Director General of NIESV Learning Centre, Mr. William Odudu, shares his experiences with BOSEDE OLUSOLA-OBASA
Tell us about your background
I was born in a remote village near Sapele, a place that people call Jesse, for ease of pronunciation. The actual spelling is Jere. But I grew up in Sapele and attended St. Patrick’s Primary School and St. Malachi’s Secondary Grammar School, before proceeding to the United Kingdom for further education. I was just a young man of about 16 when I travelled abroad. I stayed there for 10 years before returning to Nigeria. I got a Bachelor’s degree in Estate Management from the University of London and a Masters’ degree in Urban Land Appraisal from the University of Reading. As a young surveyor, I worked with the Sheffield Corporation and then moved to the Greater London Council where I worked briefly before returning to Nigeria in January 1974 as a senior lands officer with the Kwara State Ministry of Lands and Survey on contract. I was there for about three years and ended up as a principal lands officer before I left in 1976 to found a firm of estate surveyors and valuers. Ever since, I have been practising the profession that has taken me all over the country. I started in Ilorin, and now I have branches in Kano, Benin, Warri, Kaduna, Maiduguri, Abuja and Lagos. Currently, I am more in Lagos than any other place. I moved from Ilorin to Lagos in 1990, where I have more activities going on for me. Moreover, I was preparing to take over as the president of the Nigerian Institution of Estate Surveyors and Valuers. I needed about two years to prepare for that assignment. One year after this, I became the president of the Association of Professional Bodies of Nigeria. Again, that kept me in Lagos because I had to be here most of the time. After serving as president of APBN, I had to remain in Lagos. However, before then, I was involved in a movement for the Kwara State Chamber of Commerce. I eventually rose to become the president of KWACCIMA for about five years. At a point, I led all the chambers of commerce in the North to Niger Republic to a special meeting. Since I moved to Lagos, I have been involved in church activities and I am very active in the elders’ forum. Before I moved to Lagos, I seldom attended church services.
Why were you not attending church services?
I was very busy chasing money. So, I had very little time to go to church. But as I got older, I realised that chasing money was like chasing shadows. I decided to change. Now, I spend more time in church activities.
What influenced that decision?
You know when one has moved round and seen or done many things, one begins to ask himself questions. Is it money, women or fame you want? You already have it. So what is the problem? After some time, you feel that you have to focus on God and you decide to put aside material things. You know, when you are young, you think that you can touch the sky by merely stretching your hands. But when I passed the age of 50, it occurred to me that I would have to do more in order to touch the sky. One begins to look towards spiritual things at that age. In fact, in 2002, I had to go back to Bible College. I studied the Holy Bible at the Redeemed Bible College for one year. After that, I went back again for two years to study theology because I wanted to know more about the Bible. That took me away from my profession for some time and it was very exciting. Also it reduced the rate at which I travelled. In those days, I used to do about 30,000 km by road in Nigeria every month.
Why not by air?
In those days, air travel was not so exciting because you had to spend a whole day at the airport waiting to board a plane. I had offices all over the country. I could find myself in Sokoto today and the next day, I would be heading toward Maiduguri. Before the end of that week, I would move toward Enugu or Port Harcourt. I was based in Ilorin. I was going round the country and returning to Ilorin. It was the early days of my private practice and I wanted to monitor what was happening in all the branches. So I was everywhere every month. But, since I moved to Lagos, I hardly do 1,000 km in a month. Besides, with the advent of GSM, I can communicate with my employees across the country without being there.
How was growing up?
I was a typical naughty boy. I was born in an area that was equivalent to Ajegunle. It is the roughest part of Sapele. When you grow up there, you can’t be a normal person; you grow up like an area boy. We got used to it, managed to go to school and still emerged successful in life. It was a good experience because you had the privilege to mix with all kinds of people. So, when you come out of there and make something out of life, you thank God for it. My father was a hardworking and mobile trader. He travelled on his bicycle a lot selling cocoa. For many years, we did not see him and that brought us closer to our mother. She was the one that moulded us. We lived the typical village life. We went to farm in the morning and returned in the evening. I remember my dad travelling as far as Auchi in Edo State to buy cocoa for sale. He did that for many years. Yet, he came home once in a while. My mum was a very simple and resourceful woman. But she was not educated. After I travelled abroad, I never returned to the village to live with them again. Even when I returned to Nigeria, I stayed outside my hometown to work in Kwara State. I was in Kwara when my father died sometime in the 1980s. My mum died 15 years later. I lived with my parents during the first 16 years of my life. I come from a very large polygamous family. My mum had eight children and I am the seventh child. My father had children from other wives, though not many. By the time he died, he had 14 surviving children and over 100 grandchildren. My mum had over 150 grandchildren and great grandchildren. It is now a very large family. The members of the Odudu family are spread across the world: in London, Japan, Canada, USA, Germany and Ghana, coming from such a simple background.
