How school abandonment sailed the complexity of life …

The billionaire businessman, Femi Otedola, revealed that his struggles with the school made him leave academic and focus on business.

He shared his story in his new book of memories of 286 pages, “Making It Big”, where he reflects on his humble beginnings and on difficult school years.

Otedola also remembered being classmates with Kola Abiola, son of the deceased billionaire and political, Capo Moshood Abiola, during his initial school.

“My parents enrolled me in the staff of the University of Lagos in 1968, at the age of six.

“But there was something in the academic world and I; we were not compatible. I finished the elementary school in 1974 because I repeated a lesson. Even when I was allowed to pass, I constantly anchored the lower steps of our results of the end of mandate exam. My interests were certainly not in the academy,” he wrote.

After the elementary school, Otedola went to the Methodist Boys’ High School, Lagos in 1974, but continued to fight academically.

“I started module 1 at the age of 12 and I was there for three years. The school had been founded in 1878 and had great former students, such as Azikiwe, Mobolaji Johnson, Ola Rotimi, Fola Adeola and Ollusgun Oosoba. But even there, my results did not improve”, he noticed.

To help him improve, his parents moved him to the Olivet Baptist High School, Oyo, where his brothers, as retired, were excellent.

However, Otedola said that his interest in academics continued to decrease.

His turning point came when his father started in Impact Press, a press company in Surulere, Lagos.

“I fascinated myself by the machines and I told myself that my future would have been inextricably linked to them. I managed to stay at school until the sixth less exam was finished. And then, I finished; I never returned for my sixth superior,” he admitted.

Otedola ignored his mother’s objections and joined the full -time family business. In 1987, at the age of 25, he had become CEO of Impact Press.

Despite his first success, Otedola said he wanted independence. He convinced his father to let him work as a sales consultant for the press, earning the 10-15% commission on the works he assured

“It was a significant break for me. I invested my money in the purchase of cars for the raising awareness of sales and marketing and went to the next phase of my nascent professional life,” he wrote.

Otedola added that he liked the smell of the ink and the sound of the machines much more than fighting with pythagoras at school. What started as a young bet of an abandonment in the end has become the foundation of a commercial empire that covers oil, energy, finance and philanthropy.

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