THE CONTRIBUTION OF ADESOYE HOLDINGS NIG. PLC TO THE ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT OF OFFA 1982 TO 2009

INTRODUCTION

1.1 BACKGROUND OF THE STUDY

Adesoye holdings are a multi-company organization, which is situated in Offa Local Government area of Kwara. Although, it has branches all over the country, but its headquarters based in Offa. Offa is a known town in Western Nigeria and it is a town in present day Kwara state. Offa is located on latitude 8100 North and longitude 4400 east on the map of Nigeria. The town occupied a prominent position in pre-colonial Nigeria history. Its eminence rested on the fact that it played a crucial role in the socio-economic and political events that took place in Yoruba land. For example, Moremi, an heroine in Yoruba history came from Offa to save the People of Ife from the incursion of the Igbos. Also, the Bashorun in AlaafinOjigi,s reign, died in a ditch while he was leading an expedition towards Offa.

            The town also played host to the Fulani Jihadists from Ilorin. The process of territorial conquest led to the subjugation of Offa in the 1830s. it featured prominently in the Ekiti-Parapo wars at the end of which the British came to dictate peace in 1893. All these demonstrated the socio-economic importance of Offa before and during colonial period. Apart from the above, however, Offa dwellers engaged in various commercial economic activities such as farming, craftwork e.g. weaving, blacksmith, goldsmith, pot-making and calabash decoration. It was noted through an interview that only fishing work is not prominent in the area.

1.2      AIMS AND OBJECTIVES

The Adesoye holdings is an economic organization that is non-governmental in funding, but has board of directors with Chief E.O. Adesoye as the chairman of the Board of Directors. The Adesoye holdings was sub-divided into groups with each of them producing one thing or the other, which have no doubt, better the lots of Offa citizen, Kwara as a whole, and Nigeria at large. The organization has its aim and objectives as “conformability and enjoyment at low cost”. Therefore, all the branches of the holding take part one way or the other in achieving this aims and objectives.

            This work is set to discuss the history of Adesoye Holdings, how it came to being, its early formation stages, various challenges encountered by the chairman board of directors in ensuring the sustainability of the age-long achievement of the holdings.

Without mincing words, the study would let the entire holdings know the importance of the good work they are doing for the community that enjoyed their services, and as such should continue in the good work they’ve embark upon, thus it also aim at telling the society to be suggestive whenever they have any advice that can move the Adesoye Holdings forward, as they stand to lose a lot if the holdings fail in its productions.

This essay is embarked upon to make an in-depth study of Adesoye Holdings in Offa.

It also looks into the roles, aims and objectives of the Adesoye Holdings to the economic development of Offa, how it contributed to the spread and growth of more industries in Offa, it also aimed at evaluating and simplifying a number of growth within the holdings itself, most especially, the spread of its branches all over the country.

The work tends to look at the financing of the holdings, and how, or the manner which the holdings use in sustaining the tempo and creating more awareness about the goods and services coming out of the holdings. It shall also inform the society, the extent to which the Adesoye holdings had use the human and natural resources in producing several goods which are of great use to the populace.

It is also meant to sensitize the workers of the holdings on the importance of their contributions to the development of the holdings, and also the need for the workers to appreciate the board of directors for the employment given to them, which had assisted them in keeping their various families. It is also important to state that this study is not merely aimed at highlighting the empirical and theoretical writings of the study, rather, it aims at increasing our understanding in all ramifications of the study and to contribute to scholars by critically examining the roles of Adesoye Holdings in the economic development of Offa. In other words, this study would aim at throwing more light on the more practical aspect of this topic.

1.3      SCOPE OF THE STUDY

The scope of the study is very wide, as the study attempts shall be made to trace the emergence of some firms in Offa before the coming of Adesoye Holdings in 1982. Thus, the establishment of Adesoye Holdings in Offa Local Government Areas of Kwara State, with its aims and objectives to be looked into. This work tends to bring out the various goods produce in each of the companies under the Adesoye holdings, and that is why the cheaper three of this project talks about various companies under the Adesoye Holdings like the Okin Biscuit Nigeria Limited, Adesoye College, Labande cereals and many others.

            The chapter four of the work deals with the economic impact of the Adesoye Holdings to the development of Offa most especially during the first early years of its establishment, when few firms are only in existence in Offa.

