Founder of the prestigious Onitsha Business School and the initiator of Onitsha City Marathon, Professor Olusegun Sogbesan will be among the outstanding individuals to be honored at the upcoming Anambra Man of the year award. Professor Segun will bag a lifetime Achievement award alongside the Doyen of paediatrics in Nigeria, Professor Ifeoma Egbuonu, Nigeria’s Breweries number distributor in west Africa, Ichie Ken Maduakor, National President, Poultry Association of Nigeria,Ichie Sunday Ezeobiora and numerous others.
Professor Olusegun Sogbesan who was born in Ogun state relocated to Adazi-Ani, a town in the then Anambra State in 1991. In 1992, after his National Youth Service programme, he stayed back in Anambra owing to the fact that he wanted to empower the traders with the right information based on the gaps he identified from his many interactions with them.
Thus, he developed an academic program tailored towards business which provides a young Igbo apprentice that has completed Imu-Afia training with choices. Prof Segun believed that with the right exposure, information and training, these traders will live up to their highest potentials. Consequently, he established the Onitsha Business school, the first business school in Anambra.
The goal of this school was basically to empower traders with the right skills and tools for the 21st century. It should be emphasized that, Prof Olusegun Sogbesan spent his entire adult life in the east. Spending over 28 years in Onitsha, it is no surprise that he’s very fluent in the Igbo language. Interestingly, he has also delivered lectures in Igbo.
Today, OBS has birthed the Onitsha City Marathon, OCM; Onitsha City Board Games; the City Speller Bees competition – Oka Nsupe Igbo, among others. Professor Sogbesan was the first yam exporter from Anambra State, but he lost the battle of sustainability to the State Government.
In 2019, he came up with the idea of a marathon, to lift Onitsha from that ever paradigm shift of only trading, especially now that the city is bubbling with many able-bodied youths, who have the potential of becoming world-class athletes and breadwinners. The Onitsha City Marathon, OCM, got calibrated by the Association of International Marathon Racers and World Athletics, formerly IAAF, with a license to operate for five years. History made him the very first person to attract more than 30 foreign athletes to Anambra State since 1991. The unfortunate COVID-19 experience put on hold the 2020 and 2021 editions.
Today, the Onitsha City Marathon is on the athletics road map again with some innovations yet to behold in Anambra. Professor Olusegun Sogbesan is married to an Enugwu-Ukwu lady, Mrs. Gloria Chinwe Sogbesan, and they are blessed with four children.
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