Grace to grass: Former PR manager becomes wretched, turns drinks vendor

It is indeed a case of falling from ‘grace to grass’ as a 63-year-old Nathaniel Iyanda, who after many years as public relations officer and advert executive for various top organizations ended up as drinks vendor.
Iyanda was one of the pioneer members of the Board of Advertisers Association of Nigeria. He once served as Public Relations/Advertising Manager of the now rested Texaco Nigeria Plc (now MRS Plc) until May 1997.
History has it that Iyanda remains the only one who directed the first-ever country-wide public education campaign on the usage of engine oil, which was jointly sponsored by Agip, AP, ELF, Mobil, National, Texaco, Total and Unipetrol.
Those close to the once revered man said during his halcyon days, he occupied a one-wing duplex in FESTAC Town, Lagos.
Until his exit from Texaco, Iyanda was the chairman of a major oil marketers’ public relations committee.
When he eventually retired from active service, the former PR guru relocated to Ibafo, a community on the Lagos/Ibadan Expressway where he’s currently struggling with life.
After he was paid off, life became miserable for him, he started facing dwindling fortunes.
A recent visit to Iyanda shows that he’s indeed living on past glory as he now earns a living by supplying beverages to restaurants around the community.
Recalling his journey with nostalgia, Iyanda said, “I started working at a young age. After leaving secondary school, I sat for the London CAM Diploma examination in public relations, advertising and marketing. At 23 years, I was working with the Marketing Research Department of the United African Company. That was between1969 and 1975. After that, I moved to the defunct Texaco, where I spent over 20 years.
“I left Texaco in 1997. The company was downsizing at the time. Actually, what happened was this: the company wanted to let go some senior executives, but it found itself in a dilemma. So, the management came up with this idea of retiring everyone who had worked in the company for over 15 years. That was how I left the company. Many good hands left at the time,” Iyanda recalled.
“I invested about N1.5m in stocks and another N1m in fixed deposits. Although a public relations consulting wasn’t really an accepted practice at the time, I was fortunate to be a guest speaker on the subject at several events. I was even retained by Texaco as an external PR consultant.
“The string of misfortunes began when my contract with Texaco was discontinued. Even as an external consultant, the Managing Director still felt threatened by me and so, I left. After that, I went into multiple streams of businesses; at a time trading in calcium, a raw material used for paints. Then I moved into the sale of beans and maize.
“The calcium trade is uncertain because your profit is dependent on those who pulverize the calcium. If you own a pulverizing machine, then it is much more profitable. My partner, who owned such a machine packed up; as if that was not enough, I was defrauded of N300,000.
“It was tough trying to break into the beans trade. I have discovered that there is a cabal in charge of everything in this country and once you are not a member, you are eventually frustrated out. By 2002, I had hit rock bottom.”
Amazingly, when life had become miserable for him, his wife eventually became pregnant after 27 years of no child.
“We had been married for 27 years before my wife got pregnant. It was not easy waiting all the while, but my parents and my in-laws were staunch Christians. So, they stood by us. In 2003, my wife was delivered of a baby boy. By then, I was broke and had no money. My stocks had been made useless by the crash in the stock market and the fixed deposit account I had was gone because the bank in which the money was saved, failed. My wife and son were in Ibadan at the time. So, after discussing with her, we decided to sell our home in FESTAC town and move to another place,” Iyanda said.
He said that he took the income from the sale and moved to Ibafo, bought a parcel of land and began to build a small house.
But unfortunate, the building contractor allegedly duped him of a huge sum of money, leaving him with nothing.
He recalled, “The plan was to build a small house and start another business with whatever was left, but the building contractor cleaned me out. The news went round the Ibafo community. By the time this house was completed, there was nothing left.
“As God would have it, while we were still in FESTAC Town, my wife had converted our garage into some kind of store where we sold drinks. So, she suggested that we go into that line of business. That was how we went into partnership with a lady friend at Agege, who is a major distributor of soft drinks. We have been doing that for seven years now but all we get from it is just enough to go by every day. I finally have a child but there is no money to adequately take care of him. Things are so bad that paying school fees is really difficult. Yet, I cannot give him up because we have waited for a child for so long,” Iyanda lamented.
He regretted that after falling from ‘Olympian Heights, his friends and all former colleagues have abandoned him. But he believes that God’s time is the best, adding that God will surely bring back his glory.
The question now is, when will the man who once ate at the table of great men regain his lost glory? Until succour comes his way, Iyanda will continue to live from hand to mouth with his family as a vendor in Ibafo.
DailyPost