Royalsec was established 35 years ago and it has continued to stand the test of time, ranking as one of the top ten most outstanding private security outfits in the land. They hold a modest share of the security market, with some of the country's biggest multinational companies on its clientele list. Benefitting largely from unending referrals earned through its excellent service delivery of highly trained professional security personnel whose impeccable performances speak for them, Royalsec has remained one of the most trusted security outfits in the last 35 years. No wonder the company today can boast proudly of not relying on any form of financial support from banking institution to survive. But Aare Rotimi Ishola remains modest about these accomplishments. He does not make any noise about it, he lets the quality performance of his highly trained personnel speak for him and the company.
At the City People 2024 Real Estate awards held recently in Lagos, City People's Senior Editor, WALE LAWAL (08037209290) had a brief but enriching conversation with the very vibrant and easy going Aare Rotimi Ishola. He shared with us the humble beginnings of Royalsec and why it has remained one of the best till date. Enjoy excerpts of the interview.
It’s a big honour for me, sir, to have the opportunity of holding this conversation with you. You are somebody I have known from way back when I was a kid and seeing how far you have come, how big you have grown in the security sector where you operate is indeed inspiring. Share with us a bit of your success story, sir, how did you get into the security business?
Yeah, for my security business, let’s just say God has designed the destiny of everyone of us. When I finished school back then, I had a stint with a Nigerian security company then called NSO. Whilst I was there, a family friend reached out to me and said, no, come and join us. They were also running a security company then. They started the company in 1978, I joined them eventually in 1981 and I saw what they were doing, they put me through. And after a while, I was delivering far more than they expected and after a while, having served them for about a decade and over, I said to myself, I can do this myself, so I began to prepare for the right moment to take my exit. That right moment came after I got married and it was clear they were no longer comfortable with the fact that I am married. So, I decided the best thing was for me to go and start my own security outfit and that gave birth to Royal Services company Ltd.
It’s been how many years now that you started?
It’s been 35 years and we are still here waxing strong among the top ten in Nigeria not even in Lagos state and we are spreading every day.
What were the challenges you had to go through birthing your own outfit? How was the environment then compared to what we have now?
There was a lot of difference then, I must be candid. The business was quite better then than what it is now. If you were smart you could get away with a lot of things in the industry and the clients too were very receptive. A lot of them were paying in advance so you had a lot of money to play with and do a lot of things. Some will pay you as much as one year, six months in advance, but now, the challenge is much and the regulation is really heavy. The regulators are on us and they bring in new regulations but the unfortunate thing is that, most of their regulations are not to safe guard the industry, nor to safe guard we the operators or to safe guards, but they are geared more towards revenue collection. It’s unfortunate. If I have my way, I want to opine that the government should look at the industry self regulating itself and give us an x amount to bring to the government coffers and we will conveniently do that and we will self regulate ourselves like they do in other countries. They are mostly self regulated and they’re doing better.
So, what you’re saying basically is that a lot of the government policies have not been favourable to your sector?
Government has been going forward and backward. You have regulated us under a decree that these are the terms and conditions of our operations. You now put us to work under the Nigerian Security and Civil Defense. Even the Nigerian Security and Civil Defense, to a large extent, are our competitor. Then, you now bring out vigilante, you bring out neigbourhood watch, and now you’re talking about state Police. All these are policies that are complex by themselves because the bottom line is that aspect of private security should be given to private individuals to run, not government. And then, again, the government is trying to favour dome people at the expense of some others. Vigilantes are using guns, to some extent, Amotekuns are using guns, but the private security companies that have a larger market are not allowed to carry guns. There’s something wrong about that policy, they should look at it holistically. For instance, when you say they shouldn’t carry guns, each time an armed robber is caught and displayed on television, they often have at least four to five guns in their possession. Then, the security man assigned to stop them has nothing. It’s unfortunate, we have to look at that holistically again. Yeah, I know that their reservations are that maybe we’re not there, but you can only be there if they want you to be there and set the rules that will govern how to get there. So that everybody can carry arms. I know that, yeah, there could be excesses displayed by the security personnel, even in the Police force there are excesses, the Civil Defense have their own excesses, same with the Customs, the army, Navy, Air Force, they all have excesses. But they should put in regulations so that you are talking of a community, and the people that are closer to the grass root, to every nook and cranny of that community is the private security of the industry. And they are not looking in our direction. I think they need to look at us holistically.
That’s a great cause for worry because, really, if the Amotekun, who are not quite as professionally trained as your own personnel, then one wonders what the rationale is for not allowing private security to carry arms while the local vigilante groups are allowed to do so...
(Cuts in) They are in charge of necessity in view of herdsmen invading farms and homes in the south-west. Now, Amotekun have started doing our work, guiding industries, guarding private homes, same thing with the vigilante, same thing with the civil defense, same thing with the legion. And who are the legion? Go to the legion, you find that 95 percent of their work force never served anywhere and they call them legion. Legion is supposed to be a congregation of ex service men, but now it’s being run like a security company, it’s become an all comers affair. So, we have too many competitors who are not under our regulations. Civil Defense is there, Amotekun is there, vigilante is there, Nigeria Legion is there, they are not under our regulation, they are just operating, Nobody is regulating them and they’re have a field day.
