My decision to study Accounting was accidental —Olatunji, Chairman, Governing Council, Trinity University

Pro-Chancellor/Chairman, Governing Council, Trinity University Lagos, Pastor Samuel Olatunji, was a former Managing Director of Gateway Bank and Chief Accountant of Dunlop Nigeria, as well as a top management staff member of United Africa Company (UAC). He shared his life story with TUNBOSUN OGUNDARE in this interview:

Tell us about your background.

I was born in 1955 in Osogbo, Osun State, but I’m originally from Arandun, Irepodun Local Government Area of Kwara State, Nigeria. I am from a migrant family. My parents moved from one place to another, trading in those days. When we were growing up, even though education was free in the Western Region, my people believed that because it was free, it would not likely be good. So, those of us from Kwara were sent back home to attend school there. Our parents didn’t mind struggling to pay school fees, despite not having the money. They just believed that something cheap would not be that good. So, I was schooled in my village.

The local church and the community worked together to set up a kindergarten and primary school for the children. That was the only educational institution available at that time in my community and that was the school we all attended. Of course, after school hours, we had to go to the farm to work. You couldn’t just come from school and play around. You must work, whether you are a boy or a girl, attending school or not. That was how we were trained: to respect work, even though we didn’t value it at that time as children. The oldest in the family was usually the parent of everybody. You were not the responsibility of your parents alone, as any of the seniors could send you on errands.

Which school did you attend?

I started kindergarten at St Peter’s, and then moved to the United Anglican Primary School, where I spent seven years. We spent seven years in primary schools in the Northern part, then, while it was six years in the South. You know Kwara was part of the Northern Region.

From there, I went to Offa Grammar School, where I also spent seven years. The school turned out to be one of the best secondary schools in Nigeria in those days. After my O-Level, I did my A-Level for two years. We were the last set of A-Level in Kwara State then. That was in 1975.

But how easy was it for your parents to pay your school fees?

Actually, paying school fees then meant paying a lot of money, and many parents could not afford to send their children to school because of that. But somehow, my parents struggled and managed to send me to school.

Your early education was in Kwara State. What informed the choice of the University of Lagos for your tertiary education?

There were only five universities, so to say, in the whole of Nigeria at the time: the University of Ibadan; University of Ife (now Obafemi Awolowo University, OAU); University of Nigeria, Nsukka (UNN); Ahmadu Bello University (ABU), Zaria; and University of Lagos (UNILAG).

So, the choice of school was limited to those five institutions if you were lucky enough to go to the university. Aside from that, people were also begging for a university education. That was because few people wanted to go to university, unlike now, when many people want a university education. As I said, the university that ordinarily appealed to many of us in the North was ABU, Zaria, but I came to UNILAG.

What was your experience like at UNILAG?

UNILAG wasn’t just a very good school. It was indeed of world-class ranking then. I remember that when we left university, a professional body in the United Kingdom (UK), which is equivalent to the Institute of Chartered Accountants of Nigeria (ICAN), rated Accounting at UNILAG (which I studied) very highly. ICAN was just coming up at that time. So, we wrote foreign professional exams, and the way they rated a university was reflected by how many papers its products were exempted from. UNILAG, at that time, plus one university in the United Kingdom and another Australian university, had the highest level of exemptions globally then. So, we were better rated than many universities in the UK, Australia, and so forth.

How about the standard of living as undergraduates?

The population of students was small, and being an undergraduate was like being an achiever. You know many would have spent three or more years at home before gaining admission. Talking about standards, I’m not sure students of those days would afford the type of meal we were given as undergraduates if they were working.

The quality of food was superb and you ate to your satisfaction. It was somehow free food and of very high quality. Sundays happened to be a special day as students served themselves with as much food as they wanted. So, it was a very boisterous life. I think we were paying about 70 kobo per day at UNILAG. That was 20 kobo in the morning, 25 kobo in the afternoon, and 25 kobo in the evening. Then General Olusegun Obasanjo came as a military head of state and reduced it to 50 kobo a day: 10 kobo in the morning, 20 kobo in the afternoon, and 20 kobo in the evening. That was 1977. Then in 1978, the fee jumped to N1.50 per day and that led to a serious crisis in the country, the Ali-Must-Go unrest. When the government reduced the money from 70 kobo to 50 kobo, students didn’t complain, but when it moved to N1.50, it became a war. Dr Ahmadu Ali happened to be the Federal Commissioner (Minister) of Education at that time. So, students boycotted lectures and took to the streets in protest against the fee increment. It was an unforgettable experience.

Why did you choose to study Accounting?

As a matter of fact, it was accidental. I said this because I didn’t apply for Accounting. I applied for Business Administration. That was a popular course for some of us in the Arts class during my A-Level days. Other prominent courses for us again were Law, English, and so forth. So, it was almost all of us in the Arts class that applied for Business Administration.

