Yemie Adeoye
16 August 2008
interview
Wole Madariola Olumide ventured into business at 12. Through the odds, Olumide did all the odds and grew through the rudiments.
Today at 40, he is sitting atop a business empire. Olumide has delved into professional security, winning academic awards and certificates in fire arms tactics, counter-terrorism, surveillance from Israel, Germany and the UK. He also delved into properties and automobiles.
Still, Mide, as he is founldy referred, wants to achieve more. Hence, he has started building a multi-million dollar ultra-modern leather factory in the heart of Lagos, the nation's commercial hub. According to him, this is aimed at reducing the obsession of Nigerians for foreign made products. He also wants to see people empowered.
Olumide will also get foreign expatriates to train Nigerians in shoe, bags and belt manufacturing, thereby giving a hot chase to household leather designers like Sergio Cerrutti, Emenigildo Zegne, Gucci, Gergio Bruttini, Dolce & Gabbana, among others. In this interview with Saturday Vanguard he opened up on his very humble beginning as well as his passion for helping other people while also assuring Nigerians that with his leather Factory the days of shopping abroad for leather is over.
Enjoy it:
What drove you into business?
I have been a trader all my life. You can call me a business man, though some may want to refer to me as a 'Jack of all Trade' which I tell people I'm not. I had my primary and secondary education in Lagos, and then to the University of Calabar for my tertiary education.
Along the line, though, I've had a lot of opportunities. People say travelling is another form of education, and I have had the opportunity of finding myself in a lot of places.
Basically, I started business very early. I had a father who was in the military, retired in 1970 and went into business immediately. He practically brought BMW into Nigeria and actually pioneered the sales. He was the distributor for almost 25 years.
He also brought Hyundai into Nigeria and pioneered Ford into the country. He was actually the 99th person that listed into the Nigerian Navy; one of the first set of marine engineers produced by the Nigerian Navy. I'm so proud of him and can't help talking about him. I have a mother who is a retired banker and is now into pharmaceutical products.
And your childhood?
All my life, I had wanted to be three things: either a police officer, a comedian or a teacher. I love to make people laugh. I also love to teach. Fortunately, I tried to get admission into the defence academy and my dad said he could not allow his child to go into the military he had just come out from. So that stalled that.
I had a grandfather who was in business, and was a politician.
He was a very close friend of the late Chief Ladoke Akintola, and he lost over 20 houses for being a friend to Chief Akintola during the operation wetie (wet it). And that was one of the few experiences that made me decide never to be a politician in my life.
Sounds quite ironical as my grandfather was a frontline politician, especially in Ondo state. And aside from this, my father also happened to be the first private secretary to Chief Obafemi Awolowo. So, it can be a little bit contradictory as if I try at times to talk about Chief Awolowo my Dad would say watch it, young man! That man is like a god to me. And if I try saying positive things about him, my mother's people would say, "Hold it! That man made us lose."
Your parents are not from same place?
My Dad is from Ikorodu here in Lagos, and my mother is from Ondo state. And my father, being an ex-military officer, is very strict. If you come to look for a job from him and you say you are from a particular state or you are a Christian or a Moslem, then you have automatically lost the job because as far as he is concerned, you don't walk up to him on the basis of Christianity or religion or ethnicity. He doesn't want to hear things like that, and his friends are mostly outside his own ethnic group.
Grandad's influence
My grandfather was into business. At the age of 12, I was already writing receipts for automobiles like Volkswagen, Peugeot 504 because he was a distributor to PAN, and I had already started working with him. He was also a distributor to Lennards. I started selling roofing sheets and even now I can tell you how many sheets are in a bundle of roofing sheets. We were the ones doing the loading and we were still the ones writing a receipt.
The defender, and giver
Another thing is that I love to defend people. I see myself as a defender and a lot of my friends can attest to that. People that have known me will tell you that non of all the fights I've had to fight in my life has ever been my fight.
