While growing up as a young boy in Anambra State, Osita Emmanuel Okoli got introduced into estate surveying by his elder brother who was then an architect. He has since found love in the profession and today, he is already at the pinnacle of his career. Okoli explains to KAZEEM AKINTUNDE how he got to the top.
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Why did you opt for estate surveying as a profession?
The choice to study estate management, first and foremost, was influenced by my elder brother, who was then studying architecture in the university. Also, the course was offered in the faculty of environmental study, where geographers had their lectures. He largely influenced my choice of course, though I loved geography and could easily have become a marine geology. I had keen interest in Geography when I was in secondary school and I believe I made one of the best results in Geography then. I would have followed up on it, but my brother, who was already exposed convinced me to take the estate management option.
How did you establish your firm?
We started Osita Okoli and Company around 1992 (that was when the paper work and registration process commenced). We started work fully in 1993. I would say that from my days in the university, I had always known that I would set up a practice, and I had the conviction that my company would rival any other firm anywhere in the world. Even while in school, one of my lecturers said the same thing and I worked assiduously towards it as soon as I graduated. First, while sering the nation (NYSC) in Kaduna State, I worked with one of the best estate firms in the country, Knight, Frank and Routely as it was called then. Later, I joined them in Lagos and I worked in various departments. By the time I left the firm in 1991, I had been elected a member of the institute and would have set up my practice. I was elected by the Nigeria Institution of Estate Surveyors and Valuers in 1990 and got my stamp and seal from the institute in 1991. By that, I was qualified to set up my practice but I didn’t do that; I wanted to take up more challenges. I left Knight, Frank and Rutley to take up an appointment with Fox and Company, another established estate firm. In fact, it was the first Nigerian estate firm, but many people don’t know that. I and some of my colleagues had the challenge to rejuvenate what was then a dying company. I worked with them till around 1993 before I fully established my own firm. I think I worked for others for about six years before setting up my own firm.
What were some of the challenges you encountered while setting up your own firm?
Very many. I initially planned, as I always do in all my endeavours, that I would set up my own firm, but would not leave with any of my previous employer’s projects or clients. The challenges were there; one was how to raise enough funds to rent office space, rent an apartment for myself, furnish it and at the same time buy a car. I was just a young man trying to rise in my profession. And I also lost some money to a fraudster as well. My prospective landlord at Oworonsoki, Gbagada in those days turn out to be a fraudster. All the money I paid him as rent was never recovered. I lost the better part of $10,000 in 1991, and that discouraged me a great deal, but I kept on. I re-started, thanks to the benevolence of Mr. Obienu; I owe him a great deal. He was running a finance company at the old bookshop in CMS at that time and he graciously gave me a desk space in his office. I wasn’t paying rent, I didn’t own any of the office equipments and that was where my practice started. We grew from there, before we moved on to the main bookshop house the following year. Presently, we have succeeded in setting up branches in Port Harcourt and Abuja, as well as in Onitsha, Anambra State.
?When you started off, what was your staff strenght?
I started alone. It was more like a one-man thing. I was doing everything all alone and later had the privilege of being joined by a lady who I encouraged very much. She studied town planning, but I encouraged her to take a career in estate surveying. We had an excellent relationship and she worked very hard with me. Later on, we employed others and that was how we grew.
Total number of years you have put in into the business . . .
Since graduation, that should be around 25 years, but my own firm began effectively in 1993.
Can you recall a project that you have handled so far that gave you a lot of headache?
One of the most challenging jobs that we have executed would be a dredging job. The problem was due, mainly, to the fact that the components that we valued were not the usual things we worked on on a daily basis but we were able to apply valuation principles that we had learnt in solving the problems relating to that assignment and that included marine vessels, house boats, etc, all used in the dredging and marine work. You will agree with me that that was no piece of cake. It was so difficult and challenging that the finance director of the company, a Dutch man, didn’t have confidence in us. He never believed that we could do it, but he gave us the chance to do the job and he was very excited when it was completed. Infact, after that, he recommended our company to many of his friends.
How supportive were family and friends in building your firm?
