By By Agatha Emeadi
Mrs. Osaretin Afusat Demuren became the first female Chairman of Guaranty Trust Bank (GTB), now known as Guaranty Trust Holding Company (GTCO) with its familiar orange cuboid logo adorning display boards on the frontage of its premises. She started her banking career in Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), where she served for 33 meritorious years, in various departments and rose to become the first female director.
Today, sits on the board of Trust Fund Pensions Plc and Lapo Microfinance Bank Limited. In this interview, Demuren gives Sunday Sun readers a peek into her corporate journey as part of our Christmas special. Enjoy…
You made history when you became the first female chairman of Guaranty Trust Bank. How did it happen?
When I retired from the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) as a director, I had no intention of going back to banking because I had done too much of corporate work and did not have a life. But one day, my first son kept telling me, ‘Mummy, someone wants to see you’ and I asked him who wanted to see me. He said a top banker from Guaranty Trust Bank. I told him I didn’t any of the executives in person, except what I read in the papers. I asked him why the person wanted to see me and he said he didn’t know. This was about the time my younger sister was marking her 60th birthday. So, my son set up an appointment for him to see me by 3:00pm. And at exactly 3:00pm, he came, introduced himself and we exchanged pleasantries. With that done, he said he came to invite me to join the board of the bank. After complimenting him on the good quality of the bank, I said I was not eager to get back into corporate life. He asked me what I intended to do after retirement. I said there was a lot I would do but not necessarily banking. That was when he revealed that three other banks were coming after me. And I snapped, ‘But you bankers said, I was Margaret Thatcher?’ He said, ‘Yes, ‘you were Margaret Thatcher but very consistent and a core professional. So, I told him to give me two weeks to think about it. He left. First, I told my husband, my children and a few others. My family gave approval and after two weeks, I joined them as non-executive director and was on the board for two years as a non-executive director. Then the chairman retired at 70 with an unwritten law to step down with age; we asked the executive directors to step out so we could discuss. The question was who could become our chairman. I heard one of us say, ‘Mrs. Demuren’ and I said I was the least and had been on the board for just two years. They insisted it did not matter. From being a regulator, I became the chairman. I was there for eight years. When I reached 70 I stepped down like my predeccessor, in accordance with the law.
How did your life journey begin and progressed to the present time?
I began my education at an Anglican primary school in Benin, Edo State and proceeded to St. Maria Goretti Girls Grammar School, which was run by where Reverend Sisters until the civil war broke out in 1967. As at that time, the Biafran soldiers were ready in the Midwest and schools then were forced to vacate. Then, on this certain day in school, we saw the villagers coming inside the school and wondered why? It meant they had seen soldiers who had taken over the Midwest. The Rev. Sisters decided to close the school and parents came to take their daughters. My father had asked a neighbour whose daughter was my friend to pick me along. When the woman beckoned on me to go with her, I told her that I soaked my clothes. She squeezed my clothes into another bucket and told me to get into the car, and that was how I left the school though I was in final year preparing to write the West African School Certificate Examination (WASCE) conducted by the West Africa Examinations Council (WAEC). After some time, there was an announcement that all Class-5 students in the Midwest Region should return to school for the final exams. We went back and wrote the WASCE. Immediately after the examination, my parents moved me to Lagos to be with elder brother who lived at Ijora then. Just before I was relocated to Lagos, in secondary school then, my name was Afusat Osaretin Lawal, but when I was coming to Lagos I told my father that I would like to make my Benin name Osaretin prominent otherwise people would think Afusat Osaretin Lawal is a Yoruba name. I arrived Lagos and in no time in 1968, I was employed as a clerk (first set of female clerks) by the Central Bank of Nigeria, and it was the lowest point of the pyramid, a scary and uncomfortable position in a male-dominated environment. But then, we had good systems in place in the country. So, while in CBN, I applied to the Bureau for External Aid of the Federal Ministry of Education for scholarship with Canada as my first choice of country for studies; United Kingdom as the second and the Union of Soviet Socialist Republic (USSR) as the third. However, I seized the first opportunity that came my way after completing the selection process of the Ministry of Education as a result of the pressure/stress I was experiencing at the workplace and travelled in August 1969 to the Soviet Union for further studies which lasted for six years. Then also, my oldest brother was in USSR and the government then wanted to come into Africa. They brought in a lot of Russian scholarship opportunities. Everything worked perfectly in Nigeria then. Russian government brought an aircraft that lifted over 300 Nigerian students from the present local airport which used to be the international airport and flew us to Moscow, Russia where one would trace his or her school. But Moscow was the central point.
Now, in Russia, we did first year preparatory language school before our real course of study for us to speak their language. Mine was Kiev State university, capital of Ukraine for my preparatory school before going to Moscow. While still in preparatory, planning to study Architecture, someone then pointed through the window and said, you see those people carrying wooden board around, they are architecture students and I changed my mind immediately to study Economics and Statistics because I was very good with mathematics. Russian courses were five-year courses which is Masters degree.
How did you meet your husband, Dr. Harold Demuren (former NCAA Director)?