That's what it is basically. I love God so much, even when I was not a Christian. I've always been afraid of God. I've always seen God as a personality that can do anything at anytime. So, if you know you love your life, just keep far away.
I also read a lot. I love driving and travelling too, and one of the greatest passions I have in my life is helping people. I love to share. That's what I mean by helping people. The day I don't give out money or give out something, I don't feel happy. It's my nature.
Security operative
I'm a security operative. As I couldn't achieve my childhood ambition of becoming a police officer, that's why I have to go for my detective training.
I went to the Detective Training Institute in Sacramento, United States. That wasn't where I started. I started with firearms tactics. I wanted to know what it is to feel a gun. I did weapon handling and fire arm tactics in Germany. I did my Surveillance Courses in Israel. I did my Advanced Surveillance Courses in the UK. I did my Advanced Detective Training also, in the UK Academy of Investigation. I have another certificate in Executive Protection.
I'm a shooting instructor, that's fire arms tactics instructor. I can boastfully say that I pioneered the training of executive protection in this country. I revolutionised that in this country. I pioneered the best security in this country and when eyes were blind into surveillance equipment. Ten years ago, when I started marketing and shouting about surveillance products, everybody was laughing at me. And today, I can proudly say that with security, I'm fulfilled.
I wanted a bit of everything and I've had it and I'm so satisfied. That's why I decided that the little I have upstairs, let me also give back to the society and that is why I've also set up my Academy.
What's the name of the academy?
It's called Fortifiers Protection Services (FPS) Academy.That's a subsidiary of the Fortifiers group
It's not a subsidiary, per se, because it had to be registered differently. And that's what we've done. It's not an everyday academy. It's an academy where we have to do everything we need to do on short term courses and long term courses; where you can actually pick up a detective course as a career.
You want to be detective, fine. Or you prefer to be surveillance person, or even counter terrorism and many more like that. We also intend to tackle internal security issues within the country, especially, as it affects other sectors of the economy, like aviation and financial sectors, even maritime.
But you are into manufacturing. What informed this diversification from security which seems to be your first love?
Well I realised something. When I was into security (though I'm still into it) it took me four years of operation before I could venture into guards operations. If somebody wants to talk in Nigeria, they can say that they I've been into security before that guy dreamt of coming into it. But that's all crap because somebody is just talking about one aspect of security which is guards operations.
And even the guards operations, they are not even talking about it in full because in guards operation they have normal facility guards and the facility guards is what has always been on ground in this country. We never did that! This is because we believe in properly equipping the guards with the requisite professional training a guard deserves to have, so that they can function properly when they're out in the field.
So, when we started, we were training guards for people, we were training for ourselves, and at a time we had about 3000 guards. And I looked at it and said, how much are they being paid? How much do we get from client? Because you get to the beat and you don't find the person, then what happens? How do you monitor them? What happens during loss, and how do you pay for losses?
Who pays for the insurance? Who pays for the lives of the guards? You know it was such that you could get a call at 1a.m. But then, I was enjoying it because I was employing a lot of people. I now sit down and look at it. What can I do to keep on seeing if I could to employ the same level of people. But this time, it will not seem as if I'm enslaving them because I call that enslaving. If you want to know whether these guards are suffering, go and interview some of these security guards.
Some of them don't even wear boots. They can put on bathroom slippers and carry a lousy stick. And then say they are on patrol. Those were not what we were trying to do. Though it was encouragement from my father, my grandfather and my environment, but too many unemployed people and I realised that we are holding on to something that we could use to empower people. So I needed to do things that would empower me more and use part of my own empowerment to empower lesser privileged people. So that's what were trying to do and I began to look at it and said what can I do? Manufacturing!
When I went into Manufacturing, and this is with all sincerity, I was not thinking of profits, rather it was while into it, then I saw it and realised I could make more money out of it. I went into properties before I went into manufacturing.
Properties?
