‘With that mindset, he wrote a letter to his folks back home saying that his experience here is different from what they told him, as he loved it here’
Prof. Olusegun Oludapo Sogbesan, the founder of Onitsha Business School, arrived in Onitsha in 1991 as a youth corper from Osun State, where he is from.
Before he left Osun State, his parents and relatives were worried about the so-called hostility of the Igbos living in the east and whether their son could survive and thrive in such a hostile environment.
They can’t wait for the one year to be over so he can come back to Osun State.
Young Olusegun arrived in Anambra State with the mindset and scepticism that Igbos are hostile to non-Igbos.
However, his experience as a youth corper in Adazi Ani was a different thing, different from what he was told before he arrived: he experienced a tribe who are welcoming to strangers and who go out of their way to make a stranger in their land very comfortable.
With that mindset, he wrote a letter to his folks back home saying that his experience here is different from what they told him, as he loved it here.
It was during that period of his national youth service that Olusegun saw the need to have a business school in Onitsha.
Igbos are renowned all over the world for their trading powress and ingenuity.
However, some of their business models and ingenuity come from a place of native intelligence and brawn, not knowledge.
Onitsha appears to be the epic centre and the poster boy of Igbo’s business drive and the right pledge for this school to be sited.
That was where the dream Onitsha business school was born.
After his mandatory one-year service, Segun stayed back to refine his idea and to see how to harness it to see what comes to reality.
He passed out in 1992 but stayed back in Anambra owing to the fact that he wanted to empower the traders with the right information based on the gaps he identified from his many interactions with them.
Thus, he developed an academic program tailored towards business that provides a young Igbo apprentice that has completed Imu-Afia training with choices.
Prof. Segun believed that with the right exposure, information, and training, these traders will live up to their highest potentials. Consequently, he established the Onitsha Business School, the first business school in Anambra.
The goal of this school was basically to empower traders with the right skills and tools for the 21st century. It should be emphasised that Prof. Olusegun Sogbesan
Onitsha Business School has been a commercial success ever since it was founded by Segun
Most of the students who patronise Segun are Onitsha traders who are desperate to move to the next level.
Prof. Olusegun has lived in Anambra for 28 years; he is more or less one of us, and nobody has discriminated against him because his name is Segun.
By virtue of being one of us, he owns a couple of properties in the east by virtue of the school that he runs.
No property seller in Anambra has stopped short of selling a property to him because his name is Segun.
And Segun is not an outlier; there are many Segun’scattered all over the South East who are thriving and who are property owners as well.
When educated bigots like Reuben Abati, who I expected better from because of his level of exposure and education, wake up to start regurgitating stereotypes about Igbos that are not true.
You wonder what is going on, but history and examples have shown again and again that Igbos are unfairly targeted by bigots like Reuben Abati , as we are not what Reuben Abati of this world portrays us to be.
We are a welcoming and inclusive society, as showing love to strangers is rooted in our DNA and who we are.
And this includes selling properties to anyone who indicates interest in buying them, regardless of where the person comes from or the language the prospective buyer speaks.
(C) Chukwudi Iwuchukwu