Helping people is my passion —Adesanmi

Adesanmi Adebunmi is a motivational speaker, entrepreneur and Managing Director of Libra09 events center. The graduate of University of North London, United Kingdom who is also a trained finance analyst speaks with SEGUN ADEBAYO on how he juggles his chain of businesses and how his creative mind has paved way for him.

You seem to be getting it right with Libra 09, what’s the secret?

It has been tough actually. Many people don’t believe this, I am very shy. I don’t like to be in the face of the people. But when  one is  into business, one just have to step out of one’s comfort zone to make things work. You have to get out there, face people so that you can close deals and make your clients see why they have to keep patronising you.

What informed your decision to go into this type of business?

From when I was in my second year at the University of North London in the United Kingdom, I have always known what I wanted to do. I have had the desire to be an employer of labour but then one has to desire and find out what one’s expertise will be. So, I have always seen myself more as an investor more than a businessman. If I see any business idea, I love to go into it and what people describe as venture capitalist. I was trained as  a basic economist and finance analyst. I had a financial investment company back in the United Kingdom. Over time, I realised that what was giving me passion is reaching a larger base. As a financial analyst, one has a select set of people that  one deals with, people that are financially buoyant. But when I came back to Nigeria, I was exposed to a different perspective. It was much easier to go into financial services in the Uk , but in Nigeria, there are too many things to deal with. So, I devised other means and I looked at what is missing within our society. Sometimes, the missing thing could be right there in your face. I mean, having an event centre and having done a couple of events in Lagos and Ibadan, I discovered certain things were missing. So, I sat down and I felt we could do this and have a better service being offered.

You seem to have a deep knowledge about running an event centre and providing quality service to the people, tell us more about that?

For me, event centres are not just for having parties. It goes beyond having wedding or birthday parties. One has to give people more than that. That’s why you see a lot of event centres now having comedy shows and other entertainment gigs just to give more fun back to the people who patronise  one’s business. From our own point of view, we realised that we have to do more for ourselves and the larger society and that’s why what we are doing now the Libra Trade Hub is all about. We have discovered that we need to create a platform. An event centre could be a market place. It could even be an examination centre. It could be anything. It depends on how you channel and develop your ideas. We felt we could create a conducive environment such as a market place for people to come and showcase their products and services as against norm where you have an open air trade fair complex  or you just imagine going to a building where you sell your products and also have the opportunity to buy what you want.

You called this Ibadan’s new promotion distribution and trade centre,  why are you having it in here?

Good things can happen in Ibadan because things like this happen in Lagos State. A lot of people always run away from Ibadan for a reason not known to me but the truth of it is that human beings are still here and Ibadan from historical fact is one  of the largest cities in Africa and the largest city in West Africa, the thing missing here is the commercial hope and that is why everybody runs to Lagos not known to them that Ibadan people are also industrious and commercial, it is just that we have to unlock this aspect of our people. With this platform we are making it obvious that it is only the half educated or people that don’t have other things to do that are into trade because we have professionals in trade also and through this trade help we have come across many people who also have other businesses that they are doing and even entrepreneurial skills and these are the things we need to push out, we need to showcase Ibadan to the world starting from Nigeria as a whole, that we have talented people here in Ibadan like comedians and producers that will come out to showcase their talents. Recently I met an 80-year-old grandmother who said she wanted to showcase her exclusive beads, so we are providing a distribution platform where your goods can be well promoted at a very low rate.

With the number of people expected at the trade hub, what are your expectations and how do you intend to make sure their expectations are met?

Fear is our lead because the reactions we have been getting is fantastic, something like this has never happened before and people actually saw the sense in it because people are looking for every way to showcase what they are doing, we are practically running out of spaces and we are thinking of ways to create new space for people because it is not our desire to turn people down even though we have to think about the health and safety bit.

In times like this when the economy is in turmoil and everybody is complaining, do you think this is the best time for this?

I don’t like to be too spiritual with professional things like this but I believe that with God all things are possible. People have unlocked  their brains also and they are thinking outside the box, you will be amazed with the number of people that are calling us that they want to partner with us. So we’ve not had to expect so much financial resources. Many big and upcoming companies called us and that is how much people are lashing  on to this thing so we have no cause to expect too much and that is helping us to discount the fee required for booking a space. Everything has been working out too well.

What drives you?

I will put it as two things, you have touched that goes on inside me. By virtue of my father’s career who was in the local government service for a very long time and rose to the height of it as a permanent secretary, I am his only son so we are very close. So I saw his work and the passion he had for it, local government is for the grassroots and the doors of the offices are opened to a lot of people and we see what our people are going through which was one of the reasons I am back in the country because when I left the country I did not forget home, I realized that many people are going through a lot of things and that pushed me to into studying many things that I studied in the university and that was about what we can do to help developing countries because the suffering of our people is too much and we need to find a way to spread wealth and these are the things that drove me in my academic career because I do not want to become another problem to the economy and I don’t want to be another person that will be carrying a CV around searching for jobs, I wanted to do something for my country. Within us are talents and creativity, man is born with so much creativity if only we could make something out for ourselves and realise that we can put a smile on one or two peoples faces, I believe that you are helping the country by so doing, these are the things that drive  me every time. Another thing is that I pray everyday that God should bless me so that I can also bless people because if you don’t have, you can not give.