Work Life
Q: Did you have a mentor in your early days at work A: No, when we were growing up there was nothing like a mentor. What we can say is that we had people we admired. And I think that, I realized as I got, as I became more senior in the Ministry of Justice, so I went from being a people state council, state council. By the time I became a senior state council, I really, really appreciated the bosses that I had. There were two of them. And they were absolutely great. A lot of the wisdom I have now, a lot of the life lessons that I learned around my work.
A lot of the things that make me the lawyer that I am today came from those two men who were my first. They were my first bosses, you know, one after the other in the Federal Ministry of Justice. I gave all thanks to them. So I had people I admired. And outside of those I reported to, there were a couple of women that I admired in the legal profession. And one of them is Mrs. Hirat Balogun, who was the first female Attorney General of Lagos State. We're still friends to this day, So we're sort of, even after I left the ministry, she kept in touch with me. We kept talking. When I was moved to the U.S. and I became president of the Nigerian subsidiary, she visited me on one of her trips to New York. It was so nice to see her. So, yeah, I had people I admired, actually. Yes.
Q: How do your balance your work and your life
A: I think for me, it's easier than most people because of my age and because of when I married and had, so I had my children early. So they're all grown up. So I don't have the problem of I'm trying to balance a husband and children and work. I think when I faced that was when I was a younger employee. So when I was in the Ministry of Justice, there was that issue of how do you balance, you know, how do you have a balanced life.
So it was one of the reasons I worked in public sector, because of the early closing time, as opposed to if I had worked in a bank or somewhere else.
My mom was a teacher, like I said. So I really believe, and she's always said, that the most important years in anybody's life is age zero to five. That is when their character, their personal development, their mental development, early childhood, So it’s now called early child learning. That's the most important time of anybody's life. The next most important time was between five and ten years. After that, you might miss the books, you know, if you're not careful. So it was important to me that I was present in their life. Right? So I would do all the school runs. I would make sure I was with them. I would see their homework. I knew who their teachers were. I knew who their best friends were. I knew who their worst friends were. Who ate their lunch, out of their lunchbox, who took their books, you know, who they preferred to hang out with. All those sorts of things, and really having personal details about your child. And then knowing who your child is as a person, so that you can help them with, you know, their weaknesses and their strengths and so on.
With your spouse, to make it a habit to have conversations. Many don't have conversations. And when they have conversations, what they're talking about is the children. So when the children now go off to secondary school and all they have is they don't even know what to talk about. There’s absolutely nothing to talk about. So actually having conversations and making time for each other.And then we also had a habit of, even if it was just once in a month, actually sort of like go on a date night kind of thing. Go to a restaurant. Try a restaurant you haven't been to before in Lagos or something. But it's two of you together, no children attached, that kind of thing. So I think all of that helped.
Q: How do you manage stress A: So like I said, I'm a creative. So I indulge in my hobbies. I love gardening. So no matter what home I'm in, I'm surrounded by nature, even when we're living in flats and couldn’t afford very much you know like I said, I was a civil servant. In fact the first I think four or five years of my husband's work like he was also a civil servant. We were civil servants together and my house would be filled with pots and I would spend my time with plants you know so nature does a lot to calm you down. I'm also a writer, so I write poems when I'm upset I will write a poem you know I'll be motivated for it. So I wrote a lot of poetry. I love cooking, I don't like cooking for survival or cooking just to eat I like creative cooking so I do all kinds of things with Nigerian ingredients I have tons and tons of cookbooks at home so our home become a place that our friends would come to eat. So we would have barbecues all kinds of things, we did that because we both need to de-stress anyway. Yeah we also used to have this friend in our first six years I think of married life, we had this friend, this expatriate who had a beach hut somewhere beyond Ojo. So we would go with our friends as far as satellite and enter canoe, I have to say that we so that you know that we're not wearing life vest like that, you know young people are crazy.
