...then Omoluabi must have his Tarred Roads and Covered Gutters.
-Ayodele Arigbabu
(first published in March 2006 in The Guardian)
Femi Omoluabi is possibly the only person in these parts who can go to
work in his pyjamas and have no one complain. For a young man whose
workplace is just ten paces away from his bedroom, life can hardly get
any better, if you asked him, that's what he'd tell you. The people in
the neighbourhood where he keeps an apartment assume he is into shady
internet transactions of the Yahoo Boys ilk. You would too, if you had
a young man for a neighbour who is often indoors watching television
by all appearances and hardly leaves home to pursue any visible form
of livelihood. Yet Femi is no couch potato, his tubby frame not
withstanding, this fellow wakes up between 5am and 6am every morning
and trains for two hours before starting the day's job. What does he
do? Sumo Wrestling? Femi scratched his chin and thought for a second,
"Come" he said, gesturing towards his PC's monitor, "I'll show you"
and with a few clicks of his mouse, he did show me.
His odyssey started with an interview he watched on CNN while in first
year at the University of Lagos. The guy being interviewed worked at a
blue-chip company and obviously earned some good money there. When
asked what motivated him, he said it was his friend, a swimming pool
attendant who drove a Ferrari. Femi latched on to that and since then,
the Pool Guy (or the Ferrari or what they both represent) has been his
prime motivator. But that's not exactly where it all started. While
attending Comprehensive High School Aiyetoro before switching over to
Command Secondary School Ikeja, he already knew he wanted to do
creative stuff. He also wanted to work with computers so he toyed with
the idea of being a computer programmer until he realized that would
involve loads of calculations. He also faced the prospects early
enough of starving if he stuck to the pure arts. To say the least, he
was in a quandary.
Enter Koku, his high flying architect cousin who just returned to
settle in Nigeria with really nice clothes and 22 pairs of shoes (he
actually counted). Koku was a revelation, he's so cool, an architect,
he's creative…hmm…a good blend of art, science and business. Femi hung
around his cousin long enough to get hooked, his choice to study
architecture, he admits, was influenced by his cousin's apparent
success. Though, he chuckled, in hindsight, it was what Koku himself
would call Rush – Rush money: Very nice car without the money to fuel
it, just a few designer clothes and nothing else, but that was enough
for Omoluabi.
Studying architecture at Unilag however, was a disappointing
experience. In his own words, it had no role to play in his current
occupation. Okay, he gives it a thought; maybe it did, since nothing
in life is wasted. He sees design education in Unilag as being given a
bare foundation when what is needed is a super-structure which each
individual can then clad to his taste. The skill base could be useful
but there is a need to understand broader concepts. In an era when
it's cheaper to buy a personal computer than a draughting table,
students are allowed to learn Computer Aided Draughting and Design
(CADD) but are still restrained from presenting their assignments in
CADD form (*editor's note: this has since become a thing of the past
as the architecture department at the University of Lagos has since
fully embraced digital technologies). Omoluabi sighs after a pause-
Almost all learning is self development. That statement explains his
development to a large extent. A lot of his learning came from
magazines, and from studying them, he realized early enough that
architectural consultancy does not earn the sort of money that his
Pool Guy represented. He looked at architecture as a business and
didn't see the prospects so he thought to himself, how do I make money
and move out of home to a fairly comfortable place before I turn 30?
Femi had been hanging out with Peller – a senior course mate at the
University, nick-named after the late magician Prof. Peller in
deference to his adeptness with computer graphics at a time when it
was still at its infancy, he augmented this interaction with several
magazines which he purchased under the bridge at Ojueleba. In late
1999, Cadbury was selling off some of their old computers. Around this
same time, Omoluabi together with Prabu Ramalingam another course mate
entered for a competition organized by MOE for adaptive re-use of the
Ijora power station. They came fifth and part of the money awarded to
them went into the purchase of one of the Cadbury PCs in January 2000.
Femi added on some more hardware and did his first tutorial in
animation on the 21st of March 2000AD (he remembers the exact date)
and has never stopped learning ever since- hence the strict early
morning study regimen.
