Aare Kola Oyefeso is one of the few respected men in Nigeria. He is 73 and in semi-retirement. But this grand old man of business though retired is not tired. He is still very active. He doesn’t look like someone in his 70s. Reason? He is still fit and agile. He is still active in all the clubs of which he is a member. One of them is Lagos Country Club of which he was a former President and BOT member for years. Because Aare Kola Oyefeso, who is the Balogun of Ode Remo is well loved, he gets to chair so many events from weddings to birthdays and he loves to wear white.
A few days back, City People Senior Editors SEYE KEHINDE and WALE LAWAL spent an evening with him at the Lagos Country Club where he is a valued member.
He spoke about the secret of his healthy lifestyle, plus why he doesn’t smoke and drink among other things.
What made you join the Lagos Country Club when you did years back?
Well, we were looking for a place where we could meet like minds and recreate. A place that will not look like a beer parlour where you don’t know the people you’re interacting with. Lagos Country Club started as a sporting club, but later graduated into a family club. So, you’re not likely to find the setting here anywhere else. This is the only club where the wives can vote, and by the time our kids turn 21 years they become members automatically. The advantages are too many. When you go around the club, you’ll find it has become a small town. There’s hardly any sport you won’t find here in Lagos Country Club, maybe just Golf. This is a club that has about eleven sections. We have swimming pool, Lawn Tennis, Squash, Badmington, everything is here. In fact, our Lawn Tennis court is the best in Africa, its ATP certified.
What drives you, sir? I ask this question because I know that even after you finished your tenure as president you are still very inactive in club activities…
(Cuts in) What drives me are the people. You want to continue to offer your best to people. You want to ensure that the standard does not fall. You want to ensure that we do not rest on our oars. You could see things yourself back there at the swearing-in ceremony. The charge I gave the newly elected officers is that they must continue to better what we have done and where we are now. We must continue to improve. There’s no part of human endeavour that cannot be improved upon. Truth is that if you rest on your oars people will overtake you in no time. So, what drives me really is the need to offer service, and when your service is appreciated, then there’s no end to it.
Somebody made a comment at the closing stage of the ceremony and described as you the only member of the Board of Trustees that is still active and participating.
(Cuts in) Ah, don’t mind that fellow, he was just taking things out of proportion (Laughs). I am the secretary of the board of trustees. I used to be the youngest, but now the younger ones are joining us. The board comprises of people who are above eighty or close to eighty. I’m just a little above seventy years of age. So, I still have the energy. May be because of that privilege, I can still participate in a lot of things and then again, most of the senior members here are my peers, that may have given people that impression, but I don’t think any trustee is more active than the other.
What do you think of the state of the club presently as against what it was at the time you were handing over?
Definitely the club has been expanding. Every President has been improving the standard, and that’s what we’re telling them. It’s just like Lagos, when Jakande was there, he did his best. When Col. Buba Marwa was there, he did his best. When other successors came they continued to do their best. Our goal at Lagos Country Club is to continually better our best. When I was there, I believe we did our best, okay? So, life is a continuum. Without a doubt, the club has moved. And we are also not leaving the task to management alone, we will continue to encourage them to do more. This is a club we are all very, very proud of.
What do you think of the newly elected Lagos Country Club President and his team?
He has no choice, he will have to do his best too. We will assist him to do his best. There is no president that we’ll elect here that will not offer his best because he is going to be supported by very able hands. And we also have members who are always here and have never left the club for a day, such people will continue to guide you and counsel you. And as it is, I don’t think any new president will want to build any new thing now other than maintaining the existing infrastructure and improving on the corporate image of the club because we have actually built and put up a lot of structures in this place. When we joined, it was only the main bar and the Snooker section. Now, we have added a lot of sections, the event hall, so many sections. So, for now, we’re not building. We’re only improving on the infrastructure and improving on the corporate image.
Sir, year in, year out you’re always looking younger than your age, can you share with us the secret behind this?
That’s very simple. One, it’s God’s grace. Two, everything I do is by moderation. I’m a gym freak, I’m a vegetarian. I do exercises daily. I have a gym in my house, so I don’t need to go out before I can exercise. I don’t drink beer, my drink is water.
Is it that you have always been off beer or you stopped drinking at some point?
I stopped taking beer in 1991 and I can’t go back.
Why, sir, what made you stop?
