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Your grass to grace story is an amasing one, one of it was that you were once a houseboy, seeing what you have become, what comes to your mind?
(Smile). I give God the glory. I say “Alliamdulilai‘, nothing comes to my mind at such. I have always known I was going to make it in Life. I was a very determined young man who knows that hard work pay and it goes a long way in becoming who we are. I knew I will go to places. When I was a houseboy, I knew that one day, I will be a boss too if I work hard. I didn’t relent till date. I served Joel Ogunaike as a house boy. The popular Joel Ogunaike Street.. Then he was the chairman of Local Government Service Commission Board. It is now called Local Government Service Commission. I begged him to give me appointment in the government. I know that if I was able to get appointment in the government, I will be able to train myself with my education. Joel Ogunaike couldn’t get me a job so I left him 4 month after serving him.
What happened after seeing you couldnt gets a job?
I went to my town man Roy Chicago who was a musician and you know most musicians have many friends, One of his friends was the one who got me a job with a chartered accountant at an Audit company. When I got a job as a 3rd class clerk, I knew I couldn’t go places with such job. I went to enrol as a typist. 9 month after, they wanted a company typist so I applied there. Where I was working at audit company, my salary was 2 pounds,so when i got to ministry of education as a company typist and I was paid 10pounds. So, from 2pounds, I went to 10pounds.I elebranted the independence at the ministry of education and at the end of December, we were paid double salary, so I was paid 20pounds which was huge. While I was a typist, I noticed that there was a difficult subject called Shorthard.
What did you do seeing that shorthard became an obstancle?
I said I am a man, why should anything be difficult for me as a man. I enrolled as a stenographer. Those who learn shorthand are called stenographer and within one year, I have master it and passed well. By the time I became a stenographer, stenographer are the one knew shorthand and can take minutes in shorthand while ordinary typist are called copy typist. So i was transcribing in shorthand when ministry of Dailytimes wanted Dell Printer Operator. Dell printer is just like telex of today, when you type in Ibadan, it appears in Lagos. That is what we use to send our news back then. Then we cover Ondo,,Osun,Oyo, Edo, Ekiti, Osun, and Delta state. We cover all. From there, I got a new job and I got another job which was 15pounds.
You had only stardard 6, were you working with stardard 6 certificates?
I had just my Standard Six Certificate. When I started typing and with my knowledge of Shorthand, I knew I had to upgrade my English language and vocabulary to be able to do the works of a correspondent. So I tried to equip myself but I didn’t go for any further education. It was business that occupied my mind.
You have a very sound memory, what is the secret?
Of course, that is my legacy. Anything done in the 40s I remember the date and time. I have a very retentive memory. I hardly forget things.
Another thing is that many people you worked for, you ended being bigger than them?
I will say I thank God for what he made me to be. It is God grace.
You dont look your age at 80, what is the secret of your look?
People say that I don’t look my age, but what I know is that I work hard and I eat well. I have good families. I don’t do more than myself. I also try to help less privilege seeing how much I suffered to make it in Life. It will amaze you that I still go to work 4times a week. So it is grace.
Despite all the challenges you face in life, how do you feel turning 80 today?
I am happy turning 80 and seeing the kind of people who came from all walks of life to honour me is a thing of joy to me. I am happy seeing all my friends which we have being together for decades coming to homour me with their presence. I also don’t feel as if I am 80, I still wake up at the same hour daily. I still do things on my own. We grwo old in my family and I pray that Allah will give me the grace too.
It was revealled that it a taboo for ikare people of Ondo to live with a stranger, why did you take that step many years ago?
It was because I wanted to be educated. I knew that if I have education, I will be able to achieve a lot and go places. That was why I had to leave the house. I had to leave my parent and to live with a teacher (a stranger) in our town as a houseboy. And it was a taboo then to live with a stranger. It was a step to achieving my goal of going to school; I had to take that option. I was initially living with a teacher in my town who sponsor me for two years. At the end of Standard Two, she told me she could no longer pay my school fees out of her one pound, ten shillings salary and my school fees was 20 kobo 2 shillings. So, I had to look for another teacher for whom I would be a help, and that made me to change school and the teacher sponsored me for four years. That was how I was able to finish my Standard Six.
What was the experience like?
