•BIODUN OKI Reveals Details Of His 12 Yr Tenure
He is by all means a likeable and unassuming gentleman. He is one of those accomplished personalities who go about without any chips on their shoulders. Rather than for him to throw his weight around like many of his contemporaries prefer to do, he will rather you find out who he is yourself. And even when you do, he still prefers to stay quiet about his status. Mr. Biodun Oki was former MD of LSDPC who had a remarkably successful tenure at the corporation and presently a Special Adviser to the Honourable Minister of Works and Housing, Mr. Babatunde Raji Fashola (SAN, CON). He did extremely well while he was MD of LSDPC to the point that today, several years after he left the corporation, he is still regarded by the staff as the best thing to happen to the agency. They love him to bits. At the recently held 50th anniversary of the LSDPC, when he was called for recognition, the entire hall erupted in wild jubilation. His people were excited to see him again after so many years (he resigned as MD in 2015). Indeed, he has written his name in gold in the annals of the corporation and his name and contributions to the growth of the LSDPC will surely never be forgotten.
Two Sundays ago, Mr. Biodun Oki, popularly called Seriki (he was given the title Seriki Akole ta of Lagos by Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu) was one of our special guests at the City People’s Real Estate Awards. He came to receive an award on behalf of his principal, the Honourable Minister for Works and Housing, Mr. Babatunde Raji Fashola, who picked up the Housing Minister of the Decade award. Shortly before he picked up the award, he spoke to City People’s Senior Editor, WALE LAWAL (08037209290) about his exploits while at the helms of affairs of the LSDPC. Enjoy excerpts of the interview.
You are here, sir, to receive the award of Best Housing Minister of the Decade on behalf of the Minister of Works and Housing, Mr. Babatunde Raji Fashola, share with us your thoughts at this time and a bit about the ministry…
Let me start by congratulating you and your City People team, especially the Publisher, Seye Kehinde, on this award ceremony. I have been a recipient of this award as well, I think twice, and today, I’m here representing my principal, Mr. Babatunde Raji Fashola (SAN, CON) who happens to be the minister of the Federal Ministry of Works and Housing. So, I’m basically here to receive an award on his behalf.
It’s been a long journey when you talk about property management and property development because I started in 2003 and I left LSDPC in 2012, that’s about 12 years that I spent managing LSDPC. It was a challenging period but with the help of my team and staff of LSDPC, we were able to do so many things in the property sector. I left for Abuja in 2016 when I was appointed the Special Adviser to the Minister on Housing development and we have been busy working in all the states of the federation building government houses. We have started phase 2, in some states, we have started phase 3 and we have started selling. And our sales are done strictly online, no sale of forms, you simply log into the website, do all you are requested to do and the property is yours. Payment is done online so there won’t be any human interference and complaints.
You were recently recognized at the 50th anniversary of the LSDPC in Lagos, and you got a loud standing ovation from all the staff and members of the LSDPC present at the event. Everyone was excited at the mention of your name and they all started talking about your accomplishments while in office. What did you do differently from others while in office?
Okay, the LSDPC Act changed when I came in. The fully commercialized the LSDPC. The LSDPC used to be funded by government in terms of subvention and the designation then was General Manager, but by the time, I was appointed as the Managing Director and CEO. So, the Attorney General and Commissioner for Justice, who happens to be our current Vice President, took the LSDPC Act back to the House of Assembly for amendment and recommended that LSDPC should be fully commercialized and be allowed to stand on its own with no recourse to government. Government will no longer pay salaries, instead, what we would be doing in LASDPC is to pay dividends to the government. So, that was how everything changed. I was brought in from Oceanic Bank then to come and steer the ship. It was not an easy task but I thank the Almighty God that everything went well.
So, how were you able to re-orientate the staff and get them to understand that things have changed?
We started by engaging the staff and made them understand that everything has changed completely. We told them that it is now what we called ‘work and eat’. It is what we do, the work we put in and the money we make that we will eat from. We are no longer expecting mony from government or anybody. So, everybody was on board and everyone agreed we could do it because if the private developers could do it, why not LASDFPC that has a big name in that market. And so we started. We had some rentable apartments in Victoria Island, Adeola Odeku flats, Eko Courts, which we renovated and refurbished. They are all rentals, and they are still on till today. And they have been very well maintained even after I left. We ensure that our contractors follow exactly what we have given to them to do, no cutting corners. And we monitor them on site every day.
And how were you able to maintain these high standards for 12 years that you were at the helm of affairs?
My management style was simple but effective. I worked closely with the technical people. Whenever we were starting a development, I will go there with them, and the next time could be when it has gotten to 50 percent. I didn’t have to go every day, but I usually got reports with photographs with dates. Its not that you will now bring a photograph of what you have taken about 5 weeks ago, no. It was a good monitoring system that worked very well.
What were some of your stand out achievements at the time you were leaving?
Well firstly, I made sure we had good record of affordable houses. We did quite a lot of that. Secondly, I made sure hat the welfare package was very good because you can only achieve so much when your people, your staff, are happy. Within the 12 years that I was there, I think I did salary review about four times. LSDPC then were earning more than their counterparts in Alausa because once we made money, we review salary. We bought buses for the staff. All of these gingered their spirits and spurred them on to be more committed to the corporation and encouraged them to do more.
This must be one of the reasons why the crowd went wild with excitement when your name was mentioned
Yes, because on any project, on any estate we do, we do the P&L. We let everybody see the money we have made, they see what we are paying back to the government and what is coming back to us and what we are putting into welfare and so on and so forth. So, people were very happy. We thank God for everything.
