Razaq Bamidele
When young Adeyinka Sharafadeen Tella gained admission to read Linguistics at the University of Ilorin, his elder brother and mentor, Alhaji Liad Tella had prepared ground for job placement for him. The senior Tella, a veteran journalist was a general manager at the defunct Concord newspapers in Lagos and later became the Managing Director of The Monitor Newspapers, Ibadan. So, in the inner recess of the older Tella’s heart, his younger brother must take after him by being a journalist. But Yinka wanted a totally different career path.
After graduation in 1997 and his national service year in 1998 with the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) in Jos, Plateau State, he came back home to meet an employment letter, without writing any application, to work as a journalist under his journalist brother in Ibadan. Yinka did not jump at the offer. He had a different idea about how to live his life.
Speaking to The Nigerian Xpress, Yinka disclosed that, “Before then, when I was a student in the university, I was always on the road. I was always going to the Republic of Benin to import cars for customers on request. So, immediately after graduation, I found it convenient to go into the business full time. But my brother wanted something else for me.”
The rotund dark-complexioned businessman further recalled that, “The letter of appointment put my salary at N11,000 per month and I could not help but laugh. At that age, it had always been my dream that before I got married, I would start my life with a flat, as my first accommodation. Saving N11,000 monthly towards renting a flat and to get married, I cannot fathom how it would work out. Though I did not reject the appointment offer, I tactically refused to show up for the job.”
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With car importation, he added that, “on a good day after a business trip, I could make N50,000 to N70, 000 profits and I could make two trips in a month per chance. So, restricting my life and contend with N11,000 monthly salary could not add up to anything.”
Determined to pursue his heart’s desire, the younger Tella tactically avoided his brother for a month. Later, his brother summoned him and he showed up. It was during the encounter that he politely declined the offer.
“I told him I knew he wanted one of his kid brothers to take after him by becoming a journalist but I told him I was sorry I couldn’t be a journalist going by that salary and he understood me.
“I now concentrated on my car business. But in fairness to my brother, when I started my life, he gave me a lot of encouragement. My first saving was spent on buying a Toyota Camry car, which I showed him, as my first car bought with my own money to start my own business. He asked me how much did I want to sell it and I said N170,000. He wrote for me a cheque of N170,000 and said, ‘I will be the first customer to patronise you.’ That gave me a working capital. I bought the car at N120,000 and I just made a cool profit of N50,000 in one week, one trip!
“So, I went back to Cotonou to continue my car business. Within a month, I got a request to get a car for a customer from Cotonou and I made another N50,000. From there, I moved on to buy a Mercedes Benz car to sell. It was not long before I sold it and made profit. By and large, I started gathering my own working capital.”
However, there was a bit of setback when youthful exuberance beclouded the reasoning of the young and very ambitious man. He started nursing the ambition to go abroad, Europe, America, Canada and other places.
“Before I knew it, I had lost over N600,000 in the attempts at procuring visas from the American Embassy and other places for more than three to four years. I even went as far as the Canadian Embassy in Ghana, yet I was refused visa.
“On my way back from Ghana, I came back to my senses that with that loss of N600,000. I could have done very well in my car business. So, I gathered myself together again and launched myself back into my car business after I had lost a lot of money chasing visa to overseas countries. So, within a year, I had up to three cars of my own in my fleet.”
Though his elder brother was happy about Yinka’s progress, he was not, however, comfortable with that line of business because of the risk in it and the dangers of encountering bandits, armed robbers, car snatchers and hoodlums on the cross boundary trips.
“Determined to dissuade me from the car import business, my brother went ahead to report me to the then Vice Chancellor of the University of Ilorin, Professor Is-haq Oloyede, who is now the JAMB Registrar to talk to me. Oloyede then asked me to come and take an appointment, as a lecturer at the University of Ilorin and go to University of Ibadan for my Masters immediately. Politely, I refused to see him. It got to a point that all of them left me alone saying this guy has made up his mind on what to do.”
Yinka is full of praises to the God for the success he has made today. From that car business, he has moved into an engineering services company established by him dealing in rentals of heavy duty equipment, such as graders, cranes and other earth moving and construction engines.
“By the special grace of God I have all those equipment that service multi-nationals both indigenous ones and their foreign counterparts,” he said with a tone of gratitude at his office at Kilometre 35, Lagos-Abeokuta Expressway near the Toll Gate at the Lagos-Ogun states boundary.
The Linguistics graduate-turned businessman has a message for fresh graduates in the search for elusive white-collar jobs: “My message to the youth of today is that your courses of study may not be tickets to your daily meals that would turn you around in life. University education is just to develop your analytical mind to make you independent-minded to peruse through various options in life and arrive at that one that suits your destiny. It is a vehicle through which you can fashion out a way that would make you financially buoyant, economically self-reliant, self-employed and emotionally stable.
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“And whatever you do in life, do it right and with honesty. I was introduced into this new business by a brother, who is a pastor for that matter, Pastor Olugbenga Eniola. He was the first person to trust me with his money and I made sure I did not mess up with his money. I tried all my best to make sure I satisfied him to the detriment of my own comfort. I bent backward to make sure that his happiness came before mine. And I tried to make sure that I did not give him any cause to doubt my integrity over the money he entrusted in my care. And that paved the way for me in life.
“The first time we met, he came to my office and bought a car. From there, we started a good relationship. It was through him that I realised that the car business I was into was a waste of time and energy. He introduced me to rental services that are more lucrative. Having been inducted into engineering and rental services, I sold all the cars in my showroom and plunged into the new trade and my life has not remained the same. In fact, it is through my pastor brother that my belief that honesty pays was reinforced.
“Managing his funds for him very well has assisted me in managing my own business very well. So, I thank the almighty Allah for guiding me aright and I also thank Alhaji Liad Tella, who believed in me by respecting my view on what I wanted to do. I have to thank him also for his fervent prayers for my success even in faraway Saudi Arabia.
“So, whatever anybody wants to do, he should be very thorough and be prayerful. And the importance of honesty can never be over emphasised in our day-to-day activities and interactions with fellow beings,” Yinka Tella emphasised.
