Home News How I Had My 3 Kids, Within 3 Years, After 50
•RONKE ONADEKO Talks About Her Greatest Success Story

How I Had My 3 Kids, Within 3 Years, After 50
•RONKE ONADEKO Talks About Her Greatest Success Story

by Iyabo Oyawale

Aderonke Onadeko is a serial entrepreneur. She has her hands in so many pies. You can’t box her into a corner. She has been in the business and professional space for over 30 years. She once acted as a supervising Commissioner for Agriculture in Ogun State, when Governor Ibikunle Amosun was in power. She’s done so much as an entrepreneur and professional consultant, but she doesn’t see her achievements as major. Rather, she considers having her 3 babies after 50 as her greatest success story. In this interview with City People’s Contributing Editor, IYABO OYAWALE (08033564055), Aderonke talks about her book, “To My Younger Self” which has enjoyed rave reviews. The first edition was a total blast! Now, the second edition is out and she says the content is mind-blowing for young people who desire to be mentored at a distance by people who’ve walked the path they also want to walk. Enjoy this rare interview with a woman who’s a thorough-bred professional and entirely goal-driven! Purpose is her second name, if you ask me!

You published the first edition of your book, “To My Younger Self” few years ago? How many years ago ma?
It was 2018.
Awesome! What was the reception like?
We didn’t even have a large formal outing, we had a book reading at the point where we launched the book, it was not like a formal launch where people came and bought. We just had a book reading where a lot of contributors to the book came to read excerpts from their own story. And, it was more so that the guests could interact with the people as to why they joined the project because I see it as a project, an impact project. It’s not just a book and I’m sure I’ve explained to you why I wrote the book. I had been mentoring for many many years. I had practically become the go-to person for peoples’ children who are coming back to Nigeria from the US, Canada, the UK, Europe, and they’re like, ‘Ronke, my daughter is coming back, or my son is coming back, can you just meet with them and share with them the realities of joining back the Nigerian society, expectations and things?’ And, when I went to work for Ogun State at the end of 2015, I was only coming home on the weekends and the pressure of counseling and mentoring just was unbearable! I’ll come and all I’ll do the whole of Saturday and even a part of Sunday is to mentor and I told myself I can’t continue doing this! There has to be a more sustainable way to continue this. So, I said, ‘what if I write a book containing stories they want to hear or that their parents want them to know about? Let me just write it down so I can give them the book or whatever.’ I thought it would be an eBook and if they had further questions or wanted to develop any aspect of them, the meeting would be nice, short, and brief. And if you do this, some people will say my own is different, from a male perspective, somebody from the North would say ‘I don’t understand. You know as a Northerner, it’s not like this.’ And, some people will say, ‘you know you’re from a middle class.’ So, I decided to get other people to write their own stories, so, that it’s a combination, if you don’t even find or relate with my story, you might find a story from somebody else that resonates with you and you’ll pick up one or two things. So, I decided to draw up a list of people whom I knew very well; knew their stories; and I could authenticate the information they give me. So, I wrote a list of about 30 or 35 people and started calling them, explaining to them that, ‘I’m writing a mentoring book and I’m getting contributors to share a letter to their younger selves.’ So that a young person can see that this person started like this and he’s here today. So, you’re telling a more holistic story, looking backwards, some people were willing to, some people didn’t have the time, some people thought they would like to do it but at the end of the day, they couldn’t muster the discipline to put pen to paper or the time or the will power to do it because it’s not an easy thing, trying to go back in your own life and document your successes, your failures, your challenges, for somebody else because you’re putting yourself out there. And I chose the few people I chose, we ended up with 24 stories and I wanted the people who, in 10 years’ time people won’t say, ‘the person wrote this story but they said they got a loan, this is what they did.’ I knew all of them from way back, so, I could validate their stories. So, that’s how the book came about and we made it in 2018 into the “Top 10 Non-Fiction Books at the Channels Book Club” which came to me as a huge surprise! I didn’t even know they had a book club! So, when I got the notice, it was with a pleasant surprise. It was something I’d not done before soI talked to people who had done books before. I asked them questions like, ‘Who did your printing?, how did you sell?’ I had a lot of trial and error and because we didn’t have a big launch where you’ll get chief launchers and people bought a 1000 books, we organically sold our books through a handful of outlets. People read and then we set up an Instagram page, posted content there and we had a couple of meet ups where people will sign up to come and we’ll bring in a few of the contributors and people whose story they resonated with will gather and have an evening out and we’ll ask these people deeper questions; more questions and just learn at the feet of these people. The thing is, there are authentic stories here. In Nigeria, we do have authentic stories that we can sell to the world. A lot of young people are reading books by John Maxwell, etc, books that Americans have written and you’ll hear things like, ‘when I decided to start up my own business as an entrepreneur, I went to the Small Business Administration (SBA),’ we don’t have those things in Nigeria, so, I wanted to write books where Nigerians who did those things will tell you where they went to in Nigeria, so, you as a Nigerian can go and test out those things. And it’s very important that we as Nigerians. tell our own stories. The same way Americans are selling their own stories to us, we have unique perspectives, unique ways of doing things that we can also sell to the world. My book is on Amazon and we sold a lot of copies online. If you go to the Instagram page, you will see people, because we encouraged people to share their views on the book and people said they could resonate with all the things we said in the book easily. So, we have global stories to tell, we don’t have to keep reading Mark Zukerberg’s story, it’s almost unrelatable to the average Nigerian! In the University Campus, you cannot get Internet to be writing your first book or doing your first business. We usually start from a business center, so, let people see that. And, there are people who had to live with their grandparents in the village when they were young, they have their stories there. Different ages; different parts of the country; different gender in 24 stories, you’d find something that resonates, so, we started working on book 2 because a lot of people were like, ’Oh, I want to tell my story too!’ We even had a time when people were writing letters to themselves and publishing on our page. People were telling themselves that, ‘if only I had known this is where I’ll end up, I wouldn’t have worried so much.’ So, it encourages young people that, ‘don’t think you’re in a situation that people haven’t been before. You can also make it. You keep following the process.’ And, it’s a combination of how people regard family, how they regard finance, how they regard education, how they regard career, how they regard society, so, it was on a broad scale. People told holistic stories, not just career projections, how their family shaped them, how their religious beliefs shaped them, so, we had so many lessons, but there’s a common thread in all of these stories; discipline, hard work, etc.
For the second edition, how many contributors did you have ma?
We now have 40.
Wow! That’s quite huge.
That is huge.
How did you manage the project, no wonder it took so long?
In fact, the project was almost ready before COVID but at that time, I had had the twins, there was COVID, you know so many things slowed us down and people now, in between the time they submitted and we were now ready to print, a lot of people had changed careers, had been promoted, so, we had to go back to the drawing board last year and we gave the project to the printer for proofreading and I’m very meticulous with proofreading, so, we gave it to 2 or 3 people. They tried to do proofreading and I’ll find errors and I’m like, ‘how did you miss this?’ There’s this guy that does reviews on I think it’s 97.3, it’s a radio station, they didn’t find a single typo in our first book! So, I was very deliberate about it that if we did the first one so well, even though it was a smaller book, we should equally do sterling work in the second one. So, that took much longer and finally, the books were delivered and we already started selling. I’m sure we’ve probably sold a third of it because we’re in 3 outlets already and we’re on Amazon.
Specifically, what’s the message or lessons that can be learned from the stories in this second edition?
It doesn’t matter where you’re starting from. It’s never too late to start. We had testimonials of people saying, ‘I wish there was a book like this, these are people who’re in their 60s and 70s, I wish there was a book like this when I was young. I saw so many mistakes that I made. Had I read a book like this?’ About a month and a half ago, I was at the cinema and a lady rushed up to me and asked if I was Ronke Onadeko, I said ‘yes.’ I looked at her, I couldn’t recognize the person. She said, ‘you don’t know me. I was making a pivotal decision in my life and one of the stories in your book came straight to my mind and I followed it and it was a resounding success.’ I don’t know how many more of those kinds stories are out there but I know you can’t read stories of 24 people and not get one or two nuggets from each of the stories. We have people like Gbenga Oyebode in it. We have people like Ibukun Awosika in the first edition. There’s Bukky George. I mean lots of people that people hear about. While it may not be possible to get close to such people to hear their stories, the book provides a far distance mentoring. By the time you buy book one and book two, you’ve had access to nuggets of ‘do this; don’t do that; try this; don’t try that; this is a good way to do things from 64 people!
Wow!
That’s like going to University. Even if you have one of those people come to speak to you in a month, that’s 64 months. So, that’s like a 4-year-course! So, if somebody’s story resonates with you, you can easily go and follow them on Twitter, Instagram, or LinkedIn and now start studying those people because their story resonates with you. Their life journey is similar to yours. So, it reduces the pressure of young people trying to find a celebrity or well-known person as mentor.
So, basically, you’re trying to do mentoring at scale through these books, right?
Yes! Arms length mentoring that can be scaled.
Can you mention some of the people featured in the second book?
We have stories from Debola Williams, Aisha Rimi, Aisha Umar, Dapo Olorunyomi, Simon Kolawole, Mrs. Funmi Oyetunji, The MD of Ikeja Electric, Folake Soetan, and a couple of others.

