How We Changed The Look Of ISLAND Club

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• Chairman, Omooba ROTIMI MARTINS Tells City People

Omooba Rotimi Olasode-Martins, the Chairman of Island Club is in a happy mood right  now. So also all members of his team. This is because of the massive transformation that the club has witnessed in less than 2 years.

Today, the club wears a new look. Since he took over as Chairman in May 2024, Omooba Rotimi Martins has given the premises of the prestigeous club not only a face lift but an infrastructural upgrade.

He has also done a lot to change the way the company is being run. Going by the Financial Statement Report for the Half Year, ended 30th June 2025, Rotimi Martins and his team have put the Island Club on the path of Growth. He has also run the club profitably well with all the indicators pointing in the right direction, highlighting the clubs strengthened financial position and prudent resource management.

Last Thursday, City People Publisher SEYE KEHINDE spent some time at the club and spoke to the Chairman during which he revealed how he reshaped the Island Club.

Below are excerpts.

Can you tell us about your experience so far in running the Island Club?

My experience so far running Island Club has been nice. As you are all aware, the Island Club is the premier social club of Nigeria founded in 1943. I am the 34th Chairman to run the Island Club.

We came into office on the 18th of May, 2024, and since then, we’ve been in charge of the day-to-day running of the Island Club. My experience generally is that, when we came into office, we came in green.

But, thank God that I was once a Vice Chairman in this club. And I’ve seen all the developments, all the style and operation of the club. So even though, like I say, some of my management committee members are green, but coming in with that experience, we hit the ground running. And since then, we’ve been moving from one step to another, by building an Island Club for the future.

I remember at the initial stage, you made some promises of the things you were going to do, how you were going to turn around the club.

And that’s when you first talked about the infrastructural upgrade of the club. How far have you gone with that?

When I was campaigning in 2024, as you just rightly mentioned, I had a five-point agenda. And the five-point agenda broken down into one, provide efficient power supply to our club.

Two, members’ engagement. Three, infrastructural development. Because, you know, that time, you can see that the infrastructure of Island Club, a club of 80-something years, and what we’ve been doing is not that much over the years.

So it has really boosted us. And when I came into office, we started mainly with the infrastructural development. And today, you can see the difference from what we did from 2024, when we took off, and where we are today.

We have brand new members coming in, the younger generation. Majority of the members here are old men in their 80s. And what we are doing now is that members that we are bringing in are younger ones that will have an handshake with these old members, so that they can come in, learn from the old ones, what they want to know about Island Club and then they take it up from there.

So what we are doing is that we are putting emphasis on members coming in, that ranges from the age of 35 to 55.

So 80% of the members that we are bringing in now are young members that we know will come and use the club, because by the time people come to use the club, that is why you have patronage, that is when they will run the bar, that is when you will run your kitchen. And from these, they will generate funds to run the club.

Apart from the infrastructural renewal, what have you done to other aspects of the club like the kitchen?

The kitchen is part of the infrastructure because when members come to their club, and they get good food, they will come all the time. We have two caterers now that are running the club.

We are employing the third one in the next one or two weeks. So at least there are varieties of food at the Island Club, so that we don’t need to bring in external caterers when we are having occasions and they are having our hosting in the Island Club.

We want to have a kitchen that will cater for the members of the Island Club. As of today, when you look at the nomenclature, our membership has grown to 8,057, both living and dead members. 8-0-5-7.

Actively, we have less than 1,500. Out of the 1,500, almost 720 of them are members that have stayed in the club for 30 years and that have attained 70 years of age, and they don’t pay subscription anymore because they have paid their dues.

So they don’t pay subscription anymore. Then the young ones that are in the threshold of less than 30 years in the club, less than 70 years of age, are the ones that are running the club. So what we did when we came was that we increased the subscription from 50,000 to 150,000.

And when members see the infrastructural development, you won’t need to ask them to pay their subscription. Willingly they will pay. And I’ll tell you something which I want you to look at.

If you look at the trajectory of the accounts of Island Club, you will see that we have built our base from something close to Zero to almost 1.2 billion today through Prudent management. And next, what we do is that we run the club, change the Corporate governance, strengthen it.

And then that’s what we’ll be doing. And everything has been going on fine.

I also noticed that when you came in, you had to improve on the visibility of the club executives like you.

In terms of you going for events, going for functions, and then you carried the club. You and the members of the management committee, you became very visible. I don’t know if that has helped a great deal.

Yes, I am a socialite. A socialite will always be a socialite. Island Club is not a Tennis Club.

It’s a social club. And when you are out there, you need to project your club in the public space so that they know this is what is happening in Island Club. When you go out there and ask people about the Island Club, they think it’s one 1930 old men’s club.

No. We have members from all different ages, age brackets. So we have them there.

And we try to be visible out there. And how are we visible? Through Social media. We created our website, populate it, put members on WhatsApp groups and we communicate with ourselves.

So many things. Our reporting is online. And when people see you all the time, they remember you.

But when they don’t see you at all, nobody remembers you.

What message do you want to pass on to members of the club as you move close to elections?

Well, there’s a message I want to pass to all the members of the Island Club. It is that this club belongs to all of us.

If we spoil it today, how do we repair it tomorrow? We should continue to come together in harmony, build a vibrant Island Club for our children’s children to bequeath to our children’s children, going forward.