We get in this canoes and cross the mangrove swamp to the lagoon, absolutely fantastic scenery to this strip of Lagos where apparently a lot of embassies and expatriate organizations have their beach plots their plot of beach land and we go and we'll be with this guy, the villagers the Lagosians who live in that area in the neighborhood they will make your food, they will pound yam , they will be given the money to cook, so it was a way also of feeding the local economy because you are paying them to do stuff for you.
They are also selling their wares because some of them are artists, some of them are textile people and so on. And we would just have, with friends, we would just have a fun. By the time you come back, Sunday night, sleep, wake up on Monday, you are ready for anything including Lagos traffic. Those days we didn't have third mainland bridge the thing stopped at Yaba. So you have to go through Herbert Macaulay climbed the bridge there, you know. So it was, and we were living on the mainland.
So yeah, I love Lagos because Lagos delivers all kinds of opportunities. So is it literary events, book readings and stuff like that you want to attend? Is it theatre? Is it film? Is it music? I mean, Lagos delivers. There is so much to do in Lagos. Sure.
Leisure
Q: What is your ideal vacation
A: My ideal vacation is to, my ideal vacation is to go to a place I haven't been before. Interact with nature. Learn about the history of the people. Interact with their culture. Make new friends. Have some me time while I'm doing it. And there must be, yeah, and the element of travel in itself must also be interesting. So that's the ideal one. Now when we were young, my father got all of us interested and passionate about travel, but he was all Nigerian travel. There’s nowhere we didn't go to. So every time we had a school holiday, there'd be a place he would, you know, those days you could go by road, we'd go by road in Ikogosi, Water Springs, all kinds of places. He'd go to Yankari. We'd even go across to Benin Republic, to Cotonu. There was a time we went to Lomé, all kinds of places. And this country, Nigeria, is a very, very beautiful place. Idanre Hills, all kinds of places. So when I was young, we did a lot of local travel with my parents.
Having become a mature adult, and I married my husband Seun Mabogunje. He is the son of a geographer. So his father, Professor Akin Mabogunje, was also a traveler, because he did a lot of work around urban planning and urban development. He was one that identified where Abuja should be located. At did all of that work around the establishment of Abuja as the capital of Nigeria. So they used to go with him everywhere as well. And he went to a lot of places. So we had that joint interest in travel.
When we had our own kids, it didn't work out the same way. You know, I remember one holiday, we have two boys, we put the boys in the back of the car, and, they came with their computer games and everything. We went by road. I think the first place we went to was Ikogosi. And you know there are a lot of our tourist spots that are eco-tourist spots, which means that not much had been done with them to make them attractive, so they were in their original natural state. I remember we got there, I remember we got them out of the car. So my youngest, whom you meet when you want to leave because he has just come, you know we got there and we said, ah, touch this place, the
water is cold, touch this place, the water is hot. Is that why we came? Yeah, here we were thinking we had done something extraordinary, this boy said, is that why we came here? Oh my goodness. So I said to him, you know what, when you grow up, these are the things you are going to remember. Let me tell you. And after that, we went to the waterfalls, you know, and so we still did it, the Ibadan Zoo, botanical gardens. We still tried to do quite a bit with them, which they remember today. But now as adults, we actually go on other trips with them to other African countries and as much as we can, you know
Q: Your favorite place in the world outside Nigeria
A: That's difficult to, honestly, because Africa is so blessed and I know that the little I've seen, it's nothing compared to what actually exists. You know, I've been to Zimbabwe, it
is a beautiful country. Been to the Seychelles, you know, the Seychelles Islands are, they so they believe that, their territory, their jurisdiction is where the Garden of Eden originated. So they call themselves paradise. Like this is paradise. It does look and feel like paradise actually. Absolutely beautiful country. So I have to say I don't have a favorite place. I'm still discovering the world. So, but Africa is beautiful and as much as possible, I try to get as many of my friends as possible unhooked from, I must go to the U.S. and I'm going to go to the U.K., I must go to the U.S. and to start discovering Africa, you know, on top of it, it's cheaper. It's much, much, much cheaper to travel around here. We've got really beautiful places to go to. We can identify with the culture and the people and it's a much more spiritual and emotional experience and all that.