I'm in properties. I'm in auto sale. I'm in entertainment. I'm in security. I've sponsored several musicians in this country without getting a penny back.
Basically, in property what am I gaining? I'm feeding myself. I'm making more money. I bought a piece of land in January2001 and I went on to sell it in 2003. Already it had tripled itself in value. But who is benefitting? Just me and my children.
So what can I do? What am I going to do to be able to empower people if I say I believe in youth empowerment because the government doesn't seem ready to do it? Even when the government seems ready and formulate the policy, you discover that somebody somewhere is not implementing it. So who is to blame?
That's why I went into manufacturing and we just started. Now that we've started the little- the little- we are not many but are still within the range of 300 to 400. But we're happy as we know that within the nearest future, in fact, in another six months from now, we'll add additional 100. In another six months again, we'll start our double shifts and that will bring us up to about 1,200. Give us another one year, and by the time we keep going like that and we begin to become fully self sufficient and self reliant on our raw materials. In two years, we might have about 5000 people.
You seem passionate about generating employment and empowering people...
(cuts in)
While being stable because I've come to realise that there a number of people with this kind of heart that I have but one of the greatest problem that they have is that they think of themselves before they think of others, they have a little consideration for others as well but it is not as deep, so because they do not want to take the risk of being out of line entirely while trying to help people so they back up and it immediately becomes a problem. So that's why I said that it is an important part of it for one to be stable while one is trying to do that.
Having gone through your ultra-Modern Footwear and leather facility, I mean one is tempted to ask, why not something else, maybe marine, banking or any other sector, what informed your desire for shoes and other leather products?
Three things, number one take a look at this, you just mentioned marine, oil banking and all of that, there is none of those sectors that is touching the lives of people directly, someone in oil who invest his money in AGO for instance is only hoping to make his interest of say a hundred thousand dollars.
That transaction from the beginning till it got to the end user, how many people has benefitted from that? And you begin to look at it how much contribution has that given to the economy? You as a journalist tell me, what impact has importation of fuel brought to the economy? None.
So you just find out that somebody is just somewhere making money for himself and his immediate family, I don't want to do that, I don't need the sort of money that will give me a curse, I just thought of where I could possibly make a direct impact. every investor has its own intention, they have where they want to get to as well as how they want to make their money and multiply it, they have how they want to generate more funds into their system.
That wasn't my aim, I want somewhere I could make an impact, I really want to make an impact. If you ask why did I get into everything, I simply take a look at Leornardo Davinci's life, in every thing that is functioning and making the world go round today, that man has a hand in it. Engineering, Aviation, Arts, Science, just whatever you think of, that name can not die!
I don't want my name to die, I wanted something that would be a legacy, that would survive succession, I wanted a situation whereby I could make a direct impact, how many people would I be able to employ if I go to the downstream sector?
Basically I want a place where people's names can be written in gold. Who started this? Oh we did. which team started this? I was part of the team that started it. oh this is going well now. so I want a particular sector where I can make impact and I don't want suffer, I want to make people know that it can be done.
If you look all around you'll discover that this is the only sector where for every raw materials that is needed for the production of the final products, you have it in this country as a natural resources.
Talking about adhesive, gum we have it in abundance 'cause' its made out of rubber, talk about thread its mad out of cotton, talk about cleansing liquid its made out of alcohol, all the leathers is made out of animal skin.
This is also the only country I see where a section of the country has in abundance the major raw materials and what that raw materials is being used for is never produced. In the norther count how many shoe factories there and come and tell me, or how many bag factories that are in the North.
I think I should let you into this we were trying to get leather form some of these firms and do you know what they told us, they said we don't sell local. If I show some beautiful leather here you'd be shocked, but they all came out from this country, they were taken out from this country, refined, reprocessed, made to be more beautiful and being sold back to us inform of finished products. What my people are just interested in is to go there buy the finished products and com back here to sell.
Where not just going into leather but also into things that could make our name linger forever. That's basically what we are after.
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