On Tuesday, November 25, 2025, the quiet town of Ososa-Ijebu witnessed a transformation that many residents described as the beginning of a new era. Beneath the soft glow of the morning sun, royal fathers, community leaders, Rotarians, medical professionals, and illustrious sons and daughters of the land gathered to celebrate a dream that had finally taken physical form — the unveiling of Aniyun Hospitals Limited, an ultra-modern edifice that boast of the state of art facilities, similar to the one built in Gbagada, Lagos state
For the people of Ososa, it was more than the opening of a medical facility. It was the homecoming of a son whose heart never left the soil that raised him. Dr. Abdullatif Adewale Ogunbadejo returned not with nostalgia but with a mission: to end the painful journeys residents often endured in search of quality healthcare, and to give his people a hospital that matches the standards of the best centres in Lagos and beyond.
As the ribbon was cut by industrialist and philanthropist, Alhaji Suleiman Adegunwa, emotions ran deep. Hope came alive. And in that moment, Ososa realised it had gained more than a hospital — it had gained a legacy.
In an interview with City people reporter, Jamiu Abubakar (08085185886) Dr. Ogunbadejo opens up about the vision behind the project, the emotional journey that birthed it, and the sacrifices, inspirations, and purpose that drive his lifelong commitment to serving humanity. Below are excerpts:
Congratulations on the new hospital you just opened in Ososa, your hometown. But why the choice of Ososa?
I’m Dr. Abdullatif Adewale Ogunbadejo, the Medical Director of Aniyun Hospitals Limited, a concern that has been existing for the past 35 years, and has a multi-sphere practice in Lagos State, at 3, Aderibigbe Close, Ifako, Gbagada.
We decided to move here to contribute to my community, to give back to my community in love. And because of the experiences I’ve had of people not having the best of medical service, and many of them dying by the time they get to Lagos, whereas if they have had good medical investigations, all the issues may have been detected earlier and looked after. So I decided that if I’m going to start a hospital in my town, it will be a very, very ultra-art of this world hospital. The hospital that will stand the test of time, that generations yet unborn will benefit from. And that’s why this hospital has all that an average hospital in abroad would have. It’s structured to have a CT scan, MRI scan, apart from the general lab and the radiology, which we already have inside.
So we have a very comprehensive lab service, we have a radiology unit, and we have all the other facilities, including an ICU and dialysis unit, but they are not yet operational.
I had the case of a kidney failure case once, and we took him to the Ogun State University Teaching Hospital, OSUTH in Sagamu. I was told they can take only one dialysis per day. And, of course, it’s always that in such situations, some of them need three times dialysis a week, four times dialysis, it depends on the severity of their kidney issues. And then I also saw a need there, that we need more dialysis centres in this area.
I think there’s one in Ijebu Ode, I’m not sure of any other. But we have cases of kidney issues among us these days, many, many cases of kidney failure. I thought we should have a dialysis unit. We are going to also make that operational as soon as possible apart from the CT scan and MRI scan. So this is a very well-structured hospital, and we hope that you saw the purpose it’s been established for.
Our vision and mission statement already states what we intend to achieve, we want to achieve the best of medical care. We want to have the best of passionate workers working for us, and we also want to give the low-income earners the benefit of good medical care. Not that we won’t charge fees, but to know it to be compassionate fees, so they can have the benefit of having a hospital where they really feel they are human beings. So, that’s our hope, our vision.
How do you feel realizing this dream in your hometown?
The honest truth, I feel very self-fulfilled, and I also thank my wife who has been there. We’ve been married for 40 years now, and she’s been there all the way, I mean it’s not easy for you to start to come and do this without your wife’s support. I mean anyone who is married knows, so if you need to do something, you must have your wife’s buy-in, and she has truly bought into it. She has supported me all the way. She’s also a nurse and she’s the head of the nursing department, both here and in Lagos. So, I want to thank my wife for agreeing, for what we’re investing.
There’s a lot of money involved which I could have put in the bank, getting some good interest every year. But what’s money? At the end of the day you are going to leave it there. So, what works is for you to help people and to serve others. It’s not just to serve yourself. Having it in the bank means nothing, but the day you go, everything is gone. If you have invested that in people, and it generates itself, I mean if that’s true of it. That’s the only one can really make wealth count. And that’s why we decided to do this.
Like I said, it’s not for us to eat, we pray for long life, and good health, and if you have a very bad illness, it can just wipe a lot of things off, but we pray that we don’t have that. And if we don’t have that, all our children are out of the house. They’re all doing well on their own. So what do we need too much for, we only need just enough to meet our needs, and help others.
Of course, I’m also a rotarian, and in that way, I served rotary to the best of my ability, and so I know the value of giving. It’s not something new, and I thank Almighty God for permitting this to be, that’s the only person I can thank. It’s only God that could have made it possible.
