TEDx - Remi Okunlola - care more, do more

I'm going to be speaking something that is very dear to my heart and again it's a subject of leadership and the service of Africa as you can see there for me it's about passion and it's about engagement I like many of you here I went in a slightly different direction from you in the in the 90s somewhere between 1990 and 1998 there was this sort of movement if you like from practically every part of Africa towards Europe and North America everybody just fled they fled Abacha the federal boo - and you guys emptied Africa today many of you are born here I I now speak to twenty four twenty five year olds but you know major professionals their parents arrived here as I was going back in that direction it say something about my age sorry if there's something about my age trust me but the point is I went back for it's likely to find a reason from white will now go back I went back because I lived in the then recession hit United Kingdom there were no jobs and so I went back there initially just to spend six to eight months pottering around depending on family gets you know what African sorry you don't need to work there's always somebody to take care of your needs and um and so I you know I showed up at the footsteps of my grandparents and you know had a pretty good life but I never returned sixteen years later I'm standing before you very proud to be a participant in the Nigeria project and you know pretty shocked by what one has been able to achieve in Africa but we are beyond an aperture my entrepreneurial successes or any other success that one might lay claim to on that part of the world what I am more proud of forgive me if you can't hear me I have a terrible cold I will try to speak as loud as I can right what I'm more proud of or what work isn't the greatest joy is a role that I would like to continue to play in in a slightly different sector of the of the country within which I live bringing passion to an environment that so much needs it in 1997 I just speak to how I came to do the civil project I'm just gonna do a quick chronology of how I got her fuel wasn't imported into Nigeria I can see um some of the mines that affect us in Nigeria Carter to me and men like him who inspire us to greatness people who who cause us to think beyond selfish ends into into into integrated things but somewhere in 1997 fuel was imported into Nigeria we refer to it as a toxic fuel incident they asked us can he know a vessel called air thank you know imported in a hot and hotter fuel to Nigeria the fuel was toxic it poisoned people on bridges you know so you would have cars driving down the major arteries in in Lagos and poisoning Nigerians there were a number of deaths so I recorded and associated with that fuel but this happened in a period of the dictatorship we had you know some of the worst forms of government that Africa experienced during that period and so very few people talked about it and I remember writing an article it'd be a pure indulgence that's a lawyer I wasn't so much into consumer interest issues but I mean all I are was an oil and gas lawyer and therefore felt that was an area that was of interest to me it is an article that had written for internal consumption so my colleagues and I and to digest somebody send it off to the newspapers and so it was published it was a very passionate defense of the consumer it was something that I felt very strongly about I couldn't believe that so many people were dying in Nigeria based on somebody's greed haven't imported this fuel that was unfit for consumption anywhere in the world and nobody was talking about it the government was asleep our leaders we're in their usual places in Switzerland or wherever it was at any wage the newspaper published it and lo and behold I got a call not from the usual sources the state security services but in fact but um from the federal Environmental Protection Agency which at that point had a pretty radical leader he could only have been leader of the federal Environmental Protection Agency because at that point the federal Environmental Protection Agency was an irrelevant agency it was set up just to fulfill all righteousness nobody really cared about it and so they stock this man who had some experience put him on top of this thing and and ignored it it'll hardly funded but he was passionate about what he did and I got a call from him very unusual in Africa a big man big men don't calls more men but you know what I mean they simply don't but it calls me and I flew up to Abuja on his ticket to see him as a result of that I got expose for the first time in my life we like to the political environment I became a politically exposed person because from seeing the Director General or the federal Environmental Protection Agency I was dragged to see some ministerial appointee and so on and so on the issue spoke to for me passion was a passion about an issue that concerned all of us but it didn't stop there through the madness of that era 1997 - perhaps if you like 2000 we endured essentially a failed state nothing worked many of you here haven't been brought up and and and educated and exposed to Western values on Western systems couldn't possibly imagine when I say to you I lived in an environment where nothing that was of the state sector worked so that if somebody were knocked down on the streets of Lagos for instance that body would lie there for months on end well certainly weeks on end if you ran into a car or somebody ran into you and damaged your limbs you better hope that somebody driving along will stop to help you because there are new ambulance services and so on and so on and I lived on the mainland what is referred to as a mainland of Lagos actually did a pretty low-level part of town and I will drive leave home at quarter to 6:00 in the morning to do before the five minute journey that would take four or five hours because there's traffic all over the place and all along the my driveway made my drive I would come upon you know miserable looking people it would rain on them then the Sun would come and matter them a little bit further and you know drivers like I would splash water all over them and so on it's just a miserable way to live and I say you know but I think surely there must be another way and I started with little things like I would encourage my colleagues to stop if you have a car just pick one or two people up along the way if you encounter a car accident stop and help and so on and so on now there are many reasons why people didn't stop but I would stop yeah I always stopped some of you would wonder what had the reason why they don't stop why don't you stop to help because when you assist a broken man you are liable to be attacked by robbers when you pick up a dead body