Looking regal, charming with a mien of contentment in white apparel, the Ibadan High Chief Bashorun Kola Daisi always made an impression on his visitors with his incredible voice. A leading industrialist of his time, his fortune spans over six decades. Following his great antecedents in business, he floated Kola Daisi University with the aim of impacting the lives of Nigerian youths and leaving a lasting legacy. The octogenarian billionaire tells Funke Olaode how his humble beginning stimulated his interest in education.
His sprawling mansion is tucked inside a secluded area in Iyaganku GRA in Ibadan, the Oyo State capital. Inside the palatial edifice, a first time visitor is immersed in the air of affluence of the owner. Daisi’s childhood photograph in a neatly-cut coat is in itself a throwback on his early years before becoming a young successful lawyer and a corporate titan. His older pictures in big traditional robe alongside the ‘who’s who’ in Nigeria and abroad attest to his broad spectrum of friends and influence in high-class social circles.
Looking regal in white apparel and with a charm irresistible, the Ibadan High Chief Kola Daisi impressed this reporter with his incredible voice. He has come a long way in his life trajectory. Advancing age hasn’t slowed him down as he continues to make his mark as a lawyer, industrialist and now an educationist. Like an old wine which tastes better with age, Daisi has such amiable persona built on the benefit of hindsight.
Born on September 14, 1932, in Ibadan, Daisi rose from humble beginnings. With sheer brilliance, he brought the family to prominence. His academic strength was first tested at Christ Apostolic School where he had his primary education from 1938 to 1943. Here, Daisi demonstrated his skills and embraced the philosophy that ability to succeed in the game of life as an individual lies in your hands. At age seven, the young Daisi embraced his studies, becoming a ‘Star Kid.’
He proceeded to Ibadan Boys’ High School where eventually graduated under the watchful eyes of the school principal, the late T.L. Oyesina in 1951. He was also tutored by the late Professor Okonjo, the father of Director –General of World Trade Organization, Dr. Okonjo-Iweala. Daisi led the school and the whole of Ibadan Centre with his outstanding Grade ‘1’ Certificate and the young man became a sensation as the results of his school certificate was published in the Nigerian Tribune. This was 70 years ago when he was only 19 years.
His parents didn’t have money to send him abroad, but his brilliance stood him out. After winning the Native Authority Scholarship, he went to England to study Economics and Law at the University of London after which he was called to the bar at Middle Temple. Daisi had an early rise in life as he became a legal celebrity shortly after he was posted to Ibadan by the law firm of Ayo Rosiji and Company following the victory he had over a legal icon in a celebrated case.
By the time he was 28, Daisi already had the world in his pocket, Sadly, he had a few setback and redirected his focus. He joined Lagos Chamber of Commerce and Industry (LCCI) and worked with the organization for 11 years where he became the Chief Executive. He also served as Executive Director of the Nigerian Association of Chambers Commerce, Industry, Mines and Agriculture (NACCIMA) and co-founded the Nigerian-British Chamber of Commerce- serving as its first Executive Director.
Working with LCCI and by extension NACCIMA was indeed the game changer for Chief Daisi and that experience turned him into a thoroughbred businessman. While at LCCI, he interfaced with many local and foreign businessmen and by the time he left the organization, he had been thoroughly schooled in the art and science of doing business. However, he still had some doubts in business owing to his earlier experience but he knew he could always go back to legal practice. In time, his instinct paid off. He stayed with business and blossomed with stupendous wealth. Daisi started many business organizations, including Ibadan Civic Centre and would later invest in real estate and blue chip companies.
That Daisi is a philanthropist per excellence is an understatement. He uses his means to help the poor while ensuring a proper coordination of his philanthropic activities. Daisi established the Kola Daisi Foundation (KDF), a non-government, non-profit, non-partisan and non-sectarian organization in 1993 to “help Nigerians in the areas of health care, poverty alleviation and children education.”
From inception, the foundation has made serious impact in the three core areas of its intervention. In the area of healthcare, KDF has as its objective, the provision of healthcare “to everyone particularly at the grassroots level. To achieve this objective, the foundation set up “The Itunu Fund” at the University College Hospital (U.C.H.), Ibadan. The fund is devoted to treating indigent patients irrespective of age, ethnic group or gender. Later, the foundation put up a model primary and community health care services. It has partnered the UCH, Ibadan to provide the required manpower and specialist equipment at the clinic. The clinic was commissioned in 2011 by former military head of state, General Abdulsalami Abubakar.
