In this engaging encounter, Wale Adenuga (MFR), Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of Wale Adenuga Productions Limited shares some of his experiences and success secrets with Ademola Olonilua and Eric Dumo
You were born into a privileged family, how was it growing up?
I was born around Ile Ife and had my primary education around that place and from there I went to secondary school at Ibadan. We used to do Higher School Certificate in those days and so I went to King’s College in Lagos before entering the University of Lagos in 1971 and finished in 1974. I did my youth service in the then Bendel State and got married in 1975. That was the end of the childhood and I became a man.
You studied Business Administration while at the University of Lagos but soon became a celebrated cartoonist on campus, how did you do this?
That is where talent comes in. I discovered my talent as early as when I was five. I realised I could draw very well, act and also sing because I really love music. At that early age when I was growing up around Gbogan/Ile Ife area, I was already good at drawing without any form of training. We used to watch the likes of Ogunde, Ogunmola and others who were always on tour with their drama crew. After watching these guys, I would come home and make drawings of what I had seen. That was how it started. Throughout my secondary school days, I was drawing and so by the time I got into the university, it wasn’t new to me anymore. I was drawing cartoons for two of the biggest campus magazines then and that was it. After graduation I decided to continue with publishing. We thank God everything turned out well.
But was it your childhood dream to turn cartooning into your profession when you grow up?
No! Even up till my secondary school days I didn’t know what the future held for me in the area of drawing, acting and music because as far back as when I was in form four, I already formed a school band and so I was active in these three areas. So, I was just doing my thing not planning to be in any one full time. These things were innate in me. I grew up with them and never knew how they got into me today.
How did you come up with the concept of ‘Ikebe Super’?
I was engaged in the business of publishing right from inside the campus. And so the interest after graduation became very profound. I became really hungry to continue with that and so during my youth service I was collecting jokes and cartoons and by 1976, I launched Ikebe Super magazine.
Coming from a privileged background, your parents must have wanted you to do something else other than the path you chose?
My father wanted me to run his tobacco business. He wanted me to be the permanent manager. I joined the company immediately after my youth service. My elder brother who was the general manager at the time had gone for further studies and so I took up the leadership of the business but I was gathering materials for the magazine. So, I was still working part-time with my dad when I started the magazine in 1976. The first edition was about 5, 000 copies and it sold out like wild fire. The second edition came to Lagos and that was when it dawned on me that if I really wanted to face this squarely, I had to move to Lagos. After working for about two years with my father, I left for Lagos.
So, how did your father take that?
He didn’t take it lightly. It was as if I was distorting his plans. He was not too optimistic that I would succeed because I remember him telling my mother that her son was about embarking on a suicide journey. He said, ‘Your son is going to Lagos to go and do magazine, can he compete with Daily Times, can he compete with Drum magazine?’ These were some of the words my father said to my mother. That I was going to shame myself because he was not too optimistic that I would succeed. My mother was crying that I should not go. I said, ‘Look, let me go and try my luck. I have tried this magazine on campus and it sold. Allow me to try this with the larger society and see what happens.’ That was how I set out on this journey.
And when things took a turn-around, what was your father’s reaction?
By 1978, money started rolling in. My father also owned an insurance agency that insured vehicles. I called him one day and said I wanted to insure two vehicles, he was surprised and invited me over. I explained some of the prospects of the business to him and he became very impressed so much so that he gave me one of his buses immediately to use for circulation.
At a point ‘Ikebe Super’ was printing as many as 500, 000 copies per edition, how did you do this?
In fact we were printing around 600, 000 copies per edition because it was a monthly magazine at that time. It was a unique idea and so competition was not an issue because when I was selling 200, 000 copies, others were not even selling 10, 000. And so the big corporations started competing with ‘Ikebe Super.’
I remember Concord Press owned by late Chief MKO Abiola started one cartoon magazine headed by one Gbenro Abioye but it didn’t last three months. And then Vanguard too came up with its own idea. In fact what the company did was very funny. My main cartoonist, Morakinyo, I bought him a new Passat car and he was to repay part of the cost from his salary but after four weeks, two gentlemen came from Vanguard to tell me that they were taking him away. I was laughing inside me because I thought that would not be possible because the guy was servicing the car loan. Before I could say anything further, the two men told me that they knew everything and that they were there with a cheque to cover the loan and three months in lieu of notice.
But what people did not know was that the ‘Ikebe Super’ cartoonists were not the ones generating the stories. I was the one sourcing the stories and they were just illustrating them. Vanguard did not know this and that was why they came for him.
It is notable that for the first four years of Ikebe Super magazine I was the only one drawing everything and sourcing the stories as well before I employed other cartoonists. When Vanguard took Morakinyo away, I continued drawing them until I got two others to do the job.
