Billionaire Femi Otedola has recounted how struggling with academics made him drop out of high school and steer him into the world of business.
Speaking in the newly released 286-page memoir, ‘Making It Big’, Otedola, 62, revealed how he started his education at the University of Lagos Staff School in 1968.
The energy mogul disclosed that his university education was marred by consistently poor performance.
“My parents enrolled me at the University of Lagos Staff School in 1968, at the age of six.
“Kola Abiola — the first son of Chief Moshood Abiola, the future business magnate and presidential candidate who was at the time an accountant — sat beside me in class.
“But there was something about academia and me; we were not compatible. I finished primary school in 1974 because I repeated a class. Even when I was allowed to pass, I consistently anchored the bottom rungs of our end-of-term examination results. My interests were definitely not in academia,” Otedola said.
After the completion of his primary school, Otedola proceeded to Methodist Boys’ High School, Lagos, where his academic struggles continued.
“The school had been founded almost a hundred years earlier, in 1878. Alumni include grand names in Nigerian history: Benjamin Nnamdi Azikiwe, Mobolaji Johnson, Ola Rotimi, Fola Adeola, Olusegun Osoba and Hezekiah Oladipo Davies.
“When I joined the student body in 1974, the principal was D. A. Famoroti, who’d taken up the post in 1963 and would leave in 1980,” he recalls. “I started Form 1 at age 12 and was there for three years.”
When it became obvious that his performance was not improving, Otedola’s parents had him transferred to Olivet Baptist High School, Oyo, a boarding school founded by Southern Baptist missionaries in 1945.
“My parents’ thinking was that all my siblings were boarders, and they seemed to be doing well. They thought this change would help turn around my attitude towards academia, but nothing changed.
“I started in Form 3 at Olivet, and as I rounded off the first year of my A Levels, my father was establishing his printing company, Impact Press, in Surulere, a residential and commercial district in Lagos State.
“I grew fascinated with the machines and told myself that my future would be inextricably tied to them. I managed to remain in school until the Lower Sixth examination was over. And then, I was finished; I never returned for my Upper Sixth.
“All I wanted to do was get involved in business. My father kept watch over me and drew me close. My sister taught me shorthand. I knew how to type and began typing letters for my dad. I prepared all his business correspondence.
“I was fascinated by the way printing machines treat paper. The white paper is placed on one end, the ink and plates are fixed, and the printed material comes out of the other end. It was captivating.”
Ignoring his mother’s protests, Otedola left school to work full-time in his father’s printing business. His rise was astronomical, becoming managing director of Impact Press in 1987 at the age of 25.
“However, I soon became restless. I had immersed myself in all aspects of the business and learned the ropes at my dad’s right hand. I certainly enjoyed the job more than grappling with the Pythagoras theorem and struggling through homework at Olivet.
“As time went by, though, I also thought it was time for a measure of independence from my dad.
“I still wanted to work for him — I really enjoyed hearing the rumbling of machines and savouring the smell of freshly printed material — but I also wanted to do things differently.
“I told him I wanted to become a sales consultant for the press, and he agreed. He said he would pay me a commission of 10–15% on any work I brought in.
“That was a significant break for me. I invested my money in buying cars for sales and marketing outreach and moved on to the next phase in my nascent professional life,” Otedola penned.
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