MEET WITH THE MANAGING PARTNER OF OLAJIDE AND ASOCIATES
ALHAJI CHIEF YAHAYA OLATAYO OLAJIDE(fca,fcti)

QUE- Most people hear a lot about Olajide and Associates but they don’t know much about the brain behind it. Can you please tell us who Olajide Yahaya Olatayo is?
“ I will first of all tell you what Olajide and Associates represents. Olajide and Associates is a firm of Chartered Accountant that engages in the provision of accountancy, taxation, financial consultancy and the couple of company incorporation services.
Olajide and Associates is made up of Mr. Olajide himself, his associates and staff. ’’

QUE- How would you say your profession as an accountant has added value to where you are today?
“The firm started as earlier as 1998 and we thank God Almighty today the firm is 10 years. Today we are celebrating our 10 years of professional accounting practice. We thank God when we started, we were able to. We started small but we thank god that today we are a firm to reckon with. As professionals you would be able to contribute positively when you are on top. And you employ people and give work to your fellow human being in the Accounting Sector, When you are on top, it enable you to be on your own, and you must work with people as an Accountant. I started working for people but today I was able to setup my own firm, then most importantly education has added value to employees to add to their educational experience. Most of our employees work in big companies today.”

QUE- Your career in the accounting industry is quite impressive. Can you tell us an insight into how it all started/happened?
“ Olajide and Associates started like I said  in 1998 when I lost my employment, I decided the best thing to do having had my certificate, is to setup my own practice. I started with Korporate Nominee until 1994 when I got my ICAN practicing license in 1998; after which we then got registered as Olajide and Associates. The dream of setting up a firm started when I was in primary school when I saw how an accountant behaves. During my work days in, I started gathering information which will help me start up and today here we are. We give thank to God. ”

QUE- What is the greatest lesson life has taught you?
“you must be focused and have set goals as a human being in life for you to succeed. You must reach a point when you will set up all variables that will enable you get to where you are heading to. Set up Budget and plans so as to know where you are and where you are  going and make sure you implement it. When I started work , I setup a target that I wanted to be on my own and against all odds,  challenges  and tempting offers, I still was focused so as to get my goals achieved. I encountered lots of challenges that made me think I was in the wrong track but thanked God I still remained focused and today I am here. In the beginning we had clients that give us job without paying but we kept delivering our services, but today they are the one giving us referrals to other clients. We thank God that today we have several staff that can help us deliver our work much better and faster that it was in the beginning. “

QUE- You have been deeply involved in the accounting sector. What will you say are the development the sector had experienced in the recent past?
“ In 1981, there were few Accountants, but today you can see how many professionals the accounting profession have produced. When I qualified as an Accountant in 1990, there were few professional Accountants but today the number is increasing. Nigeria needs lots of Accountant to be able to take care of the accounting transactions. Majority of companies’ Account departments are being manned by bookkeepers who are not professionals, but today if you go to such Companies’ you will see qualified accountant as their accountants. So we thank God for that. We have also seen that some other accounting bodies are trying to come up, but we hope that the accounting qualification would not be bastardized and there would be integrity, accuracy among such bodies. I will also advice that such accounting bodies that need to come up should go through THE INSTITUTE OF CHARTERED ACCOUNTANT OF NIGERIA to be able to deliver good and qualitative professionals. In the past not many Institutions had accounting departments but today there are so many of them now. These are the developments experienced in the sector.
 “Being an Accountant has been gainful to me and I thank God for that.”

QUE- Taking you back into the time when you nurtured the idea of going into practice, how did you get the courage bearing in mind the uncertainties surrounding the sector in the country Nigeria at that time?
“Like I said generally, in business there are lots of uncertainty; in 1981 there were few accountants due to the fact that ICAN Examination was very difficult to pass. I looked at that Examination that is so difficult for people to pass and I said if the supply is small that means the price will be very high. The challenge is that you know where you are going to and “I said to
myself I was going to make it”. The general challenges are our daily ups and downs no electricity, poor communication, unreliable internet connectivity, bad road, high accommodation fees. Every profession faces such challenges. Any body that is ready to succeed in Nigeria must be ready to face these normal challenges. As of today the challenges are not the same like in the beginning when we had to use lantern to complete client jobs and trek some distances to satisfy our client all because the money was not there. But today its a different story. “We cannot say because PHCN did not give light or calls cannot go through we swill not carry out our services.”
“When you tell clients that, I am sorry, we had no electricity, or that the internet is not connecting well or that you can not call their lines to inform them of some sort of delays in delivering their jobs, they laugh at you.” The challenge of been a director of a firm like this is very great. For instance you have to answer called by yourself and everybody like you to pick his call and attend to him or her no matter the condition you are. This include the clients, staff, friends, family, vendors, agencies etc. “We thank God that Olajide and Associates as a firm of Chartered Accountants and Tax Consultants that is always able to go extra miles to satisfy our clients and delivers on promise”. “