Family
Q: How did you meet your Spouse
A: In school. We both went to Ife. Oh, okay. Yeah, so we're like university sweethearts who got married.
Q: How many children do you have A: two
Q: Did you want more
A: No. Okay, so. My mom kept asking me, don't you want a girl? I said it's okay. I remember once when I was really young and I'm a much older, one of my mother's older friends, because she had quite a few older friends, had a daughter who had just graduated as an architect. I remember I was still a second-year student. She had two kids and her mom was trying to talk her into having more children. She said, no, no, because if tomorrow anything happens and this country goes up in flames, I will just put one child here, one child here and run. But I have more than two. How will I run?
I won't be able to run. So you know, that thing was always a joke in our house. So my mother said, I remember when so-and-so said, I will put one child here, one child here and run. So we just, my husband and I agreed on how many children. And we just agreed that based on our capacity to earn and the, because you know, children are an economic factor. A lot of people haven't realized that you need money to train children. They have lots and lots of children and then give to other people to train or hopefully they pray that somebody else will come and train their children. And some children end up in a bad way or end up not being catered for. So based on our earning capacity and the future that we envisioned for ourselves, we didn't feel that we'd be in a position to give our very best to more than two children. So we just had two and we're happy with what we've been able to do for them.
Life
Q: What experiences have you had in your life that you’d say have shaped you to be the person you are today A: What are the biggest? One, that family is very important. I think that as a woman, wife and parent, that family is important. And somehow I believe that the way women and men were sort of structured by nature, women seem to have that intuitiveness to be able to nurture and care for others. A lot more women can nurture and care for others
to the extent that their role in the family is actually quite important to the development of any child. That is not to say that a man's role with a father is very important. But a woman's role is also very important. Because you will even find that there are many, many children, even if we take from today's experiences and those who have become famous more recently, or if you ask them about, you know, how they got where they were, a lot of them ascribe it to their mothers.
Either it's a sacrifice that mom made, or my mom encouraged me, or my mom said, look, you know this. So I think there's a role that women play. So I think that as a woman, if you're married, if you have children, I think that role should not be sacrificed to a career. I think we have to try to balance it. As much as I also believe that we must play our part and our role in our careers, in our professions, in the society, the family shouldn't be sacrificed in the process. So I think women will always have that problem of balancing out. But I think family is really so important. So every time I have to speak to young women on International Women's Day about it, I say to them that, you know, the sacrifice is just a few years. Maybe you need to think about it, working closer to home, or having the kids school, be closer to the office, something that allows you to continue in that nurturing relationship for the better part of their day, for the better part of their life, you know, before they leave home. So that's one.
Two is that in your career, whether it's in business or it's in the professions, that you must have a personal mission. You must have what you want to achieve. You must have a strategy for yourself. And that you must commit to that mission and find the best strategy for getting there. But I think that in doing that, and which is a route to leadership, in doing that, I mean, in deciding and planning to lead within your sphere, that you must be ready to step up. And why do I say that? For my generation, in particular. I'm not sure that it applies to the next generation, because that is, you know, being sorted as the generations come. We were a lot more, women were not supposed to be aggressive. You weren't supposed to, you know, speak up and be seen to be, you know, needing something or wanting something. Don't go after what you want. It will come. You work hard. It will find its way to you. You know, all of this kind of talk makes women hang back from opportunities. Right? So, whereas a man will step up and go after what he wants, a woman will work hard twice, three times as hard as the man, hoping that she will be noticed in the process. And half the time, she's not noticed. Right? Or they might just think that you like hard work. Yeah, just, you know, it's some kind of hard work. So, you need to step up all the time. And you need to understand, you must take the time to understand what is required for you to be a leader. It is not something that just happens. It has to be intentional. That's my second lesson.
The third one, and that's a personal thing, is that I think it's important to invest in the younger generation, the ones coming after you. I think it's really important. One thing that it does is that it keeps you motivated. It keeps you young, because engaging with younger people tends to keep you young. But two, it enables the younger ones too. It enables their growth to be facilitated. But then they don't have to go through the same process of making the mistakes you made, and, you know, reinventing the wheel when a process already exists. And it enables them also to become critical thinkers around decision-making, planning, and enabling their own goals. So I think engaging with the younger ones, those coming behind you, is important.
