ON tuesday february 6,2018, i would be 60 by the grace of God.I have every reason to thank God because my father didn't live to be 60.He died at the age of 47 when i was 14 and in form 3,
i have survived my father by 13 years.I hope to outgrow my mother who died last year at the age of 90. My worst day obviously has to be day my father Sunday Abiodun Obeisun died. For me it was like the end of the world.The future looked bleaak.Dad was everything.
He was the breadwinner. He was a successful businessman who was into textile trade,had a bakery and was a transporter. My mum grace was simply a housewife.But miraculously,she was able to rise to the occasion by training me up to the secondary school level.There were colleagues of mine who similarly loss their dads and had to be withdrawn from school to train as panel beaters,mechanics and what have you. But my case was not like that.
For my birthday i am donating a church in the memory of my mother in my hometown,ijebu-jesha,osun state.I am donating the new church building to Christ Apostolic Church.It cost me one hundred million naira. It's an architectural edifice.It will sit side by side with the old church which is already dilapidated.It's multipurpose.The church will have to decide whether to use it either as a church or a civic centre to generate money for the running of the church.
I made that pledge after i buried my mum last year to immortalise her.
My entrepreneurial life story will take a whole book but i will try to summarise it.After secondary school i worked with custom in Apapa.There many eyes opened to business of clearing and forwarding. With the money i made,i went to Ibadan polytechnic to study management.I read up to HND.It was at the Ibadan polytechnic where i met in 1977 my friend Rauf Aregbesola,the governor of osun state.He came to do Egineering. we started unionism together.He was a very active union person.Highly fiery,,Intelligent and very critical of the executive,our friend grew with time.We dont base our friendship on what benefit we would get from each other.But if has has a very challenging programme where he need somebody that he can trust to handle and will involve credit facility,he calls for my assistance.
Initailly, i was a civil servant attached to the legislature.There we had rapid promotion but when the military came in we were demoted. To me it's forward ever, backward never.luckily,I had the support of my wife to go become an entrepreneur.It was a risk in which she was ready to support the family in case anything went wrong. She encouraged me a lot. I will forever be grateful. She is the Co-ordinator owner of Timsed, a company formed from my name Rotimi and her name Bosede.
Having been in the customs, I knew so much about clearing and forwarding. I was on the correspondence( and documentation) desk and Atiku Abubakar was our head of department.It was an era of importation boom and clearing agent were making fortune.If not that I was determined to acquire higher education may be I would have ended with only school certificate. I did clearing and forwarding for a very long time.But at a time it became so competitive and the returns were reducing. I had to diversify. My biggest break was in 1986 when a lot of manufacturers couldn't import because there was no importation licence. So I saw an opportunity. I now added it as part of my business to help people and companies to get import licence for a commission and also clear the goods for you. I had the contact to get the licence through some military officers in government that I knew very well. Pepsi Cola,Nigerite, Nigerian wire and Cable were companies I help to get import licence and clear their goods. That was my major break.
I was also doing military contracts such as drilling boleholes in the house of military officers. That was how I met the late Gen.Sani Abacha. I benefitted a lot because Gen. Abacha was a nice man. No matter what anybody would say. Abacha by training was an infantry officer.Even in the military they dreaded the infantry officers because those are the ones that really face the battle. As an infantry man, he sees opposition as enemy that must be crushed. It is this that Abacha applied when he was in power. You opposed him, he crushed you. That's why people had problem with him. Apart from that he was a humane person.
I try to overcome challenges.And with determination, I always get through. As a businessman, you must be ready to squeeze water out of stone. You must be able to make the impossible possible. But you can only do that if you have the grace of God and the Midas touch. It is not everyone that achieves it. I thank God for giving me the grace.
Foremost among my businesses is Sunshine Oil and Chemical development company. It started because when I was doing clearing, a lot of manufacturing company run short of raw materials and the chemicals they needed. By virtue of the fact that I was clearing for them, I already had relationship with suppliers. So I could see when the raw material and the chemicals are always scarce and manufacturers would be looking for them. Because of that I always bring in my own. And the manufacturers would run to me to buy.
Next, I built Timsed Hotel in my own home town because the late kabiyesi was not happy that a lot of our people and their visitors we're going to Iloko to stay at the Royal park Hotel. I took up the challenge and built a befitting Hotel for Ijebu Jesha. I was looking for 120 staff but received 5,000 applications. Come and see people rolling on the floor and weeping because I couldn't employ them. I concluded that a lot of our youths don't have jobs and if you don't do something about it, they would become a security problem. So I decided to be investing I companies in my town to get more people employed. I have opened a tantalizer fast food restaurant there, set up a Civic centre and a cinema. For my 60th birthday, I am opening a beverage and water plant, a rice mill, a fertilizer blending plant and opening a broadcasting station- radio and television. All these amount to billions to billions of naira and employment of 2000 workers directly and 10,000 indirectly.