Yes, I would say though they did not offer financial assistance, they did offer mainly moral and spiritual support. They prayed with, guided and offered us advice. My brother and father were pillars of support all through my years. We went into the business, knowing that people are there for us and I had financial support from my mother in the course of doing other businesses, because I did a lot of things, I must tell you. I was travelling to Europe, involved in one little business or the other, all to augment my salary then. That was how I was able to make some tidy sum which I used to buy myself a car. That was around 1990.
Would you describe yourself as one born with a silver spoon?
I wouldn’t say so. I had an interesting and challenging up-bringing. My father was a businessman, but we called him a trader. So was mt mother. But he was a very pious, honest and dedicated person. He had always wanted good education for himself, but he never really got it to the fullest, but he swore that his children would have good education, even if he had to suffer to do so. In fact, my brother had a car while in school, but I rejected the car gift when I was on campus, because my brother had taught me to be independent. I worked hard to buy my car. I had to sacrifice my time and leisure to make the extra money I used to buy my own car.
Take a look at the economy; in what areas do you think the federal government could help your profession?
So many ways and, like I have said in the past, one of the impediments which the government has to remove to make the real estate more vibrant is the abrogation of the Land Use Act. The land use act has no business again in Nigeria’s statutes book in 2011. It was conceived essentially for the selfish aim of those in government at those periods, so that they could acquire lands for projects without hindrance. In the days of our forefathers, land was appropriated to individuals and communities but they came with their own system and vested it on government, with all the attendant bureaucracy and inefficiency in government, and that is not the way to run an effective land use system. Since the advent of the Land use act, the development of the real estate sector has suffered greatly. We had what could pass for a mortgage system in the late 60s and early 70s. If that system had been allowed to develop naturally, perhaps presently, we should have evolved a much more efficient mortgage and real estate sector in the country.
What would you suggest the government do to turn things around in that sector?
Government should have the will to scrape the Land Use Act, not just reworking it. We need to back to the old land tenure system that we had in the past, a system that recognised the interest of communities and individuals who owned lands. These communities efficiently administered land according to customary rights and laws in existence in those days. But what do we have today? People cannot even get titles to their lands, months and years after getting permission, and when they do, they pay through their noses, spending more than half of the capital cost of acquiring the land. Also, there is so much inefficiency and fraud in the system. Getting a certificate of occupancy (C of O) is difficult. We have secceeded power to those in government, both at the states and federal levels, and it is affecting development.
How can the menace of quacks in your profession be tackled?
Quackery cannot thrive without some insiders in the profession engaging those who are unqualified. If there are no quacks from within, there won’t be quacks from without. You have a system where a lot of graduates who ought to apply themselves to the process of training to become qualified mess up the process. What you have, essentially, are half-baked or unbaked people in the system. For them, the ultimate is money; they have nothing to do with ethics and status, because they don’t subscribe to any code of ethics. They are not bound by anything. They are the ones who gave impetus to non-estate surveying graduates to do the same thing.
As the second vice-president of NSEIV, what were those things you effected to correct the rot in the system?
As the second vice-president of the institution then, I was the chairman of a committee saddled with taking disciplinary measures and dealing with professional misconduct within our members and members of the public. I will tell you, we spared no one who ran foul of the law. We did all we were empowered to do, and ensured that appropriate sanctions were handed to offending parties. But because of the bureaucracy in the system, not all conflicts were resolved; they dragged on for a very long period, all through my tenure. However, before I became the vice-president, when I was the public relations officer of the institute between 1996 and 1998, we had cause to discipline members without fear or favour.
Consider what is presently happening in Lagos: in every nook and cranny, there are people claiming to be ‘real estate agents’ offering their services. Many of them have duped Lagosians in the past. What is your association doing about it?
As much I recall, we have set up a committee to set minimum standards for them so that we could admit them as a cadre within the profession. there was also an attempt to register them. In fact, an association for them was registered, so that we could account for their activities, monitor what they did, make them subscribe to our code of ethics, punish them when they err and thereby sanitise the system. I think one of those committees was headed by Chief Kola Akomolade, but I am unaware of how far they have gone in their work.
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