'Women, Strongest, As Marketing Change Agents' Ntai Bagshaw, 11.24.2006 Sometime in 1971, little Olajumoke was clutching onto her father, lurking around the famous Chateau Versailles, Louis XIV's summer palace, in Paris. Mini camera in hand, she took shots of the magnificent edifice with a sense of fulfillment that would thump any three year-old. Like the legendary Cinderella, she dreamt of living in such a splendid structure someday. Now, by sheer passion and dint of hardwork, Olajumoke is living her dreams; and creating similar edifices for dreamers and achievers alike. A thoroughbred architect who's dotting the nation's landscape with epic structures, she has grown to become the toast of an impressive list of discerning Nigerians. Olajumoke (hereafter Adenowo) recounts those childhood years with nostalgia: "It was Paris as a child that made me go into architecture. There was one magnificent building after the other to see. You couldn't get enough of the city," she says. "We went on holidays to Europe, where I saw the large palaces of kings as a young girl. Those visits made an impression on me. However, Paris was my favourite city and I had a camera. I'd take photographs and dream to live in such edifices someday." Call her daddy's girl and you won't be wrong. She enjoyed the privileges of an only child for nine years until her brother sauntered along. Naturally, Adenowo got off an early start in life. At 14, she had gained admission into the university for her first degree, which she finished at 19. Very creative and open-minded, it's no surprise architecture was the natural choice for her. "I didn't do badly in the sciences as well. So architecture was just like a fusion between the sciences and the arts. You know it's not a pure science and not a pure art. It gives you room for expression and it's for people who generally are creative." Adenowo runs what is by several measures Nigeria's fastest growing architectural concern. From Lagos, Aba and Abuja through Kaduna to Kano and Minna, her structures standout across the nation's landscape. Her burgeoning list of projects speaks for itself. You name it, she's 'done it: institutional buildings, shopping malls, villas (about 30 so far, including a N350 million luxury apartment complex in Victoria Island, Lagos), residences, banks, hospitals, office complexes, churches (like the 2,500-capacity Guiding Light Assembly auditorium in Ikoyi, Lagos) and so on. With a smile that exudes a sense of fulfillment, she hands your reporter a brochure containing a compilation of her work so as to get a clear picture of her competencies. If you want to grasp the value of architecture, Adenowo says analysing your dress sense is the best place to start. "The way you dress says something about who you are and what you stand for. Same for architecture. That why I say architecture is marketing," she affirms, pointing out that unlike widely perceived, architecture is contextual. "You shouldn't forget the context within which you are designing. It could be the physical or mental environment, or the person you're working with, especially when it's a residence. A residence says something about its inhabitant. If it's a corporate organisation, the building says something about the organisation - what it's trying to do, say and portray, and how much it cares about its customers and environment." To buttress her point, she picks up another picture: "This building is in Victoria Garden City. It's a mathematician's residence. I like him because he's a challenging client. He makes you think. I like clients that are discerning because they challenge us. They make us happy to work for them, knowing the difference between good and bad architecture. Most people can't tell the difference, so it's really challenging to work with people like that." Adenowo's works are so alluring that they are copied the moment they're finished. This trend, she says, is unwholesome but is quick to add that the counterfeiters never come up with an exact copy of her works. "When you copy our buildings, you come up with some aesthetically-challenged buildings. That's my way of saying that they're ugly. So they try and take a picture." She displays pictures of some building of hers with unique French windows: "This building people have copied all over but they just can't get it right. Same thing with this one. They've copied the windows and all but they just can't get it right." The conversation changes gear as you switch into the world of interiors. "Interiors are a portrayal of your lifestyle," Adenowo explains. "If you have an extensive art collection and you want to focus on your collection, what we do is draw attention to them." More pictures prop up for emphasis. Your reporter finds a trendy one with an open staircase interesting. "The open staircase shows the lifestyle of the person. He's not so conscious with security such that he wants to hide the staircase. Some buildings are distorted with rooms scattered everywhere. It might also be a fallout of one's lifestyle." A quick look around her office and you can tell she's in love with lighting. "Yes, I like lights," she affirms. "We think of how the interior looks in the day and how it looks in the night and come up with different lighting schemes. Again, more pictures prop up to highlight her point: "This is a small room but we used strips of light to make it look like the ceiling is high." Short of saying architecture is elitist, Adenowo affirms that it is for the discerning. "In Nigeria, many people design and they call in an interior designer. That is not the way of the discerning. You design from the use of the room out. So, when you're designing, you already know what drapes to keep here and why. You know how everything will turn out. Even the sound system, everything. We know that before we go to construction. If you think you