Page 30 - Q1 2021

INTERVIEW

a very supportive husband. Not many people have
that luxury.

I admire a lot of women who can hold down high-
profile jobs and balance them with family. We have
examples like the new DG, WTO Ngozi Okonjo-
Iweala; my former colleague Owen Omogiafo
who is the President/CEO of Transcorp; Dr. Awele
Elumelu, Chairperson, Avon Health Care Ltd, to
mention a few. And if I may add my late mum,
who worked for almost 40 years in the nursing
profession before she retired as a Chief Matron
at LUTH, working morning, afternoon, and night
shifts while single-handedly raising five kids. These
women and many more women like them around
the world are the real MVPs.

Based on your journey so far, what is that one
piece of advice that you would give every
woman out there?

Be the best you can at whatever you do and
wherever you find yourself in life. Whatever you
are doing, do it with passion, do it with integrity,
and put in your very best. Give it your 110% and it
will take you far. You might not be responsible for
your background, the family you came from, or a
situation you’ve found yourself in life, but through Photocredits: Tobi james Candid
dedication, you can be the best at what you do. It
doesn’t matter if you are a small business owner or
a Business Executive, strive for excellence and it will sweep streets like Beethoven composed
distinguish you and set you apart from the pack. music, sweep streets like Leontyne Price sings

before the Metropolitan Opera. Sweep streets
I’ll close with one of Martin Luther King’s speeches like Shakespeare wrote poetry. Sweep streets
in 1967. In his words: so well that all the hosts of heaven and earth
will have to pause and say: Here lived a great
“And when you discover what you will be in street sweeper who swept his job well. If you
your life, set out to do it as if God Almighty can’t be a pine at the top of the hill, be a shrub
called you at this particular moment in history in the valley. But be the best little shrub on the
to do it. Don’t just set out to do a good job, set side of the hill.
out to do such a good job that the living, the
dead, or the unborn couldn’t do it any better. Be a bush if you can’t be a tree. If you can’t be

a highway, just be a trail. If you can’t be a sun,
If it falls your lot to be a street sweeper, sweep be a star. For it isn’t by size that you win or fail.
streets like Michelangelo painted pictures, Be the best of whatever you are.”

30 | The Lion King | Jan - Mar 2021