In 1999, I was a staff of Habib (Nigeria) Bank Limited (present Keystone Bank Plc) in the office of Company Secretary/Legal Adviser at the Head office, Shehu Musa Yar’adua House, Ali Akilu road, Kaduna. As a person that has always been interested in politics, I took my annual leave in the month May to help in the political campaigns leading to the 1999 elections in my local government area of Fufore.
Sen. Bello Tukur and I supported Alh. Atiku Abubakar as gubernatorial candidate of the PDP in Adamawa state hoping that he, Bello, would be Finance Commissioner in Atiku’s cabinet, if Atiku wins. Atiku actually won but Obasanjo picked him as Vice President. Consequently Atiku decided to make his running mate Mr. Boni Haruna Governor while Sen. Bello became Deputy Governor. As I had no ambition for political office then, I went back to my office at Kaduna after my annual leave.
On resuming in Kaduna, I found a letter of transfer to Lagos. That was a time when the O’dua People’s Congress (OPC) led by Ganiyu Adams were killing northerners in Lagos. Some of my colleagues in the bank laughed and mocked me for accepting to move to Lagos on transfer at that time. But I saw the transfer as an opportunity.
First, because I was no stranger to Lagos having attended the Nigerian Law School, Lagos in 1986/87 when it was the only law school in Nigeria. Secondly, I also served National Youth Service Corps (NYSC) in Lagos incidentally in two places; Federal Ministry of Justice at Marina, Lagos and later the Institute of Chartered Accountants of Nigeria (ICAN) at Idowu Taylor street, Victoria Island, Lagos when the institute requested for a Youth Corps lawyer, which my boss in the ministry, Mrs. Ebun Ekpo from Akwa Ibom state, found me fit and recommended me.
Being in Lagos gave me tremendous opportunity of meeting people I cannot forget. Chief (Mrs) Olutoyin Olakunri (OFR), the first female chartered accountant in Africa was President of ICAN with whom I worked. Miss Ashley Dejo was Secretary to council and Mr. Ajayi was her assistant. I also met one Miss Adams from Edo with whom I shared office space and one Miss Cordelia, an Igbo lady from Delta who was doing all our typings. Again after my youth service, I worked briefly with the legal firm of Ola Akpalara and co. at Okesuna street behind NIPOST building at Lafiyaji, Lagos Island. So I went to Lagos from Kaduna knowing fully well that I was no stranger to the city.
I also took the opportunity of the transfer (which many saw as a problem) without complaining because that was the time the bank finished undergoing restructuring that created a Regional office (South) in Lagos that supervised branches in southern part of the country including Ilorin and Badeggi branches in the North.
I didn’t complain of the transfer also because I was made the Pioneer Head of the newly created Legal Unit in the Bank’s Regional office at Moshood Abiola House, Keffi Street/Awolowo road in Ikoyi, Lagos. I had been upgraded to a Deputy Manager and Head of the Legal Unit with some lawyers under me. I was the boss (the Oga) quite unlike in the head office, Kaduna where I had three other lawyers that were my seniors in the Legal department.
My immediate boss in Lagos regional office was Mr. Abiodun Agbaje from Abeokuta, a very kind man, who was Deputy General Manager (DGM) under a General Manager, Mr. Anwar Chaudry, a Pakistani.
In the management team of the Regional Office were executives that included Mr. Oladele Ademoyewa, Mr. Lai Adeyemi, Mr. Dipo Akintonde, Mrs. Titi Adebiya, Mr. Bolaji Shenjobi and myself as Secretary/Legal Adviser. We interacted very well and learnt a lot from each other. I really enjoyed working with them and we remain friends till date. What others saw as problem has been turned to opportunity; opportunity of working with Yoruba guys in the south that opened a whole world of new friendship for me.
Like in Kano where I was from 1991-1994, where I me many good people who impacted my life, in Lagos too I have met clients from the south who were kind and helpful. There was Mr. Rasaki A. Oliyide, owner of Kings Cross Argo-Allied Company Ltd., Ibadan whose relationship with me started in Lagos but blossomed in Abuja when I was PA to the Minister of Agriculture from 2001-2006. Through my new contacts, I made some money with which together with the housing loan I took from the bank, I built my first house in Fufore located at Ribadu road, Fufore. Another opportunity offered by the transfer to Lagos for which others laughed at me.
