‘I’d Rather Spend On People Than Stand As The Only Eyed Man In The Community Of The Blind’-Ajayi Reveals

Olamide Ajayi is a London, United Kingdom-based entrepreneur and philanthropist. He has been an active youth development advocate since when he was 18 and at over 40 his penchant for youths’ development has not receded a bit.

He spoke exclusively with News Rain Nigeria about his ideas and activities in the development of youths in Ekiti State and by extension Nigeria as a whole and also his current efforts in considerably reducing poverty among his people.

Olamide Ajayi Foundation

Speaking about his foundation, its idea, and main focus, the London based property investor and the financial advisor said: “Olamide Ajayi Foundation is saddled with the responsibility of helping young people leap out of poverty by way of providing both leadership development and skills acquisition programs in Ekiti Central of Ekiti State.

The foundation has also heavily invested in youths and sports. We recently organized a football tournament for the youths in Ekiti Central where the winner received a trophy and 100,000 naira and the runner up received 50,000 naira with a trophy. We also gave cash and other items to the best player, best goalkeeper, best-behaved player, and so on.”

He spoke further that the foundation is although focused essentially on the youths but “have micro initiatives for the elderly. we are planning to help many farmers with fertilizers and also provide foodstuff for the less privileged seniors in Ijero Local Government Area of Ekiti State.”

‘I’d Rather Spend On People Than Stand As The Only Eyed Man In The Community Of The Blind’-Ajayi Reveals

The Inspiration Behind His Ideas and Initiatives

Explaining the Inspiration behind his lofty initiatives and projects, Ajayi said the inspiration has always been there from childhood. He said: “The inspiration behind my projects is the fact that, from when I was young, I have always believed that I was born to make a difference and play a part in making my state especially my home town a place of honor and excellence.

Apart from that, I was badly affected by the poor background that I came from, so, seeing people live in poverty hurts my soul, I’d rather spend all I have on people so we can all be okay than stand as the only eyed man in the community of the blind.”

Olamide Ajayi Football Competition in Ekiti State

Meanwhile, he was recently in Nigeria, precisely in Ekiti where he had come to walk the talk about what he believes in. The events have been hugely successful, as a good number of youths benefited from his ideas and philanthropic gestures. He explained:

“As I posted out earlier, recently we had Olamide Ajayi Football Competition in Ekiti State. It is one of its kind in Ekiti Central,
This competition has equipped more than 14 different teams and IKORO UNITED with a set of the jersey.
The winner went home with 100k with a set of Jersey among numerous awards, the runner up went home with a cash gift of 50,000 Naira.
Ikoro Ekiti teams have been the major beneficiary of this esteem competition because the community got 4 different sets of Jerseys. It has fostered unity among the youths in that region especially Ijero Local Government Area of Ekiti State
The competition has spurned Ikoro Ekiti to have a Community team called IKORO UNITED.
Olamide Ajayi Foundation also donated a set of Jersey to Ikoro United as well.”

The Next Line Of Actions, The Immediate And Future Plan For Those Discovered.

Every good initiative must not just be sustainable but must bear good fruits. The football tournament also has a good plan for the participants. Not only that it will be an annual event, but it also provides a platform for a better and more rewarding future for the participants.
According to Olamide Ajayi, he said: “Though we don’t really have a mission to build a team or club, this exercise has a huge potential of great clubs emerging and that can be sponsored or fostered by other philanthropists or individuals. But my real mission is to use football as a conduit for reconnecting.

Meanwhile, what we see in Ekiti is a mirror of what is happening in our larger society. Not just Ekiti, so I don’t want to make it as if Ekiti youths have gotten issues, but that is the group or demography I am focusing on. So the onus is on me to speak extensively on matters relating to them and using them as my reference point.

Back to what I was saying, the football competition is just to get talent, it creates opportunities as well as give them the opportunity to be involved and catch the attention of local and international football scouts and sponsors. The competition is essential to create a platform for the youths to exhibit their passion and develop their talents. It is to resourcefully engage the youths and encourage positive use of their talents, passion, and strength while getting the attention of relevant football promoters and sponsors at both national and local levels. That is why we are taking the football competition from town to town starting with Ijero Local Government and of course Ekiti Central.”

The Agriculture Business Initiative

Shedding Light on his agriculture business initiative in Ekiti, Ajayi explained how the program is set to help the people and revolutionalize agriculture business in the country.

He explained: “I was born and raised in Ekiti. I see the huge potential that farming has for young people and how much rejection is based on ignorance that farming has suffered. And a kind of the wrong attitude of young people towards farming. This is not encouraging.

So it is not bringing the wealth in the forest into our hands. Many think that the best way to go is when you go to university and when you finish you go to the city, obviously to pick up a white-collar job and really many of them end up being poor. This is because not every white-collar job has the potential to make you rich. It is just to keep you average or to keep you somewhere. Except you get involved in illegitimate activities, maybe embezzling the company’s fund and things like that.

Many don’t get rich just working for companies. And if you want to stay legitimate, if you want to stay fit and proper, you want to be honest and reliable, you got to be entrepreneurial. The fact is that you don’t necessarily need to go to any workshop, training or symposium, or things like that for you to know how to do farming. The good thing about most youths in Ekiti State is that most of us already have backgrounds in farming. And most of our parents, grandparents, and great grandparents have some sort of land in Ekiti that you can just leverage on. You can seek funds and start small scale agriculture business, small scale farming, and then build your life up from there. So that is one reason I am doing this.