Competitors came in every form but I did not allow that to deter me. I have a simple strategy for fighting competition and that is to be the first to buy a competitor’s product and study it to know its strengths and weaknesses. I don’t fight competition with juju, I only study their products to know how to improve mine.
After ‘Ikebe Super’, you introduced other magazines like ‘Binta’ and ‘Super Story’ what was the reason behind this?
My own idea of business is about filling vacuums. When I see a vacuum, I want to fill it. When ‘Ikebe Super’ became successful, I started having some serious stories that could not be classified as comedy. I thought these stories should not come under comic but under another title so that people would know that one for serious stories. That was how ‘Super Story’ came into being two years after ‘Ikebe Super’.
Were the stories as a result of the things you saw around you at the time?
God never gives you an assignment without supporting you with the factors of production. If for instance he gave you a talent for music, everything around you would suddenly become an inspiration. It is at that time that you would begin to take note of how birds sing. For that person whose talent is to do music, even birds would inspire and give him ideas because the entire focus is on music.
I have a good sense of humour and so my interest is in reading jokes. The first time I went to London, I went to the biggest bookshop there and came back with three suitcases of books on jokes. I did not buy a single shirt or wrist watch. Till today if I travel abroad, I still invest in books to broaden my knowledge on jokes and humour. Sometimes I am sleeping and I get inspiration on jokes.
What do we mean by creativity? The only true creator is God. But then for those of us that are creative, some of these experiences give you an idea that can be very useful.
Your famous sign off ‘We are pencils in the hands of the creator’, suggest you could be a very spiritual person, is this the case?
Every human is 90 per cent spiritual and 10 per cent physical. That statement means a whole lot. If a carpenter uses a hammer to make a beautiful furniture, who do you praise? The carpenter or the hammer? The carpenter, of course because the brain of the hammer is in the carpenter’s hands.
It is the same with the pencil. If an artist holds a pencil and draws something very beautiful, who do you praise between the pencil and artist? The artist, no doubt. So, Wale Adenuga is a pencil, the person holding me and using me to draw all these things is God himself. That’s why I always project my products and not myself. If I am passing on the streets people don’t even know me, I like it that way.
The most valuable part of a pencil is the black thing inside which is surrounded by worthless wood. So, every human should understand that their most valuable asset is the brain, what we put on to cover the brain is immaterial. If your brain is solid and very productive, you can wear ordinary slippers and trousers and people will respect you. People who don’t have brains are the ones going for designer shoes and shirts just to cover up their lack of brains.
Like pencil, every human has the opportunity to use an eraser to clean off those parts that are bad and make them good. So, the pencil is a very valuable and unique creation.
We heard you started off with only N600, how true is this?
That amount might be too small, let’s assume it was a little higher. I left the university in 1974 and finished my youth service in 1975 and during the youth service we were paid some stipends and I was getting jobs at that time. But don’t forget that N600 had great value at that time. When I started Ikebe Super magazine in 1976, I took N10, 000 to Volkswagen of Nigeria and bought three cars and collected change.
What I am saying in essence is that I started with the little money I was able to save during my youth service and the money I got from the jobs I did for people.
I met a friend of mine called Kunle, I told him I wanted to go into magazine production because he was into printing. He asked how many copies I wanted to do and I told him we should just start with 5,000 copies. I gave him money to buy paper and start printing. A week later, he came with a sample of the artwork, I would correct and he would go back to effect the corrections. Then I gave him the balance and asked him to go and bring the 5,000 copies. First month, second month, third month, I didn’t see Kunle again. I started looking for him. I went to the press he was using in Ibadan owned by Areoye Oyebola. When I got there, I introduced myself and they told me that Kunle was a rogue and that he had duped a lot of people. I asked for the magazine he was printing and they told me that I should not mind him, that it was only one copy he was printing and not 5, 000 copies that I had paid him for. Kunle had disappeared with the money and I started crying. It was the owner of the press, Oyebola, who saw me, asked what the matter was and I narrated everything to him. He pitied me and said I should go and find money to buy paper and that he would be printing for me on credit, that as I was selling the magazine, I would be paying him. That was how I eventually started.
What were the other challenges you faced along the line?
Challenges are everyday experience. There are four major factors of production when you are in business. You have to deal with man, money, machine and materials. Out of these four, man is the most terrible and as long as you are dealing with man you should expect challenges at any time. It is man that poses the greatest challenge in any business because you cannot do everything alone, you have to employ people to work with you and out of every 12 there is a Judas.
What informed your switch from print to broadcast, precisely television?
As long as there is demand for your products, you must always look for a way to package it to suit the market. At a point when we were running the magazine, newsprint became very scarce and prices were going up. After a while, we decided to reach out to the people through other means. Africa Independent Television came in 1997 and so we decided to go into television.
