…He left us a good name, says son
Founder and late Chairman of Lanre Shittu Motors (LSM), Alhaji Olanrewaju Shittu, has been conferred with a Nigerian auto industry posthumous award.
This was announced in Lagos at the 2024 edition of the annual Nigeria Auto Journalists Association (NAJA) held recently at Oriental Hotel, Victoria Island.
It was received by one of his sons, Mr Taiwo Shittu, who is also the managing director of the auto company.
NAJA said the award was in acknowledgement of the leading role of the LSM founder in the development of the automotive business in Nigeria, describing him as a silent achiever.
Speaking on the memorable honour, Taiwo Shittu, who was also declared the Nigeria’s Auto Personality of the Year, praised his father for painstakingly building the LSM brand and leaving behind a good name to the delight of the children and the entire family members.
He described this as a legacy accounting for the success of the company so far since his father’s demise over a year ago.
He said, “I must thank my late father, Alhaji Razaq Olanrewaju Shittu, for building the brand name. There is nothing like a good name.
“If you don’t leave anything for your children other than a good name, the sky is the limit for them.
“In our own case, he left us money and the good name. We can’t thank him enough for leaving us with a good name.
“You can imagine that everywhere we turn to in the country, once we mention we are Lanre Shittu’s sons, we are ushered in immediately.
“People would say ‘Your father was a good man. He won’t cheat you if you did any business with him. His word was his bond; he never broke his promises’. I have heard this many times. And the only thing we can do is to build on this legacy.”
Taiwo Shittu also noted that the unity existing among the 20 surviving children of the late LSM founder was part of his father’s legacies and something for other family businesses in Nigeria to emulate.
He said, “A lot of businesses collapse after the death of their owners. Once a business founder is dead, the next you hear is that a fight has broken out and while one person is taking the arm, another is claiming the leg, the other is going for the body. And in six months, the whole empire is gone down.
“In our case, we have 20 siblings that are cooperative and believe in my ability to lead the business with my other brothers.
“We had a father who never spoiled us. He taught us sincerity, commitment and accountability.”
He also spoke about the lifestyle of the late father, saying even though he was a car dealer and loved cars, he would only change his main car after every 10 years.
“Yes, he loved cars. He used to have a Rolls Royce. But he no longer had it before he died. What he had was a Mercedes-Benz Maybach. His car garage was not packed full. Even though he was a car dealer, he changed his main car every 10 years.
“He was a very prudent man. At the beginning of his adult life, he had many cars; in the middle, he was prudent. It was at the end that he bought some flashy cars such as Lexus L600, MayBach 650 engine – at that time only he and ex-President Muhammadu Buhari had that car. He bought the car then because the family was preparing for three weddings. By time he died, the MayBach had only run 600 miles.”
The LSM chairman, according to him, started the auto business in the late 1970s as a car dealer with three vehicles.
He said he was so creditworthy that many were willing to release their vehicles to him on credit, adding that this helped the business to grow faster.
He recalled how he would travel to Ogbomosho, Oyo State, and Kaduna to buy cars and returned to Lagos with double the number he could readily paid for.
“Sometimes, he would travel as far as Kaduna to buy 12 cars from PAN, he would be the person driving the last vehicle while others were ahead driving all the way to Lagos,” he stated.
Before delving into automobile assembling, he also recalled that Daewoo and Rolls Royce were the two brands that gave the LSM a real breakthrough.
