Oluyemi Titilayo Showunmi is one woman of remarkable and admirable status. She is a Deputy Director in the Lagos State civil service with over 21 years in service. Her journey cuts across so many life lessons, experiences and so much more that has helped her to the height she has attained today. Oluyemi opens up to Tosin Clegg about life at 50, how she met her husband, life lessons, becoming a person of influence and much more
I thank God for the gift of life
I thank God for the challenges of life. I thank God for what I am able to surmount. I thank God that I don’t look like what I have been through and I thank God for everybody who has been around me, particularly. First, I will give glory to the almighty God, as I have said. I will thank my husband who has been very supportive. I thank my parents for the value they instilled in me, and of cause, family-friends who have become family members. I also thank everybody I have come across in life, colleagues, both juniors and seniors, everyone has been awesome. For everyone I have met, I have learnt something from them, so being 50, in one word for me, is edifying. It is sort of enlightenment, but most importantly it is about being grateful to God for the gift of life.
Creating experiences with people
Iam lucky that I work in an environment where I am not doing a strictly 9am to 5pm job, so I have the opportunity to meet a lot of young people. I have the chance to interact with them. I could relate with them and motivate them, and when I see people with talents and watch them grow, it makes me really happy. I could see potential in people and I could buy into it, living a life of legacy, living a life of inspiring people to grow, that’s my achievement.
I am more of an introvert
But I think I am more of an ambivert. I can do one-on-one with you and be free when I know you, but when it comes to being an extrovert; I can’t come into the room and suddenly chat with people. I would want to thank God for my husband; he has been extremely supportive and enlightened. He has promoted me in many ways, and I am not just saying this about, him, I think my husband has made me a better person. He is my greatest critic, the person I fear most to talk about issues with is my husband, because he would raise it to a higher level and I would have to go inward, challenge myself and come up with something I know can be helpful with his intellectual abilities. So, I’m grateful for that, and he is not that kind of person that will lay pressure on you to do things that you don’t necessarily want to do like, you know, he goes to his parties, I am his cheerleader, I clap him on.
Sometimes I go to the parties with him, but he is comfortable with me not wanting to go out, and with the nature of my job again, when you are a civil servant, you have to be behind the scene, you have to implement the policies of the government, you are not supposed to be seen all over the place. So, this person I am is the combination of my parents, my background and my job.
The hobby I picked up early in life was reading. You know our own generation was nothing compared to what we have now that there is more innovation, you have better programme on the television, the internet, the social media and the rest, but the only thing we had then was rolling tires, skipping, ten-ten and playing with sand. So, the other thing you could do that would actually occupy you most of the time was reading. I picked up reading at a very young age, so sometimes when you see that I am indoors, I am actually reading, because reading takes me into different worlds, and it even takes me to different personalities, such that I am able to know people easily.
Before I ever travelled out of the country, I was so familiar with some of the things I expected to see in terms of culturisation and westernization, and by the time I travelled out, it was as if maybe I had been part of them or I grew up there. For me, knowledge is enlightenment, its edifying, it takes you to places and up till now I still make sure that I read every day, and the internet makes it easy.
I did my NYSC with INEC, where I work incidentally, in Maiduguri
The country was safe, not what we have today, I graduated early, I was 20 by the time I was finishing and my parents were not scared. It was even a good opportunity for me to even go, I could relate with people from other cultures. So when I see what is happening today in the country, it makes me really sad, because the people that actually helped me with my work attitude and work mentality were even some of the people we are asking to leave our land, due to ethnic profiling. I pray that Nigeria comes out of this and I pray that we actually become one again, truly in the sense of being one, such that we can have one nation where people will speak with one voice and we can say that the fact that I am from this place, or the fact that you are from this place does not really matter.
In life you have to be humble
I have told this story to a lot of people and Iam glad that I’m sharing it with you today. The one thing that my dad taught us in life is about being humble, and being humble is not thinking less of yourself, it’s not being totally absorbed with yourself and thinking you are all that. Let me tell you about my friend Jumai. When I went to serve in Maiduguri, I was a corper, Jumai was a receptionist, I could have been thinking that why would I relate with her, but she was always there with me, anytime I was on break, we had tea together, we took lunch breaks together, she was my good friend. Incidentally, the governor of Borno State was Col. Marwa, and so they were coming to open the INEC office and I was told I had to do something, which was like carry a tray such that they can pick the scissors to cut the ribbon. I was thinking in my head like, is this why I went to the university, to come out and be holding trays, but I was like I am here already, maybe they picked me because I was the youngest and there were no too many women around, and didn’t complain.
My boss then said, Yoruba girl, when you are coming dress in iro and buba, and I was like they are even telling me what to wear. One of our national commissioners, Ambassador Hagazali noticed and said who was that and they told him I was a corper, he now said, ask her whether she would like to be retained at INEC, that was in December, and I was like no I don’t want to be retained, you know I was just part of the ceremony, not that I wanted to be there. Immediately they finished and they were doing the reception, I left. So, it was at the reception he told them to ask me if I wanted to be retained at INEC. On Monday when I got to the office, Jumai told me what the man said, and I said no, that my parents were in civil service, that there was no money in civil service; I did not want to be retained. My mom later called me in March and she said, be behaving well at work so that they can retain you. I told her about the offer I had and that I already said no. My mom said to me, your father has a company where you have been born on the wrong side of the track, you might not have been educated. So, in as much as you are asking for something, you are also thanking God for other things.
My beauty routine is very simple; I do a lot of water
I watch what I eat, but everything has to be in moderation. There was a time someone was telling me not to do vegetable oil at all, and I found out that when I was not doing oil, fine I was not getting bigger, but my skin was getting wrinkled and my sister-in-law used to make fun of me. But water definitely is good, it hydrates the skin, and once the skin is hydrated you are good, and the fruits too, if you can’t eat your fruit, you can juice it, even if it’s just watermelon.
I got my fashion style from my mom
In her wardrobe, she had a lot of shoes, but I could not relate that to who she was at that time because she was not into makeup. She had never even permed her hair, not even once. She had never put on a lip stick in her life, but I saw that she had really nice and classy shoes for whatever she was at a young age. Also for books I read, I was inspired by the likes of Erelu Ojora, Maryam Babangida, and wanting to be like them, and in reading, I saw that less was more, that simplicity is the ultimate sophistication, so I try to look for pieces that you can never place and it will be nice.
