I had always wanted to work with BGL ever since I left school, and after stumbling on that charismatic and visionary leader called Albert Okumagba my dream came true. I was recruited to work with a team that was explosive, non-resistant to challenges and perfectly fired to achieve and break the mould in investment banking. It was a beautiful and small but highly motivated team that reveled at the back waters of Abagbon close in Victoria Island.
The deals came in their torrents, reputation soared, landscape changing innovations and milestones were reached by the soldiers nestled at Abagbon close and BGL was the place to be if you had a dream. No vision was impossible to Albert, competition was nonexistent and the little rivals that struggled to fight saw themselves lose their best hands to the all marauding BGL ‘Cowboys’.
At the peak, BGL cleared all available trophies at the investment banking league table organized then by the Segun Akande led SBA group and Albert bestrode the firmament like a colossus. Life was good.
However, the end started quite early. It started that bleak morning, when Albert led by a vision of monumental proportions declared the need to shore up the capital base and in one stroke of visionary recklessness grew the firm from a 3.5b entity to a financial behemoth with shareholders’ funds in excess of N30b.
To me this sounded the death knell of this once glorious bastion of Nigerian gift to investment banking. With that announcement, the famed BGL never say die spirit went into overdrive and the funds were raised on a share price of N7, a figure that would have melted the marketing legs of lesser mortals but not the legs of the champions that bestrode that company as at that time.
The money hit us and all hell was broken. The emptiness in unbridled and planless growth, the lack of strategy in human capital complement to play at this level, the lack of leadership to contain this tsunami of growth stared us in the face and confusion and arbitrary ‘try your luck’ initiatives became the order of the day.
All of a sudden we were being paid like rock stars but this did not stop the quivering fear that existed in the inner crevices of staff. People hurdled up and expressed their fears as we embarked on a very funny expansion programme.
Staff strength moved from 80 to about 400 and we began to see duplication of roles, under activity as we clumsily replicated roles with no attendant ownership of responsibilities. We stumbled along, opening branches and expanding without any credible road map. We became laughing stock to the market as we stumbled from one position to the other loosing focus and steam at the same time.
The best hands slowly, but surely, started leaving, people like Charles Allah who interviewed me and an investment banking genius left. People like Tony Nwozor a veteran stockbroker who had seen it all in this market, kept screaming like the lone voice in the wilderness but was reduced and laughed at as the ship continued to sail towards the Bermuda. But in all this the great Albert was still flying with great plans and visions, opening doors and striking mighty deals that at this time still kept the shine in the name but not enough to fill the hollow that too much too soon had created in BGL.
Morale began to drop, staff disenchantment began to affect customer care, big elephant projects began to regularly show in the horizon. The movement to the museum that is Catholic mission street, the opening of over 13 branches, the recruitment of the BGL 53, the investments in a sinking stock market but much more importantly, the lack of strong leadership at the level just below Albert all contributed in muting the music, disenfranchising the dream and castrating the vision that was once the promise of the Argonauts.
Let me talk about the lack of leadership just below the level of Albert. To me and in my mind this was where the hole in the titanic situated itself. Albert in his vision never to me put in place a credible succession plan. A plan that would involve the grooming of a worthy successor, a successor that would perfectly understand the vision, build an execution platform and ensure a well oiled machinery that would put the chassis in Albert’s dream and provide a vehicle of continuation that will ensure the continuous mobility of the dreams towards the eldorado of achievement.
What we saw at the level was George Orwell’s, Animal Farm like struggle for power between a Snowball like character and a Napoleon character. The snowball character was weak in his quest for power, failed to build a strong loyalty amongst the soldiers even though the rest of us clamoured and actually sort for his leadership and eventually just like his cousin in the novel he was driven off the farm. And at this point many observers gave up on restitution for the BGL brand. We were left with a brash, well dressed, empty headed juggernaut who relied on bullying tactics and dictatorial tendencies in enforcing very empty strategies that led nowhere.
This institutionalized the brain drain and fast tracked the leaving of BGL of those who could have stayed and assisted in the rebuilding.
They left in their droves and Napoleon standing in his decimated throne room like Tony Montana screaming, ‘I’m still the king’ even as his empire came crumbling could do nothing to stop the exit. He was too proud to run for help, Albert had left a financial powerhouse to a well-dressed simpleton, a goon who had nothing but crisp suits to offer and too proud to ask for help from those who still visualized a resurgent BGL.
The music is muted, barely audible and almost only heard by Albert and his die hard loyalist like myself. I weep each time I think of him, I shed tears of hope, tears for a rise from this ashes of guilt, of loss. The Albert I know is never say die, he will bounce back and I will still jump each time he calls. I want him back, I need him back, his soldiers want him back. I beg you all not to give up on the BGL dream, it is a dream built on the oxygen of hope, it cannot die. I await that call, a call for us to glide back together and like the character in one of the terminator movies morph back into life each time it is decimated, we will come back stronger than ever before.
But this time dear sir, it will be a resurgent BGL,a BGL with strong corporate governance, a BGL with a clear and credible succession plan for there you find the reason for the decent to Golgotha a lack of vision in empowerment and creativity at the level of succession, a lack of recognition of pure talent, the need to reward capacity backed loyalty and not just loyalty in a well-designed suit.
I await your call Sir.
http://www.ripples.com.ng/bgl-and-the-music-stopped/
No comments:
Post a Comment