can categorise Adenowo's work, you're wrong. She's not just flexible but somewhat obscure. "As soon as you want to define me, I change because I feel that if you define me, then you can categorise me. And then you can make me irrelevant," she says. One who is able to speak several languages with her work, she keeps herself in shape by studying different people and visiting their buildings. "There's something to learn from everyone. You can't box me into a corner. So you're free to come to me with any idea. Sometimes I ask my clients what they think a good building is. And I work by what they say. I even have questionnaire formats for interiors and architectural styles so they can show me what they like for us to flesh out." Another pertinent question arises: How much of work experience does it take to reach this level? Her words: "I think it takes a lot of interest, innate creativity and exposure. When you're a creative person and passionate about it, wherever you go you notice something. Sometimes I go into the first class or Concord Lounge in Heathrow and I see something I did in a client's house in Lagos, they use exactly the same mosaic or the same colour scheme. I open my eyes and I see that they have the same ideas as me. She notes that she especially likes things that are badly done "because it teaches me better than when it's well done. I see in things that are badly done what it looks like." Adenowo loathes hearing when people say architecture is a male profession - it gets her juices flowing. She argues that women make better architects because "women are more detailed. Men see the big picture; women see details. A woman has some strengths that she can bring into architecture, especially the way the building is to be utilised. Maybe people think of it as construction. Yes, there are fewer females just like in any other profession besides nursing. We've had a female president of NIA, so I don't think architecture is a non-female profession." Away from architecture, Adenowo is passionate about engendering a bright future for Nigeria by empowering youths to lead the process of change that the nation so dearly needs. "I sincerely like people. I'm interested in their lives," she echoes. "They say charity begins at home. They don't say it ends at home. So we need to find out quickly, what our assignment is. Why am I here on earth? I looked hard at it and I taught that what would make my life worthwhile at the end of the day is the investment I make in somebody else's. When I'm gone, all that will be left of me is memories people have of me. And they'll ask "what did she do for me". So my goal is to affect the greatest number of people maximally." In putting her money where her mouth is, she runs two NGOs that focus on national reformation. While Awesome is an interactive youth programme geared towards changing the mindset of young Nigerians, Hidden Treasures is a women's empowerment outreach. "I believe that Nigeria can work. And I believe that Nigerians will make Nigeria work." She particularly focuses on uplifting women, changing values that relegate them to he backseat. "I marvel when people keep saying women don't do this and that. I was never made conscious of the fact that I'm a woman. I didn't know things were gender sensitive - that there's something a woman can and can't do. Nobody told me that. My father didn't tell me that there were any boundaries or limits because I was a female. I wasn't made aware that there was a constraint. So, your nuclear family affects you. Especially for a woman, it's very important who fathers her. I've noticed that when a woman is brought up by a man, she's more assertive. My hero was my father. When I was a child, he'd bounce off ideas off me and I was allowed to speak. I could contribute to debates. I could say what I believed in. I wasn't shouted down. And I was not bullied." Adenowo encourages women and youth realise that the future belongs to them. "I've found out that a lot of women and youth are asking what the nation can do for them. And I think they should ask what they can do for the nation. Because they were not born by accident. The youth are particularly disillusioned. And you don't blame them because when you look around it seems like there's not much opportunity being given to them. Awesome is held quarterly with tours around campuses. What happens is that first we give the youth an opportunity to speak. We teach patriotism, diligence and entrepreneurship. We teach them to love their country and to believe in themselves. Instead of being bitter about the way the country has failed them; to see themselves as the solution to the nation's problems. We want them to see themselves as change agents. So when we start the debate, the youths are raging about how bad the country is. They are allowed to speak, to say whatever they want to say. But somehow, we all come to a consensus that the country might have challenges but we can do something about it. And they listen and become assertive, saying "yes" they can do something about it. Sometimes they even take a pledge. The last time we held the programme Ife, we had about 5,000 youths saying they're going to do something about it. The last Awesome we had was at the law school in Lagos and we had about 3,500 youth in attendance In sheer demonstration of her passion for women and youths, Adenowo has been running both programmes without external sponsorship. "If I'm spending my money on you, I must love you. Each summit is about N1.3 million at the least. And the last time we gave out prizes worth about N2.5 million. We've done competitions for music, poetry, drama and so on. Under Hidden Treasures, we tell women that they are perhaps the most powerful change agents in the nation today. Every man is listening to a woman at some point in time. Who ever the woman is - mother, sister, wife