See, it’s a matter of understanding yourself and your body. Truth is when you continue to put liquor in your system and it doesn’t do your body any good, so why damaging your body then? Let me tell you why I really stopped. I stopped because it was no longer making me tipsy. For me to be tipsy, I must take mixture of different liquor. I must take beer, take brandy, take Campari and then mix them together, maybe then I will get a small sensation. And I knew that if I continued that way, I may not live long. By now, I’m sure I would’ve damaged a liver in my body. I am the type they call Any Cold Beer. We get to a party and we take anything. If it is Star you have, bring it.
If it is Gulder, bring it. Anything you have, I’ll drink. After that, you bring brandy, I will drink. So, when I was no longer feeling anything I knew this was serious. I knew I had to do something about it because definitely, I was sure something was not right with my system. I’m talking about a situation where my friends and I will go to party and by the time we’re set to leave I always drive because they would’ve been dead drunk. My friends were always asking me if there was something I was using and I tell them I wasn’t using anything. But I knew that if I continued that way I won’t survive it, that was why I stopped.
 I will like to know, sir, if you have slowed down a bit or you’re still very active with work and..
(Cuts in) I’ve slowed down a bit because I don’t want to work, work, work right into my grave. I’m not like the typical Nigerian who doesn’t know when to slow down. At the end of the day it’s a matter of contentment. You cannot be the richest person, you cannot be poorest person. Once you can meet your liabilities, then what else? What you owe your children is nothing but sound education. If you give them sound education they will find their feet. My father never left anything for me, but he gave me good Education and Integrity, and that’s the same thing I’ve passed to my children. So, for me, Contentment is key.
How do you spend your typical day, now that you’re retired and slowing down?
My day starts as early as 3 a.m. I sleep early, I go to bed between 8.30 and 9 pm. In fact, I’m rushing home to bed now. I wake up 3 a.m. to meditate and that takes me till about 5.30 to 6 0’clock. Then I go to the gym and then swim for about two and half hours non-stop. I walk 2 hours, 10 minutes non-stop. I spend over 2 hours in my gym every day. All of these will take me to about ten o’clock, then by eleven o’clock they bring me some files to work on.
I write a lot. I give lectures on spirituality and that keeps me busy. And also, my children are scattered all over the world. Its either I’m in the U.S., or in Canada or England. So, I’m very occupied all the time, no dull moment. Most importantly, I’m involved in a lot of community service. I’m the Balogun of Ode Remo. I’m the Aare Gbogbo gbo of Remoland. Where we come from in Ode Remo is a very small place, so every day there’s an issue to solve. So, all of these keep me busy.
Sir, how about your transformer factory? How have you been able to keep it running?
The factory is there, we have to keep it running. It’s unfortunate that this country is not ready for manufacturing. I’m an industrialist, I have a factory in Ondo, in Ekiti, producing cassava flour (addictives). I am also the pioneer transformer manufacturer in Nigeria, but this country is not ready for this because we’re producing with diesel. And the same country allows every idiot to bring the same thing we want to manufacture into the country unchecked. But we are in it already, there’s no going back. One day they will come to their senses.
Do you know why I started manufacturing transformers? For over thirty years, I was importing transformers into this country and I realized that the people I was buying from were merely assembling. They would bring in the components from China or India, they only did the casing in England, put the components there and brand it made in England. That’s deception.
How many years old is the factory mow?
The factory was established in 2002. It’s the pioneer company in Nigeria.
So, how have you been sustaining it?
Well, we have to sustain it. Number one reason is that it’s in my home town. If it were somewhere else, maybe I may have lost interest. If you go to Ilupeju now, most of the companies there have been turned to churches and ware houses. But one of my reasons for setting up the factory there is to employ the locals and to give back to the society out of my little endowments. So, it’s that passion that’s sustaining the place, but if you look at it from a business angle, it’s not worth a candle.
That’s why most of our friends, they take about fifty or hundred million naira, fix it in the bank, get their ten percent every year and they go and play golf every morning. No headache. But the question is, how would the people, the community, benefit from that? At the end of the day, the solution to our survival in this country lies in manufacturing. For now, we’re possibly the largest consuming nation in the world. Other nations are producing and dumping on us. If we stop importing today, the economy of many countries will suffer. India will suffer, China will suffer.
Send Us News, Gist, more... to citypeopleng@gmail.com | Twitter: @CitypeopleMagz
