INTERVIEW: “I SOLD THE ONLY CAR I HAD TO PUBLISH MY MAGAZINE 12 YEARS AGO” … Hero International Magazine publisher, Asiwaju, Sunday Akinbiola, speaks on his 14 year journey in the pen world

Asiwaju Dr. Sunday Akinbiola, fondly called ‘Asiwaju Hero’ is the Chairman/Publisher, of Hero Ventures International Limited, Publisher, of Hero Magazine International, and founder of Hero Foundation for widows, where he gives empowerment to the less privileged in society. He is also the Medical Director, of Molardent Dental Prosthetics and Restorative Centre. As a Publisher, ‘Asiwaju Hero’ has produced over 300 editions of a bi-monthly magazine and over 50 special editions including biographical books on notable personalities. This singular act gave him the acronym: ‘Publisher Hero Titles’.

He's the organizer of the yearly Ondo State Man of the Year, Ekiti State Man of the Year, Osun State Man of the Year and Ogun State Man of the Year. He's equally the organizer of the Ikale Oluomo Awards and Yoruba Female Role Model Awards.

He's on the Board of Mobility Worldwide where handicapped all over the world are empowered with Mobility Aids.  He co-anchors South Africa and Texas yearly in Mobility Partnering, Reason he's often on tour. 

Recently, Event Diary Lifestyle, Princess Adeola Shittu was at Hero House, Akure. During the visit, Asiwaju Sunday Akinbiola spoke on his career as a Dentist cum Journalist. It promises to make an interesting read. Enjoy it.

For the benefit of our readers, can you tell us who Asiwaju Sunday Akinbiola is?

I am Asiwaju Dr. Sunday Akinbiola, fondly called ‘Asiwaju Hero’, the Publisher of Hero Magazine International and I am a Dentist by profession. A native of Irele in Irele Local Government Area of Ondo State. I was born into the Royal Family of Chief Joseph Akinbiola from the Opetusin Dynasty about 45 Years ago. I started elementary/primary school at The Apostolic Primary School, Ode-Irele and later proceeded to Unity School, Ode-Aye for secondary school education. While in school, I was made the Senior Prefect from SS2 to SS3 due to my brilliaperformanceces. I had the best result in the S.S.3 examination in the entire Irele Local Government in 1992 with 8 distinctions and one credit. Having passed my JAMB in, the same year I gained admission into the Obafemi Awolowo University, Ile-Ife to study Dental surgery in 1993. I had a stint at OAU before I proceeded to the School of Dentistry, Enugu for my dental prosthetic course as my destiny demanded and had the best overall result in Dental Theoretical practice and maxillofacial prosthesis (Bachelor in Dental Practice). Back then I was representing the Faculty of Health Sciences in seminars and debate competitions. I was the first Medical student to produce a journal then called “Student Dental Journal”. While in school, I received awards from several organizations and the Faculty for my ability to combine Medical research load with Public Relations as well as being a Publisher. 

Let us into your career and how you started publishing.

I left school about 21 years ago, I worked briefly at Ondo State General Hospital for horsemanship, after which I moved to Abuja to work at Smile Dental Clinic, a clinic for dental specialists operated by a white man. I worked with them for 4 years and I moved to a private hospital In Abuja where I worked as Chief Dental Surgeon for 2 years but as destiny will have it, I still found myself in the media world. As I said above, way back in the University I was the Editor, of the Dental Journal, a publication for students in the Medical School and also Chairman of the Editorial Board of the Journal, that was when I had a bit of experience in Journalism and publishing. My passion for Journalism started when I was in secondary school I remember I wrote an essay that was published in the then National Concord newspaper of late MKO Abiola, I was in Jss 1 then. The passion has been there for a long. I gained admission to OAU to study Dentistry, I went to Dental school, and till today I still practice, I have my clinic here, I still do my normal teeth business, I remove teeth every day and at the same time, I still practice Journalism. The fact is that I have a passion for media and I thank God for the journey so far.

So at what time did you decide to go into Journalism fully?

