My life has been a miracle to me; my path from youth had been divinely ordered, says Otunba Michael Olasubomi Balogun, FCMB founder, in this exclusive interview preceding his 88th birthday coming up on March 9, 2022, with Osa Victor Obayagbona and Joshua Bassey. Excerpts:
When you started out as a young entrepreneur many years ago, you had some ambitions. But your businesses seem to have gone beyond your expectations. How do you feel about this sir?
It makes me humble. As I have always said, God is my guide and consummate supporter.
I started out as a stockbroker and with due appreciation to my God, I was the first Nigerian to single-handedly set up a stockbroking firm, just as I was also the first Nigerian to set up a merchant bank. I call it the grace of God.
Let me tell you one thing; a very well-known Nigerian who runs a financial institution, in fact, a conglomerate, once came to me and said, sir, you hardly speak for one or two minutes without referring to your God, and I smiled and said, you have said it all. Let me tell you a secret; all the businesses I have established, the good Lord had suggested them to me, and I have always been a pioneer.
Maybe you didn’t know that I only trained as a lawyer. Subsequently, the government of the then Western Region trained me in the British Parliament to be a parliamentary draftsman.
In my early thirties, I got another big job in a financial institution – the Nigerian Industrial Development Bank (NIDB). The institution was multifaceted and among many other things they were doing, they were also interested in what was happening in the capital market, capital issues, and stockbroking. It was a small subsidiary of the firm. And because of my divine gift of multi-tasking and being inquisitive, I got get there and I was made lawyer and secretary. But I started trying to see what else I could be involved in, and the stock exchange excited me.
Not long after that, the NIBD decided to send me to the World Bank in Washington and also to Wall Street New York, and I felt it was an opening. There, I met distinguished lawyers who were heading stockbroking firms. I met investment bankers who were there. When I returned from my training, I went to my bosses and said we should have an investment bank as our subsidiary. It took them some time to accept. I didn’t know what their reason was. Maybe they thought I was ambitious, but God has his ways of opening doors for me.
Suddenly, I was invited with another candidate, a chartered accountant and the first Nigerian woman to be trained as a chartered accountant, the late Mrs. Olutoyin Olakunri, and our bosses told us that both of you would be doing something about Icon Securities.
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This was a secondary job for me because I was sitting comfortably as the chief legal adviser and company secretary. I got there and I was excited. I remember going in London buses and seeing people reading the Financial Times. One day, I stood up from my seat and went to the man who was reading it and I said sir, are you looking for the result of the by-exams? I find that you’re always reading this. The man smiled and said I am a stockbroker. Every day, the stocks list from the London Stocks Exchange is always in the paper.
I am subdued by the overwhelming manifestation of God’s love and all I want to be doing is praising and thanking my God for letting me do what I have been doing
All these were preparations that were being divinely made. I was just being someone who wanted to do everything by nature. So whenever I arrived anywhere activities were going on, I showed interest. And as I said, two of us were appointed to be directors of Icon Securities and to be alternating the leadership of that subsidiary. And so we worked for some time, and it was advised that Toyin being an accountant should first take the shot.
A few months later, when I was given my own chance, I arrived in the office one day, and Toyin who was very closed to me walked in and said Subomi, I am resigning. I said why? She said I would be telling you. She had hardly left when my telephone rang and my boss, Silas Daniel, who was the group managing director, said Subomi come and see me. I went and he said to me sit down, Mrs Olakunri is leaving us, and you have to take that position as the head of the stockbroking subsidiary. I moved my things into Icon Securities Limited, a subsidiary of NIDB.
Somehow, fortune smiled on me again. The chief executive of the Stock Exchange turned out to be my former student, so he gave me a bit of trust, and I was given the privilege of handling the public sale of UAC which was the biggest conglomerate, the public sale of Nigerian Bottling Company, the public sale of a number of companies. A time came and we were going to incorporate ourselves into banking, my boss said, you can’t be given the job, you’re only a lawyer. I am going to redeploy you to your law, though practically, everybody in the business and in the stock exchange had seen me as the man of the moment.
Everybody knew about me as the man topmost in the stock exchange. I was distressed that I wouldn’t be given the job. I ran around to everybody I knew in Lagos and some people in the chamber of commerce. And my boss said, ‘well we could make him a director and he would be strictly in charge of the stock exchange’.
Let me say this; as human beings, we can wish for something, but it is the good Lord that decides what ultimately happens.
I was eventually posted to that place but not as the head because my boss had decided and I didn’t have any alternative. However, I wrote a petition to the federal government, but I didn’t get an answer.
