Why I will never raise any of my kids in Nigeria— London Big Boy, Johnson Olukotun | …Knocks down President Buhari’s economic team

Dr. Johnson & Mrs. Oluwabunmi Olukotun
In this second and concluding part of
our exclusive interview with London based Homeopathy expert (Treatment of Bumps
and Keloids) Dr. Johnson Abiodun Olukotun, the versatile ex-Naval
officer turned footballer turned Acne Doctor reveals some of his deepest pains
for Nigeria a country he claims to know like his palm and why none of his
children would ever have the grace of being raised in Nigeria except something
is speedily done to reverse the way the society is sliding at the moment. 

Dr.
Olukotun
registered his anger at so many things that has made Nigeria a
“No-Come Area” for many Diaspora black of Nigeria descents and why the country
needs a total overhaul of its political echelon before it could be taken
serious in the comity of nations. The highly travelled Dr. Jay as fondly addressed who is presently studying law in the UK
equally shared his soft spots with us including his best meal, best sport, role
model, best tourist country and so many other interesting things you don’t know
about him. Enjoy the exclusive only on Africa’s number 1 Celebrity Encounter
blog Asabeafrika.


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Dr. Jay appreciating a local poet who sang his Oriki @ Ode-Aye, Ondo State, South West Nigeria

If you have a chance to meet the
Nigerian President now, what are you going to tell him to do to change the
nation for better?
If you want
me to be frank, for Nigeria to remain a reasonable entity we must go back to
the days of regionalism when the southerners look after themselves, the
Easterners look after themselves and the northerners take care of their own
situation. I don’t know how they are going to divide it, may be the Arewas,
the Oduduwa
and I don’t know the name the South East call themselves now. They will need to
arrange it in such a way that we will have a federal purse where the regions
will be coming to drop certain percentage of whatever they earned from their
various regions. Now, when you have a regional government and your own person
from your own region is so wasteful about your resources, you will know how to
handle him. I remember when I was in Portharcourt in those days, when
they give an indigene a responsibility and he fails to deliver, you will see a
mob embarked on him; in fact they will finish him. After they have done one or
two cases like that, there was a change and that was how Portharcourt came to become
one of the best cities in Nigeria at the time and we call it “The Garden City”.
Very clean and well managed, I don’t know of today. Politics have spoiled
everything. We politicize everything in this country, for this present
administration I can’t see any success. I am sorry.
“I read it just now before you came
for this interview on the Facebook and I was shocked, if such thing could be
coming from Pastor Tunde Bakare who
is one of the allies of President Buhari
then I don’t know which hope we have again”.
Dr. Johnson Olukotun with his Bundle of Joy, Elizabeth Arinola Olukotun
How do you mean?
You see when
you look at our president; let us remove the age barrier, a 72 years old man?
How many seventy something years old leaders do you know around the globe that
is performing? That is number one. Secondly, the tension and challenges of the
job is so enormous that he cannot handle it, and the way he could have been
successful was to have surrounded himself with some good technocrats. Now, when
I look at the ministerial list, he is giving three portfolios to (Ex-Lagos
State Governor) Babatunde Raji Fashola.
The portfolios are power which is a major-major problem in Nigeria, housing
another major-major-major problem in Nigeria and works, can you imagine? These
are three major areas that we are really lacking behind, how could you give
such three major portfolios to one particular person? How do you expect him to
perform? But people were shouting, people were hailing him and I looked at my
people and I say ‘Oh my God! How could we all be sleeping and facing one
direction? Why is somebody not looking the other side of the road?’ You
understand? So, that is a great failure. His teams of technocrats are not the
best. We have brains abroad we have people who are doing very well in their
various endeavors; we should stop putting a square peg in a round hole. So, I
am praying for Nigeria that someday, somebody will rise up with a vision.
Dr. Johnson Olukotun with Nigerian born British based Real Estate Expert, Dr. Dapo Williams
You mean you lost confidence in
President Buhari’s team?
Don’t
deceive yourself, he cannot perform. In fact I was reading something on the Facebook
today; one of his allies Pastor Tunde
Bakare
said Buhari has no capacity to lead Nigeria to the Promised Land. I
read it just now before you came for this interview on the Facebook and I was
shocked, if such thing could be coming from Pastor Tunde Bakare who is one of the allies of President Buhari then I don’t know
which hope we have again. He was at a point in time the Vice President to General Buhari in one of the elections.
So, I don’t know what we are talking about again, I don’t know what we are
talking about. So, there is no hope don’t let us deceive ourselves, it is the
same old game. They are just messing us around.
Is there any hope for Mr. Johnson
Olukotun to return home and settle down for business and new life?
I have been
nursing this ambition for long time. 2004 I made the first attempt; I was duped
by my own people.
“We have a lot of people in the
Diaspora that are aspiring to come back home to come and start something but if
you hear stories of how people had been duped by relatives and business
partners, you wont feel good about inviting any one of your own to Nigeria”
Dr. Johnson Olukotun with London based Evangelist Obafemi Aboluwodi
Did you just say duped?
All the
goods that we brought we couldn’t market it ourselves, we appointed some sales
agents and they killed the business. Some people even ran away with our vehicle
and till tomorrow we didn’t see them. I came back again in 2008 to look for
opportunity, we wanted to go into production but when we calculated the amount
of diesel we will be using to produce and the pollution we would be causing to
our business neighborhood we dumped the idea, we are conscious people who are
aware of the environmental hazards that these things could cause our community.
This year again I have been around looking for the opportunity of what I could
do, it is not about making money, it is about being part of the system and
impacting lives. If I want to be greedy and make money I know what I could do
in Nigeria. That is why you see the Chinese coming to Nigeria, the Indians
are coming, they are taking advantage of the number, the population. If I am
selling anything for N1 and I send 200 girls out everyday they are coming back
home with two, two hundred Naira. Two-Two hundred naira in hundred places, it
is about twenty thousand for me and I am not paying any tax on it and that’s
how I will be making it everyday. Nigeria is the easiest place to be rich
quick. All you need is the brain and the capital. But when you look at the environmental
hazard, your life will be shortened by at least 25 years coming back to
Nigeria. The pollution you will be inhaling everyday, the dangers on the road,
the horrible traffic, the illness that you will develop in your body. So, I
will rather be coming home for holidays and keep wishing you guys’ good luck.
Whenever you come over there we will host you so that whenever we come here you
can guide and show us around.
Dr. Johnson Olukotun with Lagos Business Woman, Princess Toyin Kolade of Fisolak Group of Companies
Are you serious?
No, joke
apart, I just had a new born baby. I don’t pray for my child to grow up in
Nigeria and I am not prepared to leave my child in London. So, I have to stay
with her for another twenty years, by twenty years time I will be 73 going to
74. So, that is not the right time to come back home. I will by then be a grand
dad looking after my grand children, taking them home to know their roots and
doing so many other things.
Is this your very honest view about
Nigeria or you are just kidding?
I am not
