Corporate Ilupeju: ‘God Wanted Us Here,’ Says Goodmus Learning Centre

At Goodmus Learning Centre, we provide immigration consultancy and guide people through the process of migrating from Nigeria to any country of their choice legally. – Adekunle Badmus.

Give us a little background on how it all started.

My name is Ambassador Adekunle Badmus and I am the CEO of Goodmus Learning Centre. Goodmus Learning Centre is a 6-year-strong academy where we train students on all external exams such as SAT Scholarship Aptitude test, GRE, GMAT, IELTS, TOEFL, PTE, and YOS exams.

We run tutorials, register the students and use their exams and credentials to help them get admission and scholarships.

It started 15 years when I met Mrs. Michelle Okon, an American who came to my office then where I worked as the technical manager at GRA, Ikeja.

She came to our office to start an after school programme and along the line, I gave her an idea to run an IBT (internet-based test) and she agreed.

That’s how we started our first centre called “First New Generation” and I worked with her for about seven years before starting Goodmus Learning Centre in 2013. We have helped a lot of people travel to the United States, Canada, UK, Germany, Europe, and Asia.

Why did you go for this out of many other professions?

I think it’s basically about destiny and passion. I have always loved to help people get from where they are to where they ought to be, and in every field I find myself, I always want to do my best.

The ICT background I have has actually helped me in this business because ICT drives everything. You can barely work in any office without the internet.

We can’t work at this centre, work admission or do VISA processing without the internet. I derive much joy from doing this because when students come and you put them through a particular exam, they scale through, you get them the admission, process and get their visas and their parents are excited, it makes me fulfilled.

I see this as a ministry and not a business. Some of our students are now engineers with some of them even working with Microsoft and Facebook.

That gives me so much joy. I believe life is all about contributing positively to humanity regardless of your field.

Why did you choose Ilupeju and are there other branches?

Ilupeju is a strategic place. And then I will say God just wanted us to be here because we started here by sharing an office with Dr. Oyedokun, the chairman of the Institute of Information Management (IIM) Africa, and from there, we saw an opening up here in 2014 and we took it.

Ilupeju is a good area and we’ve been here since 2013. As we speak, we have offices in Abuja, Ondo, Oyo and Osun states. We also have offices in other African countries and in Turkey.

What is your vision for this company?

I have a concern about our educational sector. No nation develops because of gadgets but because of developed minds. So if our students are not developed, how would they be able to develop our country?

So, the vision of our learning centre is to have a big learning camp called “Goodmus Learning Camp,” which will be in every tertiary institution in the world and people can learn anything.

We want to show to the world that nobody is useless. Not everyone would be sound in academics, some may be good at dancing and other vocations. And we are looking forward to it happening very soon.

Then, I want to start something soon and that is duplicating myself in 5000 individuals in Africa for free. This may start in 2021 and what I would be doing id holding seminars, teaching people and mentoring them to become travel-prenuers.

What are the challenges you faced while starting this business and the ones you are still facing?

One major challenge we faced while starting was naivety. Because I was trained by an American, I was naïve and believed people a lot. So I was duped to the tune of over 50 million naira.

But because of my integrity and credibility, I was able to manage it. That taught me a lot of lessons to be smarter and not easily trust people who come to sell ideas or products to me.

Some bad people would come to use your platform and credibility to dupe others and drag you into the mud.

Now, the current challenge we are facing is awareness. We’ve been coming up with different strategies on how to take the awareness to the public.

That’s why I have been having meetings with our branches alongside our brand ambassador in the name of Film producer, director and actor Ayo Badmus.

Another challenge we are having is human resources and having competent hands. We are coping with the challenges though and we are trying to get more quality people to be part of the project. I was getting worried about the youths and the state of education in Nigeria.

So when Ayo Badmus came up with the idea, I liked it and later on, I committed to it fully. And we have been doing a lot of awareness on social media, radios, TVs and other channels.

What has given you the competitive advantage over other similar businesses?

We are different from others because we see this job as God’s work and not just our work. Another advantage is that in the whole of Africa, we are the number one company recruiting massively to government-owned universities in Turkey.

This year alone, we took over 200 students to Turkey and they are still there learning. This is because our passion to give good quality and affordable education to students drove us to discover Turkey. We have other people all over Africa and Europe telling us they would like to recruit people for us.

So, 90 percent of tuition scholarship is our brand; we created it and started it in conjunction with the educational bilateral agreement between the African government and the Turkish government.

What current project are you working on now?

Turkey is our new project now and we have many students going there to school at 90 percent tuition scholarship and the seller there is the low tuition. People pay as low as 100, 200, or 500 dollars a year in some government universities.

There is an exam coming up from January 20, 2020 and apart from the fact that the school fees are subsidized, the coordinating universities say that any student that scores the best would get tuition and meals waver.

And we at Goodmus would give full scholarships to the best students from the visa stage till the completion of their course.

And even after their graduation, we would further process the student for a post-graduate programme whether in the US, UK, Canada or Germany.

Other schools would be coming to coordinate between January to August where the best student would get tuition and meal wavers. And it only cost one hundred and forty thousand naira (#140,000) which covers tutorial, study pack and exam fee.

Are you into any partnership with corporate bodies or governments?

Yes. We have a partnership with different schools abroad. We have schools in the United States, Canada, UK, and Europe that we are partnering with and our major contract now is with the Turkish Government universities.

We have deals with over 100 universities in Turkey. In Nigeria, we partner with agents who share in our license. One of them is U Fit Fly; they share in our license to recruit students to Turkey. Anyone you see recruiting students to Turkey under the 90 percent off tuition scholarship is under us.

Is your company involved in any corporate social responsibility scheme?

We feed widows every week. We now have about 15 widows on our lists now and we are still adding to the list. Matthew 25:31 inspires that.

Any awards from governments or corporate bodies?

We have a lot of awards. United Nations gave me an ambassadorial award. I have an award of hero in studying abroad and many others.

How do you unwind and combine family with work?

Understanding and effective communication are needed. My wife and kids understand the nature of my job and my wife is even in the business too.

She manages the Lagos and Turkey branches. They know my movement per second and we communicate. Then whenever we are together, I spend quality time with them. Wisdom is profitable to direct.