Why did you choose Ilorin as your base?
After spending about four years studying and six years working in the UK, I had a strong urge to return to Nigeria. I didn’t just want to come home; I wanted to come home with a job. So I went to the embassy and told the recruitment officer there that I wanted to go home. I asked him to send my application as a surveyor to all the states in Nigeria and to wherever I found a job. I actually got job offers in many states of the federation. But, somehow, I did not know that the officer in charge of recruitment was a native of Kwara State. Without letting me know, he held on to appointments from other states and gave me the one from Kwara because the state ministry of lands and survey had only one qualified surveyor and they needed to recruit one urgently. They gave me employment there. Later, I found out that former Bendel State and Lagos State gave me jobs, but the man at the embassy kept them from my knowledge until I had accepted the Kwara offer. Since I had never travelled beyond Oyo State before I moved to England, I was excited about the Kwara offer as it was an opportunity to see another part of Nigeria. I returned to Nigeria with my wife and children from the UK to accept the offer. In January 1974, I started work in Kwara as a civil servant, just as I had worked for six months in local governments England as a civil servant. It was however more challenging in Kwara because as a senior land officer, I had a responsibility to go round the state to work. So, I did a lot of travelling. It was exciting and in three years I made an impact in the state civil service. As a young man, I decided to leave and start my practice because they were not prepared to give me permanent employment. In those days, the state policy was that the key positions must be reserved for the natives of the state. I took an assessment of my rise and discovered that I would soon reach the peak of my career in the state. The highest that I could go in the administrative structure was to become the deputy head of the department, though I was opportune to act as the head. As a young man of about 30 years, I decided that remaining there would restrain my progress. I left there after three years. I got offers to lecture in universities and to work in housing corporations, but I chose to start my own business. While I was going on that, I took it upon myself to offer free lectures in some universities in Nigeria. I lectured as a visiting lecturer for 13 years in the University of Ife. That was in the 1970s. I had a strong drive to impact what I had and develop the profession. I lectured in the University of Lagos and at the Kwara State Polytechnic and Ramat Polytechnic in Maiduguri, among others. At the same time, I was very active in the education committee of the Nigeria Institution of Estate Surveyors and Valuers as chairman for 17 years. I was a member of council. After that, I rose to be the vice president and eventually president of the NIESV. I was appointed a member of the Senate of Unilag for five years – during the tenure of Prof. Jelili Omotola and partly that of Prof. Oye Ibidapo-Obe. That was very exciting for me.
Why are you so interested in teaching?
I just discovered that I had the urge to teach, to impart knowledge.I had looked forward to teaching after returning from overseas. I did some teaching while in secondary modern school. I did that for six months before travelling abroad. In those days, with government class four, one could teach in a secondary school. I remember that because of my commitment at the University of Ife, my employers, the Kwara State Government approved one day off for me to go and lecture at the polytechnic, mainly to train those that would teach students of the institution in future. I was doing all the lecturing without earning a salary. That is why even now, what I do at the Redeemed Christian Church of God is teach in the Sunday school.
Would you have made teaching your second profession?
When I went abroad, I applied to a number of universities to study law, but I wasn’t offered admission. Then I tried Economics, but that did not work out too. I was bent on attending the University of London. So, when I took a closer look at the brochure of the university, I found estate management under the Department of Economics. I had never heard of the course or considered it before then. But since it was under economics, I decided to settle for it. I applied and was offered admission to study the course. When I got to the college to register, I experienced something that attempted to discourage me. I met a man there who said that nobody outside the United Kingdom had successfully gone past the second year of that programme in that university, since it started offering the course.
Why?
I took it as a challenge. After registering for the programme, I discovered that I had to take a mixture of courses. It was a basket of all the sciences and one had to really work hard. With determination, I became the first non-British to study the course beyond the second year. And for a long time after graduating from the university, I remained the only foreigner to have successfully completed that programme. It was a three-year programme, but many people ended up staying on it for seven years. I did it in three years and it was very challenging. At that point, I understood what the man at the registration point meant years ago. You need a broad mind to study estate management. Even back here in Nigeria, by the time you are through with studying the course, it feels as if you have not learnt anything. But I don’t think I have lost anything because many lawyers now go to study estate management.
How did you manage to travel abroad at 16 years?
I was just fortunate to have an elder brother who lived abroad at the time. It was very easy to travel in those days. There were no constraints. As a young man, all I needed was for my brother to pay my fare that was £76 one way and a lot of money in 1964. I just needed to apply for my passport and it was posted to me in due course, I didn’t have to bribe anybody. To get my visa, I had to travel to the British Embassy in Ibadan, Oyo State. As a boy of 16, I left Sapele to the Lagos Airport, checked in and travelled abroad. Nobody accompanied me. But today, you need to accompany a boy of 20 years to the airport.