One other opportunity that came to me while I was in Lagos was that of meeting Yemi Osinbajo. One day in the afternoon of a Monday in the year 2001 after I prayed Zuhr prayer in the mosque at the basement of the office building, I went up to my office on the second floor and met a message from my immediate boss, Mr. Abiodun Agbaje, that I should see him in his office immediately. I rushed upstairs to the third floor and met him in his office with Mr. Lai Adeyimi and a diminutive man with bushy hair wearing a small cap on his head. I recognised him from his pictures I watched on television.
Mr. Agbaje said to me “Barrister Sadiq, please meet Mr. Yemi Osinbajo, SAN Attorney General of Lagos state”. Mr Osinbajo was Attorney General and Commissioner of Justice of Lagos state from 1999-2007.
I respectfully stretched out my hand, bent down a little and shook the warm hands of my learned senior. In the legal profession we are regimented like the military. We respect our seniors even if they are a day older at the Bar. For Osinbajo I also bowed because of his mastery of the English language and for his outstanding knowledge of the law which I discovered from watching him on television explaining legal matters as Attorney General or when defending the state government as Commissioner of Justice during President Obasanjo’s fight with Tinubu over Lagos state local government funds which the president withheld because Tinubu had created ‘additional local government areas’ which he had no legal power to do.
My boss asked me to please register Mr. Osinbajo’s legal firm as one of our external solicitors. I obliged immediately. That was the first time I saw Mr. Osinbajo.
The second time I saw Mr. Osinbajo was even more remarkable. It was precisely on Tuesday March 10, 2015 at Yola International Airport after Buhari had nominated him as running mate for the 2015 presidential election. He came to Yola for an interactive session with leaders of Adamawa State Christian Association of Nigeria (CAN) to plead with them to urge their congregations to vote for APC in the forthcoming 2015 elections.
Mr. Babachir Lawan, Buhari‘s main man in Adamawa state organised the interaction following fears that Christian leaders in Adamawa would ask Christians not to vote for APC because of allegations that APC was a Muslim party, Buhari would Islamise Nigeria and that Boko Haram was a Muslim design to annihilate Christians in the north. Babachir had the belief that being a cleric himself and the Vice Presidential candidate, Osinbajo would convince Christians, through their leaders, to vote for APC.
When Osinbajo arrived Yola Airport, I was there to receive him together with Bindo and Martin Babale all of us having won our primary elections and were candidates in the forthcoming elections. When I shook his hand and introduced myself, especially when I told him about our encounter in my boss’s office in Habib Bank in 2001 and that I had won my primary election, Mr. Osinbajo drew me aside as we worked towards his motorcade. He whispered to me that I would win my election to the House of Reps. by God’s grace. And I did.
After he delivered his speech in WEEN hall at 80 Units Quarters, Jimeta-Yola, I walked up to the stage, stretched out my hand and greeted him. He spoke matter-of-factly and eloquently too. The man has a retentive memory because as soon as we again greeted, he said “Oh! The Hausa man who was heading the Legal Unit in Habib Bank, Lagos” and I nodded my head with a smile.
While I still laugh at those who mocked me when I was transferred to Lagos, the lesson is that you can turn to opportunities, what others see as problems. The opportunities of accepting my transfer to Lagos without complaining are enormous.
Mrs. Ekpo of Federal Ministry of Justice recommended me to ICAN, Chief (Mrs.) Olakunri (may her soul rest in peace) invited me to Owo, her hometown, for the wake keeping of her father (who died before her) and had assisted me in 2020 when she was head of ETF to which she President Obasanjo appointed her that year. I met her in Lagos. Miss Ashley Dejo gave me an excellent recommendation when I finished my youth service for which, if I had wanted it, I would have worked with ICAN.
Since 2015, I had met Vice President Yemi Osinbajo on a number of occasions and he has never forgotten who I am. Going to Lagos on transfer enabled me to have met him. So who knows what would Osinbajo be next? Who knows also what I would be next? You can turn into opportunities, what others may see as problems.
Therefore I urge you not to refuse to go on transfer to any town nor refuse transfer to any department in your place of work. I also urge that you relocate from your comfort zone, if necessary.
Arzikinka yana neman kane, kai kuma ka nemeshi. In kana zaune wuri guda ma arzikinka zaije ya sameka. But I think you will meet it faster and bigger if you go searching for it at the place where opportunities abound.
Go search for opportunities. They abound in this country and elsewhere.
Dasin is a former member of the House of Representatives for Fufore/Song Federal Constituency.