Where can people get the book and where is it being launched?
It’s being launched on the 14th of January, 2023 in Lagos. We’re hoping to have a highbreed so that people can be able to join online. The books are available at Roving Heights, Laterna, Quintessence, and definitely on Amazon. So, internationally, you can get the book on Amazon.
I read an interview in which you said having your babies is your greatest success story. Because it’s a rare kind of story, having babies after 50!
And, most people will have that opportunity and that blessing and say ‘thank you father for giving me one’. And they will stop at it but I’m an Oliver Twist! I always want more! So, even at 52, I now was blessed with a double blessing and had 2 more!
Wow!
So, in a space of 3 years, I had 3 children, all after 50 and I can’t even explain how this came about. I can only say it was God’s mercy. Because I wasn’t the only one looking for children at the time at such an age! Some people still don’t have; some people managed to get one and were so grateful! I went on to carry full-term, 2 pregnancies after my 50th birthday. And, for me, that’s the greatest show to me that God loves me, that He heard the cries in my heart and paid particular attention to me at some point and what I wanted and gave it to me. God gave me the gift of children, not once, but twice!
So, you had 2 pregnancies; 3 babies, right?
Yes.
Now, I know you as being goal-driven, and children are attention-getters and seekers, how do you juggle all you have to do?
I will tell you and use this current situation. Right now, the kids are on holiday and will need attention morning till night, so, when they wake up, because we have early wakers and not so early wakers, from when they wake up before 7 in the morning, on a holiday, not school term o, I’m up and about till they go to bed. Then, I start my work, so most days, I don’t go to bed till like 2am! I’m sure you saw the time I sent some messages to you! I was in the office by that time; I work from home! My children are my primary focus and I’m very tunnel-visioned and tunnel vision for me is not just following one path. It means, I’m able to shut down completely on other things to focus on my goal. My legacy is my children. So, anything that comes up now, an event, a visitor, I shut it down because of my children. I asked God to send me children, so that I could raise them as Christian children. So, that my children can be used as an expression in my generation of how to raise children in Christianity, so, I don’t take it lightly. We go to church, over and above that, I have a Sunday School teacher that comes to my house to teach my children Bible study, scriptures in song, our target is 20 scriptures a year. We’ve been doing it for over 2 years now. So, my children have an understanding that the Spiritual is more real than the physical. My children understand praying in the spirit. They understand that when you need something, you go to God. When they ask me questions, I tell them, ‘you know mama doesn’t know everything.’ Then, they say, ‘yes, the only person that knows everything is the Holy Spirit.’ So, when we’re going somewhere and they ask if we’re almost there, I’m like, ‘I don’t know, have you asked the Holy Spirit?’ They’ll run around and tell me, ‘we’re not almost there’ and I’ll tell you that 90% of the time, they are spot-on! So, I’m teaching them to listen to an inner voice. That way, my children will not hear strange voices. They will know the voice of God and not be deceived by strange words. They will not be enticed by peer pressure. I want to train my children to know that the answers they seek is inside of them. So, I’m being deliberate, intentional, and paying it with time and attention.
Awesome! What are their ages and gender?
My boy is 5 and the girls are 3.

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