My advice to youth without thier father is this: Don't see it as a setback or a curse. At the time my father died, I saw it as a curse. Somebody was telling me if he had lived long, maybe I won't be where I am today. I would be living under his shadow- whereas I had more talents than him. Under him, he would have paid for my house rent, bought me a car, funded my marriage and carried my responsibilities.
There would have been no challenges for me. The talent I have would not have come out. Maybe his early death spurred the talent in me. Dad was playing at the local level but I was able to internationalize the trade. I have taken his type of business up to international level. To God be the glory.Thank you for this interview.
Initailly, i was a civil servant attached to the legislature.There we had rapid promotion but when the military came in we were demoted. To me it's forward ever, backward never.luckily,I had the support of my wife to go become an entrepreneur.It was a risk in which she was ready to support the family in case anything went wrong. She encouraged me a lot. I will forever be grateful. She is the Co-ordinator owner of Timsed, a company formed from my name Rotimi and her name Bosede.
Having been in the customs, I knew so much about clearing and forwarding. I was on the correspondence( and documentation) desk and Atiku Abubakar was our head of department.It was an era of importation boom and clearing agent were making fortune.If not that I was determined to acquire higher education may be I would have ended with only school certificate. I did clearing and forwarding for a very long time.But at a time it became so competitive and the returns were reducing. I had to diversify. My biggest break was in 1986 when a lot of manufacturers couldn't import because there was no importation licence. So I saw an opportunity. I now added it as part of my business to help people and companies to get import licence for a commission and also clear the goods for you. I had the contact to get the licence through some military officers in government that I knew very well. Pepsi Cola,Nigerite, Nigerian wire and Cable were companies I help to get import licence and clear their goods. That was my major break.
I was also doing military contracts such as drilling boleholes in the house of military officers. That was how I met the late Gen.Sani Abacha. I benefitted a lot because Gen. Abacha was a nice man. No matter what anybody would say. Abacha by training was an infantry officer.Even in the military they dreaded the infantry officers because those are the ones that really face the battle. As an infantry man, he sees opposition as enemy that must be crushed. It is this that Abacha applied when he was in power. You opposed him, he crushed you. That's why people had problem with him. Apart from that he was a humane person.
I try to overcome challenges.And with determination, I always get through. As a businessman, you must be ready to squeeze water out of stone. You must be able to make the impossible possible. But you can only do that if you have the grace of God and the Midas touch. It is not everyone that achieves it. I thank God for giving me the grace.
Foremost among my businesses is Sunshine Oil and Chemical development company. It started because when I was doing clearing, a lot of manufacturing company run short of raw materials and the chemicals they needed. By virtue of the fact that I was clearing for them, I already had relationship with suppliers. So I could see when the raw material and the chemicals are always scarce and manufacturers would be looking for them. Because of that I always bring in my own. And the manufacturers would run to me to buy.
Next, I built Timsed Hotel in my own home town because the late kabiyesi was not happy that a lot of our people and their visitors we're going to Iloko to stay at the Royal park Hotel. I took up the challenge and built a befitting Hotel for Ijebu Jesha. I was looking for 120 staff but received 5,000 applications. Come and see people rolling on the floor and weeping because I couldn't employ them. I concluded that a lot of our youths don't have jobs and if you don't do something about it, they would become a security problem. So I decided to be investing I companies in my town to get more people employed. I have opened a tantalizer fast food restaurant there, set up a Civic centre and a cinema. For my 60th birthday, I am opening a beverage and water plant, a rice mill, a fertilizer blending plant and opening a broadcasting station- radio and television. All these amount to billions to billions of naira and employment of 2000 workers directly and 10,000 indirectly.
My advice to youth without thier father is this: Don't see it as a setback or a curse. At the time my father died, I saw it as a curse. Somebody was telling me if he had lived long, maybe I won't be where I am today. I would be living under his shadow- whereas I had more talents than him. Under him, he would have paid for my house rent, bought me a car, funded my marriage and carried my responsibilities.
There would have been no challenges for me. The talent I have would not have come out. Maybe his early death spurred the talent in me. Dad was playing at the local level but I was able to internationalize the trade. I have taken his type of business up to international level. To God be the glory.Thank you for this interview.
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