In poverty alleviation intervention of the foundation, KDF has empowered thousands of traders and artisans to improve their vocation. Many trade associations have benefitted from its interest free loans of up to N20,000 to invest in their businesses. In fulfillment of its education mandate, Kola Daisi Foundation, in 1998, donated a two-storey Computer Centre to the University of Ibadan. The building consists of a lecture theatre, several tutorial rooms, many offices for lecturers and administrative staff as well as a computer laboratory.
The foundation also donated a three-storey block of 15 classrooms, including a fully equipped computer classroom with six new computers and printer to the Christ Apostolic Church (CAC) Nursery and Primary School, Itabaale Olugbode, Ibadan, his alma mater. In addition, two blocks, housing male and female toilets were also built, complete with borehole for potable water to which the whole community also has access
“I am delighted to go back to Christ Apostolic Church School. We did new blocks of 15 classrooms and knocked down some old dilapidated parts of the school. Most of it were built with clay, we removed the roofs and replaced them with aluminum roofs in all cases. We provided a borehole, in that particular area which has rocks. It cost quite a few naira to build the borehole. And we have almost always gone back there to make sure that the borehole is working. When we were there in 1938 to 1943, we used water from the stream for all our purposes. There was nothing like water system for toilets at that time. Children who are unfortunate to come to school without having a bath were immersed in that water like you are doing a baptism,” he recounted.
Apart from scholarships for indigent pupils and orphans, KDF has also endowed prizes in three Nigerian universities for Medicine, Law and Humanities; setting up vocational skills acquisition centre to address mass youth unemployment, underemployment and restiveness.
In 2016, the federal government granted a license to the Kola Daisi Foundation to operate the Kola Daisi University, Ibadan with focus on vocational education to tackle unemployment. To actualize this, the university has already signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with Highbury College, Portsmouth, on the establishment of a vocational/skill acquisition centre at the university.
“I am fulfilling my destiny of touching the less privileged through education. My background was enough to simulate my interest in education. My parents never had the privilege of seeing the inside of a school at all. Their background was within a farming community, a family of farmers. And they migrated then in the late 18th century to Ibadan. As a complete illiterate, they decided to send me to school,’’ he recounted.
Out of 150 families of single boys, his father made his family stand out with his effort to get the children educated formally. The opportunity that education brings his way in conquering his world to become successful has a ripple effect in touching the lives of others.
“That was my journey into educational support. I did not invest in any secondary school because that is mostly commercial. But I went straight into university education. Hundreds of thousands of young boys and girls leave secondary school but only a tiny percentage of them are able to get opportunities in government established universities. There are quite a few of them, it started with the federal universities, and then states started to take interest in university education. Up until now, the percentage of university opportunities for children is very low. I think that was the motivation for the government deciding to license private universities. And people who are interested in education, like I am, for instance, have already started to get into it.”
Kola Daisi University is a conventional university with emphasis on courses that empower students to become self-employed. KDU is now five years old. The industrialist turned school administrator believes more needs to be done to take Nigerian education to an enviable height. Diligence on the part of the teachers and discipline on the parents and guardians’ part can make a difference in the status quo for the educational system.
“The general opinion is that the percentage of the GDP that is dedicated to education in Africa as a whole, minus maybe South Africa, is far too low for the United Nations average. Where Japan for example is dedicating 15 per cent to 20 per cent for education. All the countries of Africa individually, ought to be devoting more than 50 per cent to education. It means on a graphic analysis, that where incrementally those developed worlds are going up, we will be going down and backward.”
While there have been complaints on the exorbitant fees of private universities, KDU is relatively affordable. Still, there are plans to institute an endowment fund that alumni of the school can contribute to the development of the institution. Ivy league schools such as Harvard thrive on endowment fund worth billions of dollars in donation.
“There are universities that charge double of our school fees at KDU but people still go there because they have a reputation. But on the average, with N500,000 that we charge, we spend close to N1.2million on every student as well as the payment of good teachers, existing infrastructural assets and so on. Universities that are charging a million naira save a little closer to the cost. In ordinary economics, we call it cost of production. Where they are equal to each other, in economics you call that the level of equilibrium. But you cannot get equilibrium in any private university, except the exceptional ones like Bowen, Covenant and so on. Above all, what counts is the outstanding students being churned out. As long as I have the grace of God and I am able to subsidise to achieve quality, I am quite satisfied. I announced an endowment of one billion naira at the convocation ceremony a few weeks ago, and hope that some of my friends will buy into it as time goes on. And again it is a function of reputation and past performance. Successful students will be very glad to come back to his alma mater and supply a lot of money to the endowment. That is our vision.”