1.4      RESEARCH METHODOLOGY

            In the course of writing this project both primary and secondary sources were consulted. It must be stressed that only few people had worked on the personality of the chairman board directors Adesoye Holdings, Chief Emmanuel Olatunji Adesoye being an industrialist, but the uniqueness of this project is that no one has deemed it fit to look into the aspect of the economic contribution of the Holdings, most especially to the Offa community, and Kwara State as a whole. Knowing fully well that there cannot be a successful community or state without the contributions of industries in order to boost the economic statues of such community or state.

            However, since is an attempt to contribute to human knowledge additional information (which forms one of the aims and objectives of the study), this provides a new insight, and an eye-opener about the operatives of the Adesoye Holdings.

1.5      LIMITATION OF THE STUDY

            In the course of sourcing for materials for this work, I was faced with the herculean task of knowing the location of the various companies under the Adesoye Holdings in Offa. When I got to those industries, the needed information given was not detailed, then I embarked on individual interview with important personalities at those companies. At the Adesoye college, a new principal Mr. Bradley Sailes had just taken over from Miss. J. Steward, therefore, he was not willing to grant an oral interviews, because, he does not want to be quoted. But after a much persuasion, he agreed to be interviewed. Also, I was faced with the problem of collecting conflicting information, especially in the aspect of knowing the exact kick-off date of the Adesoye Holdings. Although the dates given were correct, as some companies had been establish under the holdings in other part of the country like Adesoye was established in 1969, but this work is mostly concern with industries established in Offa under this holdings, and the first to be established is the Okin Biscuits Limited, which was established in 1982.

             In other to establish the validity of oral interview, attempts were made to cross check the information given. Thus, the researcher has been able to separate the truth from fallacy in the information obtained and was finally able to collate this project.

Another constraint is the issue of fund. There was no enough fund at the disposal of the researcher to carry out a more field work, because there are series of interviews needed for the detailed assessment of the roles and contribution of industries under the Adesoye Holdings that were sited in other towns and states, to the economic development of the various towns and states which they were sited. In addition, relevant text could not be found in libraries as related to the Adesoye Holdings.

            There was also problem of time, because there were other students and researcher trying to reach the new principal of the Adesoyecollege, Mr. Bradley Sailes who came from America not quite long. Also, Mr FataiBabatunde who also have othe engagement and other activities of Labande Cereals Limited to attend to. This made the oral interview meeting time, to be rescheduled for more than two times.

            Furthermore, on realizing that the researcher was not one of them, they vehemently refuse to give out their information and therefore, he was subjected to series of interrogations and in most cases, cross examined as if in the law court to ascertain that the researcher is not on a spying mission into the activities of the holdings. Moreover, most of the libraries visited were not in any way useful.

1.6      LITERATURE REVIEW

Many scholars and writers had written on the economic development in Offa, but on a few had written on the contribution of Adesoye Holdings to the economic development of Offa. Therefore, the bulk of materials used were obtained through oral interview, some unpublished materials and a few published material etc. However, some works have been consulted, among which is “Itan Offa” by Rev. J. B. Olafimihan.Olafinmihan gave a clear look of Offa before the colonial masters, how the people earn living through war with other weak communities and enslaving them. Rev. J. B. Olafimihan extended his writings to the period of colonial masters, the socio-cultural heritage of Offa, but fails to bring out economic activities of the people of Offa.1

Another relevant material is that of OkesholaToyinAdewuyi, “The growth of Industry in Offa/Oyun local government, 1960-1990’’ This project is very important to my work in the sense they, it’s about industries that had existed in Offa and Oyun local government area, but it fails to give details of the various industries which it talked about, in fact it was unable to mention all the companies under the Adesoye Holdings, not to talk about other companies in Offa, this is because its area of coverage is wide, it combined two local government area (Offa/Oyun), and this made the beauty of the work unable to be achieved.2

            Another important contribution to this work is ‘Ijakadi’, a quarterly publication in Offa, which talked about industrial growth in Offa. Not only that the magazine was brief, but also failed to point out the economic contribution of the Adesoye holdings to the people of Offa3. In addition, a yearly publication of Offa Students’ Union: ‘Offa M’ojo’, talked about some crisis that had rocked the holdings which led to the closure of Okin Biscuit Limited in the year 2008, but failed to tell, how the holdings overcame the crisis period, and bounced back to life, with Okin Biscuit Limited now working more efficiently than ever.4