There is just something awesome about my date for this week that makes you always want to listen to him. I have known him for years and I have heard him speak severally at different programs but the ice breaker for me was at a program organised by Awesome treasures Foundation where he was a panelist speaking on the topic “where are the real men?” and I dare say he was outstanding!
How do you start telling the story of a man who is doing so much to impact his nation? so much that you can’t even mention it all well, I guess I must start from somewhere. Fela Durotoye is the Chief Executive Officer of Gemstone Group and Visible Impact. Visible impact is a social enterprise set up to tackle social and environmental challenges and limitations with the aim to build people into super-achievers and responsible leaders, build corporate organizations into global market leaders and responsible corporate citizens, as well as assist governments in developing blueprints and programs that create a desirable environment for their people to do great things while GEMSTONE Nation Builders Foundation is committed to nation building and has witnessed an incredible growth in the numbers of Nation Builders Network Chapters and people involved. Currently, over 18,000 people have subscribed to the values that GEMSTONE committed to a new nation.
Almost every day, you will find people posting the new values on social media and through many other platforms used to drive the new consciousness of a set of values into Nigeria. In November 19th2012, he signed and autographed 10,000 copies of the 17 Secrets of High-flying Students in 8 hours 49mins. This was significantly way beyond the previous records 1,951 copies by AritoliKarpov in 1hour.
I remember clearly during my radio show, my guest for that day, the country representative of Deutche Bank, Adeola Azeez, read out these values and they truly inspired me and of course the listeners.
So when I say Fela is widely regarded as a nation builder, corporate strategist and unarguably, Nigeria’s most sought after prolific business strategist and corporate activator, I guess the obvious facts speak for itself.
Fela grew up as the third and last child in the family to a couple who were university lecturers who later became professors. “Growing up on a university campus was quite a stable environment and we didn’t have any sense of lack even though I cannot say that there was any consciousness of abundance, in a sense, it never occurred to me that my parents were poor or rich we were neither silver spoon nor wooden spoon. Wealth was not the issue in determining who would be your friends or what kind of social class you had. Friendship was built on shared values and kindness to each other and these things have framed my perspective of life.” Fela says.
A Nigeria that this generation will be glad to bestow to their children, and the children would be grateful to inherit from is what Fela dreams of and to birth this reality, his GEMSTONE initiative is crucial. He tells me more “I have the privilege of being the founder of and visionary for the GEMSTONE Nation Builders Foundation and Networks with chapters all across Nigeria and all the educational strata of this Nation. I have a great privilege of inspiring hope and vision, commitment to our Nation in the heart of hundreds of thousands of people both through social media or main stream media andthrough direct opportunities availed to me as a public speaker or business consultant. Many people have said to me that they fell in love with this country because they listened to me; some people had said they had given up on this country but their hope for a new Nation called Nigeria was inspired again. I think I have had the privilege to inspire a new vision in the hearts of the people to build Nigeria into the most desirable nation to live in by December 31st 2025. I have also had the privilege of being able to share a set of values that have now become widely accepted by most people that I have met across tribes and location, and these values have been accepted by people regardless of their tribes and gender their age position and social class.”
“The 10 values are: (1) Make a positive impact on everyone I meet and everywhere I go, (2) Be a solution provider and not a part of the problem to be solved, (3) Be a role model worthy of emulation, (4) Be my best in all I do, particularly the things I am naturally good at, (5) Do the right thing at all times regardless of who is doing the wrong thing, (6) Value time, and make the best use of it, (7) Care and show respect through my words and actions, (8)Consciously build a great legacy starting now, today and every day, (9)Live a life of integrity and honour and (10) Make my family, my nation and my God proud. So help me god!” He says
Fela is now on the verge of doing one of the most significant things which is creating a road map that will be driven from the private sector, a road map that will be created by the people of Nigeria for the people of Nigeria and be committed to by the people. “I am making many people think great however, I know that there’s still so much work to do, I am making my own impact and as much as people think it is great, I still believe that there’s so much more we can do in building this great Nation called Nigeria.” He tells me
Burdened about the challenges that stares Nigeria in the face, Fela summerises them for me in three ways. Firstly is that we seem not to have a clear vision of a destination that inspires the people to want to see it come to pass so regardless of the fact that we have a vision 2020, most people in Nigeria still cannot tell you what they think the vision of Nigeria is. Also, he says the lack of vision is clear across political lines, across religious divide, and tribal dispensation. Hear his second and third observations “The complete absence of set of values that should bind us together as a people is lacking. Any nation without a set of shared value is almost bound to fail. Because values are what defines what is right from what is wrong, what helps us to know what is good from what is bad, what helps us to choose what is acceptable from what is unacceptable. In addition to that, we do not have a sense of agreement as to how we want to build this nation; I think it is alarming that the young people are very pathetic about building a new Nigeria that they would live in. I think that old people are also selfish about the role that they would play in building a future that they would probably not live in, this probably evidence by when you think about the average age of the people who have been mandated to come up with the path to the future of Nigeria at the National Confab one will expect that a nation with a life expectancy of about 47 and a half and the average age of the delegate should be about 40 or even less but what we see is not so, so this is quite worrisome that the people who should be chatting the way to the future are not likely to be in that future.” Fela expresses.
