Chief Michael Olawale-Cole, President/Chairman of Council of the Nigerian Institute of Management (NIM), who recently turned 63, was among Nigerians honoured as Member of the Federal Republic (MFR). He spoke with BANKOLE SHAKIRUDEEN ADESHINA.ABANDONING his dream of being the next occupant of the Lagos State government house due to the assassination of Funso Williams, Olawale-Cole resolved to take a break from politics. He has since remained an astute businessman.Responding to the the award of Member of the Federal Republic, MFR, conferred on him by President Jonathan recently, , Olawale-Cole describes it as the highest recognition and motivation to his little contributions to nation building.For Olawale-Cole, the award appears to be reciprocity of his recent gesture, when his NIM honoured over 50 Nigerians with the institute's Life Time Membership, Fellows and Associate Membership awards.'But the essence of life, is not necessarily about how many awards you bag but how much hope you bring to others. Life without compassion or concerns for the plight of others is not enviable. To me, happiness and fulfillment comes more from the number of lives I touch; how many burdens I have lessened and how many troubled souls I have relieved of their pains.'This philosophy perhaps, explains why Olawale-Cole observed his birthday like any other day.Surprisingly, Olawale-Cole was at his duty post with his sleeves rolled up, dishing out instructions, receiving reports, attending to files and making necessary calls on the day he turned 63 on August 24.Commenting on the socio-economic situation of the country, Olawale-Cole said: 'The country is troubled. The economy is unstable; insecurity is biting hard; unemployment is soaring high and corruption has eaten deep into the social fabric of the nation. A patriotic Nigerian should be worried about these issues. I am personally worried, and that is why I have jettisoned merriment or celebration at this time.'Instead of rolling out the drums for merriment, I have devoted my time, talent and thinking towards providing answers to many knotty questions and challenges hindering the progress of the country,' he said.Olawale-Cole has been using his position to provide for the less privileged. Shortly after his rise to NIM leadership, over a year now, he launched a management concept titled Managing Nigeria Series in collaboration with other professional scholars to embark on scientific research. It is aimed at providing full-proof solutions to fundamental challenges facing the country.According to Olawale-Cole, the initiative has started yielding positive results, as his team had already submitted reports to the Presidency on how best to entrench good governance in the country. One of the reports, he informs, essentially focused on how to address the security challenges and the ranging fuel subsidy controversy in the country.Explaining how to test the credibility of his team's reports, he says, 'there was a time, when one of the Christian bodies was talking about retaliation of the attacks of Christians by Boko Haram. We quickly came out and advised otherwise. We believed that retaliation would make Nigerian situation too difficult to manage. If you do that, you are emphatically declaring war and the government, obviously, can't handle that. It would be complicating for government to have the attacks on both sides. All we did was to support the government to get those behind the ugly situation to stop what they are doing so as to make Nigeria easier to manage.'Not satisfied with its past success, the team is on another mission of how to get the system of budgeting right in the country so as to prevent voluntary or involuntary manipulations.'The report has been completed and in a matter of a week or two, we will have approval for a date of submission from the Presidency, through the Minister of Finance and the Coordinating Minister for the Economy, Dr. Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala. Thereafter, we would be looking at employment/unemployment situation, which is another major, issue threatening the Nigerian state. Unfortunately, most of the insecurity challenges, today, are not unconnected with unemployment,' he says.
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