on the street or a dime body on the street your novel to end up in jail because the police will require you to account for how you got the body and then often enough yes talk with a dying person in your possession I know where to take them to I tell you a little story I was on my way back from work one evening 6:30 7:00 p.m. in the evening one of those unusual days without no traffic I was pretty close to home as I drove towards my I lived on an estate I could see the estate not so far off except that the were what seemed like hundreds of thousands of people running in my direction I was trying to navigate my sort of Bank of a car through them but I just saw these masses and masses of people it turned out that they were running from rubbers so I thought oh well I can't turn around there's way too many of them you know hurried as fast as I could pass them into a fuel station foolish idea because why then the police station and the Ember in the field station where all the robbers and there was sort of entrapped between all of these guys and I was shooting going on and you know pretty rascally behavior bullets but there I was stuck in my car I couldn't get out and so I won my seat was a two-door car and I sort of tried to duck as fast as well as I could son I had wow you know some really wretched metally sound a bullet had gone from one end of my car through the car to the other end I didn't realize at that point what it was and I heard on the driver's side which is the opposite I the way you drive doom doom doom yes it narrows in I like what Hey shush don't make so much noise there this poor girl aged 16 17 who had a boy with her I didn't see the boy at that point and she was she was a quite a screaming but she's making sounds eventually the owners of the city as we call them departed and one might sit back up and she's been she knows she gets really aggressive help me help me Atanas a bullet went through my car it went straight to the boy the boy I thought was at two three-year-old it's a thought it was seven meter malnourished and so on so I picked this boy up as one does when you're exposed to that sort of putting me my car with his sister and drove from one hospital to the next and I remember I still got a chill and I think of this for six seven hours I have this boy in my possession time the sister was completely freaked out he died in my possession he needn't have died well he may well have died because when I think of it the manner of the hit was such that he would have died in the end but he didn't have to die my possession and so I again went back to my office as one death and advised rescue anybody that's rescue able just help let's inject some passion into life the fear of dying me dying that that boy's death near killed me because for the first time in my life I was holding that I'm holding a dying child I didn't cause that I didn't create the environment that I might have helped me a little bit earlier just found the way out of this morass but I spent months after that speaking to audiences like yours people who understand more than you do what it meant to live in that era of Nigeria thank God were not there today um just a little bit further no pain no pain again just speaking to the language of passion around and I also make sense of it in a moment I as a law firm were pretty small for whoever started it grew and today were a pretty big phone in those days there's very few firms major commercial firms I would happily do public sector work but as a result of my writings I wrote quite a bit on my sector environment log oil and gas flow and so on I published you know quite a bit of my work were published I would constantly be invited to do public sector work via lights that went paid for because government would owe you money you dare not ask because they'd shut you down yeah so you'd sort of do the work happily I you'd write that odd nicely written letter you know if you could you offered twenty thousand miles mm you never got it but I still continue to do public sector work because in a sense one hope that Nigeria would change and that you will benefit some from it and this particular occasion were invited to bid for work with the minister of mineral my name and I did one there are three successful law firms one of them declined to do the work when they saw the offering was $250,000 for those of you who don't know what the value is in dollars it's a twenty thousand pounds for you know quite a huge chunk of work which ran from somewhere around October to February our Christmas and the new year was wiped out - thumps available to do the work we arrived in Abuja started to work by December the second firm we know had lost interest but a lot of work no P nobody paid us are using our funds to run the project but how terribly passionate about it because I was writing a piece of legislation in those days there was no house of parliament I was a house of parliament but the the value of that work is essentially didn't before you today because what I did as a result of writing a piece of legislation we still governed minerals and mining in Nigeria I was exposed to the best minds in Australia in the POW in the Congo in South Africa and so on because I had to defend this piece of law which like I say still governs the operations and the minerals and mining sector and suddenly I was dealing with people who were far more intelligent a farmer exposed and who would ask what's a 26 year old boy doing this you know don't you have lawmakers and I'm like yeah we don't need that because I steal from you because I like I just took their laws and just no Nigerian I sit and made the most that I could again I speak the language of passion 1998 1998 mean it was a real situation if you like of all of my three years of worldly experience because much is a three year old professional in England would be abandoned a three year old professional in Nigeria at that point was way superior to the 40 old and professionals because for 40 years what Nigel had created was a body of men who had taught themselves only the same thing join the public sector pull out drag out what you can make the most for yourself and leave everything else yeah where those of us would come from here of a North America and so on well using the best they could plodding along and just building with dragging from here but what building by 1998 exposed to those who are running for office and in that case President Obasanjo I was invited to write the presidential policy documents now that's an alarming request how does a man or a young man with very little experience value to exposure to issues of policy and so on answer get invited but I was and I tagged him and I wrote it oh damn and today your nation is governesses off of my bad writings or good writings but