Through Peller, he was soon doing architectural animations for
different firms. His foray into the advertising industry was through a
chance meeting in a Cyber-Café. He made friends with a guy through
whom he eventually met the Agency Producer at SO&U, an association
that saw him doing voice-overs for the agency late in 2002. His first
job came out of an argument over the possibilities of creating some of
the animated adverts that Promassidor was airing on television in
Nigeria. Soon, Femi got his chance and did a Launch Video for HP in
Nigeria. Several jobs have followed, with SO&U remaining his major
source. In essence, Femi Omoluabi is a hired gun for advertising and
architectural firms for the production of Computer Generated Images
and Animations and he's not doing badly, in fact, he's living a dream.
Omoluabi takes time out to philosophize, being the son of a renowned
Psychologist; he has every license to do so: In life you can't see
your next level until you are on the present level….you cant really
visualize the future until you are on a level where it becomes
feasible. Which is why the rich will get richer, because being rich
anyway, they are at a vantage point for visualizing even more wealth.
10 years from now? Femi doesn't bother with long-term plans. In the
Interim, he's looking at a house in an estate plot in Lekki, meanwhile
a house on the Mainland would do. Do you know how difficult it is to
find land in an area with tarred roads and covered gutters? He asks
humorously. Next, he wants to go into the property Market at the sub
10 Million Naira level. In his chosen occupation, Omoluabi has a
floating idea of upping his game to provide international outsourcing
for architectural representations and content for television. He has
no clear cut route to achieving that but knows it's definitely the
next level because things are getting easier. He looks back with
nostalgia at the old days when things were more stressful. His major
pains still remain payment delays and unrealistic deadlines though
those are reducing now that he's established in the field.
For someone who works alone, he finds it rarely boring and cites his
work for MTN Graphix and Premium Chicken commercials as his most
memorable efforts due to the technical challenge they presented.
Omoluabi comments on the advertising industry: Ad agencies contain
some of the brightest minds in this country. It doesn't show though,
because clients shut down bright ideas due to their belief that
Nigerians are not appreciative of high levels of creativity. Femi
smirks regrettably, they're probably right.
-Ayodele Arigbabu
(first published in March 2006 in The Guardian)
Femi Omoluabi is possibly the only person in these parts who can go to
work in his pyjamas and have no one complain. For a young man whose
workplace is just ten paces away from his bedroom, life can hardly get
any better, if you asked him, that's what he'd tell you. The people in
the neighbourhood where he keeps an apartment assume he is into shady
internet transactions of the Yahoo Boys ilk. You would too, if you had
a young man for a neighbour who is often indoors watching television
by all appearances and hardly leaves home to pursue any visible form
of livelihood. Yet Femi is no couch potato, his tubby frame not
withstanding, this fellow wakes up between 5am and 6am every morning
and trains for two hours before starting the day's job. What does he
do? Sumo Wrestling? Femi scratched his chin and thought for a second,
"Come" he said, gesturing towards his PC's monitor, "I'll show you"
and with a few clicks of his mouse, he did show me.
His odyssey started with an interview he watched on CNN while in first
year at the University of Lagos. The guy being interviewed worked at a
blue-chip company and obviously earned some good money there. When
asked what motivated him, he said it was his friend, a swimming pool
attendant who drove a Ferrari. Femi latched on to that and since then,
the Pool Guy (or the Ferrari or what they both represent) has been his
prime motivator. But that's not exactly where it all started. While
attending Comprehensive High School Aiyetoro before switching over to
Command Secondary School Ikeja, he already knew he wanted to do
creative stuff. He also wanted to work with computers so he toyed with
the idea of being a computer programmer until he realized that would
involve loads of calculations. He also faced the prospects early
enough of starving if he stuck to the pure arts. To say the least, he
was in a quandary.
Enter Koku, his high flying architect cousin who just returned to
settle in Nigeria with really nice clothes and 22 pairs of shoes (he
actually counted). Koku was a revelation, he's so cool, an architect,
he's creative…hmm…a good blend of art, science and business. Femi hung
around his cousin long enough to get hooked, his choice to study
architecture, he admits, was influenced by his cousin's apparent
success. Though, he chuckled, in hindsight, it was what Koku himself
would call Rush – Rush money: Very nice car without the money to fuel
it, just a few designer clothes and nothing else, but that was enough
for Omoluabi.
