Home » THE CEO » Otunba Dele Momodu Publisher/CEO, Ovation International Magazine – Why I chose Ghana as my intellectual base

Otunba Dele Momodu Publisher/CEO, Ovation International Magazine – Why I chose Ghana as my intellectual base
At first, all he wanted to do was to be a univer sity teacher, just like his mentor, Prof. Wole Soyinka, the Nigerian Nobel Laureate who turned 80 recently, and who taught him literature in the then University of Ife, now Obafemi Awolowo University, Ile-Ife, in Nigeria’s former West ern Region.
Having gone through the ‘University of Hard Knocks’, where life tossed him up and down with the force of a mon soon, the young Momodu studied hard at Ile-Ife, and graduated in flying colours. Then, he began the race to live his dream. But after a fruitless search for work, he became desperate. And he headed to Lagos, the then Nigerian capital, looking for gold. That was where his second love, journalism, was revealed. He discovered journalism, or journalism discovered him, and he began to cut his teeth at the African Concord, a wave-making magazine published by the Concord Press of Nigeria, the biggest private newspaper house at the time.
That was where the jour nalistic potentials of Otunba Dele Momodu, publisher of the famous lifestyle magazine, Ovation International, and a presidential aspirant in the last general elections in Nigeria, became full bloom. Since then, there is no stopping this quintes sential journalist; not even the military which unleashed terror on him and other writers and rights activists in the 1990s, kill ing some, maiming some, driv ing others into exile. It was while in exile in London that Momodu founded Ovation International magazine, a medium that has made him one of his country’s most influential citizens.
Momodu looked as modest and humble as they could come when he granted Weekend Sun audience, recently, at his posh abode situated at the high brow Airport Residential area of Ac cra.
He discussed everything jour nalism, and held nothing back on the twists and turns he has had to face in his 54 years on earth. In the end, Momodu couldn’t help but sing: To God be the glory, great things he hath done…
Please, sit back, relax and enjoy every bit of the interview where he disclosed vital busi ness lessons that would benefit any potential entrepreneur eye ing the Ghana business environ ment.
It seems you are very much at home in Ghana here than in Nigeria-
Not really. I started living partly in Ghana about 13 years ago by pure accident. On July 25, 1995, I managed to escape from Nigeria. I was on the run from the Abacha junta. When I crossed the Nigerian border into Cotonou, I started crying because I wasn’t sure of where I was going. I also had a fear that if I remained too long in Coto nou, which was just next door to Nigeria, anything can happen to me. When I got to Lome, I couldn’t speak French. So, I moved to Ghana. I got to Ghana late in the evening and checked into a hotel in Dzorwulu, Nuga Hill Hotel. I was struck instantly by the sharp difference between Accra and Lagos.
Namely?
Infrastructure. Rawlings was still president; a lot of activities were still taking place, and a lot of reconstruction works were going on. The environment was very serene, like anything you can get in Europe. They had landline telephones, even till today. The Abiolas had an office here then, a shop where they were selling printing materials. When I visited them, I was quite amazed at the kind of life they lived. They lived in a bungalow with low fence. I said to myself, I will come back here one day. I have always been a good student of Kwame Nkrumah. I read all his works that I could find. My favourite was Africa Must Unite. I read that book over and over again.
Anyway, I went into ex ile. Because when you are in exile you cannot go to your own country, I had to seek asylum in London, and I was one of the very few Nigerians ever granted full refugee status. For a long time, I could only come to Ghana if we had meetings. Gradually, I totally fell in love with Ghana and I decided that I would set up something. Around 2002, I came in with Seye Ke hinde, publisher of City People, and we went around. You see the office where we have House of Ovation, it was Seye and I that went to look at the property and decided we were going to take it. But I soon realised that the sharp cultural and attitudinal differenc es between Ghana and Nigeria remains. I realised that while you can do business and make money in Lagos, it is a different ball game here in Ghana because it is a smaller market.
So…?
So, I decided that I would set up a library. What I am doing here is not really business. A lot of people think I have moved my business out of Lagos to Ghana. No. Ovation is 80 percent Nige rian. We are there in Lagos. Our stories are largely Nigerian. But then, we also wanted to have a kind of flavour that is different from what we have in Lagos. So, we set up structures in Cotonou where we were doing Ova tion in French. We have people translating some of our major stories in Togo and Cotonou. And in Ghana, we do a lot of stories, mostly articles. When you say something is an African publication, it must truly reflect Africa. Now, we do things in East Africa. We have done things in The Gambia…
Ovation is in East Africa?
