Dr (Mrs) Oluwayemisi Olorunshola is the chairman of Wema Bank PLC. She is also the president of Egbe Omo Ilara-Mokin in Ondo State. In this interview with Femi Ajape, she speaks on her upbringing and efforts to develop Ilara-Mokin and build its youthful population. Excerpts:
You are a boardroom executive, being the chairman of Wema Bank PLC, and you still squeeze out time to engage in communal activities, what is your inspiration for this?
I’ve always been a family person and my definition of family over the whole ages is from my nuclear family with extended family, with the community or friends, my classmates, my community and society where I grew up. So it’s always my interest to see to the wellbeing of companies, and story of people that are called family. So my society in Ilara-Mokin is a family, and I’m very, very interested in seeing the development and the growth of llara-Mokin. I realized that an opportunity to do this come by way of participating in community activities. So when the opportunity came up for Egbe Omo llara-Mokin Presidency, I decided to have a go at it so that I can contribute my own quota to the development of my community.
How does your root in Ilara-Mokin contribute to your accomplishments in life?
Very well, to a very good extent. You see, I am from a family that is known for two things-discipline and love for education, so these built on the premise of a family that love God, a Christian family. And this has helped to shape the kind of person that I am. I mean my family. There are some things that I cannot do in my family because I would get disciplined doing them.
It is normal hearing things like ‘you can’t do this because no one has ever gone to jail in our family, or they don’t steal in our family’, so these are some of the things that kept us in check in the family while growing up. And any violation of the rule, then one is in trouble. Let me give you an example; when I was growing up, we used to do morning prayer, and we had a timetable for the person that would anchor the prayer meeting for the day. So the anchor would ring the bell for the whole household to wake up for prayer that morning and if anyone overslept and Baba woke up to do it, at the end of the meeting, the person would collect. By ‘collect, I mean the person would be flogged. So that’s the level of discipline that we have and till today,, when I am reading the book of Psalm, for example, some portions are just in my brain. So with that discipline that I had and education and God’s grace, I am where I am today.
Since you became the president of Egbe Omo Ilara-Mokin, what can you say you have been able to achieve?
Well, first, I want to give God all the glory because it is by His grace that we have been able to achieve a lot of things. Well, I must confess to you that it has been a glorious regime. God has really, really made it easy for us. When I came on board, I had to ask myself some questions. How could we really work for the development of Ilara-Mokin? I thought of how to raise funds to embark on projects. Our main source of fund is the money that we raise on Mokin Day, so from that stage, I began speaking with the chairmen of different branches, both in Nigeria and abroad. I learnt from them how we could further develop our community We also rubbed minds on the best approach to take and one of encourage people to sponsor projects themselves and in that way, they could go along according to their purse, and we have achieved a lot through this. Again, I spoke on Mokin Vision 2030. How we want Ilara-Mokin to be in 2030. So to achieve a community of our dreams, we must focus on education; we also need security. We need extra services to develop data developers. There’s actually a booklet that I got, and I was able to go through. And it’s a body of very sound people, sound professionals. So when 1 read this, I have no question that this is like a roadmap that will guide us on how to go about this assignment. So of course we made it known to people, now if you want to do this, if you want to take off a project, we have these two classrooms, we have water projects, we have rural electrification project, we have something to do in the health sector.
Different things that will lead to the development of the town, of course, some things also came up and because of some things that happened, for example, the fence around the police station was done as a result of a protest that came up and became the youth of Ilara-Mokin wanted to attack the police station, so they felt that they were too exposed, and therefore they needed something to at least act as the first form of protection before one gets into the station. And so that’s how it has been.So people identify those who can also help us and I call to speak with them. Also, there are associations too, like my old school’s associations; they have all been wonderful. I give God the glory.
What do you believe are the most pressing issues facing Ilara-Mokin today?