Studying architecture at Unilag however, was a disappointing
experience. In his own words, it had no role to play in his current
occupation. Okay, he gives it a thought; maybe it did, since nothing
in life is wasted. He sees design education in Unilag as being given a
bare foundation when what is needed is a super-structure which each
individual can then clad to his taste. The skill base could be useful
but there is a need to understand broader concepts. In an era when
it's cheaper to buy a personal computer than a draughting table,
students are allowed to learn Computer Aided Draughting and Design
(CADD) but are still restrained from presenting their assignments in
CADD form (*editor's note: this has since become a thing of the past
as the architecture department at the University of Lagos has since
fully embraced digital technologies). Omoluabi sighs after a pause-
Almost all learning is self development. That statement explains his
development to a large extent. A lot of his learning came from
magazines, and from studying them, he realized early enough that
architectural consultancy does not earn the sort of money that his
Pool Guy represented. He looked at architecture as a business and
didn't see the prospects so he thought to himself, how do I make money
and move out of home to a fairly comfortable place before I turn 30?
Femi had been hanging out with Peller – a senior course mate at the
University, nick-named after the late magician Prof. Peller in
deference to his adeptness with computer graphics at a time when it
was still at its infancy, he augmented this interaction with several
magazines which he purchased under the bridge at Ojueleba. In late
1999, Cadbury was selling off some of their old computers. Around this
same time, Omoluabi together with Prabu Ramalingam another course mate
entered for a competition organized by MOE for adaptive re-use of the
Ijora power station. They came fifth and part of the money awarded to
them went into the purchase of one of the Cadbury PCs in January 2000.
Femi added on some more hardware and did his first tutorial in
animation on the 21st of March 2000AD (he remembers the exact date)
and has never stopped learning ever since- hence the strict early
morning study regimen.
Through Peller, he was soon doing architectural animations for
different firms. His foray into the advertising industry was through a
chance meeting in a Cyber-Café. He made friends with a guy through
whom he eventually met the Agency Producer at SO&U, an association
that saw him doing voice-overs for the agency late in 2002. His first
job came out of an argument over the possibilities of creating some of
the animated adverts that Promassidor was airing on television in
Nigeria. Soon, Femi got his chance and did a Launch Video for HP in
Nigeria. Several jobs have followed, with SO&U remaining his major
source. In essence, Femi Omoluabi is a hired gun for advertising and
architectural firms for the production of Computer Generated Images
and Animations and he's not doing badly, in fact, he's living a dream.
Omoluabi takes time out to philosophize, being the son of a renowned
Psychologist; he has every license to do so: In life you can't see
your next level until you are on the present level….you cant really
visualize the future until you are on a level where it becomes
feasible. Which is why the rich will get richer, because being rich
anyway, they are at a vantage point for visualizing even more wealth.
10 years from now? Femi doesn't bother with long-term plans. In the
Interim, he's looking at a house in an estate plot in Lekki, meanwhile
a house on the Mainland would do. Do you know how difficult it is to
find land in an area with tarred roads and covered gutters? He asks
humorously. Next, he wants to go into the property Market at the sub
10 Million Naira level. In his chosen occupation, Omoluabi has a
floating idea of upping his game to provide international outsourcing
for architectural representations and content for television. He has
no clear cut route to achieving that but knows it's definitely the
next level because things are getting easier. He looks back with
nostalgia at the old days when things were more stressful. His major
pains still remain payment delays and unrealistic deadlines though
those are reducing now that he's established in the field.
For someone who works alone, he finds it rarely boring and cites his
work for MTN Graphix and Premium Chicken commercials as his most
memorable efforts due to the technical challenge they presented.
Omoluabi comments on the advertising industry: Ad agencies contain
some of the brightest minds in this country. It doesn't show though,
because clients shut down bright ideas due to their belief that
Nigerians are not appreciative of high levels of creativity. Femi
smirks regrettably, they're probably right.