Yes. We are doing things now in East Africa. I just came back from Nairobi. We are doing events in Cote d’Ivoire, as well as in Liberia and Sierra Leone. We are trying to have a pan-African publication. When I was returning from Nairobi, , as soon as I sat down on the aircraft and other passengers started coming in, you would not believe how many people, non-Nigerians, who stopped to take pictures with me.
They were all calling me Mr. Ova tion. Most people did not even remem­ber my name, but the brand name is so strong. That is my original dream. And I’m happy we are living the dream. So, Ghana is my intellectual resource base. It is not about business. I don’t make a dime here.
What about the restaurant, House of Ovation?
House of Ovation came into exis tence because of an experience I had at a time. A lot of people, when they come from Nigeria, they used to come to my house to eat. On one occasion, Lucky Igbinedion, then Governor of Edo State, came to Ghana with all his legislators and I hosted them. They ate, drank and enjoyed. When he was going, he sent his personal assistant to give me money and I was embarrassed. From the way I was brought up, if you go to a man’s house, you are his guest. You can’t pay for food. If I couldn’t afford to give you food, I would not have invited you to my house in the first place. So, I rejected the money.
But that episode got me thinking: if people can afford to pay for food, then, why shouldn’t I open a restaurant for them? That was where the idea of the restaurant came from. A lot of time, too, if I am not around, it means my guests couldn’t eat. And Nigerians love their food. Even me. When I went to Kenya, I did not rest until I found a Nigerian restaurant to supply me my rice and dodo (fried plantain). An average Nigerian likes to eat Nigerian food. So, I got this concept of a 24-hour restaurant where people can come and eat amala, even late in the night; where if you wake up in the morning, you can come there to have your yam and egg, or ogi and akara.
That was the concept. We got a place in Osu and renovated it. It was top notch. Unfortunately, we did not take bureau cracy into consideration. We ordered our catering equipment from South Africa. We transferred about 60,000 dollars just for us to able to acquire the best of customized plates and cutleries. This was in October 2006. The goods arrived Tema Port in January 2007. To clear the goods took us over three years. There was nothing I did not do. I ran to GIPC, tour­ism board, Ministry of Tourism, no dice. They were just pushing me here and there until I lost all the money I had invested. Five year lease in Osu alone cost me over US$50, 000. I lost all that.
You couldn’t open the place even for one day?
We opened but everything we needed to operate at optimal service was trapped at the port. The money was going. I was hemorrhaging to death. There was a day I lost it completely, I was crying like a baby. I lost that money and at the end of the day, I also lost interest. Overall, I lost about half a million dollars. We had to keep buying things we already bought and the longer it took for me to take off, the more difficult, the more traumatized I became until a lady, Evelyn Nartey, came and said she could do it. I told her to go ahead with it. That is why it is still there, now at West Airport. But my original concept was much bigger than that.
What are the major obstacles that businesses must scale before they can succeed in Ghana?
Every society has its own entrenched ways of doing things. Nigerians can work 24 hours and not leave the office. When we started Ovation in London, we would sleep in the office for four days. We would bathe, eat and do everything in the office. I don’t think that would happen in Ghana. Ghanaians have a culture almost similar to that of the European: if the work is 8a.m. to 5p.m., when it is 5p.m., I am going home. A Nigerian is not used to that kind of culture.
So, you are going to have that culture shock if you come here and you think someone who is supposed to close at 5 will close at 10 p.m. That was my first shock. Then, in Nigeria, weekend papers are very strong papers. In Nigeria, Sat urday and Sunday papers are bestsellers. From Friday to Sunday, you find people buying papers because that is when they can relax and read. In Ghana, the reverse is the case. The newspaper culture here is not as ambitious as what you have in Nigeria. Here, radio is very aggressive, and television, to some extent.
Another issue is registration of busi ness. The process here is a bit cumber some, very thorough though. But I think they must find a way, especially if they are trying to attract investors. They have to find a way of accelerating the process. Every society must be able to provide something. I believe more intellectual investments will come to Ghana.
