Oliver Odili, a globetrotter and businessman, turned 66 on October 23, 2026, and shared his worldwide experience with his friends on what Nigeria lacks and why citizens seem to be heartless.
He said there is absence of assurance of today through welfare system and absence of bank-based support for citizens’ future.
Odili, a chief known as the Ohamadike 1 of Alaike Obowo in Obowo LGA of Imo State, cited several examples of how systems operate in different countries he visited or lived in.
The Peoples Bank concept
That is why the western economy is different from ours. For instance, when I got to Germany the first time in my life, that was far back in the late 1980s. A friend from Gambia I met on the street who learnt I just arrived and didn’t know what to do, asked me to stop a cop and ask for help. He told me they would give me food and shelter and even some money right away.
He called the police and told me to be bold and talk to them. As I talked to the police, that was all. They took it from there. They have the peoples bank. It’s a bank where the government puts a certain percentage of funds every year and where rich also put money. They also do endowments in case of their death, funds there would be used to help people.
We wonder what the Nigerian governments do with excess funds and how they expect citizens to tap into the excess funds if there is no peoples bank system. That’s the question, that’s the problem.
Most people are unhappy that there is no support system for the vulnerable. Our people believe that only the politicians are accessing the public treasury. This is because the politicians look well to do. Most of them use the outcry of the masses to create election messaging to get into power. When they do, they become worse. Every country sets aside funds to support the weak right from time. In Nigeria, nobody knows about this fund.
There must be welfare package for citizens
So now Nigeria is running a full blown capitalism. There must be a welfare package to cushion the pains of capitalism. All hands cannot be equal.
Governments have identities of all citizens wherever they may be. They know who can be appointed to run the bank, etc. Its unlike in Nigeria where the government does not know where its citizens are. Government does not know families that mismanaged government funds, and families that cannot be trusted for monetary aspect. I expect government to fish out people that can be trusted, that can have access to an endowment fund.
It appears Nigeria is going into full-blown capitalism; taxing everything. The question is where this money is going to. That’s a problem. The proper thing is that our ATM cards should give us access to some petty cash or credit, as it is done elsewhere.
Money must be trackable and remittances from outside Nigeria should be tracked because it must pass through bank.
The concept is for government to understand that a citizen must have access to some credit because if a citizen cannot touch money no matter how small, the mere reasoning that there is nothing in his account is the worst sickness. This is where government has to really touch lives.
Onetime military president, Ibrahim Babaginda, came up with the Peoples Bank but we don’t know if the concept was different and where it crashed. Nigerians should be captured to help them. The nation must know those who are real Nigerians, and put some levy those who are not.
Leaders are building their countries. The Sheik that built Dubai is today respected all over the world. When I visited Dubai first in 1999, it was a near-ordinary place. Today, go to Dubai. The last time I was coming from Islamabad and passed through Dubai, it was wonderful. Neon lights screamed: ‘See Dubai and die.’ I decided to take five days off to look around; to Sharjah, Ajman, etc. It was wonderful. I asked myself, what is wrong with our people? Dubai, from nothing to everything! By 1999, they offered me free office accommodation to bring my business there. This is how they attracted investors.
Now, money pouring into Dubai, and the money is also being shared fairly, not for a particular group of people. In Nigeria, what is our welfare money? With all the taxation, what are we setting aside for Nigerians?
It is very obvious Nigeria is not saving for the next generation. They are not giving the elders any small money. They are not doing anything. Where is this money going to? I don’t know whether the Nigerian Constitution did not capture it. But if they didn’t capture it, that means there is something wrong with the Constitution.
There’s something wrong in any country where those living big do not have anything set aside to take care of our people that are not able to meet up. That is serious oversight. Peoples Bank is the answer to give money to the aged, the poor, the weak.
The fear that people will abuse it is taken care of by an identity system that makes it impossible for anybody to escape. They have nowhere to run to because of National Identity Number (NIN). That is the engine that runs the system. It guarantees that people are living and are guaranteed of tomorrow. It makes the people calm.
When I told the police that I just arrived Germany and that I was hungry, they put me inside their motor and took me to their office. They took my fingerprint and no criminal record. There and then they bought me biscuits and everything and drove me to the nearest cash card. They sat me down, I ate.
They carried me to the bank and give me one paper there, I withdraw money. Yes, I did. I put it in my pocket. They now directed me that if was not leaving the country, I should go to a place and seek political asylum. They’ll give me house and feed me.
They did not care much about my country. They were eager to give me food to solve my hunger. They do not want anybody to be hungry in their country. They believe that a hungry citizen or resident would be dangerous. All they cared for was to confirm I had no criminal record.
They sent me to where I would get support if I didn’t have anybody sending me money to stay longer to finish my business and go. They also showed me where I could go and do proper documentation for my continuous staying in their country, if I wanted.