Talk to us about Royalsec, what has helped its growth in the last 35 years and what stands out Royalsec Services company Ltd from the others?
Well, we give God the glory for the direction. I thank God for my staff. I thank God that He’s always renewed our focus every year. I want to say it with pride that we were one of the first companies, whether in security or whatever, to the best of my knowledge, that will run a very huge business without a bank draft and over draft from any bank. We don’t owe anybody money and I say it with all authority. A lot of people who come into the industry are business men, I am a practitioner and I am driven by an intense passion to succeed. The money, I know it will come gradually and I give God the glory because the money is there to be spent but we have ensured that we do things right. That is why, even my first set of clients when I started back then over three decades ago are still with me in Royalsec and we are still doing well together. Not long ago, one of my old customers, the man is 93 years old, called me and said do you know I was your number three customer in the good old days of Fox & co. The company is into property management. The MD called and said do you know we were one of your first clients and I said, that’s true, and they’re still with us. To the old staff, I still have staff who have been with me for twenty years. 26 years is the oldest and we try to motivate them because I told them, I am happy for my children, they are doing well in Canada, in America, but they are not very interested in the business. And I tell a lot of people, succession is not to force your children into your business to come and kill what you have built, rather I am focusing on building the confidence of my staff to take over. That’s why we have people who have grown from ordinary staff, who have gone through school, read on the industry and other related industries and who have Masters, that we are grooming. Some of them have risen to the position of AGM and GM. So, as time goes on, they will take over the business, because I am tired, I want to go and rest. I am already very close to 70.
Tell us some of the high points of the business in the last 10 years or so. There must’ve been a lot of high moments, maybe a few lows, but which one stands out as the most fulfilling moment for you?
The most fulfilling moment is when we drew out a plan in the company about five years ago and we said we don’t want to have over draft again, we don’t take loans from any bank and drew up a plan. When called the bank and said we want to write off our loans in four to five years, they said, no, they’re not going to do it. Then, they said, okay, if you want to write it off, your over draft and loan, it has be three years, two years. We said okay and we came to an agreement of three and half years and we wrote everything off. Up until now, GT Bank still can’t believe that we wrote off this huge money and we now operate without them. That is the most fulfilling moment that I'm so proud because then, I was thinking even if you are doing succession, I don't want to carry bandwagon or debt to somebody and say we have just had a succession process in place. And we are doing really great. Where we operate from is not a rented property, it is our own building, our office. We bought our building. We purposely built it for our job. So we are not paying rent as well. And it’s in the heart of Lagos, Nigeria, Surulere. So central for anything you want to do. So, I am really delighted about what we have been able to achieve so far.
Now that you mentioned that you're looking forward to slowing down a bit, taking the backseat, what are the few things you would still like to see that you structure into the business before you take that backseat?
What I'm structuring into the business is capacity building. We're training all our staff. In short, we have a budget. In our budget, we have a portion for training. We're training all our staff. One of the parameters that enable senior officers taking over is confidence. When he has the capacity, I give him the confidence. I give him free hand and that's what we're doing. And I've said to them several times that, listen, my children are not interested even though they are directors. But you are the executive directors. There's a difference. They only take their profits at the end of the year. But you are the ones running the show. So far, everybody's comfortable. And I have the same understanding with my family as well. Since you're not interested, I can't stop you from doing what you're doing because when you try to stop people from pursuing their passion in life and you force your own passion on them, the result is that the business is going dies. And that's what has happened to a lot of companies in the world that the old men started. Over time, they force it onto their children. It will die naturally because that's not their calling. It’s not their passion. They just don't have the passion for what you’re asking them to do.
One last question, sir. There's been this talk about the government allowing for state policing to thrive. Now, someone like you who's been in the business of security for decades, do you think, like a lot of schools of thought have expressed this same concern, do you think it could be counterproductive if not properly managed? Do you share such concerns yourself?
With all respect, the state policing is necessary. But from the concept, it has been politicized. And the danger, government should be very careful about, is that the attitude and outcome we have seen from some of our governments and governors and state CEOs. All you're going to have is their stooge running the state police for them. And it's going to be a serious problem for this country. Because we're a set of people who….. with all respect, I've traveled far and wide. There's no continent I've not been to. Nigerians are not even proud that they're Nigerians. They are more proud to be an Hausa, Igbo or Yoruba man. They are proud to be a Christian or a Muslim than being a Nigerian. It's a major problem. So, the drawing factor is that I'm the CEO, the governor of a state. I'll bring someone who I know is not a performer to be my commissioner of police for my state. He's only going to work according to my dictates. He who pays the piper dictates the tune. So that is the problem. We need to go back to the drawing board, look thoroughly into this thing before we go into it. Because it could boomerang seriously on governors and Nigeria eventually.
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