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Last week, Oboh was installed as the 76th president of the Royal Architectural Institute of Canada — the first black Canadian to hold the office in the institute’s 107-year history. His journey to the head of Canada’s leading architectural organization, took him from the streets of Lagos, Nigeria, where he was born, to Edmonton, where he practised for years as a design architect. His is a remarkable tale of the will to succeed, one that he hopes will inspire others to reach out for their dreams. His experience shows that no matter where you came from and whatever your circumstances, you can aim for the sky and touch it.

“I am humbled by the fact that I am the first Canadian of African descent to do this, and I would hope that I am able to inspire more people to tell themselves that they can make it,” he says. “This story says that in Canada, anything is possible.” But Oboh says what really matters is not skin colour, but what difference one makes. “What we really need to celebrate is the excellence that we bring to bear on everything that we do. Irrespective of what your background is, it is what you do, what you contribute, the initiatives that you put forward to impact people’s lives and the legacy you leave behind, that really matters,” he says.

Oboh says architecture is not just about buildings. It as a reflection of culture and history; a medium of communication that tells us about ourselves as a people and a society – where we’ve come from, how we’ve done across the ages, and how our values have changed along the way. And one of his major tasks is to make Canadians understand the importance of architectural excellence, and help convince government to commit more resources to it.