Subomi Balogun: Steady Steps Towards 90

 
Nigeria’s leading banker, stockbroker, lawyer and philanthropist, Chief Michael Olasubomi Balogun was born on March 9 1934 at Ijebu Ode Ogun state to muslim parents. Balogun would later embrace Christianity while in secondary school. As a pioneering indigenous stockbroker, his antecedents in the banking sector are well known. The founder of the First City Monument Bank (FCMB) has etched indelible footprints in investment banking and a model for generations of professionals in the sector as well as those in allied services. As the Otunba Tunwase of Ijebuland and the Asiwaju of Ijebu Christians, his Ijebu-Ode residence was recently besieged by Christians and community leaders for a return of the tradition of “Adura Odun’’ which is the annual New Year Prayer for the colossus alongside his esteemed associates. Yinka Olatunbosun captures the moment of his reminiscences at the event.

Draped in white robe, Otunba Subomi Balogun is always attentive to everyone who arrives at his home. This afternoon was no different. Having hosted a handful of guests including journalists to a sumptuous lunch, he expressed his gratitude for witnessing yet another year especially with the two-year hiatus for the New year prayers occasioned by the pandemic.

“Any of us who has survived the Covid-19 pandemic should be thanking God that he or she was not a victim,” he began. “It was traumatic and it was only recently that I stopped wearing the mask. Let us continue to thank God for saving us from this pandemic and giving us a good life and that covid has disappeared and Christian brothers and sisters can gather together to thank God and praise him in my home and my capacity as the Asiwaju of Ijebu Christians or President of the laity. I have many reasons to thank God, it is not an easy thing to be growing up. There are vicissitudes that one would experience but I am forever grateful for what God has allowed me to do at almost 90. My ambition is to live much longer. I have friends, relations who have been so bestowed by the almighty and I am confident that God has something planned for me. I would reach a meteoric stage.”

Right there on his seat, Balogun travelled down the paths of his earlier childhood years, and the days of Igbobi College before he studied Law at the London School of Economics. Before his studies in the UK, he had briefly worked as a teacher. Even as a student in London, Balogun regularly worked as a teacher. Upon the completion of his law degree programme, he returned to Nigeria and worked with the Ministry of Justice in the then Western region. From being a crown counsel, he moved on to the post of a parliamentary counsel in the Federal Ministry of Justice.

After the January 1966 coup, he joined the Nigerian Industrial Development Bank (NIDB). From there, he was instrumental to the establishment of a merchant bank sponsored by NIDB. He moved to ICON Limited as the director of operations. 

Buoyed by his second son’s comment after early morning prayers one day, his ambition to head a government-owned stockbroking firm metamorphosed into becoming his own boss.

“What agitated my mind was that Jide was only nine years old. Today, he is in his mid 50s. I thought God must be talking through him so I went back to the chapel and I was praying,” he said as he sang a Yoruba song meaning “God Show me the way.”

To make his dream a reality, he rolled up his sleeves, went to the Ministry of Commerce and then stumbled on a former colleague- a junior one of his while he worked at the Ministry of Justice.

“By some fortune, I met a former junior of mine at the Ministry of Justice. He was surprised that I came. I told him that I wanted to form this company and I would want the certificate of incorporation as early as possible. He came and gave me the memorandum and the certificate. 

“I started writing letters to all the people who have known me and have always wanted to work for me while I was an employee of an institution. I wrote to my contacts that I would be resigning and setting up a similar company. I asked for their support. I wrote my resignation letter, took it personally to my boss. When I got there, the secretary said he was too busy,” he recounted.

In spite of the surreal feeling of facing a new job experience, Balogun was determined to get it right. With the support of his friends, his vision came to fruition as he ventured into the business just at the right time.

“By some divine intervention, the government of this country decided to have a scheme called indigenization. All companies should sell 49 percent or 50 percent of the companies to Nigerians. There were four oil marketing companies in the country at the time.There was Mobil, Texaco, Total and British Petroleum. Some friends who knew that I needed a job badly introduced me to Mobil and the Nigerian government just announced the sale of some shares at CitiSecurities,” he said.

From being snubbed by his former employer to collaborate on a contract to eventually securing it solely as a company, Balogun’s strides in stockbroking gained strength and won the trust of international corporations including oil firms.

He would later develop working relationships with Mobil, Texaco and Total Petroleum marketing companies where he began handling the companies equity offerings

“The directors of Leventis went in and came back and decided that the job should be given to CitySecurities, me alone. I went there, and we did it. Later, I found a young man who is now the group head, FCMB, Ladi Jadesimi. I asked him what he was doing. I decided to make him the executive director. And I told him: ‘But you can’t tell people who own it.”

Being discreet in the early days of the business was one of the measures Balogun deployed to stay focused. Still, securing a license to operate a stockbroking firm was a hard nut to crack. Balogun affirmed his reliance on God as well as his past relationship with people. He recounted how his act of goodwill to a friend, Alex Ekwueme during the civil war, was rewarded when he needed to set up a bank.

“I set up a sophisticated merchant bank. I put in an application. Initially, some people who thought I was related to Chief Obafemi Awolowo stopped it. By sheer coincidence, inside my church. I told my wife that we would go to service today but we are not going to sit together. I will sit in the front and you will sit at the back. I would pull the dress of the VP. My wife should pull that of the wife. So, I grabbed the VP’s clothes. The security details rushed at us. But then Ekweume looked at me and asked, “Subomi, what’s the problem? When we got out of the cathedral at Marina, I said, “Mr Vice President, what is happening to my license?’

