How My 9-Year-Old Son Inspired Me – FCMB Boss, Otunba Subomi Balogun Recounts

As the Asiwaju of the Ijebu Christians Association and the Olori Omo-Oba of Ijebuland, Otunba Michael Olasubomi Balogun, the Founder of FCMB Group, holds an annual New Year thanksgiving service in his country home in Ijebu.

This year’s prayer, held during the week, had in attendance friends, family, business associates and notable Ijebu sons and daughters.

After the Thanksgiving, the Billionaire granted City People.

Below is an excerpt of this interview in which he narrated how his 9-year-old son, Ladi inspired him to set up First City Monument Bank and the men God used to help him actualise his dreams….

In 3 months time, you will be 84 years, going by the kind of work you do, can you tell us the secret that has kept you sound, both in mind and physically?

That is the grace of God. You probably will notice that whenever I am in a gathering, particularly Christian gathering, the musicians will start playing nipa ife olugbala ki yo si nkan, I for one, I believe that it is the good Lord that is protecting me and guiding me and as such I am always glad to sing that song, but it is more than that, I am a child of God.

I believe fervently in it and I have thought that all my cares to the good Lord, and one of the benefits is that, at 84 I look young, if you get me to run 100 meters I’m not sure many people will beat me to it, I do a lot of walking and I also swim, every home of mine you will always find a swimming pool, and I am particularly grateful to God that even at 84, I am not only very agile and active, cerebrally I am active too.

It is the grace of God because I know what is happening around us, you want to imagine, I am as active in Ijebu as I am active in Lagos and all over Nigeria. Within the Christian circle, I am well known, I genuinely worship my God.

In every home of mine, I have a chapel and different chapels, and on my birthday I go there first to thank God for mercies received and to pray for further mercies. The secret of it is that I throw myself into the hands of God and trust him that he will do the best for me.

On how his little son then, who is now 47 years old, inspired him, he said:

I am a very appreciative person when you do any good to me, and I was happy to give that testimony publicly, am doing the same thing with Alex Ekwueme. What I did that time was something impossible in this country, for one individual, single handedly to say he wants to create a bank.

In those days they want you to go and bring a white man, a foreign, technical partner. Beyond that, in the history of Nigerian Banking industry, there was only one person who started something he named a bank , it was Agbomagbe bank started by the late Chief Okugbe.

He was doing what was called money lenders enterprise, it’s a system which enables someone to lend money and nothing more.

But to say that you want to set up a bank providing financial services, you want to set up a bank and have branches all over the place without foreign technical partners had never been found in this country, but I was inspired by my God through the mouth of my 9 year old son, Ladi.

We were praying and he went to his mother and said while we were praying I pity daddy, why can’t he go and start his own bank instead of wanting to be the chief executive of somebody else’s bank.

When my wife told me, I thought she was becoming faithless, that we are praying to God and so we should leave everything in the hands of God and then I told my wife that was the voice of God speaking through a 9 year old boy.

The young man is 47 years old now and going to be 50 soon. He was just a young person and saying let the good Lord make daddy the managing director of his own bank, not somebody else’s bank.

It was a partly government bank but when he suggested it I told my wife that was the voice of God speaking through a 9 year old boy then I made up my mind to do it.

Naturally human beings feel nothing is impossible with God in control so all I was doing was praying but God will not come personally back again to human life, he will use other people so it was Alhaji Otiti and the former vice president Alex Ekueme that were used directly by God to assist me in doing what many people thought was impossible, what many people did not see yet in Nigeria.

In the case of Otiti, he was a deputy governor and someone in the central bank just mentioned to me that we cannot give you license because you do not have a technical partner and I told the person that God is my partner and in the fullness of time.

Having said it I knew some people in the Central Bank, Ola Vincent, Alhaji Otiti and a few others and so something just happened to me and I told my driver to drive me to Otiti’s house.
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I got to his house and his house help told me that Otiti had gone to the governor’s home to break his fast they were both Muslims. So I told my driver to go to the governor’s house and we got there. By the time we arrived there, I was emotional and shedding tears so I got to his gate and said I must see Alhaja Otiti that I gathered he is with the Governor.

I think those young people seeing a big man crying, they said they have to help out so Otiti and the Governor rushed out and I said big brother, these people want to scuttle my ambition, they said because I don’t have foreign technical partner I can’t be given a license to run a bank.

I also said some emotional things that I have done there and some other things, Otiti calmly said, Subomi don’t worry, the Governor and I would arrange something provisionally which will enable you to run that bank and later on you can look for foreign technical partner.

I didn’t think it was possible when another bank official said no way, you are on your own. Otiti was the first person to put my mind at rest but Otiti and the central bank at that time were not given the license.

I had a friend Alex Ekueme, we had been friends before the war and he came back and I had been a good friend so in the church at the Cathedral, I and my wife planned that when Alex is being led out that I will grab the dress of Alex and my wife will grab his wife’s dress.

When we did that, his security people thought there was something wrong with us and then Alex looked back and said, Subomi what happened and I told him, Mr. Vice president why are you not giving me license and my wife said to his wife that her husband wants something and only your husband can give him.

So Alex said we should come out and he said I should come and see him and he assured me that the following Thursday I would get my license. By 3pm of that Thursday, a minister called me and he said Egbon (big brother) congratulations the vice president said that your license has been approved.

All your children are male, do you miss not having a female child?

All my children are male, yes, but I do have six grand daughters, I have ten grandsons, I think it is in my gene, but the wives of my children are playing the role of daughters to me and I have been greatly blessed.