I didn’t see it as a very bad idea because I was able to go to school. Though I was young, I worked for 18 hours a day. On weekends, after cooking in the morning, I would wash everyone’s clothes in the house and after that; I would go to the farm to fetch firewood that would last us for one week. On Sunday evenings, I would press the clothes, and believe me, I enjoyed doing those things. I wasn’t lazy. .
If you were doing so well at Daily Times, why did you leave for the Western Nigerian Television and Broadcasting Services?
While I was in Daily Times, WNBS-WNTV advertised the vacancy for a full-time reporter with knowledge of shorthand. The reporters then had O’ level certificate but they didn’t learn shorthand, while I was good in Shorthand but I had no O’ level certificate. But I still applied. I went for the interview and I was employed. I was earning 30 pounds. On November 22, 1963, when John Kennedy was shot, I was on duty and I was the one who cut the tape from the teleprompter machine. Together with my sub-assistant editor, we wrote the news and blew it. That was how Nigerians knew that the United States President was shot. Whatever people have their minds set on, they should pursue it vigorously with their hearts and faith and be positive minded. I had faith in myself and I was moving upward. Julie Coker was one of our announcers at the time.
Why did you leave white collar job to be a Paper Merchant?
I used to go to Kingsway and Leventis, which were the biggest shopping malls in Ibadan at the time. Kingsway, which was owned by the United African Company, was the sole distributor of foreign newspapers (like The Times, Observer, News of the World, The Economist, etc.) in Nigeria and they used to send the papers to Ibadan. There was a day I went to Kingsway and I saw white men queuing up to buy the foreign newspapers. It used to be a long queue, and they would queue on a Tuesday to buy Sunday newspaper. I felt if it was that important to them, I had to think of an opportunity in it. So, I took a copy of News of the Worldand Observer and copied their addresses. I wrote to them and I said if they could appoint me as a distributor, I would make sure that their Sunday papers would be at the newsstand on Mondays instead of on Tuesdays that was the norm. I promised them that it would increase their circulation and we would all make more money. I wrote many times but they didn’t reply me. So, I approached my mentor, the late Chief Segun Olusola. He helped me edit the letters and I used his typewriter to type the letters. He was a nice man. Eventually, in April 1966, one of the publishers wrote to me and asked where I would get the money to pay them if they supplied me and I told them I would buy poster orders from the post office and send to them. Then they started sending papers to me. I used to stay at Ibadan Recreation Club and University of Ibadan Staff Club, and a lot of Britons were still in Nigeria at the time. Majority of them used to be at the recreation club and I was taking the papers there. So, they started lining up in front of me and I was happy. So, I was able to increase the circulation by 300 times from what it used to be. I was making money and became so affluent. Over time, I was able to get Sunday papers to Nigeria that same day and I was supplying Lagos and Ibadan. I simply ordered for the first edition and I made sure the papers came with the first flight.
You were one of the pioneers Nigeria who sell Newspaper bond and newsprint, how was the business like?
Ye s I was one of the pioneer member. One of the reasons why my business was so buoyant then was that I wasn’t losing anything. I wasn’t paying for the papers in advance. They would send me the papers; I would send their money to them, take my profit and return the unsold copies to them. It was very profitable for me and I was doing that until 1984 when the Head of State, Maj. Gen. Muhammadu Buhari (retd.) passed a decree that all importations into the country must be licensed and that importers must obtain letters of credit. I knew that the new order might not be good for newspaper business because the beauty of the business was to get the papers to the readers at the appropriate time. The processing was likely to affect the business, so I stopped. But since I was already used to it, I went into the importation of paper products, bond papers, and so on. I applied for the license and I was given, so I imported papers for newsprint, which I sold to the print media companies. I made a lot of money. So, that was how I started.
How do you feel buying that building seeing that you slept outside that building your first day in Ibadan?
In 1984, we read in the papers that the building was up for sale. I thought the building was special to me and that I had to buy it since I slept there on my first night in Ibadan, when I had no place else to go. I went to bid for it. I won the bid and paid for it. Many people didn’t know the history behind it. It used to be under UAC. When I bought it, I had to redecorate the place and make it a shopping centre. It is the Capital Building in Ibadan, one of the tallest buildings in the city.
Your wife just told us you love football a lot, what is your favourite club?
Yes I love football alot. My best club is Man-United. I know all the players and I am on top of the sport news just as I am on top of other national issues. I love reading a lot.
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