From £2 Loan To Industrial Titan: Prince Samuel Adedoyin Reflects On Building The Doyin Empire At 90

Having held his 90th birthday on December 4, Prince (Dr) Samuel Adedoyin, Chairman of the monolithic Doyin Investment Group, defies every expectation of a nonagenarian, possessing the energy of a man half his age. In this vivacious and reflective interview, the business mogul opens up about his extraordinary grass-to-grace journey— from his desperate days as a child of farmers who attempted to stow away to England, to the moment he kick-started his colossal empire with a mere £2 loan from Standard Bank. Adedoyin shares his secrets to a fulfilled life, philanthropic spirit, and the unwavering faith that remains the “main backbone” of his success. TOMI FALADE brings excerpts.

You will be 90 in a few days. How has it been?

My own life is to thank Almighty God. There’s no life without regret. But through God Almighty, I’ve lived a fulfilled life. There’s nothing to complain about, but to be thanking God. That’s how my life has been.

 As a child of farmers, why didn’t you take to farming for a living?

 I started as a farmer, which I didn’t like because it was all about using hoes and cutlasses, going to farm without shoes, and so on at that time. But I’m still a farmer now, but it’s now mechanised.

 We have a farm in Kwara. We have greenhouse farming, open fields. We have cashew nut farm, and so on. But it’s all mechanised now instead of the primitive way of farming.

Why did you leave school after Standard 4?

 Because that’s what my parents could afford. And at any rate, in that time, the minimum school that was then ended up at Standard 2.

I read up to Standard 4 at Iludun. If I were to go higher, I would have gone to Offa to finish the elementary school, and go to college.

Offa Grammar School was very popular. It was the school that people go to before being able to get to the university. But we were not made to do that because it’s only every first son that was allowed to go to school. And when you have four children, they will only train the first son.

It was me, when I was blessed, who trained all my family’s children, irrespective of age, and their mother, because I was blessed enough to give them scholarship. And that is what I did for all of them to be able to go to school.

When you left school after Standard 4, what did you do next?

I came to Lagos. My father had divorced my mother, and I loved my mother very much. She suffered so much for me and my brother that died. That made me to think that I couldn’t live with my father. I have to stowaway and go to England. But I wasn’t lucky. I was caught in Takoradi in Ghana. I was travelling by sea. They put us where they put baggages and so on. I went from here in Lagos. The port was at Marina opposite UBA. That’s where the port was. That’s where we got into the boat. I was arrested in Takoradi. I begged one of the customs officers that arrested me to please use me as a steward because I could not afford to come home. My father will cut my neck.

 I wasn’t successful as a steward and begged him to leave me alone. He was kind and left me alone. I worked as a vendor with Asanti Pioneer, owned by an opposition paper. I sold meat before I started trading, I think with about two pounds then. And God gave me a breakthrough. That’s how I came back to come and took my mother back.

You mean before ‘japa’ became popular, you already ‘japaed’?

I ‘japa’, but not to go for work. My plan was to go to school. I just wanted to leave my father because he divorced my mom, and he wasn’t kind to me then. He was hard on me. He was a hard person. He had a polygamous family. My father had three wives.

You said you have lived a fulfilled life but looking back, if you had the opportunity, would you have lived it differently from the way you did.

Before, I used to think so, but categorising everything together, I decided to remove ‘but’ from my life.

God has been kind to let me be what I am through personal learning, practicing, and experiences. So when I put all my situations into a text, or put all together, that’s why I said I have just to thank God, because even if you’re working for a month, there will be ups and downs. There was a time I could not eat or feed. That’s why I said I’ve lived a fulfilled life, because I’m sure that being news people you would have interviewed some people, may be in their 50s, 60s, and for you to be interviewing me at 90, without any defects yet, what complaint do I have to give to God? That’s why I said if I summarise everything, all I have is to thank God for the overall blessing, and where I have reached.

You started a business quite early, and you made success out of it. Would you say life was easier then than now?