 QUE- You are the managing partner of Olajide and associates. Can you tell us what the experience has been like carrying your other partners and staff along in the Firm?
“Well, the most difficult aspect of running a company is being able to manage employees and your professional colleagues because all humans are not the same. But as the overall boss you will need to carry everybody along. I have worked with people who can work on their own without instructing them on what to do, I have also worked with staff who will wait for you to give all instructions before they can do anything on their own. Others you will call to ask where are they; some will even not come to the office without taken permissions, this you will still handle as a boss. You must also be strong and healthy to run a firm because you sometimes have to shout on staff to do things right. You must be able to satisfy your clients with the resources you have because that is your main reason of setting up a firm. There must be good and bad staff, so you will not always have the good ones but we thank God we have very good staff in term of brilliance and effective work delivery. “

QUE- What are your plans and projections for the future as regards Olajide and Associates?
“ For every human being, you plan to succeed in life, we thank God  we have achieved the little we have today. Our plan in future is to be among one of the big auditing firm by way of associating with other firms in order to share from the international market. We have considered two or three applications from some other big firms and we are going to be having partners meeting where we will select one out of the applications. Being the Nigerian company on ground, we are hoping to represent our global firm which we will be affiliated to because Nigerians are known for integrity, accountability and accuracy. We hope that the deal works out fine and we hope to upgrade on our employees remuneration and training packages. Olajide And Associates  as a firm uses accounting packages to run our daily activities this implies that every staff of Olajide and Associates is very good in the usage of these accounting packages. Anytime our staff are sent out for audit or secondment to our client, we have no fear at all. We also have plans to move closer to our clients in Lagos Island and also to give our other branches, Jos, Port-Harcourt, Ilorin, Abuja a facelift so that our clients in those locations can know that our firm is properly on ground. “

QUE- On a lighter note sir, how do you relax after your day’s work?
 “ I rarely relax  because I always have busy days, but I do relax by surfing the internet by upgrading my knowledge, I watch cabletv, relax with my children at home. I spend a lot of time with my wife and children. I have four girls and am hoping for a male child from my new wife. I also exercise my body in my sitting room. “

 QUE- There is a saying beside every successful man there is a woman. Can you tell about your wife’s support to this your great achievement?
“My wives have been very supportive, I initially lost my first wife due to illness but my second wife has been very supportive and hardworking. She assists me in taking care of the home front and also looks after  my office whenever I travel. I thanked God for giving me such a good wife and pray that Allah give both of us long life.

QUE- Looking at your achievements in life one will say he is too young to have attained this height can you tell us what keeps driving you to your success?
“”The drive behinds my success is that I started early”, whatever you want to do in this life you need to start early, I started early in life when I got married to my first wife in 1990, then I was 30 yrs old, since then I had my goals right behind my mind that I would be a chartered accountant, so I started gendering information and materials to help achieve that dreams. When I qualified in 1990, I dreamt of becoming a fellow in the Accounting Profession which was actualized in 2000. “If the roots you are pursuing seem long, start early, don’t depend on people, be brave, take bold steps, once you start early in life you will go a long way.” “

QUE- When you consider the fact that you are 48 and you realize that you have accomplished a lot and still waxing strong. You will definitely have some people to be grateful to?
“There are so many people I am so grateful to in life; the first person is Alhaji Akanni Olajide who took decisive decision that I should further my education after the demised of my father in 1977. I also give thanks to my mother Alhaja Sifawu Olajide who also decided that I must complete education and gave financial supports towards my education since 1969. May Allah give her long life. A soothsayer once said I should become a tailor but with the help of Allah through one of my teacher in 1975, I was able to become an Accountant today. I also want to appreciate my late wife’s perseverance and endurance (Late Mrs. Fatimoh Ajoke OlajideR.I.P) during the difficult days. We stood together during the 1993/4 ABIOLA ERA when I disengaged from my employment to setup this firm. I also appreciate my former employees’ contributions including the contribution of:-Mr. Lanre Afolabi and Mr. Adeojo and the like. My thanks goes to my long serving employee in the persons of Mr. , Olabode Mouruf, Mr.  Biyi  Folarin & Faith Uwota. I will not also forget to thank Mr. Ogunkunle Niyi my new Manager, He is a very good Senior Manager, my new wife Mrs. Monsurat O. Olajide, other staff like Bella, Stephen, Jacobs, Irese Ajayi,  Tairu, Taoheed,  and Jelilat. I thank God for bringing us together as a family. We had Omo Korporate from Afolabi and we are expecting Omo Olajide soon.
QUE- How can you combine together your profession as an Accountant and as a politician?           
“Every entrepreneur wants to go into some difficult things, My participation in 2007 election was the second attempt, my first was in the 2003 where I participated as kwara state house of representative member, I attempted to represent Irepodun Local government, in Kwara state but I had to step down for someone. In 2007 I participated under a party for Oshsodi Federal House of Representative but we were not very successful. Every entrepreneur’s dreams is to go into a difficult task and win. I thank God I went to this I came out gallantly. “