Fela is not all about making observations but also recommendations. This he does brilliantly when he shares with me the way forward. Again, he speaks “We have created a vision for the people that by December 31st 2025, we see a Nigeria that will become the most desirable nation to live in the world. I didn’t say the largest economy in the world or the best country in every parameter, it is just the most desirable nation in terms of where everybody would just love to work, live and play. A place for opportunity growth and development we will find in Nigeria stability and progress that comes from the unified vision of the people. So we have a vision statement that everyone that I have ever met says they want to see it come to pass and they are willing to work” .
“GEMSTONE Nation Builders Network are currently is 143 secondary and primary schools and by the end of December 2014 we are poised to be in 800 schools across Nigeria. Currently we are in 32 university campuses and by the end of December 2014 at the rate we are growing now, we see ourselves on 75 campuses. We also have many programs coming up on radio and television as well as having 65 community network chapters which are now across 27 states in Nigeria. By the end of this year 2014 we expect tom see 250 chapters across 36 states of the federation. We are working hard in building the social infrastructure and network that will be able to infuse values visions and hope and purpose in the heart of the people. So we can see a forward movement, we are already on it. I believe today now more than ever going by what we are seeing and the changed that we are privilege to see that Nigeria will be undoubtedly the most desirable nation to live in by 2025.” He tells me.
Fela added a few more groups to his business than the consulting group which is his core business. He began to look at project management group, multimedia group, investment holding and the foundation. Part of the work the project management group handled was the establishment of the educational strategy for Nigeria titled RAISE- Revive Academic Excellence in schools and educational institutions. They also handled the prominent Mushin Makeover Project in 2009, where they mobilized over 2,000 volunteers to paint 296 houses in the Mushin suburb, while also painting three and half kilometers of road madden and every bus stop up to 20 bus stops along the partway to mention a few.
GEMSTONE Speakers Network recently concluded a platform for connecting people across Nigeria who would use their oratory gifts to bring about hope and transformation in our society. The GEMSTONE Speakers Network was flagged off yesterday at Speaker Connect which held at Civic Centre Victoria Island Lagos on Saturday 19th of July 2014. Fela elucidates “we are about to embark on a historic project which by all records will be the largest National Orientation Project driven from the private sector. Between now and the end of 2014 we would be training 1million people across Nigeria for free on a Value-Based Leadership Training and our approach to doing this is quite simple, we are training a thousand speakers for free on the platform of our network and each one of those people are committed to train 1000 people for free, cumulatively 1million people will be trained in 4 months across Nigeria. As we are set to accomplish this, it is clear that this will be the largest non-governmental efforts in world history at re-orienting the people of any one nation across a set of values. This is by far the most important endeavor I have set my hand to and I am excited about the potential impact of this project, not only on building a new nation called Nigeria but as an example called to other African Nation in instigating values and reorienting their people and infusing values back into our society.” Fela reveals.
Yes Fela is an orator, Yes he is a nation builder but most importantly, he is someone who upholds the institution called marriage. “I think one of the core values I and my wife hold dear is that we want to have a successful home that becomes a model for what God intended marriage to be to younger couples in our generation and most importantly a model to our own children.” He admits.
It is true that a lot of people look up to Fela but as expected, he is graced to manage the ‘expectations’, I say this because he tells me that “I think the first most important thing is that couple must agree on what is right and what is wrong, on what is good and what is bad, and what is acceptable and what is unacceptable once couples share the same values you will realize that both of them will like to do the same thing and will shun from doing the same things that will hurt each. I think one of the core values I and my wife hold dear is that we want to have a successful home that becomes a model for what God intended marriage to be to younger couples in our generation and most importantly a model to our own children” Says Fela.
I enjoyed the gist so much I did not want it to end but it had to. What better way to end the discussion with a great man with great ideas for a great nation that his timeless words of wisdom. “Nigeria is on an irreversible path to becoming a most desirable nation to live in regardless of whatever we see today with the people who bent on trying to do their best to destroy faith hope in the fabric of our nation. Let me be clear and unequivocal, that Nigeria will out-live every single person who is contemplating or planning anything to destroy this nation. Nigeria will turn out to be the most desirable nation to live in. We have been blessed by God and the people and a new set of leaders have arisen to build our nation. We have accepted responsibility for the future of this nation, we believe in the greatness of this nation and our ability to be able to build a new Nigeria, we are willing to commit our time and energy, our resources to doing something to
deliver the future of this country, we believe that the future of this country is great and by future we do not mean a time zone that is to come, the future of our country is everything we can be but have not yet become, the future of our nation is everything that we can do but have not yet done, the future of Nigeria is everything that we can have as a nation but have not yet possessed. Our future is great and greater is the grace that is upon the people that will build this nation into a most desirable nation”
KEMI AJUMOBI
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