the point is a game I'm passionate about issues of policy and it showed through to those who were looking for high political office so at this paper was written 15 minutes ago I'm trying to make some sense of it 2007 as approached by a friend with a fresh idea what is essentially a truffle size into what is now referred to as a niger content there were gaps in the niger oil and gas sector gaps that we felt could only be filled by Nigerians and it resulted in the establishment of the company that you heard referred to see wolf seawolf is first-of-its-kind in many respects but you don't want to hear about that what you need to eat to be here enough is what we did to take it from Ground Zero to where it is today this billion dollar company was established entirely through African effort African effort included the two young men who established it based on passion based on conviction and based on a dragon together of all the skills that they had acquired over the years what did you get little bit modern much it took the support of African institutions African banks most of them Nigerian but also South African institutions issued the support of Africans in the oil and gas industry in the oil and gas space the support of non Africans in the oil and gas space so that you have this you know we enjoy the support today of companies like Exxon Mobil and total and so on who just woke up and thought if these guys are so passionate about this thing there must be something to it if we don't assist them somebody else will rather we took the credit for having built this company than somebody else but why do I speak so much about passion can I have the next page please why do I speak so much of passion because often enough I find that what is missing in our engagement you a nice engagement with Africa it's passion we're fantastic at speaking about the issue that affects Africa I heard earlier somebody say something about um non-africans educator knows what I forget frankly awfully not they know more about Africa than you and I do I find that when I listen to your appearance I speak to my issues often times better than Africans it's a nasty thing to say but it's it's just the awful truth we are fantastic at talking and so a little are doing because often enough that's a an emotional disconnect for my own issues so when I see going back to my story of 1995-97 when I see cars drive past a broken man on the street I wonder what what manner of man are you that could be your cousin I could be Anita that could be your best friend yeah that's lesson an emotional disconnect I think often enough we don't reflect upon why the why for me is often will be to do the white for me is related to our history the disconnects between the African man and the society within which he operates when you think that for 40 years all we suffered or injured where the likes of Abacha and Mobutu and Rowling's and so on men who led but only led their own small they had absolutely no emotional connection to the rest of us and if they are the ones who are supposed to be the leader as an effort those from whom we learn what chance to the rest of Africa and then glad to have the rest of us the educated versions yeah who live here or live in North America for whom Africa is a discussion topic as opposed to a source for connections I think the absence of connection yeah the absence of emotional connectivity is a major problem speaking to the issue therefore I ask or I challenge you as you've been challenged already that if we're going to build an Africa that is other than that the one that we had up until 1998 in the case of Nigeria but is one that is going to move beyond the platitudes of the period sense and is going to move beyond the transitional or the transition to democracy phase it's going to take the you and they asked those of you who live here who live in North America who have experienced what it means to have a truly democratic environment those of you who have experienced what it means to live in compassionate societies where there's an it where there's the most true emotional capital between the governors and the government is going to take all of us to engage with Africa you are going to have to step away from your Goldman Sachs jobs on your Morgan Stanley jobs on your JP Morgan jobs and to take risks in Africa you're going to have to choose to live a life that's other than the one perhaps that you want thought of as young men and women when you went through the education process you're going to need to join political parties in Nigeria in Angola and wherever it is you come from you're going to have to take low paid public sector jobs immerse yourself into environments that are alien to you become passionate they take what you believe in today and actualize it in the real world because if you don't you will talk for the next 20 years another thing will change because for 40 50 years we have created a crop of leaders who are no more than a mimic one of the next the military handed power in Nigeria for instance at the end of 1998 today surrogates they will govern Nigeria for as long as it takes for you and I to enter the political fray and if all we will do is talk about it in venues like this that's fine we will energize one another for a short moment but nothing will change I run one of the biggest oil and gas service companies in Africa today with my partner and we're very opportune to be where we are but my experience in the three years since this company was established convinces me that unless you and I engage in the public space the private sector will be no more than a money-making machine for a couple of guys and that's where it will stop all the way through from the NNPC our noble a major provider of services and business in Nigeria to the lowest regulatory agencies in Nigeria there's a dearth of competence there's a dearth of exposure there's a dearth of skills whether you're talking about high-level things low-minded things it is very difficult to get through a body of men who simply don't have the experience they don't have the exposure now what I am here the vast majority of Niger that I am exposed to even when there were even when the quality of when did when when when the environment within which the awkward is not high level it's pretty good it sound it's in a high level but I'm not certain that this society necessarily needs you it is time for those of you who are passionate about Africa who are passionate of the country about the country where I come from to pack your bags and come home

Channel: TEDx Talks

Views: 7,313

Rating: 4.7073169 out of 5

Keywords: tedx talk, ted x, ted talks, TEDxEuston, ted, tedx, ted talk, tedx talks, TED, TEDx, Remi Okunola

Id: 8AR0D7IBJ4M

Length: 25min 12sec (1512 seconds)

Published: Sat Jan 08 2011