I would say one of the biggest challenges that we have in Ilara-Mokin has to do with the development of our youths, and this is not unconnected with the vices of today. And then the influence of family: nobody dropped from heaven. Everybody comes from one family or the other. I told you earlier that there are some things that we could not do when we are growing up, because we knew that if we did them, we would be disciplined. So you know, as the world develops, varieties and virtues also develop at their own pace. So it’s no longer like we used to do that time. I mean, these days of Internet, so what somebody does in China, now you can share it with someone in Nigeria within a second, and you see what’s happening there. And like in our time, if you needed to make a telephone call, you either go to Nitel in Akure that time to make calls or find someone who had a landline at home, so today, everything is at your fingertips. Now that we have this major technological breakthrough but then, everything have two sides to it. There are numerous things we can do with our phones, internet, social media, people have become millionaires just by trading legitimately on their social media platforms. Also, again, there are negative uses; we see how these influence people, especially the youth, in wanting to get rich quick without working. So there are good and bad aspects to the internet, and we are also looking to ensuring that our younger ones embrace the positive aspects, to build themselves up, set up businesses, connect with clients and so on.
You are a role model to the young people in Ilara-Mokin; once they see you, they can also be inspired to dream big, so what advice can you give to the young people in Ilara-Mokin who would like to also replicate your success?
Okay, I’ll say the same thing that I have said before. It is God’s help, my belief in Jesus Christ. That is the solid path that anybody can follow. Because whatever it is that you will become in life, if there is no God in it, then it is zero. So, the first thing is for them to have the fear of God. When you have the fear of God, you will do everything according to established rules, you won’t involve yourself in crime, and you will do good to your neighbours. So when you have that fear of God, it is that fear that will now propel you. There are some things that you cannot do. Like Joseph said in the Bible, he said, ‘How can I do this and sin against God? So fear of God is what I want to preach first for them. They have to have God in their lives, they have to be responsible to their maker. And then secondly is they should know where they come and respect their heritage. I said it earlier that in my family, they would always remind us who we are. They would tell us, we don’t go to jail in our family, so in our dealings, we put all these at the back of our minds, and it has helped to instil discipline and integrity in us.
Also, they should respect their elders and learn from them and finally, they should always be engaged in productive work. We all know that an idle hand is the devil’s workshop. Doing something legitimately will not give room for them to be keeping bad friends or taking had drugs because once they are done with their businesses for the day, they would be so tired and just go home to rest with their families. It is also important to focus on their education. Education does not make one rich, but it opens one’s horizon to see opportunities that can make one rich. With the advent of the internet, they can even learn new ways of doing things and this will boost their profile.
How are you fostering greater collaboration among indigenes of Ilara-Mokin to drive development in the community?
The root of collaboration starts from the community. If my father is quarrelling with your father, yourself and myself cannot collaborate. If my quarter is fighting with your quarter, then we cannot collaborate. So to achieve good collaboration, we first need to develop that bond among ourselves; we must see ourselves as one. Number two is the need to take community effort seriously. Community effort is not just one person. And as we want to raise N500 million fund, you can imagine if everybody in Ilara-Mokin contributes just, N1000. Do you know it will go a long way? So we must not say, ‘I am not a millionaire, then I can’t do anything.” Everybody has something to offer, and that is why community effort is important. We must also jettison the idea of Ilara-Mokin did not do this for me. What did Ilara-Mokin do for Chief Michael Ade-Ojo? If Ilara-Mokin did not do anything for you, why don’t you do something for it so that it will be on record that you contributed to the development of the community. Having said this, I want to appreciate the sons and daughters of Ilara-Mokin. There is nobody I have called in the last three years that has not supported us. Once I introduce myself as the president of Egbe Omo Ilara-Mokin, they are always happy and ready to assist for the development of the community.
Thank you very much, ma. How can we celebrate and preserve the rich cultural heritage of Ilara-Mokin for future generations?
I think some of these things have been done. Ilara-Mokin has a very rich heritage And I want to congratulate people like you, Femi, I mean, what we did with our younger ones was a very good step. I am happy seeing people donate money to help some of our younger ones in their education. This is a very, very great work.
