Cover
DMD with a difference
January - March 2017 •
The Lion King
• 11
Victor Osadolor (VO as we all know him),
tells me this during our chat one bright
sunny afternoon. It was not far from the
first impressions I had ever made of him,
I must admit. My first few interactions
with VO left me curious about the quiet
man behind the glasses. The man who
would rarely eat or drink at functions,
but pleasantly watch people and the
environment. He wouldn’t know that I,
equally being a people watcher, was
also observing him as part of my learning
process.
We would one day, soon after I started
working at UBA, get to chat very briefly
about lifestyles. He wanted to know my
background, I wanted to know why he
ate so little at functions. I learnt that he
is very careful about what he eats, very
health conscious and also methodical
about the choices that he makes. I
learnt that he has a passion for the
French language.
Many months after this, I had the
opportunity to go into his office and the
first thing I noticed was a bouquet of red
roses that had a place of prominence.
There was a softer side of VO!
Victor Osadolor was born about 51
years ago and qualified as a chartered
accountant 27 years ago. This hadn’t
been what his parents wanted. ‘Studying
accountancy was accidental. My
parents wanted me to study medicine
and I was okay with this. But in the
course of pursuing that objective, I got
admission into Uni to study pharmacy
and not medicine.’
Being a methodical thinker who plans
ahead, VOdecided hewouldn’t go in for
pharmacy. That was not part of his plans.
He instead, took a gap year and worked
at First bank. He found excitement in
banking during this time. He fell in love
By Bola Atta
B
ola Atta spends an
afternoon getting
to know our Deputy
Managing Director, Victor
Osadolor and captures the
man behind the numbers.
with the profession. ‘There weren’t many
universities offering banking as a course
in those days. The closest I could get to
it was accountancy.’ And so he went
on to the University of Benin to study
accountancy.
After his Accountancy degree at
Uniben, VO went to work at Coopers
and Lybrand before proceeding to
Afribank. ‘Banking in those days wasn’t
customer service oriented, but there
was deep knowledge of banking with
significant amount of training in the
understanding of banking operations,
of credit.’
He remained in the banking industry
even though he trained with Coopers
and Lybrand and became a chartered
accountant.
When Guaranty Trust bank came
unto the scene, he joined them at the
early stages, from there he went on to
Ecobank and then STB. The rest is history.
Our conversation moved back to life
outside numbers. He didn’t mention that
my budget was high; VO didn’t check
the website to see if there were any
changes to be made.
We talked instead about his growing up
years. His father was a civil servant and
his mother, a trader. First in a family of 5
children, he became very responsible
at a young age. He attended primary
education in Benin and secondary, at
Edo College (where both the present
Oba of Benin and the former Oba of
Benin attended). ‘It was a privilege to
have been a part of that school. It is
where we all cut our teeth in terms of
etiquette and the way we live our lives
today.’
His boarding school experience at Edo
“I am a Scorpio. Scorpions have an intense way
in which they are mindful of their environment
and I spend time trying to decipher what is
going on in my environment.”
