Engr. Omotunde Oluremi Olaleye is an Instrumentation and Control Systems Engineer. He also holds a B.Sc degree in Management from Imo State University and a Post Graduate Diploma in General Management from the University of Calabar. He also has an MBA in Information Technology from The Federal University of Technology Akure.
He also holds a Certification in Contracts Management from the University of Southampton.
Engr. Omotunde is the Managing Director and Chief Executive Officer of FLOROK AGRO-ALLIED LIMITED.
He started his working career with the West African Portland Cement PLC as an Industrial Measurement and Control Lead in 1987 and later proceeded to work with Energy Services International/ Negris Limited in 1992 as Operations Engineer at Chevron Limited ( Meren Water Injection Platform Escravos).
He was seconded to Mobil Producing Nigeria Unlimited in 1992 as Instrumentation Advisor in charge of Offshore and Onshore Instrumentation and Control Operation & Maintenance Services. He joined Mobil Producing Nigeria Unlimited in 1993 as Materials Management Coordinator – Instrumentation and Control for Oso/NGL Condensate Warehouse.
In 1995, He became Senior Database Control Analyst overseeing the Instrumentation and Control spares database, in 1998, He became Lead, Programmable Control and SCADA group in the Instrumentation and Control group of Upstream Maintenance. The same year, he became Training Coordinator overseeing Training and Development for the Warehouse Revamp Project Group.
He became the Systems Support Administrator for the Corporate Asset Management System, the Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) for Upstream Nigeria Procurement of the Upstream Business Services and worked variously as Upstream Procurement Controls Advisor, Drilling Procurement Advisor, Lead Contract Administrator for Offshore Program Group OPG, Nigeria Projects Organisation, Senior Procurement Specialist, Offshore Program Group OPG, Contracts Manager, Onshore Program Group, Senior Contracts Manager Upstream Nigeria Projects Procurement of the Upstream Business Services UBS.
He retired from Mobil Producing Nigeria, A subsidiary of ExxonMobil Oil Corporation Irving Texas in January 2021.
Engr. Omotunde has 32 years of cognate experience in Manufacturing, Oil and Gas with knowledge in Supply Chain, Warehousing, Inventory Management, Strategic Sourcing, Projects Procurement, Contracting management, Procurement, Construction and Project Management.
He joined the Rotary Club of Victoria Garden City in October 2019 through the influence of the following Rotarians, PAG Adesegun Tijani D9142, AG Victor Anorue D9110, PP Adeyemi Fakayejo D9110, PE Motunrayo Adeleye D9110, and since then have served in various committees both at the Club and the District.
He attended ExxonMobil SAP training in Houston Texas in 2003-2004. He also attended ExxonMobil Controls Advisor Training in London 2007; LEORON Global Procurement Professional Training,in Accra Ghana,in 2014,
MBA in International Business, Strategy and Operations from International Business Management Institute Berlin Germany 2019. He has attended various Managerial courses at the prestigious Lagos Business School.
He has various certifications both here in Nigeria and from abroad.
He is a Multiple Paul Harris Fellow, Paul Harris Society Member and a Benefactor of The Rotary Foundation. He loves reading and travelling. He is blessed with Children.
In this interview with Oyinlola Sale, Engr. Omotunde Olaleye explains how he went into the Agricultural Sector.
Tell us about your journey into creating Florok Agro-Allied Limited?
Our journey to Florok Agro-Allied Limited started around the COVID-19 period just before the general lockdown, we started looking at the sector that cuts across the need of everyone which was food, we now narrow it down to Rice which is a common food on the table of everyone in the country. We took advantage of the ban in the importation of foreign Rice by the government, seeing that this would be an opportunity for Rice producers at home to grow that sector of the economy.
The Agricultural Sector has been envisioned to be the next Oil in Nigeria, coming from an Oil and Gas background and going into the Agricultural Sector, how can we achieve that?
The agricultural sector in terms of earnings will grow the economy if we produce in large quantities and channel through exportation. The country will also earn in foreign currency, but this can only happen if government assists manufacturers and farmers to develop the Agricultural sector. For example, Available data suggest the country improved marginally in the production of key food in 2021.
Nigeria’s rice production rose from 4.89 million metric tonnes in 2020 to 5.0 million metric tonnes in 2021, data from the United States Department of Agriculture showed.
Also, the data shows that Nigeria’s maize production increased from 10.0 million metric tonnes produced in 2020 to 11.6 million metric tonnes in 2021.
Wheat production, a key raw material for bread production, rose to 99.0 million metric tonnes (80 per cent) from 55.0 million metric tonnes recorded last year.
Nigeria imported 6.0 million metric tonnes of wheat in 2021, an 8.9 per cent decrease from the 6.6 million metric tonnes imported in 2020.
In spite of these, the United Nation’s Food and Agriculture Organization, FAO, said only 57 per cent of the 6.7 million metric tonnes of rice consumed in Nigeria annually is locally produced, leading to a deficit of about 2 million metric tonnes, which is either imported or smuggled into the country illegally. Government and regulatory agencies have a lot to do in terms of securing and ensuring sustainability of the sector.
What are some of the challenges you have passed through in running this business?
Electricity and security are major challenges, when we started production around 2020, price of diesel per litre was around N200 and a bag of Rice was about N23,000, price of diesel suddenly went up to N350 and N800 which caused an increase in the cost of production and overhead with little profit margin, another factor is security in the Procurement and transportation of paddy Rice to the southwest from the Northern part of the country where Rice is grown in large quantities.
Logistics and associated cost of a bag of Paddy depending on the point of origin was around N2,000 per bag before the price per litre of diesel went up, that Logistics cost is around N3,000 per bag to the point of production not inclusive of overhead and other associated cost.
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