By Ogaga Ariemu
Nigerian billionaire businessman, Femi Otedola has narrated that his lack of flair for academics is the reason he did not attend university.
Otedola, who is the chairman of First Bank Holding, disclosed this in his 286-page memoir released on Monday.
He said he stopped school after the Lower Sixth examination and did not return for the Upper Sixth.
According to Otedola, at that time, all he wanted was to be involved in his father’s printing press.
“My parents enrolled me at the University of Lagos Staff School in 1968, at the age of six.
“But there was something about academia and me; we were not compatible. I finished primary school in 1974 because I repeated a class. Even when I was allowed to pass, I consistently anchored the bottom rungs of our end-of-term examination results. My interests were definitely not in academia.
“I started Form 1 at age 12 and was there for three years.”
“I started in Form 3 at Olivet, and as I rounded off the first year of my A Levels, my father was establishing his printing company, Impact Press, in Surulere, a residential and commercial district in Lagos State. I grew fascinated with the machines and told myself that my future would be inextricably tied to them. I managed to remain in school until the Lower Sixth examination was over. And then, I was finished; I never returned for my Upper Sixth. “All I wanted to do was get involved in business. “My father kept watch over me and drew me close,” he said in the book.
