SUBOMI BALOGUN – MY ICON AND HERO

You see, what most people don’t know is the fact that daddy was the one that inspired me into investment banking. I used to come from Ibadan where I was a very serious scholar of Nigerian politics and one of the leading lights in the Political science department of the great University of Ibadan. People like James Etonirun and Bode Sojobi were cotemporaries. We used to discuss and analyze Nigerian Politics while eating Amala and Ewedu with no meat at the famous Black market near the Independence Hall. In those days, I will sneak into Lagos straight to the Tinubu square to buy Okirika clothes to continue to sway the babes. It was one of those days that I stumbled on daddy. He had just come to work in his gleaming car. The chauffeur jumped out to open the door and I saw the pinstripe suit complete with pocket square and a bespectacled gentleman and I was transfixed. Mbok, I stand there looking like I had just seen my Lord and savior. I asked the Igbo man selling the Okrika who was that and they said it was the baba ‘wey get the building’. I followed him, watching his every move as he entered the building. The suit was killing me, the majestic carriage messed me up and the way he answered to the greeting like royalty with a touch of class and humility just finished me. I entered the building and saw the plaque that changed my life. It said something like ‘this building is a testament to……’ I don forget abeg, and that day, I swore to be whatever it is that he was. I found out that he was an Investment Banker and I became one vowing to work for him even if it was the last thing I did. I joined CSL stockbrokers, a member of the FCMB Group as head of business development and got my career goal fulfilled. After 15 months, I walked up to him to say I was leaving. He didn’t know me, but when I finished telling him my story, he was in tears. After 20 years as an investment banker, I had served my icon and it was time I left. As I walked away from him that day telling myself in Ibibio – ‘ awo adro’ meaning ‘that is a man’. Happy birthday sir and God will continue to keep you for us.