Get a mortgage in Nigeria based on your UK/EU record

Former Diaspora Nigerian – Gbola Oba who is now settled in Nigeria, is currently visiting London with representatives of Nigerian banks to offer mortgage facilities in Nigeria, to Nigerians who live in the UK.

In a chat with Trumpet Media, he speaks of his journey to alleviate poverty through social entrepreneurship, his foray into Nigeria’s Automobile and Building & Construction sectors, and more.

Trumpet: Mr. Oba, kindly tell us a bit about your background in the UK before you returned to Nigeria, and when was that?

Mr. Gbola Oba: I lived, schooled and worked in the UK for almost two decades. Indeed, the UK has, in many respects, defined my core work ethics, my natural disposition to sustainable solution-providing social-entrepreneurship and my general intellectual cum political persona. I came here in my 20s and decided to stay, or "return back home", as some like to call it, after the prime age of 40 years, in the course of recurrent working visits to Nigeria as a practising broadcast political journalist covering the 2007 general elections in Nigeria for BEN TV. Obviously, as somebody who once contested elections as a Conservative Party lead councillorship candidate in the then St. Mary's Ward of London (now Royal) Borough of Greenwich in the 1997 London Councils' elections, the political machinations I noticed at play in Nigeria then-and even till now-was, and still is, very disillusioning. Therefore, one of the reasons why I made the decision to stay back home was to strategically employ non-partisan and innovative social-entrepreneurship mechanisms to sustainably solve the main reason why our politicking is largely "dirty", "do-or-die"-ish and utterly "devoid of ideology": Poverty!  

So, what specifically are you doing to roll back the stranglehold of poverty in Nigeria?  

The best and most sustainable way to deracinate the pernicious root of poverty anywhere in the world, is to devise an effective methodology to rehabilitate the self-worth of the average denizen. And the most universally known way to do that is by systemically facilitating an environment which encourages an average human being to be a productive (either through the acquisition of market-ready or market-needed skills, or through entrepreneurial-empowerment), value-creating and/or value-innovating member of an economic space.

In almost a decade, out of the 11 years since I returned to Nigeria, I've been pivotal to starting two of Nigeria's best known Technical Training Institutes in strategic collaborations with Nigerian experts who've practised extensively in our northern hemispheric diaspora.

The first one, which I encouraged a fellow returnee, but from the US, Automotive Mechatronics Engineer - Kunle Shonaike, to let me start around him, is www.automedicsafrica.com. Today, aside from having the highest number of auto maintenance/repair workshops' franchises nationwide and now selling its own "AUTOMEDICS" branded high quality synthetic engine oil, which is imported from one of the world's best lubricant blenders, based in Canada, and also selling high quality spare parts; it is Nigeria's best known automotive technologies training institute.

We've, in the last 7 to 8 years since we started training, graduated more than 4000 (four thousand) roadside mechanics (who voluntarily came to us to skills-upgrade themselves, so as to be competent in handling modern computerised automobiles) and well over 1000 (one thousand) young tertiary institutions' graduates (who came to us to acquire hands-on proficiency in auto maintenance/repair skills, beyond their university and polytechnic certificates in mechanical, mechatronics, computer engineering, etc.). In fact, apart from thousands of our alumni who are gainfully employed with many of the major auto dealerships in Nigeria or medium-sized high-street workshops across the length and breadth of the country, including officers and junior ranks of the army and police, more than 400 of our alumni, as at the last count in June 2018, owned their own businesses with an average of 6 employees per business! That's why I light-heartedly refer to myself and my two principal colleagues (Kehinde Ekisola and Kunle, earlier mentioned), the extant 3 Executive Directors of AUTOMEDICS LTD, as, "The men who mint sustainable young millionaires in Nigeria's automobile industry!" I gloatingly say that to assemblies of youths when Christian ministries, Islamic movements and socio-cultural associations invite me, as they often do, as a guest-speaker to address bodies of their youths and budding entrepreneurs. I sometimes jocularly add, "I mint young millionaires who'll naturally outlast Yahoo-Yahoo boys; because my boys create and give value to people!"

It was the outstanding success of www.automedicsafrica.com, that made me, about 5 years ago, to resolve that I would replicate the same kind of synergy (between Kunle who studied and worked in the US as an automobile engineer for more than 25 years, and myself - a returnee publicist cum strategist, which birthed and entrepreneurially entrenched AUTOMEDICS LTD), in the building and construction industry.

That decision made me to traverse some of the best construction markets in today's world to start a world-class institute. Dubai, was where God helped me to convince one of the civil engineers that built the famous DXB Emirates Airline-dedicated Terminal 3 and maintained it for its first 6 years, a Nigerian - Engr. Ugochukwu Nto.

Here in London, God softened the heart of Engr. Afolabi, whose private electrical firm maintains all the facilities and hostels of the famous London School of Economics (LSE) amongst many reputable clients.

God, the divine Author, made a young builder who'd fallen in love with my media persona from my BEN TV London days, to hear me again on a live radio programme in Lagos one Sunday afternoon about 3 years ago, and he literally drove to the station to intercept me when I finished the programme. In the course of our conversation, I discovered that he was not only an Obafemi Awolowo University-trained building technologist, but that he was a South Africa-trained plumber and one of the very few Nigerian members of the World Plumbing Council (WPC) - Yemi Oresanya.

Another Nigerian who had worked in the carpentry cum wood-usage-heavy US building industry for more than 25 years, Malcolm Efosa, and who had returned to Nigeria for some years, God made to agree to join forces with me.