How close were you to late Dr. Olusola Saraki?
As a young professional in Kwara some 35 years ago, he graduated as a medical doctor. He came to Kwara with the intention of settling in Ilorin, the state capital. He was unknown. But somehow, he came into prominence during Festac ’77 because of the money he made from contracts and thereafter, he became a super rich man. He became what people would refer to as the king maker of the state and he remained so until his death. Although it slipped from him about two years before he died. That was when he could no longer decide who should be the governor of the state. He kept installing people until he wanted his son, Bukola, to be governor, and so was it. But he failed woefully when he said his daughter should be and the people revolted. He was indeed a strong man of Kwara. I had an experience with him that I can’t forget. It was a nasty one; I did not find it funny. I was on tour; he sent for me. I arrived in Ilorin from Lagos, I went to his house to see him (you know as the king maker, he sent for everybody). I told his personal assistant that I had come to see him on his request. The place was full of dignitaries. In his big living room in those days, he was the only one that sat on a chair, everyone else – including ministers and governors sat on the floor. So, I waited outside for words from his PA. That was in the 80s; I saw the PA (a retired Permanent Secretary) go on his knees and crawl from the door to the point where Saraki was seated, and whispered to his ears that Chief Odudu had come to see him. The protocol in that place could not allow him to walk up to Saraki. The most annoying aspect was that he said he had forgotten when he sent for me. The man crawled back again to the door to give me his reply – a retired PS! In fact, I was so angry at what I saw and heard that I told him to go and tell Saraki that when he remembers, he should then come and see me. That was the last that I saw of him. I felt very bad because my job had given me access to many great people including the Emir of Ilorin, who in those days, did not allow me to even remove my shoes to enter his palace, not to talk of crawling to him.
Would you have broken protocol if he had asked you to come?
I would have walked up to him and I would have sat on a seat. I would not have crawled to him. Even whenever I visited Tunde Idiagbon as the Chief of Staff (Supreme Headquarters), we would sit on chairs and never on the floor and ditto when he visited me. I never had to remove my shoes. When he came to Kwara, he was a simple person, we were very close and age mates. Over the years, I had reasons to cross Saraki’s path again a number of times. There was a time he did not want any Awo man to have a secretariat in Kwara, but I offered a campaign headquarters to Cornelius Adebayo of the Action Group. There was trouble then in Saraki’s camp and that made way for Adebayo to emerge as governor. Adebayo made me one of his advisers.
When and how did you meet your wife?
We met and got married in England and we later returned to Nigeria with the children. She is Jamaican. It took a while before she could adjust to the new clime; but she did eventually. It is like every demand of change.
How was it possible for a village-bred like you to marry a non-Nigerian?
For the first three years, I deliberately did not look at anything else but study my books. I wanted to fulfil the goal that I had been told was impossible. After that, I started thinking of settling down. I got married at age 22. That is unlike now when people don’t get married until they are 30 and above. I observed that in our days, people became mature early than what applies today. I didn’t have any sentiments about marrying a Nigerian.
Are your children falling in love with your profession?
Yes, my second son did Estate Management, he is practising in England. My third son heads my branch office in Abuja. One of my daughters studied Estate Management; but she is not yet practising the profession.
Tell us about your course at NIPSS?
My experience at Kuru was very fantastic; I was there for one year. You have people from the civil service and the organised private sector. I was lucky to have been picked that year to represent the sector in 1989. I was then the vice president of KWACCIMA. I enjoyed being with military officers; it was very exciting. In my course year, we have produced a vice president for Nigeria, we have produced the top military security adviser – Akilu; we have produced Chris Garuba, who was a Garrison Commander; Alison Madueke, who became the head of the navy; Mike Akhigbe, Osayande, Ugbaja, a retired DIG; Joseph Makoju. In Kuru, you were schooled to take the top position wherever you are. They train you to be a leader, wherever you are, you must get to the top. People like Oshiomhole went to NIPSS. We call it the school of leaders. It is supposed to confer you with the status – Member of the National Institute; but we mischievously call it – Mafia of Nigeria Incorporated. There is no time you will not find an MNI in key positions in the country – they are everywhere. When you get back from NIPSS, you are aiming for the highest; when I returned from there, I emerged as president of APBN. Those days, we paid nothing; it was an all expense-paid experience. But it is sad that under the democratic dispensation, it is not being given enough recognition.
How did you get into NAL Bank?
I was known as a property man so I was appointed a director of the Board of NAL Bank – it’s now part of Sterling Bank. That was during the regime of Buhari and Idiagbon; I was chairman of the property committee that built NAL Towers.
Why haven’t you been considered for a national award?
I cannot beg for it. There is time for everything; it gets to a stage when one is called up and honoured for his contributions. You don’t need to blow your own trumpet; though sometimes one has to do so.