Alhaji Umaru Abdul Mutallab is a retired banker and businessman who chaired many companies, including First Bank Plc, and founded the first Nigeria’s non-interest bank, Jaiz Bank. He was on two occasions a minister of the Federal Republic of Nigeria. In this interview, the elder statesman reminisced about his life.
There is this confusion about your origin. Where are you from?
I was born at Kofar Sauri in Katsina, but my father, being an employee of the Native Authority (NA) in the Works Department, was posted from Katsina to Funtua; hence all my education started there, and now, I claim to be a Funtua man.
Since my father’s movement to Funtua, we have been living there. May God bless him. He died there and was buried there.
However, we have relatives in Katsina and still keep in touch with some of them.
After my elementary school in Funtua, I went to Middle School, Katsina. Then, after you finished elementary school you had to go to a middle school. It was in Katsina that we took the examination for Barewa College, Zaria, then called Government College, Zaria. I was in Barewa for six years. My set was the last to spend six years in secondary school. All the sets after us spent five years.
I intended to study engineering because my father was working in the NA works department, but I was very close to Hamza Zayyad who was studying Accountancy and he influenced my change of heart. We were in the same house in Barewa.
Did you inherit much wealth you needed to take care of?
My father was a fairly wealthy person. Reasonably, I inherited some income. We lived comfortably and did all the things that needed to be done; assisted relations and things like that.
Your career after school in England was mostly in Kaduna at the beginning. Was it still under the mentorship of Alhaji Hamza Zayyad?
When I finished my Accountancy studies, I decided that I wanted to have a very practical experience, so I sought the assistance of the former manager of the accounting firm, Pannell Kerr Foster. I got in touch with him when he was living in the United Kingdom. He was back from Nigeria at the time and had a firm in London. He gave me the opportunity to be with them, to get practical experience. I was in London for 30 months to gain further experience.
Meanwhile, towards the end of my studies, I was approached by a consultancy firm that they would like to recruit a chief accountant for the Defence Industries Corporation (DIC) in Kaduna.
I attended the interview and was successful. I think the late Gen Hassan Katsina was the Chief of Army Staff (COAS) while Yusufu Gobir was a permanent secretary. They all welcomed the idea that a Nigerian should be appointed to that position.
It was a factory mainly managed by Germans – the general manager was German, the chief engineer and so on. I was there for about two years.
It was during my stay in the DIC that again, Alhaji Hamza Zayyad came in. He convinced me that there were lots of opportunities in the New Nigeria Development Company (NNDC), so I was interviewed for the chief accountant of the company. The managing director at that time was Mallam Musa Bello. I was successful and was offered the job. I stayed there up to the time I became the general manager. Mallam Musa Bello was still the chief executive officer. The general manager occupied the number two position in the organisation.
It was at that stage that the Gowon coup happened – when he was toppled. I was approached by the late Shehu Yar’adua, that he had discussed with General Murtala Muhammed and that they would like me to be a member of the cabinet.
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Were you surprised when you were called to serve as a minister?
I saw it as an opportunity to serve the country. I wholly welcomed the idea and was pleased with the appointment. Of course, the unfortunate incident of February 1976 happened, and after him came Obasanjo.
It seems you were removed as minister and reappointed in a different ministry.
I was not removed; I was reassigned. I was appointed Minister of Economic Development and Reconstruction because that was the time the country had just finished the civil war and there was a ministry specially designed to look at the reconstruction of the country. Prof Adebayo Adedeji of former AfDB was the minister, so I took over that role from him.
It was after the coming of Obasanjo that I was reassigned to the Ministry of Cooperative and Supply. It was literally like the Ministry of Trade because most of the issues being dealt with by that ministry were more of domestic trade. There was also the added advantage that we wanted to drive a cooperative movement; and we had done quite a lot throughout states of the federation.
Were you happy to leave government? Did you find it challenging to be in the private sector?
I was very happy to be in government. I resigned when I felt I had served enough. One afternoon I decided to see the head of state, Gen Obasanjo and confided in him that I would like to leave. He said he would not allow me to leave, so I went round to his very close colleagues and convinced them that I had worked enough in Lagos and would like to leave.
Why did you want to leave; you wanted to get back to Kaduna?
I had stayed for close to 10 years in Lagos, initially, as Minister of Economic Development and Reconstruction, and later, as Minister of Cooperative and Supply. It was from there that the chairman of UBA, Victor Ndalugi, invited me to be the executive vice chairman of the organisation.
Did the offer come before you left the ministerial position?
Yes.
Was this one of the reasons you wanted to leave the government?