Are members of the Management Committee contesting in the forthcoming elections?

Yes. Well, whatever thing that affects the Chairman affects the members. In this election that we are talking about, I am running.

The General Secretary is running. The Treasurer is running. The Assistant General Secretary is running.

The Social Secretary is running. The Assistant Social is running. Seven members of my management committee are coming back.

So it’s a full house.

I know how extensive your work schedule is. It must have taken some things away from you in terms of your time.

How do you cope?

If you’ve love something, you want to give it your best. Yes, I’m doing my business. I still find little time for pleasure.

But mostly, whatever thing I do, it is Island Club first. And that has helped me to achieve this.

Tell us about the issue of the Constitution. Is it being reviewed?

Let me tell you about the Constitution.

For 13 years, every administration that comes in will make a Constitution. The constitutions are operational, they are not registered. As we say today, the only registered Constitution for Island Club that is registered in the Corporate Affairs Commission under CAMA is the 2012 Constitution.

But today, when we came into office, we now looked at the six constitutions that we met. We now gave it to a committee to sit, harmonise all these six constitutions and give us a working constitution.

The first route we should take was to take that Constitution to the management committee, then to the AGM for ratification. But we didn’t do that because it’s supposed to be a Constitution for the members of the club. We arranged something we call a Town hall meeting where we brought in all members of the club to look at the Constitution because it’s going to guide them.

Let us see what the rule says about A, B, C, D, E, which one is tenable, which one is not tenable. And at the end of the Town hall meeting, we took it to the management committee, from there to the AGM, and we passed the new Constitution on the 19th of November 2025.

So, since November, the new constitution has been guiding the club?

No. The new constitution is operational because it has not been registered under the Computer Affairs Commission Act.

Because you can have a Constitution within yourself, but government does not recognize that Constitution until it is registered. So that’s the process we are on now, to register that Constitution, to replace, and that will repeat the 2022 constitution, and then we’ll have a brand new constitution going forward.

I have been around the club, and I’ve seen a lot of changes, even from the last time I was here.

I mean, how were you able to go about all this construction?  Going about the infrastructural renewal, what we first did was to set up a fund. I call it IRF, Infrastructural Renewal Fund. And I started the fund, by donating N5 million to that fund and at the end of the day, we were able to get over 100 million naira from donations from members.

And some members say, okay, what are the things you want to do? I’ll take care of this, I’ll take care of this, I’ll take care of that. And that is why you see the development in our club. We’ve done so much in about less than two years.

Today, what we have in deposit is in excess of 400 million in savings. And that’s the money we put in the money market. And the interest on that money, we use it to pay salaries, run our generator, pay the security company, pay cleaners, and all of our overhead is on that.

And we still have our money in the bank. It’s Corporate governance, and that’s what we’ve been doing, and that’s why we are able to achieve so much within a little time.

When is the election of the Island Club?

The election of Island Club is supposed to come up on the 24th of April. That is long enough for us to be able to wind up the activities of our administration.

But there has been a lot of issues on that Constitution. There has been the question: which Constitution are we going to use for the election. We set up an Electoral Committee, which started its work. And in their own way, they agreed that the only tenable Constitution is the 2012 Constitution.

And the 2012 Constitution allows management committee to run for three years. But the new Constitution of 2025 allows Management committee to run for two years. But in that Constitution of 2025, it says: that all members and officers of the management committee are eligible for the election, provided that no officer or member of the management committee can be eligible for election if he has served for a period of two years. Served is the word. So before we can be said to have served, it’s on the 30th of May, by the time the two years lapse. It will be after then that we cannot serve.

But the election process started in January. So if I still have four months before I finish my service. You can’t tell me that I cannot contest the election. So those are the intrigues that they are talking about the election.

But the election is supposed to hold on the 24th of April this year.

But because of different opposition here and there, people bringing in petitions and making noise, the board of trustees met yesterday because they got the petition also.

And they looked at the petition, it said okay, to avert any future crisis, because whatever thing they are doing is to advise the committee that is in charge of running the Island Club is the management committee of which I am the Chairman.

They said okay, to avert all this constitutional issue, why don’t we step down everything we are doing. Let us register the 2025 Constitution. And then we’ll use it to process our election.

So the advice came yesterday. They met yesterday. And fortunately yesterday was our own management committee meeting. And it was ratified by the management committee.

Okay, let us go and register the Constitution. After registering the constitution, we will now set up the Electoral Committee, set up all the arms and whatever thing we need to do. And then we’ll just run the election.

Does it mean the election will wait until the registration of the 2025 Constitution?

As of today, the election is to be held on the 24th of April. We have put in for the registration of the Constitution. It stipulates that we need to do adverts for 28 days, starting now.

And I think if we do that now, we should be able to get it before the election.

Looking at the work done since you came in, would you say that there are still some areas you haven’t completed in terms of projects that still need to be done?

Yes. No management committee can finish all the work. We will continue to rebuild.

When we came in we needed to take care of so many areas. Corporate governance and Rules. When we came into office, we had 11 Trustees that were not registered.

And this has been on in the last 13 years. We could not register our Trustees, because the last Trustee refused to sign for the new Trustee.

So we had to go start from getting the death certificate of these old five initial trustees, get their death certificate, then file at the CAC, go through a lot of stress. But at the end of the day, we were able to register the current Trustee.