Why the change to Accounting?

It happened that during one of the long vacations, I met a friend of mine, who didn’t do A-levels. He was already working as an Account Clerk with UAC. He was talking about the money he was earning as a salary. And, to us, the amount he mentioned was a lot of money. I found out that many of them were Account Clerks and just RSA holders. RSA was a popular exam in those days, it is like OND. And the holders of the certificate were paid well by the standards of that time. So, in a way, we envied them and said that we needed to convert and study Accounting for us to also collect big salaries.

But I had already applied for Business Administration, only waiting for the outcome. So, as soon as I got my admission letter, I went to the university to resume. I then applied for a change of course on my own to Accounting and I was given. It wasn’t difficult to change courses at all. They only told me casually that I was going to a field where I would be counting money, but they didn’t tell us that Accounting was difficult to pass. So, there was a lot of struggle in the first year that I had to run back to where I was coming from.

When I went back home, I didn’t have peace. I said to myself, if I didn’t study this programme now that I was young, because I was around 20 years old, when would I study it? Every time I saw an Account Clerk, I saw somebody with money. And I was not that happy about my situation. So, I asked myself: would I want to live with the pain for the rest of my life?

Another thing was that almost every day, I would go to newsstands to look for job vacancies in the newspapers. And when I opened newspapers, they always advertised for the positions of Accountants, but I was not qualified. I then made up my mind to go back to UNILAG to continue with my Accounting programme. I thank God I did.

I observed the number ‘5’ is prominent in your life activities. You were born in 1955; you spent five years each in some of the companies you had worked, including Dunlop and Gateway Bank. Was that by design or fate?

Somebody mentioned that to me as well when I was in a forum many years ago. They were reading my CV, and the guy said five is prominent in my life and in everything I do. But it just happened that way. It is not for anything.

In spite of this very rich background of yours in commerce and banking, you still ventured into education, to the extent of establishing schools. What informed that decision?

I love reading books and do a lot of writing, too. Even when I’m eating, you will see me reading. That started when I was a student. Even at the board level when I was working with those companies, they used to call me professor, teasing me that I should be in the university system, teaching. I think that defined me. So, that prepared me for the sector. It was a divine arrangement.

At what point did you get married?

I got married when I was ready for it. God brought us together somehow. We met at a church fellowship. After some time, I proposed to her. We then introduced ourselves to our parents and as God would have it, they didn’t object, and I thank God for our union today. Why I thank God is that I lost my mother when I was around two to three years old and had to live with my grandma. And my father would tell me that my wife behaves just like my mother. You know I had no idea of what my mother looked like. So, it is like God brought her back to me as a wife.

How was your experience growing up under your grandmother?

My grandmother, Mama Olajumoke (now of blessed memory), really spoilt me. There was even that popular gossip then in the village that I wasn’t going to do anything good in life because of the soft manner my grandmother had trained me. My mother happened to be her only female child. So, losing her was a big issue. It was like people were so sure that I would not go to school because I was too close to grandma. They just couldn’t imagine me leaving her to go to school. But the old woman actually wanted me to go to school. She would tell me that if I resisted going to school, she would report me to my father, who was living in Osogbo and would take me to Osogbo. But at the end of the day, I went to school, and the rest is now history.

Now you are 70, what is life to you?

Life is very short. I realise there are many things still undone, despite the fact that a lot of things have been done, too. I don’t like bothering anybody for food. I just observed that we eat too much in this part of the world. If I have ‘guguru and epa’ (popcorn and groundnut), I’m okay. I’ll continue with my job. At 70, I also like to have enough time to study my Bible. I listened to Pastor W.F. Kumuyi one day during a Bible Study in UNILAG in 1976, saying that anybody who genuinely studies the entire Bible from Genesis to Revelation would not remain ordinary. I said to myself, I would give it a try. Mind you, I was in the university then. So, I skipped my breakfast. I just felt that going to eat three times a day was a waste of time. The time you spend eating could be used for something else. In addition, your breakfast would not digest properly before lunch is ready and likewise the dinner. So, that was how I stopped taking breakfast from 1976 to date.

…despite the food being free on campus?

It was about discipline. Yes, we enjoyed almost free food in our undergraduate days. Our breakfast would be served around 7 to 9 am, and by 12 noon to 4 pm lunch would be ready, and before that would digest, dinner would be ready too by 6 pm. And you could eat as you liked. There was no way you could go to bed hungry at any time on campus.

I spend about 20 minutes just to go from the hostel to the refectory and spend another 20 to 25 minutes to eat because I’m a slow eater, whereas some of my friends would only spend about three minutes. So, I decided not to go for breakfast again. It wasn’t easy initially, but since then, I have not been taking breakfast.

What is your major regret?

I don’t think I have any. God has been faithful to me and my family and anything I lay my hands on. I really thank God for who He has made me to be in life.

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