Fourth, I think care of self is important. I think I'm only going to do five. So this is fourth, right? Care of self is important, and if you read, the one book that I do like, and I always, I point people towards is the seven habits for highly effective people. You know, you must develop your mind. And development of your mind comes through your reading and engaging in literature, research, and all these things that improves your knowledge around subject matters that you're interested in. You must be spiritually fulfilled. So for everybody, that means something different. Maybe if you're a Muslim, it's going to the mosque, reading the Quran. And so if you're a Christian, going to church, reading the Bible, and engaging in spiritually fulfilling activities, you know, and volunteering, I think, is a very big part of that. So you have an opportunity to give back to society, to enable your community, and to help other people, you know, in the community where you live. So be spiritually fulfilled.
And then the fifth one, I believe, is around, because of today's world, managing stress. So it's your health. So even though that is still a part of self-care, stress is something that overtakes you very unconsciously. It can overtake you very unconsciously. And so you need to pay a lot of attention to that. And some tips would be, be the one to define what success means to you. And don't let other people define it for you. Otherwise, if what you're doing is trying to fulfill somebody else's definition of success, you spend your entire life comparing yourself to others. Right? And doing that is literally, most times leads directly to failure. We're all individually unique. We have our unique capacities and capabilities. What you should be doing is comparing where you are now to where you want to be, you know, and working to get to where you want to be. Another tip is around your healthy living. That healthy living has to do with what you eat. What you eat is so important. You know, I even say to people that if you can even stick to like three-quarters Nigerian food, you are fine. It's not processed. It's not, you know, keeps you healthy and all of that. You know, very fresh, organic, everything good. Right? So watch what you eat. What you eat is, so for example, you know, if I take myself as an example, and I look at people that always ask me questions about my hair, for example. They think I'm wearing a wig half the time. And, you know, and it's not a wig. It's my hair that is this long. But it comes from what we eat, you know. My nails are strong. My skin is smooth. I've been using black soap to have my bath for the last, what, 40 years. Right? It's very good for my skin. I think our ancestors knew what they were doing when they created black soap. Yeah. You know. And then when I now spend time, like 30 years ago, to understand the difference between the soaps, I realized that the Western soaps, because for Caucasians, oil is not very good for them. But they live in a different kind of climate. So their soaps strip your skin of oil. That's what they do. And that's why they had to start creating things like Dove that would put moisture back into your skin.
Whereas our soaps are actually meant to, you know, moisturize, care for your skin. Care for our bodies. Our oils, our natural oils. Cold-pressed, you know. Is it palm kernel oil you're talking about? Or coconut oil? These are fantastic oils. And then, of course, how much time we spend in rejuvenating. For some people, some people are extroverts. So the way that their batteries get charged, and they get revived and all of that, is to be with other people.
So if you're that kind of person, please engage with your friends. Go out, have fun, be social. Do all those things that make you happy. If you're an introvert, please lie down with your favorite book. Sit with your two or three good friends for life. Have your suya and a coke or beer or whatever it is you drink. And do those things that will ignite you, recharge your batteries and all that. And that is what will sustain you through life's everyday challenges, and through the years of maturity.
Q: What one thing do wish you could go back in time and do all over again A: You know, absolutely nothing. Really? Yes. I've been asked that question many times. I've had to think through it. So the first time I was asked that question, I thought, oh my God, what would I go back and redo? I don't think there's anything. The schools I went to, I liked. I had friends. The friends I have today, I love and all that. The husband I have, I would marry him again and again and again. The children I have, I would not choose other children. You know? The trajectory I have, I think when I was going through public service, because of the ways civil servants are made to feel, you know, almost as if they even feel, I mean, people even have the thought that every civil servant is corrupt, just because there are some bad eggs and they are larger than life. You know, you start to feel really bad about yourself and where you are. But you know, as I came out of civil service, I had a fantastic time in civil service. The kind of work I got to do in civil service, I cannot get it in a private law firm. It's just not possible.
