Bank-Omotoye: How The Dream of Becoming a Doctor Failed, But No Regrets

With successes recorded so far by his company, Cruxstone Development & Investment Limited in the real estate industry, Dr Adetoro Bank-Omotoye, the Managing Director and Chief Executive Officer of Cruxstone, he had no regrets at all, venturing into real estate of becoming a doctor…

While  growing up, the first prayer point of Dr Adetoro Bank-Omotoye family members was for him to become a doctor. The dream was no doubt, pursued and backed with prayers but it never happened.

This may be a reflection of a verse in the Bible (Proverbs 16:9) which stated that “A man’s heart deviseth his way: but the Lord directeth his steps.”

This Proverb statement tells that whatever man proposes as his objective to achieve by exercising his will power, efforts and intellectual potentialities, there is a limit to his abilities and there is some supernatural power – God – to determine the shape of things and its end. Sometimes or most of the times the end may be against man’s proposal.

Man can place before himself a lofty objective and can strive hard to achieve it by putting forth all his efforts and other possibilities. But there is a limit to man’s abilities. It has been well said. There is a supernatural power that determines the shape of things and that power. God shapes the end of our objective too.

The manifestation that the Managing Director and Chief Executive Officer Dr Adetoro Bank-Omotoye parent’s big dream for him to become a medical doctor would not be actualized started when he applied for Medicine & Surgery at the Prestigious University of Lagos and was given Zoology.

According to him, “my dad had wanted me to study medicine, unfortunately. I didn’t get the cut off mark for medicine. I tried couple of times, maybe because I didn’t put all my best, it didn’t work. I studied Zoology because it was difficult to change from Zoology to medicine.”

As a young man who is focused and believes that every thing happens for a reason, never allowed the disappointment to affect his future since God has disposed. So, Bank-Omotoye ended up studying Zoology after which he was employed by the Lagos State Government under the Ministry of Agriculture.

On how he ended up as a real estate guru, he said, “growing up in an area where you have exciting structures and real estates. one day, my uncle and I went to Victoria Island for the first time in my life I saw high rises building, that is 1004. I was so happy and fascinated seeing beautiful and tall building, and I told my uncle that one day I want to be building houses.

“Eventually, I nurtured that dream, when I moved to the Island, it’s something that I have kept inside of me. After school I worked with Lagos State Government for 10 years in Ministry of Agriculture to be precised. While working at the Ministry of Agriculture I still had my eyes on real estate but where to start from is what I did not know until after my marriage, I went to pick my wife’s belongings at her house because she was living in VI to move to our house at Sangotedo, and while I was moving her things a lady worked up to me and asked, are you guys moving out? and I said yes, and she was like is the place vacant and I said I am not the owner, I will talk to my wife and she will talk to the landlord, we spoke with the landlord, and he was not ready to give it out.

“And the lady was appealing and begging that even if i can get her that house, i should get her a place. To cut the story shot, that is how I started to look for a house up and down for her and her husband. She will call, her husband will call, eventually I was able to get them a place and in three days I was paid a reasonable fee. A friend of mine, who also helped in getting the place, we were in Unilag together and by then, he was already a big player in real estate, I told him he needs to bring me into this, he told me to focus on the expatriate part of it instead of running up and down to look for place. He was specialized in expatriate real estate market.

Further, he said: “I had couple of friends working with multi national companies, I told them this is what I do now, I specializes in providing expatriates with accommodation and they were like we have some expatriates that needs accommodation, some of them were working with Chevron and mobile.

At the same time, Bank-Omotoye said: “I looked at bosses, directors, and I say to myself that is this not what I want for myself.  I wanted a much better life. So the dream with all these things put together, I said this is the part for me. That is the motivation to venture into real estate and I started developing mine gradually, at the long run, it paid off. I look back and say thank you lord.”

Recently, Bank-Omotoye, said: “I was chatting with one of my friends on how my decision to go into the real estate became the biggest and best decision and it’s profitable.”

Challenges

Bank-Omotoye is actually the only developer that sounded differently when it comes to challenges facing the real estate business. Most people in the business will always channel the challenges to government, high interest loan, omonile or high cost of building material as a result of high importation cost.

For Bank-Omotoye, real is like every other business with challenges. “I have set out my own mindset on doing real estate the way people don’t do it. Integrity, quality, credibility accountability, all these things are key because there are a lot of real estates companies. I have lost money in the real estate not because i had to because of my integrity.

According to him, “There is saying that says that a good name is worth more than gold and diamond. a lot of people don’t have integrity in this part of the world, they promised so much and they deliver little. Some people buy from you because you made certain promises. you promise them you are going to do this or do that, at the end of the day it become stories. all these things don’t just work, these are some of the things damaging the industry.

“They are unprofessional behaviors.of course there so many problems. let’s not talk about the things that are beyond our control, I am talking about the government and the environment. we might not have control over them, what about the things that are within your control. Deliver what you promise, have it in mind that people are entrusting you with their hard earned income, they have worked for this, please deliver on your promises, do more than you promised so that the client can come back.”

Bank-Omotoye has no regret of any sort for not becoming a doctor as his company Cruxstone Development & Investment Limited, a Metropolitan Real Estate Development and Management firm located at Lekki phase 1, is among the leading real estate companies in Nigeria and Africa.

Cruxstone Development & Investment Limited was established in 2016 after Bank-Omotoye dropped his white collar job with the Ministry of Agriculture to pursue his long dream. The company takes pride in its ability to identify and acquire cost-effective, high-yield luxury real estate investments. Typically, Cruxstone opportunities where it can apply its entrepreneurial expertise and strategic approach to create value for clients.

Cruxstone Development & Investment Limited achievements since established was noticeable which recently earned the company The Most Outstanding Real Estate Company by the Nigerian Real Estate & Property Awards.

According to the Executive Director of Emagez Solutions, Mr Uwabor Joshua, Cruxstone Development & Investment Limited made excellent achievements and outstanding contribution to the Nigerian Real Estate and property developers within the Nigeria real estate industry.