The moment I said, I wanted to stay, they said, make your choice. You want to go to technical school? It’s free of choice. You go.’
They have a policy of integration. They want you to integrate. The only problem you have with them is if you don’t want to integrate, and you don’t want to go. If you learn the technical school, you’ll be like one of them.
Normally, Europe has a policy of indoctrination. When you indoctrinate, you don’t have any problem. You learn the work, do the work, because their mechanics are the richest people. They respect mechanics and advertise them. Here in Nigeria we talk grammar and from there, we talk Yahoo-Yahoo. People now run after a yahoo-yahoo boy or man.
So, that is the mental state of Nigeria. Instead of us now talking about technology, we wasted our oil wealth. A Nigerian born 66 years ago when the country gained Independence is still hustling, whereas men born the same time in most other parts of the world have achieved a lot in functional profiles.
Our children are not technologically advanced to meet up with the new age of technology.
On life at 66
I’m a businessman with children, boys and girls. I deal on earth-moving equipment and also I am a consultant in many other areas that have to do with technology, including construction, marine, and other related oil and gas sectors.
At this age, a man evaluates himself, from 40. Every year that crosses, you evaluate yourself, because not only that you are becoming one more year each year, you add in sense. God gives you sense for every step of the way at that age because you have got a lot of responsibilities for yourself and the family, your community, and more, at that point.
So you must evaluate yourself where you are doing well, whether it is in the family or in your social aspect, etc. God created man and made him to be not only responsible for himself and his family, but also responsible for the society. So you have to check how you are improving in all these areas and match the stock with the blessing God gives you; if you are using your talents or you are just looking at them and wasting them.
You must know that as the age is advancing, it comes with authority, it comes with a guarantee. A man of 66 years as I am now, I don’t need visa to go to America or to any country. These days when I go to any embassy to obtain visa, they would just ask, Chief, when are you travelling. They don’t process visa for me anymore.
Some benefits come with age. They know I can’t travel to their country and start to do stupid things or start to hustle. They know I have grown to the age of having responsibility where I am already.
You also have to evaluate your environment, your exposure, what kind of exposure you had when you were growing, which environment did you grow up in? As a man or a woman getting older, what is your vision? What are you trying to give back to your family, to the society? Things do not always work for a man the way he wants it. No, he has to work for it. He has to fight for it. There is always some force and energy trying to bring you down.
So you have to put more energy in order to bypass, to kill the downtime and match up. So these are the things any man growing must pay attention to.
At a point, you look at yourself and decide that you are retiring at, say, 80 years. You check your environment, check your children, check everybody. Are they going to help you in retirement age? How much have you saved? Are you going to go back to labouring?
Too bad to be a dundee in old age
You may measure your children and discover that they are not measuring up. There could be bumps along your way to old age. Then, you start to rearrange and keep rearranging, so that nothing takes you by surprise, because the worst thing that can happen to a man is to become a dundee at his old age.
You find you don’t have a good car that you could use for the remaining days; you don’t have a good house you’re going to live for the remaining years, you don’t have money to pay for people who are going to be of assistance to you, you don’t have the money to keep yourself in good environment, eat good food, drink good water-very, very important. All those things add up and can make you to have a bad age.
Globe-trotting:
Experience from globetrotting
I can say that I have been to almost every country except Australia and the US. I lived in Germany for 14 years. I’m a businessman and this took me to many countries of the world. Even when I came back to Nigeria, most of the time each year I do travel on vacation.
Imo in dire straights
I think Imo State and Nigeria as a whole are running an economy that has no welfare package to support the citizens. The people are not all that strong. Many do not know the rule of money and how to make money; how to cultivate the grace of making money.
Way out
Imo state government as a people have a right to make progress. There are a lot of things they can do to advance in terms of attracting money to the state. But the question is: where is the liver? The people at the top, do they have the liver to put something down they can be remembered for, like when Sam Mbakwe created jobs for Imo people?
Now, Imo Concord Hotel is more or less abandoned. Poultry Farm project is abandoned. All things Mbakwe set up to employ our boys have been abandoned. New ones are not being built. Yet, students are pouring of school every year. So, there’s a complex problem.
Man in his own inherent nature, will steal, if he is under pressure and you did not monitor him properly.
It is wrong to make a constitution that a governor should have immunity and operate with every power without control? The commissioners are not checkmated. How do citizens make input into governance?
So, by the time we make the law that allows the masses to ask for accountability, I think we would have started bringing changes at that point. Who is going to ask the governors any questions?
Nigeria on life support
So, for now, Nigeria is on life support by what we are doing as a people. We are on life support, waiting when the heart will pick up. It is when the heart picks up that we start to talk about what needs to be done and what is going on.