The opportunities are not there. Right? I actually realized when I left the school, and public service into private sector, that, you know, if I had my life again, I would do the same thing. But I remember when I was given the job, I was like, oh my God, my classmates are in banking and insurance, oil and gas. Why am I in civil service? Right? Obviously, my trajectory was meant to be different. I went and asked my mom, why me? You know, okay, I am not taking this job. I don't want it. I am going to, you know, and just to quickly say how it came, we were doing our youth corps, me and my very good friend, her uncle was working in the Federal Ministry of Justice, and used to come to Ondo State, where we had our youth corps, to prosecute cases of smuggling, and he was in customs, he was posted to customs service at the time. Halfway through youth corps, he just asked the question, kind of, so what are you ladies going to be doing after youth corps? Okay, we are going to be applying for jobs. Really, where? Of course, we started with the usual answer, banking and everything. Is that really? Apply to the Ministry of Justice, eh? What? Civil service? No, no, no, God forbid, it is not my portion. Was how we answered him. And we thought that was the end of it. No, two or three months later, he came with the application form. But yeah, we filled the form under duress, signed it under duress, and it took everything, I took it back with him to Lagos. So when we finished youth corps, came back to Lagos, and the next thing was, one day I got a call. I had been shortly stepped on, and I went for an interview.
I went to my mother, she said, I won't go for this interview. I don't think I want to work for government. I think you and daddy are the single servants for your life. What do you have to show for it? Just pension, even the pension, you run after pension. Pension, you know, until tomorrow, it's still the same. It hasn't really improved. So, you know, I said, I really don't want to be in your position at your age. My mother said, a bird in hand is worth two in the bush. Go for this interview. If you get the job, do it. If you get a better one, you can leave. You can go for the new one. That's how I never left. You were there for nine years. I was there for nine years. I mean, it was in my seventh year that I thought, okay, I think seven years of devoting my time to my two children is very good. Now it's time to go for a private sector job. So I had to prepare for that move. That was what made me go to do my masters, come back, and then begin to look out for jobs and all that. So I don't think I would change anything. I think this was the life that God meant for me. And I think I feel even more like this because where I am currently, I think I'm living my best life. I think I've actually found my purpose in life and I'm making the best of it.
Q: What are the best qualities you look for in people
A: What are the best qualities I look for in people? One is their interest in learning. Okay. That they're willing to learn is one. Because if they're not willing to learn, they're difficult to teach, they're difficult to coach, and it would be difficult for them to change their habits or become better. So their willingness to learn. The other thing that I look for in people is adaptability. How easily can they adapt to change? The third thing I look for in people is I think, their interpersonal skills. How do they relate with other people? How easily do they relate with other people? These are things that are important. The other thing that I look for in people is adaptability. How easily can they adapt to change? The third thing I look for in people is their interpersonal skills. How do they relate with other people? How easily do they relate with other people? These are things that are important. The fourth one is intellectual capacity. I think that's important to me. Your ability to reason, the way you make decisions and all that. I think the fourth one is your interests. I don't want to use the word hobbies actually. I think your interests outside of work say a lot about the kind of person that you are. So those are the things I think I will look out for first in a person.
Q: How is your relationship with God A: I think my relationship with God is very personal. And I think it's where I think it should be
Q: If you could pick 3 people to have a conversation with either living or dead, who would they be A: Three people to have a conversation with, dead or alive. Who would they be? That is difficult. That I haven't thought about too much. And it's a question that I ask other people. Especially people that I've mentored. People dead or alive, who would they be?
Okay, I think one person would be my father. Because I think we had a lot of unfinished conversations. He died at 70 something. We never really got to the point of seriously engaging in very, very deep talk. And I think he was a man of many parts and he had a lot to do. A very dedicated doctor. There's a lot about his children that come from what he modeled. And what he taught us and all that. I think my father would be one. Because I had my mother until she was 83. She died five years ago. So we had all our conversations. I don't think we left anything out. There's nothing more I want to say to her. My father would be one. The second person would be, this is what happens when you haven't thought about something. The second person dead or alive would be…So I would give a persona rather than a name.
