•What Prince RABIU ADIO OLUWA Told City People
It is no longer news that the Island Club, one of the most prestigious social clubs in Nigeria, now has a new Chairman & Exco.
A few weeks back, the club elected new officers and Prince Rabiu Adio Oluwa became the new Chairman of the club in a keenly contested election. Since he stepped into the mantle of leadership, he has taken active charge of the running of the club with his formidable team.
City People Magazine team visited him last week Tuesday, at his office inside the Club complex, and we found a distinguished man who is at peace with himself. At 83, he is an accomplished man and a seasoned politician who has paid his dues. He is a valued member of the club, who is seen as a stabilising factor because of his age and experience.
For over 60 minutes, the City People team made up of Publisher, SEYE KEHINDE and Head of City People TV, SUNDAY ADIGUN grilled this tall and handsome elder statesman who is from the popular land-owning Oluwa family in Lagos State.
Below are excerpts of the first major interview he will be granting since he came in as Chairman.
Congratulations on your election as the new Chairman of the great Island Club. How does it make you feel?
I feel highly elated and I am happy to be the Chairman of the Island Club. Being the Chairman is something that came out of my mind and that of some of my friends in the club. And the outcome is welcome. I am really happy about it.
When the result was announced and you came out victorious, what went through your mind?
A lot of things came to my mind because during the elections and the campaign, one of the things that were foremost among members, especially the elders is the fact that they want to keep the Tradition of the club. What is the tradition of the club, you may ask? Let me tell you. It is that somebody who has served the club, be considered and there were about 3 of them who were aspirants, especially Mr. Adeyinka Sogunle. He was once Assistant Social Secretary, Assistant Secretary, the Secretary of the Club and Vice Chairman of the Club.
They were thinking that I am a greenhorn, somebody who just came from nowhere and wants to be the Chairman. But things have changed from what we have seen in the club, things have changed, the scenario has changed.
The tradition has remained. Yes. A lot of things have changed about the club. A lot of things have happened in the club. Because of this, some members are not coming to the club again. The politicking in the club is even more than the politics going on outside. Like I said during my campaign, I am happy that it has not come to that stage where we can’t leave our drinks on the table to ease ourselves in the toilet.
So, the older generation want the tradition to continue, but the younger generation, (not the younger generation because of age) but in terms of position. It is not about age. I am 83 now and I have never held any position except in the sub-committees. Even there was a time, a few years ago, where during election time, about 4 years ago, they couldn’t find anybody for the position of the Management Committee, which is one of the backbones of the club. Many of them wanted to be the Vice-Chairman, they want to be Chairman.
So, they came up with a policy, once you cannot hold office, you cannot be the Chairman. But when you see what is happening in the club, you will want to throw it open, that anybody can become what he wants.
It is no longer how long now, but how well.
So, my friends said when the election is coming, I should come in. I first told them No. I am too busy to be able to take on such a huge responsibility because of my time and political commitments here and there. I am a member of what is called the Governors Advisory Council (GAC) which is the highest organ of the party in APC. Because the APC is in power, others are really challenging us and we are up and doing to be able to defend our supremacy. I told them why. But after a long time, and discussion, I asked them the question: supposing I want to be the Chairman of the club? I have thought about what it will take me – Time, Money and everything I have. But if my friends want to rally around me. No problems. That was how we started.
I have a friend whose name I won’t mention. When I told him I wanted to be the Chairman, he said No, no, no. No. He is an older member. He knows the politicking that goes on in the club. He said don’t, you won’t be able to cope. He told me a lot. He told me what I should expect. He said after some time, you will see what is going to happen. I saw some of it during the campaign. When the election date was getting nearer. He said I will only say Yes, you should contest if you are going to go unopposed. But if you are going to contest I know you can’t cope with the politics of Island Club. I said to him: You don’t worry, I will cope. With the calibre of people behind me, I will survive. They mean business. They have been meeting on their own and I saw how genuine they are.
Yet, we still found some of them who wanted to play politics with me.
I am saying all these to let people know that contesting for the Island Club Chairmanship is not a joke. You have to be ready for it. I am not trying to blackmail anybody. But I need to say that there are some people who felt that: When did Oluwa join the club? How can he just come and want to be Chairman? There are some people who have been gunning for this position before him. My answer to them was what God has ordained nobody can change it.
That was how we started. With the people surrounding me, I know I would win. And I won.
What were the promises you made in terms of policies you want to implement?
I promised to rebuild the club, to restore confidence back to the club. A lot has gone wrong in the past. I intend to correct all that has gone wrong. I am not trying to run anybody down. The past administrations, years back have let down the club. Members stopped having Confidence in the leadership of the club because sooner or later they will be saying the Chairman does no wrong.
