How Tinubu Presidency will lift Nigeria, by former Mobil boss

Former Mobil Executive Vice Chairman Otunba Solomon Oladunni was among senior managers, who recruited the young Bola Ahmed Tinubu – fresh from America in 1983 – into the American oil giant. Forty years later, Dr. Oladunni tells how Tinubu impressed the panel, made of indigineous senior staff and expertraites, during the job interview, and later revolutionised the auditing department at the giant oil comapny, leaving an enduring financial footprint in the sourcing of funds for building the Mobil House – then West Africa’s best corporate office building – and showing the traits of intelligence, diversity and inclusion that have also made him to navigate the difficult political terrain to become the president-elect.

How that Bola Ahmed Tinubu is President-elect of Nigeria, what are your expectations?

 

First and foremost, we give God the glory that he had a resounding victory at the poll: No question he worked extremely hard, campaigning in all the nooks and crannies of all the states of the federation and the people responded by electing him. So, we thank God and we are also appreciative of Nigerians for giving him the confidence to become the President of this country, come the next four years and hopefully, further years.

As is often said, the morning shows the day and boyhood shows manhood. In terms of my expectations of President-elect Bola Ahmed Tinubu, they’re all positive, because this is someone I have known for about 40 years. Over the years, he struck me as a very dependable, hardworking and visionary leader. He is not new to me by any means, because when he returned to the country about 40 years ago, I was very heavily involved in his recruitment into Mobil and you would know that in those days, at that time, the oil industry was heavily dominated by expatriates. Few Nigerians were recruited at higher levels and, of course, the interview process was so rigorous that only the best could be attracted to work in such an organisation. When Asiwaju came in, in 1983, as a manager of administration at the time, once I saw him, I was enamoured by his appearance, his behaviour, by his personality, and, when you look for people to work in the oil industry, certain qualities are expected in such people. The first, of course, in those days was appearance, because through the appearance, we were able to decipher the person’s likely character traits, his habits, his behavioural patterns, what his likely sense of accomplishment was, and confidence because appearance did matter a lot. He dressed very well, he was confident and responded quite intelligently to questions. Apart from appearance, we also looked at his credentials, his qualifications and, as an accountant, he was eminently qualified, having gone to one of the best schools in the United States, in Chicago. We scrutinised his credentials, we looked at his curriculum vitae and his certificates; and even checked his transcripts; we were more than satisfied that he was someone that could work with us. And don’t forget that a company that was heavily populated by expatriates they were also involved in the interview process. So it wasn’t just Nigerian to Nigerian. That was even my first time of meeting with him anyway. And this interview panel made-up of Nigerian managers and directors; experts interviewed him and everybody came out very strongly that we should hire him, in other words, that we should employ him because he was looked at as a future asset of the company not just for that period but even for the future.