“He asked his details to move away. I was given his hot number and I was invited to Dodan Barracks. Everyone was expecting me when I arrived there. The VP said I don’t know what is wrong with you yorubas. Your papers came and we could have approved it but someone said they should not give me a license because I was close to Awolowo and that election was coming. Any money I make would go into the elections. The only relationship between me and Chief Awolowo was that his first son was in class one when I was leaving Igbobi College. We knew ourselves. The boy was so nice and took me as his college father. I had not met Baba himself. Then I said ‘What can you do for me?’ Alex Ekwueme said ‘Luckily for you, Shagari would not be at the next meeting. I will head the meeting and I will give you the license.’

Ekwueme and Balogun once lived on the same street. But during the civil war, some unscrupulous fellows turned Ekwueme’s house into a pool spot. Balogun brought the police to displace them and secure the property. But that was not all. 

“When he(Ekwueme) came back from the Biafra war, I gave him a wad of currency notes. I told him that while you are away, I refurbished your house and I let it out. This is the rent I collected. He could not believe it.

“So, Alex Ekwueme gave me my license on that Thursday that he promised and about 3pm, my hotline was ringing. I picked it. The person was Yomi Akintola, who was then working at the Ministry of Finance as the Minister. He said the Vice President has approved the license. I was so elated and I shouted won ti fun mi o! (meaning ‘I have been given’).

“People rushed to my office and started dancing. That was how I became the first Nigerian to do this. But I never forgot my God. After that, I built Primrose from the money I got from selling shares. That was how FCMB started. When I was 70, apart from different attacks and travails, I was still on the saddle. I made my third son, Ladipupo the head of the bank and I became chairman. After some time, I appointed one expatriate as group md and my son as managing director. After my 70th birthday, I promoted Oyinbo to be chairman. Today my son is the Group Executive. And he has eight financial companies under him. I still go to the office three days a week.”

In 1979, he applied for a merchant banking license to establish First City Merchant Bank. The operations of the bank took off in 1983. Since then, the institution has been consistent in merchant banking in Nigeria.

“When I look around, I am the oldest banker still around and taking part in what is still going on. And that is an amazing grace of the almighty god. All I do is to remain close to God and be a prayer warrior. Some friends joke with me that I can’t say one of two words without thanking God. That’s my own understanding of what God has done to me, my family and my institution. About 45 years ago, we started this. Not many of us who founded financial institutions are still active today. I started banking 60 years ago. For the first 15 years, I was working for other people. But in the last 35 years, I have been given the privilege by God to run a bank I founded single handedly. I thank God that I am still vibrant and all I want to be doing these days is to be thanking God.”

He also acknowledged the support of professionals that helped in building a strong financial institution. Despite having just a law degree, he was able to attain unbelievable heights in investment banking.

He encouraged young people to find a balance between social media popularity and being discreet.
“Reflecting on God has helped me to modulate any kind of arrogance.” 

In addition to sustaining 68 years of friendship and keeping his secretary as his PA till date, Balogun has been loyal to every commitment he sets his mind on. As a philanthropist, he has changed lives with the Subomi Balogun Foundation Scholarship. Giving credit to his mother, whom he described as his father’s only educated wife, he owes a lot of his educational years to her input and early intervention.

“When we were sent to school in 1940, at the age of 6, my mother had been teaching me abc and arithmetic. So when I got to school, a year later, I got a double promotion. I went around using the care of children to be my forte because of that.”
Subsequently, he set up a scholarship for in his parents’ names my father and mother at a muslim college where he was once a teacher. 
“When I started business, I wanted to show appreciation to my God. So the scholarship is still going on.”

In the health sector, his impact is felt in the philanthropic efforts to strengthen capacity for health centres.

“The University of Ibadan named their children’s emergency ward after me based on what I have done there- Otunba Tunwase Children’s Emergency Ward. I had done other things. I also built the National Pediatrics centre, the largest in Nigeria which is now given to UI and UCH..
40 beds were donated to the hospital. We were there when a woman was rushed in. She gave birth right in front of us, and the baby was named after me. I adopted the baby. He is now a graduate and not only that, he is now at FCMB.
“I went somewhere with my wife where they were registering voters,” he recounted. “There was a long queue in the grammar school. Then someone cleared the way for me and my wife to register. I later found out the boy is one of the beneficiaries of a scholarship and that he had no job. Right there, I called and he got employed at FCMB and he is one of the top people at the bank now.”

At almost 90, Balogun leads an admirable lifestyle. Luxury cars, beautiful homes and a community of people who love and respect him. You don’t need his address to locate his house. Everyone knows his house in Ijebu Ode- a white sprawling mansion with tastefully decorated interior and respectful staffers.

While responding to how he keeps fit, he casually said: ‘I still swim. I have a heated swimming pool in my house. And I pray to God a lot. You know what also baffles me. I still carry the walking stick of royalty to match my robe but most of the time, I try to walk on my own. My mental faculty is still reliable. I still read and do many things. I eat everything. At the back, we have about 30 acres of farmland. I walk there and come back. I still wear my suit.”