The funding of the club went down the drain. At some point, the Island Club, as big as it is, no longer had money in the treasury. It got to a point where even the toilets did not have toilet paper, not to talk of water or light. So, the problems were enormous, especially light. And you know the high cost of Diesel these days. We have a big Generator, which consumes about 300 litres of Diesel per day. You know we must constantly have light here. We have a hall we rent out. So, we must have light round the clock, because if they want to have any function here now, we must give them light. They have to power generator for about 8 hours and it is almost 300 litres.
The government is not giving us power from the IPP they generate. This I promised members I will do. And we will do something about our Car park project. The project was started during the Ademola Dada era.
They started it. They did the piling and everything, subsequent administrations didn’t do much about it, and they didn’t do all that was promised. You can see we are packing outside there. Because of the security implication, they stopped us from packing on the street because of its close proximity to the Nigeria Police Station near us here.
You know people can park a car and put bomb in it. So, they didn’t want us to park our cars. Our car park can’t take more than 30 cars and you can see the volume of people in the club. And the car park opposite there, we started paying N200, they increased to N500 now its N1,000 and it can continue like that. That is part of the reason our Peacock Hall is not moving because people come in and they can’t get enough space to park.
Even members find it difficult to park. When there is a full house people have to park outside. You can now imagine when you are combining the parking of members and guests going to Peacock Hall. You can imagine if tomorrow the owner of the property opposite us decides to develop the land what will happen to our parking.
So, we know this car park project is a must, we must do it. It was only the last administration that started it. They want to do a floor. Even that floor is about N140 million. I have promised members that we would see what we can do about it. What is most important is for members themselves to contribute and start the project.
I remember during one of our debates here, Baba Ijebu, Chief Kessington Adebutu was seated, he is one of our Trustees. He has interest in this club. He wants to help the club. One of the members was saying Baba Ijebu can help us. My own position is what are you going to do first. Before people come to help us what are we going to do first? What are we going to do for ourselves? I told them, look at Ikoyi Club when they were doing their car park, each member was levied N250,000 spread over time.
If you want to get something, you must be able to start from somewhere. We would get help, but let us start from somewhere. I have contacts. But the club must at least do a floor. Sooner or later we are going to do our fund raising. I will lead by example I am going to donate. When someone like Baba Ijebu sees that we have already started work on the project, it is going to be easy to convince him to support us. That was why he was here during the debate. He said it during the Question time. He wants to see that this club raises its standards higher than what our founding fathers had then and then the politicking was peaceful. When there is Peace, that is when you can have progress. No Peace. No Progress. We don’t want a club where some people see you, they don’t want to sit beside you, because they feel nothing good will come out from you, they see nothing good in you, they will always oppose you.
At my first meeting here, my Management Meeting, I told them: the club must do one floor. I will donate my own money. I don’t want to mention the amount. Let people do something first. Our functions are club functions. Once you place your notice and you inform the Chairman you have invited the club, these days, we don’t ask for funds and people are donating N1,000. What is N1,000?
What can N1,000 do these days? You will go there, you will eat, you will take assorted wine and everything, all in all, we hardly collect N30,000 or N35,000. I told them to increase it to N2,000 and some people are complaining. A member, who is a member of the Management Committee and a member of The Yoruba Tennis Club said for their outside engagement, they contribute N5,000. That is why we need to upgrade what we do, here. Manna won’t come from heaven. We must try to do things right. When they see we are serious, others will support us.
It is not that we don’t have a lot of members who have money in this club.
We do. We have a lot of people who have money in this club. But I think they don’t have the trust in the management. They feel if they put money down, it won’t be well used. All these will change. We have to return the Trust back. And all that is changing now. Since we started, I have seen a lot of groups putting money down. We have about 6 or 8 groups. We have seen some of these groups donating huge sums like N5 million. What we want to do is to turn round the club.
If you see the names of the founding fathers, you will know what I am saying. This is where Nigeria started in those days. This is where Nigerian Economy or Policy was being determined. I told them, look where you have the office of AIG Zone 2 across us here is where Sir Tafawa Balewa was living. Big men like Chief Okotie Eboh, Minister for Finance and other Ministers always come here for their lunch.
All I am saying is let us do something. Let’s be involved. Don’t let us leave it for others to do.
Even if we cannot reach that standard, let us see that we are doing something. I just want us to change our behaviour and the face of the club. Once the commitment is there that this is my club, the sky is limit.
What we want to do is to turn around Island Club.
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