When we started, it was like a dream initially, at the point I got weary. You know, when you’re just spending money and you’re not seeing what the money is doing. You know why you’re just putting things together, but now when I look around, I’m impressed with the level of completion of the hospital. We can pick up from here and do the rest in time, and I’m sure God will allow it.
How significant is this new hospital to you?
As at this time in my life, this is the most important thing I’ve done as at this point in my life. Ofcourse, you see at each point in your life you achieve some milestones, I’ve done it, when I look at this, and I look at the one in Gbagada, I say wow, God, thank you. As at this time, apart from bringing up my children who are doing well, which is the major, one of the responsibilities that we bear as human beings. But in terms of giving back to the community is the most important that we have achieved. I keep saying we, I don’t want to say I, because my wife is also involved in this, and I must always recognize her, if I don’t want to be selfish. Like I said, if I didn’t have support, there’s no way I would have achieved this. It’s only with her buying that I can do anything. If you are married and you think you can do it alone, well, try, maybe you succeed once, you may not succeed every time.
What should Ososa people and its neighbourhood be expecting from your hospital?
If you read our mission and vision statement, we are giving the best of quality care and that we’ll be as compassionate as possible with them. We are not going to look like we are in Lagos, where we would charge quite high. We also can at least make our costs high a bit to pay salaries. It’s not the people of this town, on the average, who will pay for this hospital, like we are told, it’s not the people of this town, it’s the others who will come, who will really appreciate the service. Most of the people in the town, like you heard, they may be talking about cost, but the people who appreciate it will come. They are the ones who really make us make some leverage in terms of getting back returns on investment.
How did you come up with the unique name your hospital bears?
This land on which this hospital sits is Aniyun land. Now I’ll tell you how Aniyun came about. My great-grandfather, the first Ogunbadejo, nicknamed himself, from our oriki which goes “omo iyun baba ileke, omo aniyun kaye”. So from that he picked Aniyun, and everybody started calling him Aniyun. So that’s how Aniyun was picked. If you come to Ososa today and say you’re going to Aniyun’s compound, they know you’re talking about the Ogunbadejos. He owns this land. I bought it because I didn’t want somebody to come in future and say you are using family land. I paid for it, so I told them I’m the owner, nobody can come and say it’s the family land you took without paying. I paid intentionally, because you have to be careful with the family. This land belongs to my great-grandfather Aniyun, and so it’s even just appropriate that it should be sited on this land. Aniyun is just from our Oriki. We are from the royal family here, the Soungbade royal family in this town. So that’s how Aniyun came up. I wanted to claim my lineage. I could have chosen any English name, but I wanted something unique, something my own, so I just said Aniyun. I started with Aniyun clinic, from a two-bedroom flat with just two beds, then change it with Lagos state to Aniyun hospital. I don’t want where you have Aniyun clinic but you’re running a hospital. People do it, they say it’s clinic but they’re running a hospital. So, I changed to a hospital at the right time, when I realised that the number of beds we had had increased. I changed to a hospital with the Lagos state government and they came again to inspect and they agreed it’s a hospital. But then we moved from a two-bedroom flat to an eight ‘face-me-I-face-you room’, before we then moved to Gagada where we had a twenty-five-beded hospital. And it’s a two-story, three-level building, so then we are now here again. As of now this is the most important in terms of achievement, in terms of physical achievement. But then it’s not yet over. If Warren Buffett’s run his company till 94, if my uncle is starting a multi-billion company in Abuja at 80, and I’m 66, I still have a long way ahead of me.
Taking the discussion to your uncle the renowned industrialist, Alhaji Sulaimon Adegunwa, the chairman of Rite Foods Limited, in what way has he influenced you in life?
Now, I’ll tell you a bit about life, you see, in life, your parents give birth to you, but in the olden days, the whole family, the whole village owns the child. When we are coming here, once they see me they say omo Salimoni, that’s my daddy’s name. if you behave silly, somebody will give you a knock on your head or give you some lashes on your buttocks and they will still go home to report you.
At each stage of life, you must change your mentors, and it’s not easy to do, so, God brings a new mentor before you, a new teacher. In 1979, at age 20, we came for Ileya Festival, as usual, and then, I knew Alhaji Adegunwa was in existence, but I wasn’t that close to him. Then he came around to our house, and he saw me and he said that whose child are you and I told him my daddy’s name. He said so you are my nephew. He pulled me inside to meet my father who told him my name. He asked what I was doing and I told him I was studying medicine.