If you are Christian, you will know that there’s nothing difficult for God to do. People said times were hard then too, but God Almighty, who knows everything made some of us very successful, and it still happening. I have some of my children, despite all odds now, who have employed 300 workers and are still very successful.

 I think life is by luck, God’s guidance and blessing. I don’t always want to say this time is worse than now. If we look at it, we’ll say, that time, the value of money was stronger. How to live life was easier then? But even at that time too… when we rent a house, like the one of six by eight feet, where I first of all lived, with my bed of three by six, there was a wardrobe, and I had a gramophone on the wardrobe. That’s where we played with the green, fluorescent lights. I was the first few who could live in a room then.

 Yet, God did it. So, at that time, when people were not able to live in a room, I was able to live in a room. From a room to a room and parlour, then to a flat before I was able to build a house in Ikoyi and since then it has been success all the way.

Did you go into philanthropy because of what you’ve gone through or is it just part of you?

It is part of me because when I made the first money, the church that I built in my town is the one we are still using in Anglican, in Agbamu today, although I now go to Redeem Church, but I still maintain the church. The Bishop of the Anglican Church is my very close friend.

Your grass to grace story is an inspiration for young people who came from humble homes. What advice would you give to such people?

 First, that one should be closer to God. Some people don’t believe in the power of God and His supremacy over life. God has allowed me to believe in Him right from the beginning, which I still do.

 And I think that is the main backbone of my success. I think everybody should put God first in everything he or she wants to do. And if one believes absolutely in Him, there will be no going back.

The foolish man says there is no God who can sanction them and set them back. My God has not allowed them to happen to me.

What challenges did you face in the early stage of your business?

 Capital. I started my business with 46 pounds. When I needed money to buy something one day, I approached Standard Bank for a loan of two pounds. We had so much stock, and I needed to buy something quickly, and I borrowed two pounds from the bank, and it worked. Standard Bank was run by the whites then. From that, God has always blessed me to have more than enough to run my business.

You are into different things. What led to that? Was it a fear of going back to poverty or trying to compete with somebody somewhere?

Not wanting to go back to poverty is my own main aim in life. I have not compared myself with anybody.

No, I don’t want to suffer in life. I don’t want a setback. So I registered Jekoyemikale Oluwa and Brothers (let it be well with me forever Lord). I still use it to pay my tax. That’s (the name) what has actually happened to me.

Was it a kind of vision? No, it’s my prayer. That is my prayer that I asked God to do. That was what I did then, and it’s still happening.

Attaining 90 years of age, would you attribute this and the sound health you have to grace of God or some personal lifestyles?

 I told you that everything that I have done is through the grace of God. There is nothing that I can call my own. Every blessing comes from Him.

It’s now that I watch what I eat. Before, you will first have to have enough to eat, before you’re thinking of dieting. At the beginning there was nothing like dieting. At that time, I ate whatever I saw.

You have a foundation, taking care of the less privileged.

That is what I do all the years of my life. I came from a poor area. The government in Kwara doesn’t help our area. So, I’m the one who first of all built dispensary and maternity clinic in the community. Later I built a General Hospital, which I donated to the Kwara State government to manage. But they didn’t even use a quarter of it. But behind it is where I’m building a school of nursing.

 Is there anything more you wish to achieve in life?

 If God allows me, I will help more people.

How do you feel about the menace of bandits in Kwara, your state?

I feel the same way I feel about the whole country. I pray that God will help us to be able to tame those attacking Nigeria everywhere. Before, it was not affecting Kwara, but now that it does, it makes people to feel the pain nearer more than reading about it. I wish God will help Bola Tinubu to save the country from such attacks.

Advise on younger ones on good lifestyle?

Drink right, eat right, and do everything in the right way. Now I know that it can help to save life. Before it was God who helped me, but now, I eat according to medical directive. I wouldn’t say that was what saved my life, it’s God that saved my life but I know it is good to eat right, drink right and do everything right.