Femi Osibona - Story of shoe seller who became an international real estate tycoon, The Owner of the popular 21-storey building that collapsed in Ikoyi.
Mr. Olufemi Osibona(Femi Fourscore) is at the centre of the tragic story of the Gerrard Road, Ikoyi, Lagos 21-storey building which went down killing dozens. Femi story, as told by himself, is one of grass to grace, and full of ambition, guts, trying to do what has never been done before in Nigeria.
According to Mr Femi, He Said; After my graduation from a university in England in 1991, I went into buying and selling of shoes. That was what I was doing from 1991 to 1997. In 1996, I decided to buy a house and rent out Thereafter, I decided to go into real estate development because I was tired of moving around in my mobile shop. At that point, I was making money. A lot of people know me in England. I would buy the shoes from Italy, bring them to London. I understood the secret of selling. Nigerians like shoes; they buy shoes not because they need them but if Nigerians see good things they will buy. I have people that I usually targeted: Rich men that keep their word.
That means people who have money and at the same time would not like to owe. Those were the two criteria I used in targeting my customers which many people did not know. So, in 1997, luckily for me, I bought a place at 469 New Cross Road London for about 68,000 pounds. The place had a piece of land behind it, but, to me, the land meant nothing.
When I wanted to sell the land, someone offered me 16, 000 pounds and I asked my lawyer to sell it. I told him, “Sell the land, the buyer is going to give you £500 deposit”, and headed to Nigeria. When I returned, she didn’t sell it; she said the buyer did not bring 10%. I said no, he was going to bring £500, so I was very angry and terminated that lawyer.
Then I went to the person who introduced her to me and she asked me “why do you want to sell the land? Don’t you know you can build?” I asked her what she meant and she said “I mean you should build on the land instead of selling it”. This was very strange to me and I wondered where to start from. And she said “call the local authority”. We called an architect who then called the local authority and we had a meeting there. I was surprised when they said we could develop two units. I was surprised, “is it that easy?” That was how I started. I developed two units there; a two-bedroom and a three-bedroom apartment. Surprisingly, we developed it from the rent I was collecting on the main building. It was very strange to me but I saw it happening. When we completed it in 1998, it was sold; then I bought somewhere else.
It was a big house; we converted it into three flats. I applied for a two-storey extension. Upon approval, they mistakenly wrote three-storey instead of two. When we started developing it…you know, you can’t have a three-storey building in an area where every other building is two-storey. They reported me to the Council whose officials came and realized their mistake, they said I should not do a three-storey but I went ahead and did. They took me to their Committee and I won. That was how we did the three-storey. It was like the price of land was down when I bought the property, I can’t forget it
By the time we completed the project and sold the property, the profit we estimated doubled. And I need to say this, when I bought this property, people told me that I will not make money there, but, to cut the story short, we made a lot of money. That was how we started. After that project, I went to another location, a slum where nobody wanted to live in. I bought a piece of land there in May 2000. Again, after I bought the property, prices started rising there. I had no reason for buying the property other than my belief that God had already planned my life for me
I bought those places; I never knew the price had gone so high. I sold the first one for £185,000 and thought it was a good deal. The second one I sold for about £250,000. When I sold the first one for £185,000, price of properties in the area started going up. Today, such houses are sold for about £500,000 to £600,000.
It was from there that I joined the property market. When I returned to Nigeria in 2000, I thought I had arrived, that I had made enough money and would just relax in Nigeria. When I went for holiday in London, I went to a friend’s house and saw him living in a very big house with white people. I was shocked because that was my first time of seeing something like that. Moreover, I thought I was already on top. I spoke with him. He was living in a house of about £5m. At that time, my plan was to live in Nigeria and do property business in London, using builders. There was this house I bought in London, 113 Abion Drive, it still exists.
When I bought that property, it was to be demolished. I applied for permission to erect a five-storey building there. I was scared because I had never done such before. I had only done conversion and two floors. Now, I was faced with doing six floors. I arranged with one of my friends, Simpson, to develop the land because I didn’t know where to start a six-floor project from. He agreed. Later on, I discovered that he was trying to use the land to raise funds needed for the project. I asked him to bring his own money since I had provided land, so we take the risk together.
For our project in Gerrard Road, you know the road and Bourdillon Road are the most expensive streets in Africa. Luckily for us, we are the only one that is about 200m drive away from the main road, so there is no noise in our property. What we are doing is building a 7-star hotel for people to buy and live in. If you live there, it is as if you are living in a 7-star hotel. There is no facility in a 7-star hotel that is not there. The only difference is that you own the property.
We have sold more than 50%. Most of the buyers are people that bought property from us in the past in England. Our selling point remains security, the view, we have offices for owners, a club house, an open recreation area, everything you can have in a-7 star hotel. People ask me, how did it happen? But, you know that if something has not been done before, people would think that it is impossible. A lot of my friends now want to do high rise, even those who have never done 5-storey before. One of the buildings is called Grace, the other Peace and the other one Faith.
Those are the things that are working there. People wonder why I don’t show any sign of stress even when we are executing very big projects. I live a stress-free life. Things are just working by themselves. I believe so much in God, You cannot do anything without God. My Bible tells me that if you can believe, all things are possible for those who believe.
Sadly the 21-storey building developed by Femi Osibona, which was under construction, collapsed at Gerald street in Ikoyi on Monday afternoon, November 1 2021
The billionaire property developer Femi Osibona, popularly known as Four Score, along with his friend Wale Bob, aides, police escorts, and construction workers were in the building when it collapsed.
A source told the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) that Osibona’s body was among dead bodies exhumed from the collapsed building on Thursday and taken to a public mortuary at Yaba.
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