The second reason is just to give a lot of Nigerians, especially Ekiti in the Diaspora the opportunity to invest back home. Helping them to look for land, a good thing is that lands are relatively cheap in Ekiti State, you can buy few hectares of land and start your farming business from there.
There are a lot of Ekiti indigenes in Diaspora who don’t come home often or who don’t have people they can trust enough to help them with their farming business, so we help them with this. Of course, farming for me as well as a way of securing my future and I am working hard in that regard. I am planting trees which don’t bring profits until after 10, 14 years, and more. I am planting them in thousands, so I am kind of securing a good future for me and my children. So I want young people to take a clue from that and build not just today but also build tomorrow from today.”

Youth Unrest, Agitation, and #EndSARS

Considering the recent youth unrest in the country, Olamide Ajayi stated his position on recent youths agitation and restlessness in Nigeria codenamed #EndSARS.

According to him: “The question is not about today’s youths, youths have always been agitated. Youths have always been restless. It is not just youths in Nigeria only but everywhere. For example here in the United Kingdom, there is that sense and feeling of marginalization with black minority young people, the root of this here is racism, so black people in the UK, although worse in America, have been marginalized, they have been stereotyped, and pushed to a corner. And when you are pushed to a corner and you know you can’t break through the wall and you don’t want to lose your life or die, what you do is attacked back. And that is exactly what the youths in Nigeria are doing.

They have been pushed to the wall, it looks as if the minute you become rich or you assume a public office and you have all the wealth at your disposal you are cut off completely from the reality, the struggles, the pains of the people around you. So these young people consistently each day of their lives live in pains, in penury, and in misery. Their parents are poor, nobody in their families has any wherewithal and they are not too sure of what the future holds for them. And to know that you completely live in the midst of wealth and in the midst of abundance and complain of lack every day is one of the most torturous experiences. Like when you know that it is the same equal right you have to the wealth of the nation, it is the same right I have to that wealth, but by dint of office you occupied, you sidelined me and you gave yourself permission and access to that wealth, and you take everything from all of us and you use what you have taken for yourself and your families is annoying, so people would want to fight back in a situation such like that.

I know that the recent protest in Nigeria is focused on #EndSARS, but that is not just the issue. This is because SARS is just an entity a body that stepped out of a corrupt system and any other body that steps out of that system will equally be corrupt. It is like a trunk of a tree that is corrupt will always produce branches that are corrupt and fruits coming out of that tree or the branches will equally be corrupt. So young people have seen the composition if the trunk and the corruption of the tree, so Nigeria keeps producing bad elements, bad fruits and I saw the young people have come to a place that they feel fighting back is one of the ways to get their freedom.
So they are not fighting the government, No! They are fighting the system, they want a change, they want reformation. Until the government sees the need to attend to young people, there would never be a total transformation in Nigeria.

Take it or leave it, any government that is going to thrive and have economic power that is reasonable must leverage or trade-in the skill, the brilliance, and the technical know-how of the young people. If you don’t leverage on that, if you don’t take the advantage of that, there is nothing you do that is going to make sense. They have gotten the technology, they can use the technology to bring transformation at any level. So young people should be encouraged. The government should have a huge budget for young people, they should cater to the young graduates, their allowances should continue after they completed their NYSC until they are able to find jobs. That is what they do in the United Kingdom. The problem of unemployment has actually thrown the young people into unscrupulous activities that are really mind-blowing, annoying, and disheartening. You see young people who killed girls for money rituals, they call them Yahoo Yahoo. Many of these young people don’t even want to get involved in these things, but there are no other options, it has become a do or dies affairs. And life shouldn’t be like that.”

What Government Should do to Take Care and Adequately Empower The Youths

Advising the government on what to do in taking care of the Youths and giving areas the government can adequately empower the youths, Olamide Ajayi made his position known:

“I earlier mentioned the budget for young people. Nelson Mandela said, “the issue and the challenges of Africa can only be solved by Africans”. The issues and the challenges of young people in Nigeria can only be solved by young people themselves. If you want to have a Minister for youths and this Minister is already in his or her 60s, he or she is already completely cut off from the realities of the young people. But if you want to have the Minister for Youth and Sports or Commissioner for Youth and Sports get a 40+, 30+, or a 20+-year-old person who can engage with a good track record. Not just someone who is just hungry to get the position and take all the public funds into his or her private account. Get someone who is tested, proven, and who is fit and proper. These are very important. And the government should be about the economy.

Economic power has to come to a new level. The government has to be more intelligent, exposed and they should care more about the people more than the infrastructure. Though infrastructure is good because is going to aid development, the care should be more about the people and they will build the infrastructure. But if you don’t build the people, the infrastructure you built is going to be ruined by the people you are not built.
We see what happened in Lagos and some other states of Nigeria, those hoodlums were not built and now they are destroying things that they were built. Therefore let’s have a way in which the government can build the youth.

I am offering myself in Ekiti State doing my solo works, organizing football competition, going from one second to another impacting young people. And I am trying to organize a quiz competition in secondary school with great prizes to be won. I also have other programs. Such programs can positively and resourcefully engage the young people as well as programs that can deepen our democracy, where the young people will be mentored and provided a platform to understudy the democratic institutions at the state and federal levels. All these are in the offing. I believe as we introduce the young people into these, we are actually creating a better tomorrow.”