QUE- Sir, will you still go into Politics if you are called to serve the people?
“Whoever that succeeds in life, God has already given him the ability to surmount trouble, Anger, and to take lots of punches here and there.  You can engage in several activities as long as you are consistent, planning and focusing. In politics you win some and lose some, if am given another opportunity I will still go into politics. You have said that politics is serving the people, if am called to serve I have to be ready at all time, but I will not go into politics that would affect my professional callings, my job, my family, my religion and way of life, I am always ready to serve whenever I am call upon to do so. “
QUE- You would have had some dark moments in life can you share it with us?
“My dark moment was when I lost my wife Mrs. Fatimah Ajoke Olajide in on 3rd June 2007 due to protracted illness, but I was able to  surmount the problem with prayers and the support given to me by family and friends. I pray that such will not happen to me ever, It was terrible then but I thank God. May God Almighty forgive her and have mercy on her soul.

QUE- Sir, can you throw more light on your Clientele base?
“Olajide and Associates has been involved in the setting up, registration, incorporation and restructuring of several companies, associations and firms. We are proud to state that all the organizations that we had one or two things to do with are all in operation today. I started by first incorporating my own company Korporate Consultants and Nominees Limited and then several other companies. Our client is the sole of our firm that is where we get our revenue from, we thank God we have had to deal with a lot of people in the past ten years. Our first clients were: Kenna and Associates(1991), True Tales(1998) Farl(Time And Chance)(1998) we have also been working with Zikylambo(2001) whom we still work for up till date. We have worked with various other companies in the telecoms, manufacturing, healthcare, oil and gas, food and beverage. We have some reliable clients, and we try to provide all they want. We give them services as taxation, accounting, auditing, and recruitment, financial, some of these services require working extra miles before you can be able to satisfy the client. There can be delays from third party, who are supposed to give some documents required for the job on behalf of a client. It has not been easy but we thank God for everything, we also work for Lagos State Government in the aspect of Tax Audit and some government agencies. We have contested with some bigger audit firm on client’s proposals and we have won some. As of today none of our client complains, the customer is always right. Our core mission is to satisfy our client. “There is a saying in business that customers are always right, on that basis we work; we try to build our firm on this saying so as to satisfy our client with what they want. Of course, we know that there is no permanent client, but we belief that there is permanent interest. Those client that belief in us and our capabilities remain permanent with us, because they have permanent interest in us “

 QUE- How do you cope with Internet Scam because we can see that most of your activities are internet based?
“On this scam issue when you put your mind in it you will not go forward. The internet has provided a facility to detect scam mails and information, so when we get such scam mail, we forward it to EFCC and to most other agencies in which such mail claim to represent. We minimize most of this scam mail by protecting our website with password which only our client and staff can access due to the fact that they have the pass word. We also use original software programs such as Microsoft office etc. When you want to enquire about our services, you will fill our feed back form which enables us to know why you want us or what services we can render for you. We also have recruitments data base where clients who seek employees go to pick employees of their choice from the CV submitted in our website www.olajideassociates.com . Many people have been gainfully employed through our data base recruitment process.  So if you are seeking to be gainfully employed in your professional careers in or outside Nigeria, submits your CV into our website“

QUE- On a final note what advise would you give to young Accountants who wish to practice in future?
“My advice to young Accountants who wish to practice as a chartered Accountant is that they should start early. “                   

THANK YOU
INTERVIEW TAKEN ON July 29th 2008
Team: Miss Bella Rose, Mr. Jacob Aligbe & Mr. Tairu Olaonipekun all staff of
Olajide And Associates, (Charter Accountants, Tax Consultants)