The economies of the two countries, Nigeria and Ghana, seem to be fusing, yet, you have these challenges…
It is the fault of the elite. The elites of every society find everything competitive when it should not be. There is no invest ment Ghana is going to get from Asia or Europe that you can’t get from Nigeria. All the money Nigerians are carrying to Dubai, Ghana is just 45 minutes away. Ghana is the one that will benefit from the crisis in Nigeria. No other country can benefit more. Nigerians are coming here and already they are spreading tales that things are not as easy as they think. I think Ghana needs to work fast on that. I have been able to break down most of the barriers. In Ghana today, I go anywhere, everybody knows about the Ovation brand. If I got angry and walked away, I would have lost all that. So, we have to be patient. And we also have to understand the fact that Nigerians like to bully, like the Americans, which the Ghanaians don’t like. I learnt that over time, that when you are in Rome, behave like the Romans. Ghanaians are not overtly flamboyant. They are not loud like us. So, respect their culture.
Talking of entrepreneurship, what other things do investors need to do to succeed in Ghana?
Don’t come to Ghana thinking the economy is like what you have in Abuja. Look for what you can do here that is original and that is not already done here. That is the first rule of business. You go to any society, look for something that is not there and they need. If you think hard enough, you would find it. If it is ordinary akara (fried bean cake) that you are coming to sell here, do it differently. People come in thinking “those who are there, I am going to give them a run for their money.” No, it is not going to be that simple. I have seen Nigerians who came here to open big businesses. That was the mistake I made. I thought I could come here, and if I do a big restaurant, every body – Ghanaians and expatriates alike – would come here.
Sadly, there is till that mutual distrust between Nigerians and Ghanaians. If you set up a big place, Ghanaians may not come there; so, you have to depend solely on tourists who are coming from Nige ria and when they come, a lot of them might not even stay in Accra. They may be going to Kumasi or Akosombo. So, your market is still very small. But if you come and invest in something that is not too costly to start, I think the mistake that we made was thinking if I pump half a million dollars into this project it must be the best in town. It doesn’t work that way. You can pump only 50, 000 dollars into a project and it will give you more returns than investing half a million dollars. That is another lesson you must learn. Don’t think too big, because the economy is not very large yet. If you spend too much money, recouping your money is going to be impossible.
What is your attitude to money?
People think I love money; I am probably a stupid man when it comes to money. I am a scholar.
A scholar in business?
Just a scholar. I would say a bit of an entrepreneur, because for you to run a business for 18 years requires the grace of God and at least some business acumen. It’s not an easy thing in Africa to sustain a brand that still remains the No 1 in your genre.
Did you have to go to Harvard to learn…
No, I have street wisdom. You have to be streetwise to be able to survive in Africa, and to get your supposed enemy to buy into your product. That is more difficult. Despite all my criticism of gov ernment, I have been able to maintain a product that everybody loves. And if you ask me, I would tell you that is my biggest achievement.
How did you achieve that?
It is by making sure that while I criticize government, I am fair to everybody. Some people criticize gov ernment blindly, but I engage in con structive criticism so that the person I am criticising, if he is wise, if he is deep and if he is knowledgeable, he would know that I am not pursuing a vendetta. I am doing it because our nation is bigger than all of us. And they know that I will not come in the dead of the night to come and beg for favour.
You don’t live with your family?
Here is for me to work, a library. My base really is London, which is where we print the magazine. Two of my kids are London, two are in Nigeria.
How many houses do you have?
In London, I have a house on mort gage.
I mean in Nigeria?
None. My senior brother came one day and said I am not comfortable with the fact that you don’t have a house here in Lagos. I let him finish. When he was done, I prostrated and said ‘I am very sor ry sir, but the fault is yours’. He said how? I said ‘I lived with you for over 13 years on campus, you never taught me how to steal’. He laughed. He got my point.
I’ve seen too many people who were rich when I was young, but today, their children don’t have anything. I chose to invest in my children. My first son is reading computer science and Japanese language. He can speak Japanese, Span ish, Italian, French and Latin. For me, that is my property. He went to one of the best school in the world: Harrow. The school attended by Sir Winston Churchill. That is my idea of wealth. Today, he is studying in Imperial College.
My second son went to Charter House. All the billionaires in this world aspire for their children to go to Harrow, Charter House and Eton. I have a son who has gone to Harrow. I have a son who went to Charter House to read economics and is now in Bristol. That is my property. The most expensive property in the world is not a house, it is intellectual property. The third one is going to do his A level in one of those top schools. Those are my property. To pay my children school fees, I know how much it costs in a year. My investment in a year would buy houses anywhere in the world, but I would rather invest in my children.
Why do you choose this path because it doesn’t tally with the kind of people you associate with?
I don’t associate with them. As a jour nalist, you associate with the poor and the rich. But because the magazine is about the lifestyle of the rich and the famous, naturally, people think we associate with them.
 
by shola OSHUNKEYE and jibril MUSA