One day I called my wife and said I want to resign. We have just built my first prestigious house in Victoria Island, which is now Founder’s Place, a big branch of FCMB.
I said I must resign. So I went to a friend’s office and asked ‘can you type me this letter?’ It was my letter of resignation. I went to the office the next very early and straight to my boss’ secretary and said, is ‘Oga’ in? She said yes he’s in. I said let me see him. The secretary said he is busy. I called the secretary by her first name and said Bisi, I want to see my boss this morning. When she saw my mood she was a bit scared; so she went in, informed my boss and came out to say, you can go in sir.
I went in and I said to my boss, ‘you made use of me to do this and do that, but you wouldn’t want me to be head of the subsidiary business. What you have not done for me, I am sure my God will do it. I threw my resignation letter on his table and that was the end of my career in NIDB.
One interesting thing was that my family and I had an altar or chapel for domestic prayers. One evening my wife said you didn’t hear what your son said, and I said no. My wife said he said he wanted you to set up your own company. I looked around and said ‘Oh yea of little faith.’ How can a nine-year-old boy have an idea of me setting up a company? So I went into the boy’s bedroom, he was already covering himself.
I said to him Babajide what did you tell your mummy? He said daddy I pity you. Why don’t you set up your own company? So I went back to my altar and prayed. I said oh my God, please show me the way. As I prayed, I started singing a chorus in Yoruba (Oh my God show me the way, don’t let me get into a wrong thing, show me the way of what I will do well) which many Christians sing in churches, especially in my part of Nigeria. That was the simple prayer. And went I thought I’ve had enough, I rose up. Somehow, the tune of another song came into my mind: “You cannot fail; you cannot fail, because of Jesus you cannot fail”.
I was amazed, so I went straight to my study next to my bedroom. I didn’t say a word to my wife. I was the lawyer that drafted the memorandum and article of association of the company I worked for. So I took it, adapted it, deleted Icon Securities and made all the subsequent amendments.
The following morning, I told my wife I am going to set up a company, type this for me. My wife had started as a confidential secretary. She was worried. She said you have a good job – she even told my mother, but my mother said let’s keep praying for him.
Why I keep referring to God is that the good Lord has done wonderful things around me. I only trained as a lawyer, I keep on saying that.
I made up my mind that if they won’t make me a boss, I was leaving. So I incorporated my own company known as City Securities. And when many friends asked me who my partners were, I said my God.
So I set up a stockbroking firm and gravitated to capital issues. I handled the sale of UAC, Daily Times, and many others. I was the one who first brought Coca Cola into the market. Then during the Nigerian Indigenisation Programme, there were four oil marketing companies. I handled three of them – Mobil, Texaco, and Total, except BP.
Everybody was wondering what was happening, and quite frankly, it was a miracle to me. And that’s why I have devoted my life to continue thanking my God and praising him.
Most of the things that have happened to me were divinely ordered, and for the rest of my life, even in eternity, I will continue appreciating my God.
City Securities was born and when I had succeeded in selling everybody’s shares, I said to myself why don’t I set up a bank? And one or two people in the Central Bank said I was crazy. In any case, God was projecting me and I was going. So I applied for a banking licence, single-handedly. And my licence was refused initially.
What role did Alex Ekwueme play in securing your banking licence?
By sheer coincidence, the then vice president of the country, Dr. Alex Ekwueme had been my friend for a long time. We were neighbours in Apapa, and when he went away during the Biafran war, I took care of his house.
So one day, we met in church, and I asked him, ‘Mr Vice President, where is my licence?’ He said ‘let’s get out of the church’.
He later told his handlers to give me his telephone number and other details. A young man I knew very well, the son of Akintola, a former Premier of the Western Region, Yomi Akintola, who had become a minister, telephoned me after some time and said ‘big brother, the vice president has asked me to tell you that your licence has been approved and everything would be okay’.
After some time, and with the indigenisation programme, I said I wouldn’t just want to remain an investment banker.
I started talking to the people in Central Bank and said give us one universal licence which would allow us to expand the scope of our operations and services. God also did it, and we became a universal bank, doing commercial banking and other things. I just can’t explain it, the whole thing is inexplicable. It is the amazing grace of the almighty God, my father and our maker. I am never short of words in calling God names for starting it for us and it has been going well.
Every year in commemoration of your birthday, you always have a project to tell God, thank you. This year, what is that iconic project you want to give to humanity?
