I don’t use dad’s influence – Olubukola Olanrewaju

Olubukola Olanrewaju

Olubukola Olanrewaju, co-CEO/Country Director of Axiom Learning Solutions Limited is an unusual lady who deserves some credit for taking a stand against the menace of god-fatherism.
Without necessarily leaning on the shoulders of her highly influential father, an Army General cum  ex-member of the Provisional Ruling Council (PRC) and former Minister of Communications that deregulated what is today built upon as effective telecommunications sector in Nigeria, General Tajudeen Olanrewaju, she decided to do away with pampered life.

She respectfully brushed her father’s influence aside saying, “Dad, when I need you, I will get back to you.”  Hence, in her 30s, this damsel has passed for a big success in educational services delivery. Bukie, as she is fondly called, spoke with GIFT GABRIEL recently. Excerpts:

Let’s start by looking at your background

First and foremost, I am a co-Director of Axiom Learning Solutions Limited. My first degree is in Elementary Education from Bowie State University, Maryland, USA, and I have a post-graduate degree in Education Management from the University of Nottingham in the United Kingdom. I’ve had extensive classroom experience and now I focus on professional development and capacity building projects.  I co-founded the Axiom Learning Solutions with my business partner, Mr.Bassey Eyo who is a chartered accountant by profession and who also has a passion for education.

Why did you choose education as an area of investment and why the partnership with a chartered accountant?

First and foremost, the partnership came out of love and service; to impact knowledge and help deliver education to the people.  And my business partner, being an accountant, also worked extensively in the financial sector. However, he has dedicated a lot of his time to non-profit work focused on educating and mentoring people.  That was why we joined forces together; we had the same passion and we joined hands in forming a company to be able to carry this out.

What do you plan to achieve through Axiom Learning Solutions?

First of all, I have to say that there is a big drive in Nigeria to actually get at the quality of education being delivered to the children, and from that drive come different things that have opened businesses and opportunities for us. Apart from being trainers in education, we’ve also found the way to become consultants to different government agencies and the first successful project we embarked upon was the Lagos Eko Project, funded by the World Bank in partnership with Lagos State government. We were able to render professional training for teachers in the area of Information Technology (IT) and how it can be used in the classroom.

We trained over 800 teachers on effective use of MS Office and practical use of ICT equipment in the classroom. The idea is to enable them appreciate the use of the equipment that they already have in the school rather than allowing them to be locked away somewhere.  We are now in the jet age, and whether we like it or not, we have to move ahead according to the trend in the world.

So we saw the need to project that and make it known to the teachers that they had no choice except that they had to join the bandwagon and make use of the technology.  So through the Eko Project, the teachers have been able to know why they have to move from paper to computer based work like being able to use the e-mail, scanner and printer, Power Point for presentation. And we also made them to know how to use Excel to do their assessment and record-keeping work and these make their work even more efficient, giving them the time to plan their lessons and do other work in the school.  So we were quite successful, I would say.

Now there is a new Federal Government capacity building training that they do every year and this year, we’ve anchored the first Special Education Needs and Disabilities teachers training in Nigeria, which was to train at least two to three teachers in every Local Government across the country through the National Teachers’ Institute. This was funded by the Millennium Development Goal (MDG) to try and create awareness and sensitise teachers on the area of special education and disability in Nigeria.

Quite understandably, you are in partnership with an accountant, but even in your own contribution, to what extent has your father’s influence worked for this business?

Funny enough, as much as my father has been in government as minister of the Federal Republic, as much as he has been in the military and also has been part of the Nigerian politics, I can comfortably tell you that this has been my hard work.  I have never really used his influence to get anywhere that I want to be.  This is as a result of passion-driven, hard work; working in the corridors, convincing people about the benefits of whatever proposals that we have in mind and backing it up with the expertise.

It’s not about talking.  This is not a thing you just talk about and walk away.  If you don’t have the knowledge, if you don’t have the expertise to do it, you can never be successful at it. This knowledge is also about your ability to convince people that this can be achieved and it is practical with very hard work.  You know we have to develop manuals and my dad cannot develop manuals for me!  I have to sit down and write handbooks by doing research and you can only come up with that from teaching module!  So this has been a lot of hard work and so I have not really used my dad’s influence here.  It has been hard work and effort put together by my business partner and I.

The nature of your business is time consuming.  How do you cope with the idea of having to get married and avoiding problems in the marriage?

I’m definitely open to marriage and having a family.  We have to be able to balance it and I’m sure that whoever I end up with as a partner will understand my passion and will be able to work out a balance between work and family.  You know, it’s all about compromise.