Last but indeed not the least, as he's in every material particular the technical driving force of the diaspora-experts inundated Faculty and Dean of School at Universal Learn Direct Academia (www.ulda-edu.ng), UK-trained Engr. Babatunde Faleye, a national UK-wide civil engineering competition award winner as a University of Glamorgan then-now University of South Wales-student. He also lectured the under-graduate civil engineering class of the same University whilst he was a PhD candidate.

God also touched the hearts of great vision supporters like Engr. Olawumi Gasper, two-term rector of Lagos State Polytechnic, to whom I voluntarily obliged the position of the President of our Academic Board because of his rich pedigree in Technical and Vocational Education and Training (TVET); and Alhaji Lookman Garu, CEO Garutech Technologies who, with his ubiquitous business networking assets in China has made www.ulda-edu.ng unarguably the leading building and construction training institute in Nigeria today with the most state-of-the-art precision technology tools and equipment and cutting-edge power tools.

We started the school in November last year (with Construction Carpentry, Masonry, Electrical and Solar, Plumbing, Steel-fixing, and Site-engineering or Site-Supervision/Management departments) and in less than one calendar year, it has nurtured some of the best trained building and construction skilled trainees and skills-upgraded practising artisans to compete in the best market in the world. In fact, as soon as I return home from this trip, I'm taking 50 bricklayers to Dubai to work under the licence of a sister construction company we duly registered there. And given the skills level that operate presently in Dubai, which is unarguably the world's most concentrated and most sophisticated construction market, "my kids" - as I fondly refer to www.ulda-edu.ng's trainees - will best their competition on any project site! And in Nigeria, we're already delivering projects at UK or Dubai's aesthetically enriching finishes' level (where doors, windows and other fixtures stand with integrity with laser-guided precision).

What is your mission to London now?  

(With a smile.) London is my second home! However, I'm here on this occasion to do the following specific things:

One, bid those of you in the UK and EU diaspora, who may have young male and female persons that you're financially supporting at home (who, importantly are passionate about acquiring market-ready building and construction skills and will be ready to pay the moral price of diligence) to send them to www.ulda-edu.ng. Presently 98% of our trainees don't pay tuition fees. Very many of them can't afford to pay conventional tuition fees for the courses upfront; they're coming from backgrounds that are too indigent. But they more than adequately pay through the value we use them to create for our clients on the many construction sites where we post them for 9 months of practical industry exposure after their first 3 months of on-campus theory and practical laboratory sessions.

Two, I'm here as a former Diasporian to help many of us still in the diaspora address some of the anxieties which frustrated me from effectively translating some of the monies I made while living, working and banking here to fixed and appreciating real estate assets in Nigeria. There was no reliable person to send the money to for building purposes and those who even had reliable people then, also faced the problem borne of the fact that those conscientious people didn’t know how to get the artisans they engaged to give value-for-money sent to them! It was a head you lose, tail you lose scenario. And I know that even with the galactic improvements in the present audio-visual monitoring capacities, as a result of the commonplace and instantaneous social media communication platforms, many diasporians still fall victims to mischievous uncles and aunties showing pictures of other people's properties under development as the projects... #ItsNotFunnyAtAll.

That's why I've invited a major Nigerian bank, Sterling Bank, that's ready to give mortgage facilities to diasporians using their work or self-employment and UK banking records as the main criteria for granting the mortgage. The business model I'm proposing is that no diasporian should give a dime to anybody in Nigeria including me, to build a house anymore! Simply open an account in your own name at the bank, then apply for the mortgage facility, once the bank approves your mortgage request then you, the bank and my one-stop-shop building cum project financing consortium will agree design cum finishing quality of what's to be built and the duration of the project. Once this tripartitely agreed contract is sealed, my consortium will use our money to build the agreed project, knowing that once we deliver to the agreed design cum finishing quality, within the agreed timeframe for the project delivery, we'll give the key to the bank and we'll get paid and move on. And you'll take possession of the property, either through direct habitation or by renting it out to generate revenue, whilst you start paying your monthly mortgage payments. If, as a diasporian, you're as smart as I think you ought to be, after having used the bank to make sure that their experts ascertain that we deliver to the UK-finishing-standard that we've tripartitely agreed and within defined duration, you should find a way of raising relatively cheaper fund here to pay off the Nigerian mortgage so as to dramatically reduce your net payment to the bank on the transaction.

Further information is available at an Interactive Presentation taking place on Wednesday 26 September 2018 (5pm – 8.30pm) at Hilton Hotel London Ealing - 2-8 Hanger Lane, London W5 3HN.

Please send a confirmation of proposed attendance by text message to +44 7956 675412 as available places are very limited.

The Presentation will feature:

1. Representatives of major Nigerian banks (especially Sterling Bank) will tell you how you can be eligible for mortgage facilities from them in Nigeria with checkable or credible UK or EU work/self-employment and banking records.

2. Central Bank of Nigeria's official Bank Verification Number (BVN)-capturing consultants for London and the South East of England - OIS, will be available to instantly register Nigerians who need to get a BVN number to re-activate dormant accounts or open new accounts instantly with any of the banks present.

3. Estate developers with legally clean documents from Lagos, Abuja and many parts of Ogun State that fall into the Lagos Mega City area, will exhibit their projects.

4. How the best of Nigerian construction experts from the diaspora can deliver exquisitely finished 3-bedroom bungalow for you (without the cost of land and on a solid piece of land) at N6.5m and deliver any project to UK standard (in construction carpentry, masonry, electrical cum solar, plumbing and steel works) at competitive costs.