The second person would probably be a female leader, with a global profile. In an attempt to understand her own trajectory and be able to make a comparison between mine and theirs. To see whether there are any lessons to be learned from their own experience because I've met a few global leaders. Never really had an opportunity to have an in-depth conversation with them. But listening to them on panels or listening to them at dinner as they speak.
Makes me feel that... A more in-depth conversation. So who are the kinds of people that would fit into this kind of category? And Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala would be one such person. Our Deputy UN Secretary-General Amina J. Mohamed would be another person. Somebody else would be, there's a lady I met in Paris. I think two years ago. Who's from the Middle East. And who currently leads the largest business organization in her region. And she's female. And it's just understanding how she made that transition as well. Because of my own story and just trying to see what are some of the lessons learned. Because then it helps one to be able to articulate it to others. Right? Because if you concentrate only on your own journey. It doesn't say enough about how one could also navigate the field.
When you want to occupy such a position. So if you're a global female leader. Who has made a name for herself through her work. And whatever she's doing. And could be any one of them.
And then I think last would be, my best friend who died during COVID. My best friend from primary school. She's Dutch. She was Nigerian born. Her parents were Dutch. She was Nigerian born. She was born in Cardiff actually. And then the parents moved to Lagos. And they moved to Lagos when she was a toddler. So we became friends. When I took that exam into America International School. She was my first friend. In first grade. And we kept in touch until I left. I left in seventh grade to move to Holy Child College. She stayed there. She stayed in the American International School. And eventually went abroad when she was done with ninth grade. We stayed in touch for a while. Just as she was going to university, we lost touch for two decades or something. Two and a half decades. And then suddenly I had to go for a conference in the Netherlands, and I was reading a random magazine, in the hotel, I just saw her. She was among a group of people. They were the alumni of a particular university and there was something they had done that got them into the papers. So I called the university, I'm like, I need to catch up with this person. And they're like, well we can't give out the personal information of our student. But why don't you give us yours? And we'll make sure she gets it. That took them like six months. And when she eventually was able to get in touch, they had started a Facebook group of what we call the 70s gang of the AIS. What is interesting about this gang is that they're mostly expatriates. Many of whom were either born in Nigeria. Many of whom were either born in Nigeria. Or came as young children and are totally affected by Nigeria. So they pretty much see themselves as Lagosians. But because they were children when they came in and literally still children when they were taken away, they've never been able to come back. But they're filled with all these memories of Lagos. So having an actual living Lagosian in the group. There are a few of us. They can ask about the Chapman the Suya. You know all these things that they were affected by.
We all got really involved in that. She set up this whole group. I didn't think I would ever go back to the Netherlands. I thought that was my first and last time. And suddenly an opportunity opened up. I went. I was literally 150 kilometers from where she lived and this girl drove and came to meet me. Didn't get to me until like 7 or 8. She stayed with me until midnight. She still remembered all her Pidgin English. She was speaking Pidgin English like she left Nigeria yesterday, and we were just talking and she was talking about all of the affectations she has, that she didn't realize she had until she had to move back to the Netherlands. When she does something. I'll ask her. What does that mean? Why did you do that? Okay it's not strange where I grew up, everybody in Nigeria does this. Only for Covid to arrive. So I think she would be the third person.
Q: What are your 3 greatest achievements thus far A: What are my three greatest achievements so far? One. Is becoming the third woman to lead the oldest chamber in West Africa, and the fourth oldest chamber in Sub-Saharan Africa. So that's my first achievement. My second achievement is to have become the first. Black African woman to become the vice chair of Africa of the World Chamber of Federation. These are all very recent. So they are overtaking each other. These achievements. When you think you have an achievement. Then something else comes out, it pushes the other one into the twilight zone. Anyway. So the third one now is. To become the first ever honorary consul for the United Republic of Tanzania to Lagos State. And that happened a few months ago.
Achievers