Nobel Laureate, Professor Wole Soyinka was the special guest to review Chief Keith Richards’ latest book, “Never Quite the Insider: a Nigerian Memoir” in Lagos on Thursday, 17 October, 2019.
The event brought together the business, media and literary/arts community at the Terra Kulture, on Tiamiyu Salvage street, Victoria Island, Lagos, by 10am.
The book, described by the author as ‘his love affairs with Nigeria”, is partly a memoir, a travelogue and his management practice in corporate Nigeria.
The book touches on difficult and sensitive issues including “corruption, ethnicity, multi-nationals’ complacency, and whether white men should wear traditional dress.”
“Twenty years of running multiple businesses in Nigeria qualifies me to write an instructive memoir…., I believe I have insights that have value. I should be able to throw in some humour and willingness to tackle controversial subjects of an unusual account of this misunderstood society and my love affair with it,” the author said.
From 2005 to 2007, Richard wrote a weekly column for the Nigerian BusinessDay newspaper called “Outsider Inside”. The columns were a mixture of business, social comment, humour and inevitably, politics.
His career has spanned over thirty years of involvement in developing markets, especially Africa. A former Managing Director of Promasidor Nigeria Limited, he had also been Managing Director of Guinness Nigeria Plc and of International Equitable Association, IEA.
In recognition of his work with communities he has several Chieftaincy titles and is a fellow of Lagos State Polytechnic.
Richards, a member of the Order of British Empire, OBE, also served on the Boards of several industry groups, some of which include The Nigerian Economic Summit Group, The Advisory Panel of the Businessday Newspaper (where he has been a columnist) and the Development Board of Pan African University/ Lagos Business School.