kidding, that is my life. I am having a good life in the UK. I am having a very
good life in that society.
But few days back some Nigerians were
deported from the UK and there is a wide opinion against such decision?
I am a
British Citizen I have a British Passport, my kids are British citizens. The
people who are deported are people who came in there illegally. If you have the
opportunity to perfect your papers through the right channel nobody is going to
deport nobody. We have equally been in that kind of situation before, they need
to find their level and regularize their stay. I will be so mad to leave a well
organized society to come and live in this type of society; you wouldn’t do the
same, Gbenga. In fact, don’t let us joke about it.
“I have travelled all over the world
but there is a small town in Portugal called
Barcelos it is in the province of Porva-De-Darzim, that is where I have
been to that I have really enjoyed and it is very, very cheap and good place”
Dr. Johnson Olukotun with a young friend, Hon. Ola Fasanya @ Ode-Aye
Is it that bad?
We have a
lot of people in the Diaspora that are aspiring to come back home to come and start
something but if you hear stories of how people had been duped by relatives and
business partners, you wont feel good about inviting any one of your own to
Nigeria. Like one of my friends came and bought a house in Omole Phase One and as
they were about to settle down, that same week, armed robbers came, broke into
the house and he swore that he will never ever return into the country again
because he missed death just narrowly. They gave him a severe cut with a
cutlass on his shoulder that he is still carrying up and down till today. So, I
am so lucky that since I have been coming, God has been so faithful with me. I
have narrowly escaped some fatal accident on Lagos-Ibadan Express road two
times and since then, I don’t travel at night. Whenever I travel, I travel at
day time and after 6pm I don’t move out of my hotel room again till I will go
back. So, it is a fearful country.
Dr. Johnson Olukotun being Praise sing by a native poet who gave him his Oriki
That means you are deeply pained
about your country Nigeria?
I am mad. I
am seriously mad. When I go around and I see a lot of talents wasting away and
there is nothing we can do about it, there is absolutely nothing we can do
about it. We only pray that God will heal this nation because it is the same
thing all the time, if you keep doing the same thing, you can’t expect a
different result except you are a mad guy. We keep doing the same thing, doing
the same thing, doing the same thing all the time, we politicize everything. We
will see some good guys with vision but we will never allow them to get there.
But these are the type of people we need in this country, where are people like
Donald Duke? We don’t hear of him no more, we have some good governors that
have performed in their states; we don’t hear of them no more. All our good
guys are forcefully taken away from the scene. And then, Nigeria is a place
where mediocre rule over intellectuals.
Who is your role model?
Role model? Let
me say I have read the biography of great people like Richard Branson, I have
read the story of Bill Gate, these
are people  who had weaknesses when they
were growing up, they used their weakness to build an empire for themselves. I can’t
call them my role models because I read a lot of books about many other people…
Maybe mentors
They are not
my mentors. I just read their books not everything they do is applicable to me.
I read a lot of books about people, I read a lot of documents and I read a lot
of things that interest me. I can’t say one particular person is my mentor or
my role model; I don’t have a role model.
Dr. Johnson Abiodun Olukotun with Prophet (Dr.) Marcus K. O. Tibetan
Why I am studying Law
I learnt you equally enrolled for a
law program in the UK? How are you going to cope with your kind of business?
That is my
retirement course, you know from my childhood I used to be very, very
argumentative and you will struggle to win any argument with me and people were
saying ‘you should have been a lawyer’ not until one particular time when a
bailiff, I don’t know if you know a bailiffs, they are the people who run after
people to collect money forcefully, money that is owned to the government.
There was a time I was issued a parking ticket which I contested and they
brought a form that they were tired of me writing them, you know our people
don’t like writing. So, when I fought with these people by writing letters they
got tired of me and they just asked the bailiffs to come and pick my car and
because I know the law, before a bailiff could pick your car they need a
warrant from the court that will empower them to take that car. So, when the
bailiff was about to take my car, I called my neighbor who is a 76 years old
British, I said ‘Tom, I want you to be my witness, I am asking this young man
to serve me the warrant from the court that empowers him to take my car, if he
should take my car away from here he is taking it illegally and I am going to
sue his company, he needs to serve me a warrant of execution’. So, as soon as
he took away my car I went straight to the court and I filled an injunction and
the court ruled that my car should be returned to me immediately and that if he
has anything against me, he should come to the court. I am not supposed to go
to court. So, that was how my car was returned and then we started the court
process but in my court proceeding I said ‘my car was illegally removed’ so,
the issue of ticket is no longer there now ‘Why did you remove his car
illegally?’ This is a well organized country unlike here in Nigeria where
people are wrongly judged, our judges are corrupt, our judicial system could be
one of the best in the world but it is wrongly practiced here in Nigeria, so
many people are wrongly punished. Some people die of anger inside of them
because of wrong justice and nobody will fight for you unlike in the UK, this
is a black man from Nigeria taking a British Company to the court and the
judgment was given in favor of me.  That
is what is called the rule of law. And since then I started helping some black
people that has similar problems and at a point somebody told me ‘Dr. Jay, why
don’t you go and study law and get the certificate to practice it with your
experience’ and I said ‘Oh, that is a good one, if I have to start reading law
at the age of 52 going to 53, why not?’ and that was how I enrolled to go and
study LLB and by next year October I am going to bag my LLB and I will come
back to Nigeria to do my law school and let’s see maybe I will have a change of
mind to relocate to Nigeria as a old lawyer (Laughter)
Tell me your hobbies?
In my youth
day I used to play football, play table tennis I love athletic I love boxing
and up till this moment I still do a lot of sports, I play some football on
Saturday mornings just to keep feat. So, I do a lot of sports.
What is your favorite meal?
There is
nothing you are looking for in the UK that you cannot get including Bush Meat.
I can’t believe you?
Gbenga I
wish you could come and visit us one of these days, we have stock fish we have Ponmo. London is a small Lagos including
fresh vegetables like Gbure, Ewedu, and Ugwu, everything fresh. It arrives every morning fresh. We have
pounded yam, Olu-Olu even though it
is a steered one that is why I ate a lot of physically pounded yam during this
my visit. But you know what, it doesn’t taste well again, I am used to the
steering one (Olu-Olu). My most favorite food is Pounded Yam with Efo Riro with some nice fresh fish.
You have equally travelled round the
world which country is your most favorite holiday spot?
I have
travelled all over the world but there is a small town in Portugal called Barcelos
it is in the province of Porva-De-Darzim,
that is where I have been to that I have really enjoyed and it is very, very
cheap and good place. Not that when you make the most expensive holidays that
you enjoy it. I have been to Portugal
a lot because I have a friend there who could drive me around, we used to live
in Germany together; another foreign country I love is Spain because it shares a border with Portugal and sometimes we drive across the border across to Spain. I think I enjoy going to Portugal more.