You see, Journalism is a way of life, I won’t say my coming into it was accidental rather my passion for writing led me into the pen world. Like I said, I was working in Abuja as a Chief Dentist and at the same time I was writing a journal on the other hand, with the hope of publishing it one day. But as God will have it, I lost my job in Abuja and I had to move back to Akure in 2007. When I returned to Akure, I was trying to get another job but my mind flashed back to my passion for Journalism, that’s when I decided to give it a try and my first client then was the father of the former Governor of Edo State, His Excellency, Lucky Igbinedion, Chief G. O Igbinedio, the Esama of Benin Kingdom. He invited me and my team and we went for the interview, it was during the interview session, I was thinking of a suitable headline for his story and the inspiration came and I heard the expression, Hero of South, I captioned the interview as Hero Of South, G.O Igbinedion the Esama of Benin kingdom, his exploits in life. That headline gave birth to Hero Magazine and thank God for the brand today. 

After my first interview, the following week I wrote to OBAT, His Imperial Majesty Oba Dr. Fredrick Obateru Eniolorunda Akinruntan, the Olugbo of Ugbo Kingdom, Okoro Ajiga l, it was a few weeks to his coronation and he granted me audience.

On getting there he asked me what I wanted and  I told him I wanted to do a book for him and he accepted it, he gave me all the necessary things, I can say boldly that, I was the first person to produce a magazine for Kabiyesi, Oba Akinruntan when he ascended the throne of his forefathers. We produced over 3000 copies and it was titled, A King Likely to Queen Elizabeth of the UK. Two weeks after the current Kabiyesi, the Olofa of Ofa was to be coronated and I was contacted that they wanted me to go there and have a chat with him and properly produce a special edition for him, so when I got there,

Olofa said we had just 2 weeks left, and that I do it within 2 weeks and I said yes. I told him what I did for Obat and he said he was at the coronation and he brought out his copy, he was amazed by what I did and he mobilized me to produce his book and that was how Hero came to stay.

You discovered your passion for media at a very young age, why then did you study Dentistry and not Journalism?

You know in those days when you are brilliant, the first profession your parents want you to go into is Law or Medicine and so on, so my daddy had been calling me a Doctor, even when I was in primary school, he wanted me to be a Doctor and I had no choice. It is these days, that parent will look at their child and say, what is your passion or talent? For someone like me, I will not force any of my children to study Medicine or any profession because he or she is brilliant, rather I will want to discover their passion and what they like more. If I had had an educated father like my mum who is a headmistress, maybe I would have titled towards studying Mass Communication, which would have helped me. But my father was in control of the house, he made a decision. Though I have no regrets studying Dentistry and like I said destiny will always have its way. Then I said let me go into Dentistry though I entered as a Medicine student, I had a scholarship to study at Mount Alison University, Ontario, Canada, when I was in part 3 something happened I had to return to Nigeria and my department, Medicine said I can’t continue at part 4 rather I should start as a fresher but Dentistry department allowed me to continue at part 4. I have no regret studying Dentistry. But the passion has been in me since it came out and the way people received it, makes me start flowing with it. At first, I planned to do Journalism as a part-time profession, in other to get myself together when I returned to Akure, so I could make money but before I knew it, I started growing and here we are today. I manage both today and have not stopped my Dentistry for Journalism.

Between 2007 and the date, has there been any time you felt like quitting Journalism?

At first, I felt it was an easy task but at a stage, the road became very rough and I had to face a huge challenge. I will recall that I started my publication with big personalities from my first, second and third editions, it was difficult for me to get big personalities who were interested in my special publication. So this affected me to an extent and when I decided on monthly printing, it was not easy, I was not making money and I had to borrow money for the production, at times I used my wife’s salary to print, at the end of the day, I won’t make a dime, we would still have a debt to pay in the next edition but I kept moving and I had this feeling that one day, it will be okay. We had challenges paying staff’s salaries, challenges on how to get money, to moving around was very difficult, there was a time when I sold my car in other to be in the system but we thank God that we have been able to sustain to where we are today. Thank God that I have a plan B which is my clinic, my Dentistry was adding value, so I was using the money to also push it, as we were pushing it, things were taking shape and getting better but it was tough, especially in this area, there is no support from anybody, nobody is ready to support you nor your brand, they will even say “ta lo mo Hero, kilo n se” (who knows hero, what is he doing?). But when you keep going and you keep doing it in the end you will see the light. 2008 to 2012 was a very tough period for me, there was nothing to write home about but we were pushing with the belief that everything would be fine one day. But in 2012, things started picking up gradually and people started associating with us and the brand, we now do magazines and we are selling and adverts are coming in, today I can conveniently sit down and people will call us to place adverts, on print and online. For instance, if I tell our clients that our page advert is five hundred thousand #500k they pay but then, that our back page was #20,000 we don’t get an advert, we even ran free adverts for them but I thank God for where we are today. So it takes a lot of challenges, force, perseverance, and consistency to stand. Wherever we are today, it’s the Grace of God. Most time I look at people when they say HERO has made money, and my wife will say, that if only they knew how this man struggled to grow the brand and the price he paid, they wouldn’t say that. 

