Waka, Wayo, and Wahala: The Hilarious Hustle of Lagos Real Estate Agents
Lagos is a small place where over 20m people live. 77 people arrive every hour—most of them with no plan of where to stay. So that's where you come in. You are a creation of necessity. Being an agent in Lagos is more lucrative than being a banker. That is about the only job that can never be...
Dear Officeholder, Power Is Transient
If you hold an office, you'll never know your true worth until you leave that office. I learnt that lesson many years after I graduated from the university. I was back in town for my MBA exams that weekend (almost 6 years after my first degree). I dropped by Takie in Ogbomoso and took a taxi to...
One Truth Is Not The Truth: A Lesson in Leadership and Listening
“If you only hear one side of the story, you have no understanding at all.” — Chinua Achebe I learnt a lesson about this the hard way. It was during my time as president of the Students Union Government in 1998. I was fast asleep in my room one night. Suddenly, I heard a loud bang on my door and a...
Stretch or Stay Stuck: What I Learned After Leaving My Comfort Zone
The lady was perplexed. At least that was how she sounded. I had never worked in Lagos up till that point but I made a request for it. I saw the internal advert for the Lagos role and applied. I was based in Ibadan then and all my career prior to that time was in Ibadan. However, I wanted...
A Lesson About Failure: Behind Every ‘Yes’ Are Many ‘Nos’
I want to share an experience I had during one of the many interviews I attended over the course of my career. I shared this piece for the first time on May 26th, 2019 and posted it on Twitter (now X) exactly a year after. This experience was so pivotal that I also shared it in my book, How to...
The Unspoken Rules of Mentorship: 8 Lessons Every Mentee Must Learn
A few years ago, I was in South Africa and I stayed in my mentor's house. One day, he called me from Nigeria and gave me directions to a particular location I had to access by taking the Gautrain. He was on the phone with me almost throughout the journey which took about two hours. Eventually, I...
25 Years in Banking: A Journey of Growth, Grace, and Grit
Twenty-five years ago (May 30, 2000), I started a banking career that has now spanned seven financial institutions. On that day, I resumed at the Banking School located at Elephant House, Apongbon in Lagos. I was part of the first set of entry-level trainees (we were called Banking Analysts) that...
From Awolowo to Abacha: Why It’s Time to Stop Blaming Nigeria’s Past Leaders and Start Taking Responsibility
I've wondered if it's okay to blame the misfortunes of Nigeria on past leaders. These were people who hardly got the benefit of what most of us enjoy now— and irrespective of their weaknesses or missteps, still remain references of a nostalgic past. We refer to Awolowo and his contemporaries as...
Learn to Fart Together and Other Lessons from Over 20 Years of Marriage
I didn’t plan to write anything. I had been on sabbatical. I wanted our 20th wedding anniversary on July 20, 2022 to be a quiet one. I took my wife for a dinner date and there was a slide put up on the wall to congratulate us for our 20th anniversary. A short while after, another banner was...
The Class That Built a Nation: Dr. Olunloyo and the Legacy of His GCI Classmates
This is the concluding part of a six-part article series to celebrate the legacy of Dr Victor Omololu Olunloyo (1935–2025) Dr. Victor Omololu Olunloyo’s life is a mosaic of remarkable achievements in education, engineering, and leadership. But perhaps one of the most fascinating aspects of his...