A few days back, Prof. Pat Utomi, the famous Economist was our Guest on City People TV Instagram Live Chat daily programme. This great Economist and Public Commentator told City People Publisher, SEYE KEHINDE how he coped with the 3 months of the COVID-19 Lockdown. Despite all the negative stories that many celebrities have been narrating, Prof. said the lockdown helped him positively in a way because he got a lot of things done. Read on.
How has the last 3 months been for you, sir?
It’s been very interesting. I hate to say it this way because it might upset some people but this has been one of the most productive periods of my life.
Why, sir?
Well, essentially because I don’t get to endure too much interference. I have been working very hard on a book. I have managed to do a lot of other works. The whole discovery of this medium for example, Zoom, there was a period I was doing 3 webinars a day. Two to three weeks ago, I was losing my voice every night and I thought to myself, oh, my God, I have to stop this. I talked to many groups, Niyi Adesanya’s group a couple of times, groups from the UK, from the US, from South Africa, Kenya, etc. So, I was in a lot of these groups and it did feel good to impact people and affect their understanding of certain phenomenon. During this COVID 19 period, I discovered many things, many of which were interesting while others were frightening. I discovered, for instance, how little people know Nigerian history. That frightened me because I was talking to groups of people that I thought knew and I was amazed at the little they knew of their own country’s history.
I will give you an example. I was chatting with a professional, a manager, who’s done very well and I made reference to doctor Michael Omolayole and he did not know who he was and I said it’s not possible. The first CEO of Unilever in Nigeria, how can you not know him? I mean, in the 70s to 80s, you cannot talk about management in Nigeria and not make reference to Dr. Michael Omolayole, a great role model. So, there were many holes and I’m glad many filled those holes during this period because it gave us more time to do things more deeply, more vigorously, than we were rushing and running everywhere to get so many things done. Interestingly, in some organizations, some people were so much more effective working from home. A friend of mine in business around the insurance area, actually gave his staff a bonus last month because they produced so much more working from home. So, you can see how this thing has worked out for many. I have said for instance that my own lockdown will continue till the end of July with the possibility of an extension. So, people are going to go back and forth on these things. I sit on the board of two or three South African companies, routinely I go to South Africa every month for one board meeting or the other.
Now, for three months, I think we just came back from South Africa and the very next day I flew to Dubai to do a conference that Niyi Adesanya was doing. I came back and lockdown came. Now, since that time which was late February to early March, I have not been inside an aeroplane and all those meetings in South Africa, I have not missed one single board meeting and yet I have not been inside an aeroplane. So, it shows that sometimes we can do those things without having to go through some of the struggles we go through. Yes, I work in the aeroplanes while flying, but if I can do without that travel I will probably be more productive if I were in the comfort of my home. Airports are a nuisance anywhere in the world no matter how nice they are. But with this ‘new normal’ as it were I have found out that I can escape a lot of those troubles.
Sir, as you grow older, you seem to work harder and I’m wondering, when is Prof going to slow down?
You see, there’s something that getting older can do to you in the sense that you become aware of time getting limited and you want to leave legacies correctly before you go. I will give you an example. There’s a great mentor of mine, Chief Arthur Mbaneifo, who turned 90 on the 11th of June. Chief Mbaneifo is busy writing another book right now. I was talking to him a few days ago about aspects of Nigerian history going back to the Royal Niger Company in the light of the book that I am writing. My working title of the book is The Roots Of Inequality in the world and I’m looking at trade, I’m looking at the capital. I’m looking at health, I’m looking at history, I’m looking at politics and how these things have contributed to human inequality. Even though it’s a global book and not about Nigeria but I want to bring the perspective of the challenge in Africa and one of the things that separate countries and people are economic relations, competition as a factor in economic, trade and development for example.
So, I’m trying to go back to the colonization of Nigeria, the role of the Royal Niger Company and one of my favourite little stories to this is, of course, the famous race to Nik. Niki is a town in the old Borgu Province and Sir George Goldie who essentially was putting together these trading companies on the Niger had gone to recruit Lord Frederick Lugard and the French heard of this trading post called Niki and each, of course, was racing to be the first to get to Niki to therefore as it were adopted Niki. Anyway, to cut the story short, the French reached Niki first. Niki is now a part of today’s Benin Republic. The old Borgu province, most of it is in Nigeria. The only thing famous about Borgu province in the world, in fact, in Nigeria today they have split into about three different states and their minorities are in, I think, Kwara, Niger and then Benin-Kebbi. The only thing anybody remembers about Borgu province is that one Emir there gave somebody a title called Jagaban (breaks into laughter). It’s amazing, this thing called history.
So, I was just chatting with Chief Mbaneifo about his understanding of the Royal Niger Company. His father was one of the early Royal Niger Companies agents, managers. You know, with somebody like Mbaneifo, if you don’t talk to him now, he’s 90, we don’t know how long he’s gonna be around for, so most of the knowledge he has maybe lost to history. So, when you get to where I’m getting to, you want to do all of these things so that when you go, history will have enough documentation to deal with the future.
