Ayeni Says Succession Planning Is Critical to Survival of Nigerian Businesses

Dr Akintunde Ishola Ayeni, chairman of Yemkem International, said Nigerian businesses that fail to plan succession are already on the path to collapse, as he reflected on four decades of building a traditional medicine institution.

Speaking at his office in Idimu, Lagos, Ayeni said continuity has become a core lesson from his long experience in herbal medicine, where expansion, insecurity, internal fraud and market pressure have shaped major strategic decisions.

Ayeni said his company once operated 48 branches across Nigeria, but the model became difficult to sustain after widespread trust failures and legal disputes in several locations. He added that Boko Haram attacks also forced the closure of branches in the North.

“Today, we operate mainly from Abuja,” he said.

He explained that the business responded by shifting from a consultation-heavy model to production and contract manufacturing. According to him, franchising and NAFDAC-compliant production partnerships helped reduce operational stress while keeping growth plans alive.

“This new model reduced the burden,” he said. “Ambition has not reduced. It has matured.”

Ayeni said he once projected a network of 1,000 branches by 2010, including 200 in Lagos, but said execution challenges exposed a deeper issue around character and accountability in business operations.

“You cannot be everywhere at once,” he said. “Nigeria is full of collapsed businesses not because of poor ideas, but because of poor character.”

On financing strategy, he said discipline in profit allocation helped the company survive different cycles.

“Seventy percent of profit has always gone back into the business,” he said, noting that reinvestment during the early trade fair years laid the foundation for what he described as the country’s largest herbal medicine production facility.

Ayeni traced his medical training to childhood, saying he started learning from his father at age six by observing preparation methods and sourcing ingredients from local markets. He said the knowledge transfer was practical and rigorous, and that healing outcomes, not publicity, drove the work.

He argued that weak documentation remains one of the biggest setbacks for traditional medicine in Nigeria. Ayeni said earlier generations tested and applied medicinal plants over time, but much of that knowledge was not systematically recorded.

“Our forefathers were the real doctors,” he said. “They researched, formulated, and administered.”

He recalled that public scepticism was strong when he entered the wider market in the early 1990s. One example, he said, was adapting capsule delivery for bitter herbal formulations to improve patient compliance.

“It was not chemistry,” he said. “It was technology.”

During the COVID-19 period, Ayeni said his team focused on immune-support formulations and collaborated with the Ooni of Ife on selected products, including bitter leaf capsules. He said the aim was supportive care, not replacement of emergency treatment.

“The goal was not to replace emergency medicine,” he said. “It was to strengthen the body so it could fight.”

Ayeni also called on government to invest in a national botanical garden and structured research support for medicinal plants. He warned that dependence on informal sourcing channels and ageing market suppliers puts critical knowledge and raw materials at risk.

On legacy and succession, he said his children are now involved in the business, with one combining training in pharmacy, accounting and finance, and traditional medicine studies.

“A business without continuity is already dead,” he said.

Ayeni, who said he lost his wife of 35 years a year ago, described faith as central to his resilience through personal loss and business shocks. Looking ahead, he said Nigeria has a major opportunity to build export value from traditional medicine if research, regulation and documentation are strengthened.

“Fund traditional medicine,” he said. “Support research, documentation, and export. Nigeria is sitting on a multi-billion-naira industry rooted in its own soil.”