Amebo of the week: How Baba Ijebu Lotto started

Premier Lotto Limited (PLL) also known as Baba Ijebu is a Gaming Company which was incorporated in 2001 and was established to carry out the Lotto business in Nigeria. The founder and current Chief Executing Officer of the company is Chief Kessington Adebukunola Adebutu.

The name Premier Lotto might not immediately ring a bell to the ears of an average Nigerian but the soubriquet 'Baba Ijebu' does. This is the intriguing story of Chief Kessington Adebutu whom many people know simply as Baba Ijebu. He is the Chairman of Premier Lotto Limited. He is also the founder of Kessington Adebukola Adebutu Foundation. A philanthropist to the core who started life as a game man in the early 1960s.

His graceful ageing face appears in virtually every dailies you come across today as colleagues,

business partners and friends took out time to celebrate his 78th birthday in the media today.

Adebutu who many believed have been in the gaming business all his life started operating as a pool agent as far back as 1963.Lotto is not the only game business he runs, there are other ones like casino and pool.

According to him,  "Having no capital, I looked for a business that required little or no capital and what came to my mind was to be a pool agent, because to be a pool agent, what you just need is to get a table and your pen. So, you can see it is not capital intensive. I did that briefly and within a short time with my best friend, the late Chief Solomon Adebayo Ayoku, we dominated Africa. We then diversified to other areas like agriculture, manufacturing, estate management, the lotto, entertainment and so on. Today, I have the concession for the Gateway Hotels Abeokuta for 25 years."

But why the name "Baba Ijebu"?Hear him..."It’s not my making. It’s not the name given to me by my father. It’s a nickname from the public and our satisfied customers and of course I am from the Ijebu province, maybe that explains it better.