Chairman, Otunba BIMBO ASHIRU
Otunba Bimbo Ashiru is the Chairman of Odua Group. Since he took over about 2 year ago he has done a lot to transform the conglomerate. A trained Accountant by profession, he has evolved to become one of the most sought after marketers to come from this part of the globe. His accomplishments are huge. What stands him out from the pack is the fact that he understands the dynamics of the economy in an unstable environment like ours like he knows the back of his hand.
City People Senior Editor, WALE LAWAL (08037209290) had the privilege to get a chance meeting with Otunba Ashiru inside his posh office on Broadstreet, Lagos. It was vintage Otunba Bimbo Ashiru. He spoke like the brilliant mind that he is, regaling us with statistical data and facts that many didn’t know existed. He also showed his undying desire to see Ogun state transformed into possibly the most attractive state for investors in the entire country. Enjoy the excerpts.
A little over two years ago, you assumed office as the Chairman of Odua Investments, share with us, what was the enormity of the responsibility that you took up at the time? What were the immediate challenges?
Well, I joined the board two years ago. Luckily, I joined as Director for two years and I became the chairman two years after. So, I can tell you, the crop of people that we started four years ago, they are fantastic human beings. They are people that have reached the peak of their careers with unblemished track records. These are people that were MDs of banks, EDs, Senior Advocates of Nigeria, former commissioners. I think there are three of us who were former commissioners. What we’ve done in four years is to bring back a mission to rebuild Oduwa and our focus was to become a world class conglomerate. Today, I think Oduwa can compete with any conglomerate anywhere in the world now.
You can see the office here, I’m sure you are surprised to see the regal state of things. And that’s the MD of Wemabod, who just took over about a month ago. So you can see that we’ve introduced continuity. And when I became the chairman, my focus was capacity building and training. If you want to become a world class conglomerate, you must be able to compete all over the world. Today, I’m happy to tell you that most of the top people in the group, including my humble myself, we’ve had courses in Harvard and some others are still going to go for same course. Within the next two years, we’ll achieve that. And we’ve been able to put a succession plan in place. This building where you are now, this is being done by Wemabod. If you go to Cocoa house in Ibadan now, you will see what has happened. Premier Hotel in Ibadan, we are changing the whole dynamics, increasing the room from 87 to 154 rooms. And we are on the 10th floor or so. And by God’s grace, by the last quarter of this year, we should be able to commission it. It will boast of a world class swimming pool, Olympic size, 1,000 seater conference hall/ event center, mini golf course, etc. So we’ve been able to bring back that.
Then we have three floors where you can park, it’s a 500 car park. We just built that now. We are looking at investors for Airport hotel too. And I’m happy to tell you that we have marginal field, OMN 95 in Ondo. By God’s grace, by the second quarter of this year, we should be able to start drilling. I’m happy to tell you too that we have SWACO, Southwest Agriculture Company. We have SWIT, Southwest Information Technology, we just employed the MD. So, we are trying to bring back that old glory, agriculture, information technology, oil and gas, hospitality, real estate. When we came in, we decided that, WEMABOD is fully owned by Odua one hundred percent, so there’s no point for father and son to be competing with each other, so all the real estate businesses of Odua is being managed by WEMABOD. So, now as we’re sitting here, I’m a tenant of WEMABOD despite the fact that we are the owners of WEMABOD. So, he charges us revenue every year. I am happy to tell you that I have the best crop of people on the boatrd. We don’t have dissenting voices, when we have issues, we sit down, resolve it and we move on. We never voted against anything.
So you see that we are bringing back the old glory. Odua is back to where it belongs. About a year ago, in 2023, we were rated A and in 2004, in less than one year, we were rated A+. So it shows that we have a very good financial capability and capacity. And I’m happy to tell you that we are paying dividends to the owners of the business. WEMABOD too, that is our subsidiary, was rated A-. And I’m sure the next rating will probably be A+. They actually started the rating and we took the cue after them. So we put the business within the house and we are sure that we are doing this with extreme focus. But the most important thing is to make sure we take care of our staff. They are all happy, we are ensuring that they are all well taken care of.
The last Group MD of Odua left in May and the new one came in, who was an executive director, Mr. Bashiru Oladunni, who is now the MD of Wemabod, he became an Executive Director less than a year ago. I think I’m right, less than a year ago and he’s now taken over as the ED over Odua. So we are having a proper association plan in place and we have KPMG as our consultant as well as Deloitte too. We’ve changed the accounting firm that was handling it for over 30 years, Deloitte now handles that for us. So we’ve been able to bring back the old glory of Odua and that’s what we are working on now.