He was impressed hearing that and he developed interest in me and since then, he’s been a multifaceted influence on me. He’s been my mentor, he’s been my confidant, he’s the one who can lash me, and he’s also the one who will stand by me in case of any need. In his own case, you don’t need to ask, he will sense, he has a way of sensing the need. Just like I’ll tell you about this one, I bought the land more than 11 years ago, I fenced it, I put the sign post, proposed site of Aniyun Hospital. Then one day he asked what was I doing on that land and I told him; uncle, I don’t have the money to start anything on it. He asked me what do I want to build on it and I told him I wanted to build a hospital. Then he encouraged me to go and do the plan and that would be a good place to start something. And that’s how we started. Whenever the project is foot-dragging as a result of lack of fund, he always lend his support.
Alhaji Adegunwa has been my role model, he’s a very disciplined man. You can’t deal with him if you are not truthful, because he has the memory of an elephant. He doesn’t forget. Whatever you tell him now, if you change it two years later, he would say no, no, no, that’s not what you told me. If you must stick with him, and if I’ve been able to stick with him for 20 years to 66, that’s 46 years, it means that we’ve been able to come to an understanding of each other. He’s been able to have interest and confidence in me. He’s been an awesome influence in every way, as a role model, as a confidant, as a supporter, as a chastiser, he chastises me if I’m stupid, and you are not old to him, he doesn’t think I’m old. If I’m doing this, he says, hey, do you think you’re wise, what you’re doing, I will quickly say; I’m sorry sir.
You just don’t argue, arguing means more trouble, I’m sorry sir, even if you know you’re right, and then come later, later, to come and represent you case. He’s a very generous man, very generous man, naturally generous, not to take anything back from me, and maybe that’s also part of what has influenced me too, because I’ve been with him for 46 years, there’s no way he wouldn’t have influenced me, I know he’s influenced me a lot, in terms of how to give. And then Rotary also came in, and then that also, he’s been a wonderful, awesome influence, he has been.
How have been able to sustain your hospitals for 35 years?
You know the way I see it, service comes before money. Once you put the aim to serve, and to give, without thinking. One policy in the hospital is that, if you can save that life, save the life, don’t ask for money yet, when you have saved the life, even if they say they don’t have money, okay, you can say, okay, we have saved you, okay, you can now refer, go to somewhere else to continue. But if you know you can save life, save the life.
Our concept is to give service first, rather than money before service. So, for us, it will be more of service, because I’ve always believed that medicine has caring for lives, helping people in need. Whoever comes to the hospital is not happy, there’s some people running after him, that’s why he came to the hospital. So he must take that burden away and let it go lighter. Maybe that’s what has helped us, and so we have a lot of private patients, and of course HMO patients. Then you see the private ones, they will give you money to run your hospital, but HMOs won’t give you money immediately, maybe 2-3 months after, but private ones, they give you cash you need to run. We have a huge load of private patients, and like I said, two of them came with us, out of confidence. We have been able to win their confidence, trust by our patients, and they are always willing to patronize us. We have some families we are treating the third generation. I’m sure we treated the first generation, second and third generation in some families, and they are still coming. They are committed to what we have done. We have been giving them quality services that’s fairly affordable. Like one of my friends would say what you are collecting is not matching what you are giving, but that’s just it. And it has helped us for 35 years. We have not gone bankrupt, we’ve been able to look after all our kids, you see the children going to school, which means that we’ve been blessed in what we’ve been doing for 35 years, and that’s what matters in life.
Like I said, it’s not the billions you have in your account, it’s the lives you have impacted, the people you have touched, and that’s what we still wish to continue, that’s why we came here.
What actually informs your decision to go into medical life?
Let me be honest with you, the first time I ever knew I was brilliant, was in primary three, we were doing prose and I came first. My teacher, may his life be blessed, I have forgotten his name commended me. That’s just a small commendation from another teacher that means a lot, I never knew, I thought I would just go to school, but so from that time I said, maybe no, so I can achieve something in life. Then, one lady in the house, one of my father’s students started calling me doctor, for no reason, a primary school student. And so when I got to secondary school, I was doing very well, in form two, I go to form three, we have the first three students, we go and meet the guidance counsellor, the last three also meet the guidance counsellor, who was our vice principal, and then he asked, what do you want to do, he looked at my results, what I was scored. He said, yeah, you can be a doctor, or a pharmacist, that just it.
My daddy didn’t have any influence on me in terms of what I chose to do, he didn’t alter anything. My daddy was such a liberal person, whatever you wanted to do he supports you. So with that from the vice principal said, oh, you can be a doctor, or a pharmacist, I started facing medicine. I dropped all those hard maths, and I faced physis, Chemistry and others. That’s how my life was shaped to become a doctor. But the willingness to give, that has to be something within you, a billionaire may not have the will to give, and yet the poor man will be willing to give, so that has to be something internal. so that’s one, I don’t know, that’s a gift from God, that’s beyond me.
