One of the striking features of 2022 has to be the unrelenting big bang of a massive brain drain in Nigerians. Many young people have Japa out of the country in hopes of a better future in a more structured system and blame the country’s economic hardship for their emigration. But while these young citizens seek greener pastures in other countries, it also spells doom for the Nigerian economy. Although Nigeria might have lost a reservoir of talented people to the West, the question is whether the future is still bright for those who are still left behind.
As we enter 2023, as part of his ways of extending his leadership ladder to every Tom, Dick, and Harry in society, meet Adetola Nola, the Founder and Chief Executive Officer of Veritasi Homes Limited shared with GuardianLife his incredible milestones in his entrepreneurship journey in the real estate industry and calls upon new and struggling Nigerian in the start-up business who were once like him to know that there is still light on the other side of the tunnel.
The Man behind the name
Adetola Nola is one of the youngest and most affable housing merchants in the country’s real-estate sector. He graduated from the prestigious Obafemi Awolowo University where he bagged a B.Sc in Chemical Engineering, his passion for continuous learning has also seen him attend several capacity development courses. These include Strategic Leadership courses at the London Metropolitan University, as well as Finance and Management Courses at the London School of Business and Finance.
For Nola, his contributions in various capacities of human endeavour come in torrents, for instance, he is a notable leader who is significantly impacting various communities both nationally and globally. He has continuously ridden a sea-change in the real estate industry.
In his early thirties, the young property merchant accumulated a portfolio of landmark achievements such as the Forbes 30 Under 30 he was featured in 2019, and he is an ECOWAS Youth Ambassador. He has founded and co-founded five other companies – including Noah & Nola Incorporated, Pineapples Luxury Retail Store, and Couture 89 amongst others. He is also the brain box behind Nola Travels.
Nola’s character speaks a story of a young boy with resilience, integrity, and most importantly his dedication to his passion defines his work efficiency which has become a roadmap for people in various professions.
While describing his key success factors, Nola explained that “every single time I fail in a business, I go and you know reanalyze and retrace my steps on what I did wrong. And then also apart from the money part of business, I have a strong passion for building a successful business and for people that build up your successful business, what they do, right? What did you do wrong?”
Transforming The Status Quo of Nigeria’s Real-Estate
In Nigeria, the interest in real estate has been rising in geometric proportions since the shock of the oil industry. There has been increased activity in the real estate sector as a result of the scaled interest that keeps driving up north the contribution of the sector to the Gross Domestic Product (GDP). The opportunities in the Nigerian real estate sector are massive. And analysts have established that real estate is an edge against inflation. Considering the niggling level of inflation in the country, investing in a real estate asset is a brilliant choice for government and private investors.
Nola’s drive to explore opportunities and also empower others, led to the establishment of Veritasi Homes – a company that is innovatively changing the landscape in real estate development, despite being relatively young and has committed to offering consummate real estate solutions in a bid to deliver luxurious and affordable housing to all Nigerians within and outside the shores of the country.
In 2021, Veritasi Homes got a Better Business Bureau BBB rating on Data Pro; also, in April 2022, the company successfully registered a ₦10.00 billion Commercial Paper Program onFMDQ Securities Exchange Limited through its Board Listings and Markets Committee.
This approved CP Programme will enable Veritasi Homes and Properties Limited access funding from the debt capital markets to actualize its strategic objectives”.
The vision of Veritasi Homes and Properties is to be a world-class real estate development company driven by value innovation and optimum service to deliver affordable homes. Its strategic objective is to provide credible market structures to corporate and commercial businesses with the opportunities to meet their short-term funding requirements. The quality of these developments also speaks volumes about the vision of the company to be a leading brand in the real estate sector.
Nola explained that by investing in the workforce, Veritasi has been able to achieve this exponential growth within its short period of existence. According to him, investing in the team
members has helped in the delivery of exceptional customer service. In his words, “good things are forced to happen while bad things happen by accident. it’s even very obvious in Nigeria,
because every good thing that’s on there in the real estate space that we have done like delivery, construction projects, you know, raising people, patching entrepreneurs every time we
want to do it, there’s always wanting an obstacle and problem, but that won’t stop us from actually achieving. But we managed to get around it, you know, force it to happen. We work with
some of the best in that because we are used to the problem as well. And then we expect problems and challenges every day now. So yeah, it’s just the doggedness, the persistence and
consistency, and the ability to negotiate our way to the top. And then managing, of course, a lot of people, managing stakeholders with the government is a huge part of it.”
The Challenges
It’s an uphill battle for Nigeria to fully utilize its business potential. The country over the years has been faced with many challenges to overcome from the exodus of talent leading to limited
talent to a lack of capital to grow the economy.
Nola noted the many challenges facing the country. Aside from raising capital and government policies, he said: “some of the things that are affecting growth are the lack of infrastructure, like
lack of good roads, you know, the security challenges, the electricity problem, because of that, you know, investors are not comfortable in foreign investors not comfortable coming.”
For him “any place, or country, that as the necessary infrastructure would work, And that’s why, for projects, that involve providing the infrastructure, it could be real estate, it could be
manufactured if you provide infrastructure to people on a project, people would sit there, and they will work,”
He also noted that the government’s lack of economic and business skills is one of the biggest problems affecting the trajectory of the country’s silicon valley dream.
“I feel that the people in government, because if not, most of them, either they’ve been politicians from birth or from when they finish their university, they do not have private sector
experience, and because they do not have private sector experience, they do not know how business work, they do not know how to build wealth. And those are the people that make these
policies and this politic, these policies, just anti entrepreneurship, like anti-growth,”
Extending the leadership ladder to others
Contributing to his quota towards the development of the country, Nola has and is still extending his ladder of leadership to empower others by raising Nigeria-made booming entrepreneurs who
will rise to transform the country sector and attract global investors.
As part of his community service, He stated that he plans to raise about 20 multi-millionaires individuals in the year 2023.
For him, successful leadership is not only about handling opportunities and challenges but also about continuously learning and sharing experiences and knowledge.
Nola is one such gem that aptly describes individuals who not only yearn for success but achieve it when others thought it is impossible. His caliber of people is quite rare in Nigeria and
wherever they are found, they do not only call the shots, they walk the talk by leading the way for others to follow.