I remember when we went to see the vice-president, he said he was very proud of us. He said, Otunba Bimbo Ashiru, I’m proud of you and your team, that he followed our trajectory and that Odua is the only regional government investment that is still surviving in Nigeria today.
Can you share with us your impressions of Governor Dapo Abiodun’s government? I know he’s someone you’re also very close to, like you are with a lot of others in government. What are your honest assessments of his administration?
Well, Governor Abiodun is doing a lot of innovations. He’s a determined person. I mean, look at the airport. Look at what he’s done in Lekki-Epe, Ijebu-Ode road, which was being funded by Access bank and some other consortium. He’s done a fantastic job there. In terms infrastructure, he’s done very well. I saw him few days ago working on Alagbole, trying to ensure there are no hitches with the road construction work going on there. .So he has his own mission and vision cut out for him. And let me be honest with you, for every governor of any state, they all have what they want. Governors all have their own vision. The only problem I always have is that most governors, when they come in, they try to start their own project. And Governor Dapo Abiodun is the only governor in the history of Ogun State that has continued with his predecessor’s projects. He completed some of them, but he has his own projects that he has to do, so it’s a give and take thing. But I always wait till the end of tenures to be able to assess the achievements of the state governor. But in terms of infrastructure, he’s done very well and he’s been able to complete the project of his predecessor, which is very good, which many people never did. And the people that are suffering for that are the people of the state. People think it’s the government. No, it’s the state. The citizens of Ogun State are the ones suffering for it because it’s their taxpayers’ funds that are supposed to go into whatever they are doing.
Let me have your thoughts on the economic reforms of President Tinubu. How confident are you that we will turn the corner soon?
Well, that’s a very good question. And this is what I always tell people, it’s just like when you see a woman who is 9 months pregnant. Those nine months waiting period, you don’t know whether she’s going to deliver a boy or a girl. Let me tell you this. I remember I sat with the President one-on-one. He said, nobody should pity him, that he knows the enormity of the problem he’s going into. He threw himself into it and said he made up his mind to do it. But you see, it’s a tough one. Things are tough. The government has spent only one and a half years and the rot has been on for so many years. People now pass blames and say it was Shagari’s problem, it was Yar Adua’s problem or Obasanjo’s problem. I remember in 1978, I will never forget. I said, ah, it has never been as bad as this in Nigeria. I remember very well that it was 1978. I finished secondary school in 1979, I remember I was in class four. I can’t remember who was the president then, I was talking with some people and I said, ah, it has never been as bad as this. Then in 1979, when Shagari came, we said, oh, they have stolen all the money, that’s Umaru Dikko. How much were they talking about then? All he stole then was just about 2 million naira then, not billions that they are talking about today. The point is that the more we improve economically, the more our issues are resolved.
As a leader, you must do the reform but if you are doing this reform, maybe you need to now put a cushion into the system. That’s my worry, but I think as a president, he means well. I listened to his interview with the media recently, the one they had in January, and he said they should allow him to do all he can within his power and he believes he has the capacity and capability. I would say, let’s see, plus or minus what happens between now and June, whether things will change. But I can tell you that the reforms I’m seeing, they’re okay, but how effective will they be? Because it’s not only him, it also includes the drivers. It’s not only the president alone that will do it. As a commissioner, I had my own contribution and that’s why you could see the small role I played. But if I don’t have the vision or the mission, I won’t be able to achieve it. So we can’t blame the president, we need to blame the drivers too. But having said that, there must be accountability. So maybe there should now be proper assessment of ministers, people that cannot do the job should be fired and showed the way out and bring in people that can do the job. I think that might probably be the issue. But I can tell you he means well for the country.
Nigeria is a difficult country to rule because we have diverse groups. We have Igbos, we have Hausa, we have people who will always read meanings to things and the opposition will always see this as opportunity to bring out the worst, so that’s what I can say. The president knows that things are bad and he’s looking to get us out of the woods. It’s a joint effort, it’s not about the president alone. And I think there must be some town hall meetings whereby people will be told what is happening and there must be dissemination of information so that the government will be able to tell people this is what is happening, this is what we are doing, so that people will not be having their own expectations and won’t be getting information from TikTok, from the social media, so that is the problem.
