested in what will put food on their table for their children, what is going to put a roof over their heads. That is to say, at this point in our history we are more interested in governance than in politics.
Who has a track record of governance from amongst the candidates? Who’s capable of commanding International respect? Genuine international respect! Who has a clearer vision than the others about what need to be done to rescue this nation? Because trust me, this nation need to be rescue, this nation is on the brink. Do you see how openly people are talking about disintegration, which they don’t use to say openly before, they used to say all those things in a very hushed terms, but now people are saying it openly, why, because the problems are just too much, people should forget about all those personalization of issues, the issues are clear.
He has given an indication of the kind of governance he wants to provide, if you’re reading very carefully, he has spoken about governance, but they are more concerned about what kind of agbada he wear today, what kind of food did he eat yesterday, ephemera issues.
I believe very strongly, very strongly, what we’ve on ground now, the future of Nigeria will be determined in the next 12 months, and we better just open our eyes very well. It’s not about liking him, it’s not about which school he went to, it’s even good they’re not saying he is not a Nigerian, so they know he is a Nigerian, therefore he qualifies to be Nigeria’s president. They should look at what he has done in the past, they should look at how he’s likely to do things, they should look at his thinking, his courage to take the bull by the horns, because we’re on the brink, we can’t experiment too much, our chances of experimenting are now very slim. We need somebody who’s proving, thank God all the major candidates have been in government at one time or the other, the score cards are there for us to see. Let them put all the score cards on the ground, and see who has proving himself before.
Our emphasis now should be on governance, there is too much emphasis on politics, it’s good to balance the two, but right now our emphasis should be more on governance. We are emphasizing too much on politics, politics, politics, what about governance, do you know that nobody has ever said Tinubu is not competent, they’ll tell you he is not 6-foot tall, he should be light complexioned, are those the issues? They think what we are having is just a regular election, no, it’s this election that will define this country or destroy it. This is a make or mar election. It’s not a joke, revolution is not a tea party. They should stop joking, all those things they are talking about are not the issues.
The issue is that, who is best positioned to do governance properly in this country today amongst these candidates? It is Tinubu!
So they go to unnecessary issues, when they have nothing to say, they say it’s about religion, the man is worshipping Ogun or Obatala those are not the issues.
Can this man deliver? Has he delivered before? If so, write down what he has delivered. The other candidates, write down what they have delivered, facts are stubborn things, they cannot be wished away. Thank You!
LAGOS PANORAMA: Thank you very much sir, really nice talking to you again.