Yes. I had an offer and it was a good one. I was invited to Paris and we met with the top executives of the bank and they all agreed that I should be considered for the job. So, when I came back I was appointed initially as the executive vice chairman, but almost immediately after, I was appointed the substantive managing director.
After your experiences with the UBA and First Bank as chairman, you started Jaiz Bank, which is unique as an Islamic-oriented bank; what were the challenges?
Actually, it all started when the late Gen Sani Abacha was appointed Amirul Hajj for Nigeria for that year. I happened to be part of the delegation that went to Jedda, and God so kind, we were invited to a ceremony of the Islamic Development Bank (IDB), where they hosted many countries around the world. I seized the opportunity to table the idea.
So, you were with the Islamic Development Bank when you met the officials?
We met the officials and they told us how the bank operates and I was fascinated that it is a non-interest bank; it is in accordance with Sharia. When I came back, I developed interest in that institution. I made many contacts with the officials there. The then president of the IDB, Dr Mohammed Ali, was very cooperative. He also had a very senior Nigerian working at that time, in the person of Prof Adebi, and through him we began to get a lot of information of what needed to be done to set up that kind of bank.
One of the things we tried was to convince Nigeria to be a member of the IDB. Although we were members of the Organisation of Islamic Countries (OIC), we were the only country at that time that was not a member of the IDB, so we were not getting all the benefits that other countries were getting.
We were looking at it from two aspects: how to set up a bank fully supported by the IDB and for Nigeria to be a member. Nigeria is now the fifth or sixth largest shareholder in the IDB.
That was how the interest developed. It was a lot of effort, a lot of travelling, a lot discussions, a lot of work. A lot of things were done by myself and Mustapha Bintube, who was the first managing director. We went to all the nooks and crannies of this country and the Middle East, US and what have you, looking for investors and people who could assist us in setting up the bank.
Do you enjoy making money? Is it something that really gives you pleasure?
I try to make money so that I can use it to assist relatives, friends and what have you; after all, we came with nothing and we are going back with nothing. That is the way I look at it. I make money in order to keep myself in a good condition, my family, my relatives etc, it is not to accumulate.
But you have assets?
Oh yes; I do.
You have houses, estates and companies, and these are the kinds of things that go into valuation, not liquid; what do you think?
If you get a stock exchange to do a valuation, you equate yourself with how much proportion of that in the company you own, etc, but I don’t do that at all.
So your mind does not go into how much your net worth is?
I do it once a year to get the estimated compulsory 1/40 to the needy.
What else do you do, beside work and business? Do you have other activities that keep you busy?
I have a lot of reading to do – the Holy Quran and a lot of various Islamic books etc, and the lives of prophets.
Do you exercise; any hobby?
I do attend a doctor’s appointments because at our age, you know the bones are quite weak, the cartilage would have been worn out. So, from time to time I do go to doctors. In fact, I think it is twice a week and month that I visit a doctor, who would give me some treatment, just so that I am not completely invalid, sort of the ability to walk and do a lot of other exercises and so forth.
Like other Nigerians who are successful in business, you have avoided politics; how do you do it?
I don’t do politics. My father was a politician, I know how he did it, but I decided to forget politics altogether.
Why?
I am sure it will be a better game in the future, but right now, it is really a game where the players can be very dirty. If you want to be, they will tear you to pieces. But I am sure that in the future it would be a better arrangement.
Have you been approached by politicians to get involved, maybe in financing and other things?
Of course there are lots of that, but all one can do is to do the little one can do, but I don’t go to meetings or grounds to speak.
You have a large family, what lessons have you learnt from family life?
I have two wives and we have 13 children: six boys and seven girls. And we have given them the best education we can. Most of them are graduates and some of them with master’s degrees and so on. That is the best you can give to your child. If you educate a person, you have given him the opportunity to develop himself.
I must say that we have quite a number of them working in institutions in Nigeria, including one working in the IDB in Jeddah and one of them in the Government of Katsina State and so on. We look forward to them developing themselves to be on their own because we have been giving them a lot of support, but I think the time has now come for them to give us support as well.
If you look back at your life, are there things you think you would have done differently?
One thing is that before you go into business with anybody you should be very careful because it is a way of strengthening a lot of friendships but also a way of breaking up relationships.
I think quite honestly that from what one has experienced over the years; one has to be very careful. I am not saying that you should do all things yourself or own a company 100 per cent, but before you bring people on board, you should really have a very thorough understanding of their backgrounds and so on, so that if something goes wrong, at least there is somebody you can go back to and tell what is happening and ask if he can talk to A, B or C.
This is what I have experienced from going through many different businesses and running companies and organisations. And some of them are successfully operating. But at the same time, there are some you wish you had not associated yourself with; that sort of thing.
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