Gboyega Ogunosun makes a good definition of a philanthropist, even without being a money bag yet. The 50th-year old communication consultant, seeing the suffering of his community built a borehole to provide portable water for the residents. While his own house had neither curtains, nor chairs.

From Left; Lion Adegboyega Ogunosun, sponsor of a borehole project, Senator Segun Bamigbetan Baju, District 404B Governor, Alhaji Ola Ramon, Patron C.D.A, Olayinka Olugoke during the Commissioning and Donation of the public borehole held recently at Idimu Area of Lagos.

He prefers to put smiles on the face of the next person. “You don’t need so much money to do all that, it is just the willingness. If you and I put smiles on face of one person each, a lot of people will carry smiles around the country,” says our role model for this week.

His career and background
Way back from primary school, I loved broadcasting. I remember in those days, I would pick-up my big radio recorder,  a newspaper and start to read it, voice it over and over again, until I went for my first auditioning at Radio O-Y-O where I failed woefully.

It was supervised by the first female broadcaster in Nigeria, Mrs Anike Agbaje Williams. And when you hear cut, you are out until the following year. I didn’t give up. I then went to Radio Nigeria because I was desperate to get into broadcasting and I did the auditioning again and I got the job starting with Yoruba news.

I was freelancing for Radio Nigeria while I was in the university. During my national service in Yola, I was posted to Radio Nigeria and became Government House correspondent reporting for the Network news. At a point I was drafted to cover the Belgore Panel during the Buhari/Idiagbon regime.

In the course of duty, I had an encounter with Justice Belgore over a report I saw from my perspective as a journalist and I had to query what justice was when he said ‘On what I saw of the past’. The following day, Justice Belgore got so angry with me and said I had to be jailed.  He said he did not want me to cover his commission any longer and the following morning, I reported it again.

Shortly after that, the Buhari regime scrapped Radio Nigeria state stations and came up with six zones. I was posted to Gongola Broadcasting Corporation where I became the first non-indigenous broadcaster. When I finished writing my script, and they asked me to give it to somebody to present it, I said no, I would present it myself.

So, I did my first presentation and they fell in love with it. From there I had a large programme and then a request programme and that  was it.  That went on until I became the corporate affairs manager of a company before I began my own communication business.

If you had the opportunity of starting afresh, what would like to do differently?

I would go back to broadcasting.  In anything you’re doing, no matter how big the remuneration is, if you are not satisfied with it, the money can’t buy you happiness. When I was in Radio Nigeria, I lost so many contracts that could fetch me huge money but I turned them down because of the satisfaction I derived from the job.

So, I will always want to be a broadcaster and probably a musician.

What is your concept of role model?

As long as I love to be comfortable, I don’t like to have too much money.  For me, I don’t want to look at the millionaires of this world as my role model. My role model is that man who wakes up in the morning and what pre-occupies his mind is how to put smiles on the face of someone else.  My role model is just the common Nigerian that feels for the other.

I love people who by their nature have compassion for the less privileged. So, if you’re a man of God, and your project in the church is directed towards the less privileged, if you’re a politician and you’re not thinking of yourself but your community. I have some people in that line that I adore but they are not public figures.  One of them is Alhaji Gbolagade Adediji.

He is not a known person, but he is a man that when you get across to him, your life will change, your problem becomes his and until he solves it, he will not sleep. He is such a man that if he knows you and sees an opportunity that will improve your life, he will call you immediately and he is such that whatever he does for you, he is not looking for anything in return: that is my role model.

Since I know him, he has remained an apostolic guide for my life.  It is not about too much money. But by all standard, he is comfortable. I can tell you he is a Nigerian role model.

But you just said you don’t want to have too much money, how would you help many people?

The major thing is to have the spirit which is God-given.  When God embedded it in you, your concept and idiosyncrasy about life will change and you will not crave for vanities.  I just mentioned Adediji, he does not live in Victoria Island, or Lekki, he does not even live in Ikeja or Surulere, he lives in Egbeda.

This is somebody who saw a distressed tenant and moved him to his house without collecting a dime. I know the couple are living in his house without paying a dime.  How many landlords in Lagos can do that?

We heard you also did something for your community, can you tell us what it was all about?

When I moved into my new house at Idimu (a suburb of Lagos), I found out there was problem of water. I moved around and I saw people carrying buckets to go look for water.  I decided that rather than throw a party on my 50th birthday, I should do a borehole for my community and I did it.

Funny enough, the day they were commissioning that borehole, I did not have curtains in my house, I did not have a dinning table in my house, I did not have a television set in my sitting room.  The money I expended on the borehole could have taken care of all those needs. But are those needs of the people?  It is just the mind-set to do it, you don’t need to be a moneybag. It is all about you and the way you feel for others.

So, what are the values for successful life?

As a matter of fact, I don’t want to look at core values, but rather, how many people have you actually put smiles on their faces.  If you can count the number of people you have positively affected their lives, then that is success.

You also don’t need to make the whole of the community your responsibility if you can’t do it.  The day I turned 50, a few friends were calling me, I told them: ‘just do me a favour today by putting smiles on the face of at least one person and make sure you record it because I am going to come back to collect the tape and use it as a memoir of what my friends did for me on my 50th birthday’.

A week after, a friend called me and said that message touched him so much that he sponsored a house-girl to school, paid the fees to her desired level, and as we speak, the girl is in school.

Haven’t I done something on my birthday? Another called me to thank me for reminding him of helping others saying, for the little he had done, he had received so many thank-you that he had never received in life.  If you and I put smiles on face of one person each, a lot of people will carry smiles around the country.

Do you really plan doing it, if so, what are those things you’d like to do next?

I act on the spur of the moment, I am such an intuitive person. I get touched by the pains of others. I don’t plan it, I have been doing it for the past 20 years.  You know most of us the busy executives, like you the journalists, we don’t eat lunch at home, we go to buka, cafetarias and eateries most times, any where I enter to eat and meet older people by my definition; no matter what you have taken, I pick the bill unless I don’t have that money at that particular time. In any case, God has always bless me enough to be able to pay.

Do more good to people you don’t know.

In my year as president of Lions club Akowonjo District,440 Nigeria, I did two major project for journalists in Nigeria. I discovered that everyday journalists are on the computer and it has effect on the eyes.  So, I decided to sponsor free eye screening and eye glasses donations for journalists in Lagos State.  After doing that, I got a letter from NAWOJ asking that it should not be a Lagos affair.

Then, I took the programme to their conference in Ibadan and we did the same for all women journalist in Nigeria, with free eye glasses.  It was held at their conference in Ibadan  It is on record in 2003-2004.   That same year I visited Shasha police station, I found out that the inmates of that station had no toilet, I built one for them.

I have a friend, who is handicapped, I picked him from a home and we are able to sponsor him to school (technical college) and constantly changing his wheel chair.  I spearheaded it. Today, he is better off.  A couple of days back, he called to greet me, and by that singular call, it gives me a lot of joy in my heart.