or daughter. There is a woman there. So, we can be the conscience of the nation. We can drive where the nation is going. It has been done before in Nigeria. We've had strong women before - talk about the Aba Women's Riot. With help from Mrs. Yetunde Holloway, a World Bank consultant on education, Adenowo and her cohorts are preparing a draft memorandum which they plan to send to the education reforms committee "because we believe that "first, we want to the youth to talk freely. Then we should teach the children from primary school - perhaps as part of the social studies curriculum - what governance is all about. They should know what servant leadership is. They should know that leaders must give a report of what they've done. We want that from the primary school level. We also want Nigerian history taught. What we learnt in our days isn't relevant to our lives. The only things we learnt about Nigeria were the Benin and old Oyo empires. Wouldn't it be more relevant if we learnt about people like Funmilayo Ransome-Kuti or the Aba Women's Riot? In studying history, we should put in some famous Nigerian women, so women today don't see themselves as nobodies. We need to know about our women of the past who were heroines because it will inspire women. Women will stop saying "let me just struggle and get married and have children." We were created for much more." It isn't out of place to say that everything Adenowo has touched has turned to gold. Born in the ancient city of Ibadan to Professor and Professor (Mrs) Oloruntimehin in 1968, Adenowo attended University of Ibadan Staff Primary School before proceeding to Federal Government Girls' College Oyo, where she graduated as Overall Best Student in 1982. Off to the Obafemi Awolowo University Ife she went, graduating in 1987 clinching the Chief (Arc) Balogun Prize for Most Outstanding Graduating Student and Kunle Wahab Prize for Best Student in Housing Studies. More laurels came on completion of her MSc degree at Ife with the CAPL/Dulux Prize for Best MSc Student in 1991. That year, Adenowo was recognised in the global scene for her flair for architecture and was named a Young Archives in "Who Will Be Who In The 21st Century," a publication complied by the International Biographical Centre, Cambridge, England. Adenowo is a member of the Nigerian institute of Architects and architects registration Council of Nigeria." A Trustee of Grace Orphanage, which is currently developing a children's hospital in Akure, she was appointed Coordinator of Cutting Edge, a business ethics and best practices group in 2003. Her career is no less stunning. After interning with the top rate firm of Towry Coker & Associates, she joined Femi Majekodunmi & Associates. Her fruitful career that saw her take on gigantic projects like the Ministry of Finance Headquarters in Abuja. In 1994, Adenowo felt it was time to set out her own course so she hung her pencils with Majekodunmi and established AD Consulting, where she's now principal architect. As next year's general elections inches closer, Adenowo urges Nigerians to take hold of their destinies by voting credible leaders with proven integrity. "Before choosing our leaders, we should ask what they have done in their communities. If he is a governor, we should ask what he has done with the billions in his state. If you served creditably in your state with that billion, then I can be sure that when you are president you can do better. If not, when they get to the state house, they will loot the treasury." "The electorate will need to ask these questions. When people say we have bad leaders, I argue that our leaders are those Nigerians that have been given the opportunity to display what is in their heart. Our leaders are a mirror of what we are. Leadership is like money - it will display what is in you. If you are good, when you have power, we will see it. So, I say we also have bad followership," she says. Ask Adenowo how she juggles the onerous tasks that confront her daily, and one name crops up: her husband, Korede. "First, I have the support of my husband. If someone was calling me to say look I want to eat at five, I wouldn't be here. I also delegate responsibilities. I look for capable hands, who I don't mind paying well. I treat even my staff at home like my own because they're bring value to the table, letting me do what I want to do. My husband is very understanding and supportive; my children too. They believe in what I do; and like the fact that quite a people are touched by what I do." It's hard to notice that time flies while chatting with Adenowo. Her dream for a greater Nigeria knows no bounds. In and out of debates and counter-debates, your reporter ends the session. But not after Adenowo chips in a last word: "Nigeria is a giant with no common destiny, no common goal. We have to get a Nigerian idea. We have to decide what to do to fix Nigeria. It's not just a plastic branding thing. If we can define that then we'll be on our way."
Truth be told Jumoke Adenowo is one heck of a lady. she has finesse and everything she does is to the Tee. Her husband Korede is just so good for her, he supports her all the way. SS, thanks for posting this interview with Mrs Adenowo. She has a forum(hidden treasures) through which ideas are shared, and also try to empower women and youth. It is also true that when a woman is brought up by a man, she's more assertive. Assertiveness therefore IMHO shld not be equated with feminism like some people wantonly do.
Soul Sista Thanks for posting this article on Mrs Adenowo, another Great Ife product and a big hearted Nigerian with a clear vision. I find her outlook and work encouraging. She is one of those who have been able to stay in Nigeria, follow their dream and make their mark for the good of their fellow compatriots.
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