Before 1997, Nigeria already had popular TV series and as far back as 1984 I produced a popular English comedy called Papa Ajasco.
Super Story is still a big hit, looking back and seeing all the success this has brought your way, how do you feel?
I feel fulfilled and happy. I feel there is room for improvement. We are praying for more strength and creativity to remain on top of this game.
At what point did you feel it was time to diversify your interest?
One thing led to another. We started Ikebe Super as a pure comic and later there was need for us to produce a serious one and so we shifted to Super Story. But we realised children were being left out, so we decided to do something for them and that was how Binta magazine started.
And the school?
Well, my wife has always been interested in school business. We met during studies at the University of Lagos. We pooled resources together and that was how the school came about.
You met your wife in the university and later married her, what really endeared her to you?
I would say it is compatibility. I was an artist in every sense and it could be difficult living with one because of our ideals and mindset. When I met my wife, we started interacting by reserving seats for each other and asking after ourselves. People would ask me in school sometimes where my wife was and I would say she was fine.
There were times I would want to impress her by asking that we go and eat in an expensive place but she would refuse and prefer that we go to the normal places where prices were also normal. These were things that really made me go for her. I am glad that I have her because she respects me and I respect her too. We are one soul in two bodies.
You also own WAP TV which is airing on pay TV, in the near future are we likely to see a radio station coming from your stable as well?
Five years ago, I had no dream of owning a television station. It had a chance meeting with some people in Abuja who told me they had been enjoying my stories and that I should be thinking of having a TV station. I told them if I had the license, I wouldn’t mind. One of them asked if I had ever tried, I said no. He said I should try and that was how I applied and got the license to start WAP TV. I didn’t apply for radio because I love pictures and so it was TV that really caught my fancy.
As much as you have enjoyed success, there definitely must have been criticisms, which particular one really rattled you?
No human is perfect. The only one that got to me in the past was the criticism that Ikebe Super magazine was immoral. People who felt that way mistook our product for other people’s magazine that was also very popular at the time, that was Lolly and it was just showing sex. It was so similar in outlook to Ikebe Super and a lot of people believed I was the publisher of that magazine. I was not. The publisher was one young guy in Ibadan.
If you look at Ikebe Super magazine from the first edition to the last, you won’t find anything related to sex in it. Another thing that informed this category of criticism was the page 3 girl. This was a universal phenomenon in publishing and not peculiar to Ikebe Super. That was the only incident that almost fetched my business bad image. Apart from that, I have managed to stay out of crisis and scandal through the help of God Almighty. I am not a person who attends social gatherings, I live a quiet life.
When the first cast of Papa Ajasco was changed, there were insinuations that the reason behind that might have been as a result of some of them going for a show without your knowledge, how true is this?
Papa Ajasco’s copyright resides in WAP. We raised this group and packaged them and brought them to limelight. There was a clear order forbidding them from cutting shows without the approval of the company. But they were in the habit of doing shows behind us. They did this several times but we pardoned them. However, there was this time somebody phoned from Benin and accused us of being in town without visiting because my wife is from Edo State. I told the person we were not in town but the person insisted that he just saw Papa Ajasco at a show in Benin. I was shocked. We investigated and found out it was true. I told the group that I already got wind that they were cutting a show in Benin and that they shouldn’t bother coming back. That was the end.
Pa James was not involved, they invited him but he didn’t go with them. The former Miss Pepeiye was also not involved. Later we took Papa Ajasco back after much pressure.
Away from all the wonderful stories we see on television through some of your productions, who is Wale Adenuga?
Well, since you have not read of any quarrel between me and my wife, it’s been a happy marriage. We have five lovely children who are all involved in family business. The second girl is the Managing Director of PEFTI right from inception; the first boy is the MD of WAP, while Wole, the second boy, is the MD of WAP TV.
I think having a successful and happy family is divine. We all pray for this and I think I have been blessed.
So, in essence you are confident that if tomorrow you are no longer around they can carry on with your legacy?
Even before leaving the scene, they are the ones doing everything you see today. They only call me when they want to get some clarifications. The succession is already ensured through God.
If you look back at life, what would you like to change about your journey so far?
I have enjoyed the ride. In all my endeavours, I have always been on top of my game. Throughout my primary and secondary education, I was at the top of my class. While at the university, I was at the top, my business has been on top, my marriage is on top and my children are also at the top. What else can I ask for? I think I am satisfied with my journey so far and I can only ask for long life and good health.
Copyright PUNCH.
All rights reserved. This material, and other digital content on this website, may not be reproduced, published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed in whole or in part without prior express written permission from PUNCH.
Contact: editor@punchng.com