INSPIRATIONS FROM MR TUNDE LEMO,

A BANK MOGUL (PART 3)

Shall we continue to learn from the vast business experience of Mr Tunde Lemo, a banker and philanthropist who rose to becoming the Managing Director of Wema Bank Plc until he was pulled over to the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) as a Financial regulator.

Lesson 8:  Spirituality

A life without God is a life full of crises. He gave his life to Christ in 1981. A life that is in Christ is a life devoid of crisis. Such a life is insulated from lots of pitfalls that sweep young people away. He said he probably wouldn’t have had the time to study diligently as he did if he had not given his life to Christ. All those distractions of having girl friends, fornication, alcohol drinking, partying, and so on, were removed from him because he gave his life to Christ.

Lesson 9:  Money and Investment

a. Mr. Tunde Lemo said you don’t have to own your business in order to be rich. The key lesson here is that we are individually wired for different things. We all don’t have to own businesses to make impact or to be wealthy. For him, the most important thing is to ask God for the purpose He created you and go after it with all your might. That was exactly what he did. People have become successful being number two or number three, working for Aliko Dangote. 

b. Make savings a permanent habit. He started saving from the very first salary he earned, even if it was one kobo or one Naira. Those little things eventually added up. There was also one interesting policy he adopted: “I never allowed my taste to catch up with my rising status”. He looked at his friends who were teachers or doing something else and were earning one third or one fifth of his salary and he decided to limit his expenditure to the salary his friends were earning; whatever was the difference, he saved. That really worked for him. He bought shares and land. You cannot go wrong buying land provided you have your title. Land does not usually depreciate in value.

c. Don’t put money into a business you don’t understand. In a bid to augment their salaries, together with his wife, they both started  transportation business. But, sad to say, everything came to naught. They lost all the trailers and tippers they bought in the process. The lesson they learnt from that was: Do not go into a business you don’t fully understand. He adviced his wife to concentrate on her teaching profession and she agreed with him. She is doing well running her own schools.

To be continued in the next quarter…