Dr. Jay blesses a Musician who sang for him at Ode-Aye with wads of Naira notes

So, what is going to be your greatest
advice to a group of a thousand ambitious Nigerian Youth in a ball room?

They will
just get my area of strength. My most interesting gift in life is empowerment
and that is what I do most of the time, wherever I go I empower young people, I
encourage them, not only encourage them, I place in their hands keys to unlock
their destinies. Because of my wealth of experience I have motivated a lot of
people. In my short stay in Nigeria I was at the CCC, Elisha cathedral with Prophet
Dr. Marcus
and he gave me the rare opportunity to address the congregation.
After 30 minutes of addressing them, I could see the excitement in them because
I told them every one of you had got potentials. Don’t die without fulfilling
your dreams. Don’t let the situation of the country kill your morale, have a
plan for yourself.  Don’t say you don’t
have the money, draw a plan and you will see that a way will crop up. I spoke
to electricians, I spoke to welders, I spoke to building contractors, I spoke
to traders and I gave them some tips that could enhance their businesses. Many
of them haven’t got a business plan. Many of them haven’t got a contact list of
people they are meeting everyday. Many of them don’t even know where the next
job will come, I now advised them on what to do. And I told them, that your
integrity will set you apart. Because without integrity people can not rely on
you, I told them that ‘you have to be a man of your word’. Don’t let the system
corrupt you, the entire system is corrupt already don’t be part of the corrupt
system. Stand out and let people say ‘this
man, ti e yato’
and I was so surprised that many young men in the compound
started coming to tell me their dreams and I started to advise them
individually.