Before returning after studies, I had met my husband in Kiev where he was studying Aeronautics Engineering. After our preparatory school, I came to Moscow for full course and his friends started contacting me. They were three jolly good friends (late Lawrence Peters from Onicha-Olona in Delta State, Babatunde Kazim from Ilorin and his humble self). He used to send his friends to me because we were in Moscow then. At a stage, I asked them, are you speaking for yourselves or on behalf of your friend, and they said on behalf of their friend Harold. That was how it started. As new students then we were required to study other science subjects and my husband-to-be then was readily available to put me through. He graduated when I was in second year, and told me he would get to Nigeria briefly, spend few weeks, then go to Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in Cambridge, Massachusetts, America which he did actually.
So, when did you then get married?
It was during his American trip that he proposed to me and we got engaged. Then I told him that our families back home had to be contacted. He sent his father who was a Baale then in Ijebu to Benin and both families agreed and gave approval. With that, I started visiting him in America and he told me, we will get married in America immediately. He took me to the registry and the Church which was St. Paul’s African-American Episcopal Church, which was the closest African-American church we could find. When we made our intentions known to Pastor Byran, as the pastor-in-charge, someone took me to look for wedding gown, but a friend said to me, the church is not expecting you to wear a white wedding dress.
Instead they want to see the African in both of you. What is an African wedding in the church? It means where the church is decorated with fresh fruits, we sent message home for Aso-oke, our wedding outfit, which did not arrive early. My husband contacted his relatives in London who bought lace materials which we wore. We had various people represent both families and they wore Ankara. We also arranged to come down from different aisles with our representatives behind us and climaxed at the altar where the pastors were waiting for us. We had our wedding at 4:00pm, when the sun was coming down. Even as the Pastor said, he would not wed us during the regular service. So, we had a little girl carry the honey while a boy carried the vinegar which we tasted during the vow to tell that life is not rosy at all times. So, with jollof rice, chicken and salad, our reception took African dimension and it became a comprehensive African wedding. I finally joined him in America where we had our first son before coming back to Nigeria.
Were you reabsorbed into the CBN?
Back home in Nigeria, my husband asked me where do you want to work? I said Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC). Why NNPC, why not Central Bank where you started from as a clerk? NNPC was the trending corporation then, but my husband convinced me to join the Central Bank. I listened to him and went to CBN. At the interview panel, I was asked whether I had worked with Central Bank earlier? I said, yes, that I was a clerk in the research library. There and then I rejoined CBN and put in over 33 meritorous years, rose through the ranks and became the first female departmental director in 1999. Then, there was no law but all the women employed in Central Bank were in the Research Department because they did not know, but just assumed that if they were in operations, they might get transferred and family would be affected. So, I was in research and wrote that I wanted to go to Trade and Exchange Control, they said there is a research section in Exchange Control; So, when I got there, it was changed to Trade and Exchange Department; I went in as a Deputy Director and when the director left, I became the Director. So, most bankers knew me because of Trade and Exchange. My circulars were often read by bankers.
As a senior banker, how did you cope on the home front as a wife and mother?
I give all glory to God because when someone is born, God already knows from the beginning to the end. First and foremost, we have always lived very spiritual lives. We have been members of The Sacred Order of Cherubim and Seraphim from the onset; my husband is the Deputy Baba-Aladura. The grace of God and one being able to organize and plan well saw me through. I must confess that I was very lucky with house-helps, especially when I was in Abuja as a weekend wife. At one stage, I requested my mother-in-law to move in and live with us. My own mother could not come because she was a very busy business woman, but my mother-in-law accepted and lived with us for 27-years before she died at 94.
How did both of you manage yourselves because most daughter-inlaw/mother-in-law relationships are a bit difficult to manage?
Is there no one person who does not quarrel with her own biological mother, sisters and brothers? Why would that of a mother-in-law be different? In fact, emotions got tied to the room she lived. One of my sons was interested in grandma’s room. When I travel to Ijebu, people would come and ask ‘how are you living with such a tough woman? I told them she is my mother-in-law. I love my husband, so why shouldn’t I love the mother of my husband? If you can overlook your own mother, overlook your mother-in-law too. A little here and there, we all bring it to the centre. Mama actually dots on her grandchildren like most grandmothers, and would not allow me to discipline my children and I will say no, then we quarrel. Sometimes, I would say to her “Mama, I didn’t like what you said to me yesterday and she would say, ‘Iyawo mi, maabinu’ and that ends it.
What do you regard as your highest point in life?
Having my first son in America was a big deal for me. I enjoyed my pre-natal days and nursing my baby at a tender age. Doctors and nurses were surprised at my near perfect care of a new born with the knowledge of taking care of my junior ones back home then.
Any low point?
When I lost my younger brother carelessly to police brutality.
After 70 years you are still a natural beauty. What is the secret?
I would advice that women be as natural as they can. Two things, humility and simplicity, rule my world. Do not bleach, it will be disastrous in old age.
What advice would you give the younger ones?
Training starts from the foundation, the cradle. I read a book that taught me that a child that is in the walker, as the child is moving about in the kitchen, be talking to him or her as if you are talking to adults. I shared the chores for my boys, they cleaned their rooms and we got to the cooking stage. I believe that training starts from the home before school.