“Foreign trained graduates are not necessarily better” – Nimi Akinkugbe

For those that read top newspapers in Nigeria, especially Punch and BusinessDay, Nimi Akinkugbe should not be an unfamiliar name. She is an authority and perhaps the country’s most respected columnist on personal finance matters. After a successful career in IBTC spanning 21 years, rising to the position of GM and Head Private Client Services, she moved to Barclays Bank in 2010 as the Regional Director (West Africa) International Private Bank. She is presently the Director, Best Games Limited, the company that developed the much publicised Lagos City Monopoly game early this year. Best Games Limited is the exclusive distributor of customised editions of Monopoly in Africa (excluding South Africa).

For a personality of such standing, with predictably very busy schedules, it is only natural that getting her time for interview will not come easy. After weeks, I was able to get her answer some questions that I think readers of this portal, nay Nigerian youths at large, will benefit from. Here we go:

JH: As a senior management staff in IBTC (IBTC-Chartered and the enlarged StanbicIBTC) for many years, you must have recruited and worked with many Nigerian graduates. What is your experience with Nigerian graduates? Do you agree that they are unemployable as some analysts opine?

NA: I have always worked with outstanding Nigerian graduates even during the period where we have noticed a serious decline in educational standards. Those that have been fortunate to have the opportunity to be exposed to study abroad have more access to a well-rounded education and the required tools, but nothing beats a basic intelligence, and ability which our Nigerian youth are endowed with, and a drive and desire to succeed. With the internet, and access to a plethora to information our students here do have access to so much material. We tend to place heavy importance and are obsessed with all things ‘foreign’ and expect by default that the foreign trained graduate to be better; from my experience, this has not always been the case.

JH: Your Company, Bestman Games Limited, early this year, launched the Lagos city monopoly game, and it has been a success so far. What really inspired this?

NA: At Stanbic IBTC we realized that there is no personal finance instruction in the school curriculum. People just grow up picking up bad financial habits along the way, sometimes having great difficulty in their finances as they become adults. We started to include next generation seminars into our periodic personal finance seminars and talked to our clients’ children about saving and investing. Standard Bank had an excellent personal finance board game called “Winning Teams,” that teaches children in a playful, practical way, the basics of saving and investing.

It was at that time that I first embraced the idea of creating a personal finance board game that could go complement my columns and speaking engagements. I have written articles for a host of publications; Genevieve Magazine, 234 Next, and later The Punch Newspaper, Business Day, and a few blogs, including BellaNaija to try to simplify the world of personal finance in a way that will motivate people to pay attention to this important aspect of their lives. I didn’t do much about the board game until October 2010 when Harrow School, in the United Kingdom launched its own edition of Monopoly.

Before then I had only been familiar with the famous London edition with Mayfair, Park Lane, Old Kent Road etc, and didn’t realize that there were customized editions. Harrow School directed me to Winning Moves who own the franchise from HASBRO, owners of the Monopoly brand, to customize Monopoly editions in Europe, the Middle East and Africa. Monopoly is such a fantastic brand so there was no reason to continue to pursue the creation of my own board game. I approached Winning Moves UK and convinced them and Hasbro to commission new African editions of Monopoly. Lagos made history by being the first African City to have a local edition created for the mega city.

JH: What advice, as a successful professional yourself, do you have for my readers on career success in corporate Nigeria?

NA: Career success and personal success are derived from having set goals and staying focused on them as well as having integrity, being reliable, diligent and hard working.  There are no short cuts to success and you cannot wish away these qualities. They are very helpful in building a sustainable career and if you imbibe them they will see you through success in key areas of your life not just at work. Employees who are reliable, dependable and can be trusted will always be more successful in any organization.

A company’s human resource is its most critical success factor and it is nice to see a growing focus on this area. Several companies are offering career solutions and entrepreneurial development programs and seminars. It is important to keep abreast of such programs and to keep learning as much as one can.  You owe it to yourself to continually develop yourself and not rely on an employer to do this; this helps one to remain employable or become self-employed.

I believe that each of us has a unique talent that should be discovered and nurtured. Discover your passion and what you love doing as you may find that this is what drives you most towards success; it might also help you to employ others. Gone are the days where a degree guarantees you employment; now with the levels of unemployment, not just in Nigeria but globally, a degree must be viewed as a tool, a stepping-stone to employment or entrepreneurship.

(The concluding part of this interesting interview will be published before the end of the week. Stay close to Jarushub, Nigeria’s most influential career portal)

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