Dr. Mike Adenuga @ 72: Happy birthday to the guru

DR. Michael Ishola Adenuga, GCON, will be 72 years old on 29th of April. It’s been 72 years of great achievements, unrivalled philanthropy and exceptional successes. After schooling in the United States of America, Dr. Adenuga returned to Nigeria and started running a family business, which he nurtured to success in his twenties. It was after this that he shifted his focus towards others key businesses which propelled his movement into the top of the Nigeria’s league of elite businessmen From Ibadan Grammar School, in Oyo State, where he completed his secondary school, he moved to Northwestern State University, Oklahoma, in the United States for his first degree and later obtained Master’s degree in Business Administration at Pace University, New York. By early 30s, he moved into the banking industry, owning two banks, Equatorial Trust and Devcom. Next was oil and gas, with Conoil at early 40s. At his 50th birthday, the Globacom project was completed, marking his entry to the nation’s telecoms sector in 2003.

By 2001 when the Federal Government offered GSM licences to companies across the world to bid and operate, Dr Adenuga‘s Communications Investments Limited (CIL) also bided for a licence but was not successful, thus losing $20m. The company retuned later and got the bigger national carrier package which today is Globacom, the only indigenous GSM company operating in the country. By August, 2003, Globacom rolled out services in style, offering Nigerians the elusive per second billing package, thus forcing other networks to follow suit to the delight of millions of Nigerians. Other networks, which started operations about two years earlier, had claimed that “per second billing” was impossible.  Adenuga convincingly moved ahead of them with Glo providing what was said to be impossible. Globacom will be 22 by August this year. Despite rolling out its services two years after other networks had started operations, it recorded first in many areas, including championing per second billing; the first to implement 2.5 G network in Nigeria; the first to implement 3G network in Nigeria,; the first to offer 4 G LTE, first to offer Blackberry solutions in Nigeria and first to launch of submarine cable (GLO 1) which provides efficient and fast broadband internet services.

In the area of sports, Adenuga’s support is legendary. Apart from numerous sponsorships of the national team by Globacom and his personal donations, he also rewarded the Super Eagles team that won the African Cup of Nations in 2013 in South Africa with $1million. The Glo Soccer Academy which trained young footballers to kick-start their career in professional football was also established. The finalists of the academy were trained in the Dubai Soccer Academy and Manchester United Academy respectively. This is In addition to sponsorship of Golf tournaments known as Glo Golf Tour West Africa which offered millions of naira to winners. There were also different editions of the Glo Marathon with outstanding prizes for winners. Moving forward, the strength of Globacom and the massive power of its Glo 1 submarine cable were showcased in March, 2024 when Massive internet outages were reported in Nigeria and in some parts of Africa, following damage to international undersea cables supplying the country with connectivity.

The damage, according media reports, affected major undersea cables near Abidjan in Côte d’Ivoire and led to internet downtime across West and South African countries. Telecommunications companies and a number of banks in Nigeria which relied on the affected cables for internet services were affected by the outage which lasted for many days. Throughout the period, Glo 1, owned by Globacom, was not affected by the damage as data users, internet service providers and financial institutions which run on Glo 1 continued to operate normally all throughout the period. Industry analysts believe the sturdy nature and resilience of Glo 1 International Submarine Cable is the reason the damage did not affect the cable. All of these and other achievements of Globacom rest squarely on the genius of the man, Dr. Mike Adenuga. As he marks his 72nd Birthday, kudos to Dr. Adenuga for his commitment to Nigeria. He has made a bold statement that all things are possible through determination, focus and hard work. He remains an inspiration to millions of Nigerians and has continued to inspire many others.

Happy Birthday, Sir.

• Kutemi works with Telecoms Digest in Lagos

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