Today in Ondo State, the South West and Nigeria as a whole, Hero magazine has become a brand to reckon with when it comes to recognition and publishing. What is the secret?

I will attribute it to hard work, tenacity of purpose and consistency I have some friends that we all started together and they kept changing their brand but for 14 years, we have retained our brand and name, “Hero Magazine”, and we are consistent in what we are doing. Then our brand is apolitical, we don’t allow the influence of any government on the choice of awardees, we have guiding rules that we use and it has been helping us. Secondly, we do not allow money to take charge whenever we are picking our awardees some of my awardees don’t even pay a dime and we still honour them. While some, out of their generosity will support us. But I usually tell them that my award is not for money but because they merit it and that is why we see people talking about our brand. Thirdly, when you are doing a programme, ensure that you have a standard for it, even if it costs you more, put a standard and that standard has helped us. Our awards since 2007 till date always had a standard and we have never had a better yesterday rather it has been better every time. These are some of our secret

What inspired your choice of awardees yearly? 

As I said earlier we are always out for the best, so when we are planning the event, we consider the society and we want a situation where we create an inspiration to other generations as a legacy, like the first Ondo State female pilot, she was one of our awardees about 4 years ago, she flew in from South Africa, courtesy of Hero Magazine to receive award as Ondo State Female Model in 2018. Like the forthcoming award scheduled for November this year, the first Ondo woman to rise to the position of General in the Nigeria Army, Brigadier General Bolanle Esther, will receive Ondo State Woman of the Year.

The reason for picking such personalities is to celebrate these people while they are alive and they will also serve as an inspiration as well as role model to the younger generation. One of our past awardees is, Engr. Dr. Funmilayo Waheed Adekojo, fondly called Funmi Arike, the story is very inspiring, she started as a house girl in Akoko, but today she is a successful Engineer and entrepreneur, she feeds more than 300 widows every week, despite all she has passed through she didn’t let that hinder her from achieving her goal, she is being celebrated all over the world. She is also an inspiration to most ladies. We give awards because we want them to serve as an inspiration to the people and the society at large.

Apart from being a Publisher and a Dentist, what motivates you to start a foundation? 

I have always loved to give back to society from the little that I have. When we started Hero magazine in 2007, I made a covenant with my God to give back to society. Having overcome our challenges, in 2012, I and my team decided to put smiles on people’s faces. Every year we give out cash gifts and foodstuff to 300 widows and since we started we have been having support from some of our awardees too and God has been blessing us. Apart from the widows, God has also used us through the Foundation to pay students WAEC fees and employ intelligent students across the state.

Is Hero planning to join politics? 

I have no intention to join politics for now, this is because of my profession, it is either I choose politics or I choose Journalism. Going into politics now might affect my brand and my person. So, for now, I, Asiwaju Hero Akinbiola have no interest in politics but I don’t know what the future has in stock for me. 

How do you cope with female admirers?

I thank God, that I am blessed with a beautiful wife. In this profession and any other field, we men must be careful when it comes to women matters in other to avoid a short life span. So I do try my best to control myself, though it hasn’t been an easy task (laughs).

Word of advice to aspiring Publishers and Dentists?

Whatever one is doing in life try to put seriousness and consistency. Above all don’t put money first to avoid jeopardizing the future of that programme. And try to ensure you do your best before money comes to you. Even today in Ondo State my dental clinic is one of the best. And I’m excelling in Dentistry and Journalism. And as for the NGO, it is very good to give back to the society to attract blessings from God

How do you relax?

Do I have time to relax I work a lot, but once I have the time, I love to spend quality time with my family.