Yes, that’s true. First of all, I want to thank my God for sparing my life. But please forgive me; I like to do my things quietly. The good Lord will continue to spare our lives. I have not finished with what God has directed me to do for my neighbours. I am here to serve my God and my neighbours. I have a lot of ideas and I am going on doing them. Out of the blues, about two years ago, the University of Ibadan decided to name their conference centre and hotel in my name. I have even forgotten what I did there.
I think I am subdued by the overwhelming manifestation of God’s love and all I want to be doing is praising and thanking my God for letting me do what I have been doing. And one of the things I am always afraid of is when I talk too much, they would say, he is always calling God as if that God belongs to him alone. But I have my reasons. My whole life is a manifestation of exceeding love, and I have dedicated myself to serving Him for the rest of my life. I pray to God, He is not inviting me yet.
When you established the bank, were there challenges that made you feel like would I succeed in this? And if there were, how were you able to navigate the thorns?
Hmm! I have a childish habit. Any time I want to do something. I would write it down and put it inside the Bible in my altar; I would be asking God just like I said when I wanted to start everything; my God show me the way, don’t let me make wrong choices. I would just throw myself into the arms of my maker and tell Him to help me. My whole life is a wonder to me. And I am saying it again, I only had a degree in law, but the ideas are just coming.
When you talk of FCMB, I was the first to conceive the idea of Group structure. We had what I call a financial supermarket. I had a stockbroking company, a capital issues company and then we set up the bank itself. And after that, I had an asset management company, pension management, etc. All the companies, I call them First City Group, and recently we changed the name to FCMB Group.
To be honest with you, I admit that I am not the one doing all this, the ideas just come to me and I don’t understand.
So I am spending the rest of my life just thanking my God and doing anything that the good Lord will guide me to do.
As regard challenges, I will say no one is greater than God. Once you embrace your God, whatever challenges you have would be subsumed in your divine achievements. For example, as I said earlier on, when we wanted a licence, someone said don’t give it to him, he is a friend of Awolowo. But I prefer talking about what God has done to focus on the challenges.
And at 88, I am not tired. I am still wearing suits like you young men because I believe the good Lord still has a lot of work to give me to do. So I have dedicated my life to serving Him.
As a pioneer in this industry given what the economy is like now. What do you think can be done?
I try not to talk about what somebody is doing right or wrong. Rather, I spend my quality time praying for this country. I tell you something; whenever I kneel down to prayer, I, first of all, thank my God. Then I thank Him for what He’s done for my wife, my family, my children, the FCMB Group, then to my neighbours, and then ask God to bless Nigeria. That’s the routine I go through every day.
In fact, when I was young, I remember I wrote a paper which I gave General Ibrahim Babangida about whether to devalue the naira or not. I did it because it was like I received a vision. Today, I can only pray that it shall be well with Nigeria because this country belongs to all of us.
Do you see Fintech companies as a threat to commercial banks?
Every bank is expanding into different businesses. Quite a lot of banks have diversified into pension funds management. And technology has been a critical instrument. In our own case, capital market and normal banking will meet together. If you are trying to raise money from the capital market, we have a company that handles that, if you want to buy shares from the Stock Exchange, we have a company that handles that.
And if you want to go into real banking, even mortgages, even as we speak, I hear that our bank is trying to help people who want to get their own homes, so we are doing everything. That was why I said I conceived the idea of Group Structure and with a due sense of modesty; I think I would be one of the people who first started the idea of Group. I called it First City Group. There are a lot of avenues a bank or a financial institution can go into.
And I am encouraging the younger bankers not just to limit their activities to core banking but to go into different aspects of financial services.
Truth is that what I would call financial assistance to communities is very wide, which may include what is today expressed as financial inclusion, where technology has become the vehicle. Fintech companies are merely complementing what the traditional financial institutions first started. For instance, FCMB is asking people to come and take money to build their own houses. At the same time, we’re getting strong in pensions; asset management, we’re trying to be financial advisers. That was the idea I had, I call it a financial supermarket. Any igneous banker would not just stay in mundane banking.
Let me emphasise this, there’s no end to what you can do with financial services. There is hardly anything that is not within the financial services today, which we generally call banking.
I started as a capital market man and I still recall people calling me ‘Colossus’, the ‘Grandmaster’ because I dabbled into many things. I was always seen in the market. The one thing I am thankful to God for is that He has always made me a multifaceted businessman.
Young CEOs should go beyond mundane banking, they should extend their tentacles, buy into other companies by acquiring their shares.
