Olorogun Michael Ibru dies at 86

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9 years ago

THE patriarch of Ibru family, Olorogun Michael Ibru, is dead.

Nigerian Tribune gathered that the business mogul died in the early hours of Tuesday, in the United States of America (USA) at the age of 86.

This was later confirmed in a statement from the family, on Tuesday.

Michael Ibru attended the famous Igbobi College, Lagos, between 1948 and 1951. After graduating from the college, he secured a job in the United African Company (now UACN), as a manager-in-training.

He resigned from the UACN group in 1956 and founded the Ibru Organisation, with the establishment of a modest trading company then called Laibru Limited. La in the name stood for Jimmy Large, the former boss in UACN who assisted him during and after he resigned from UACN, while ibru is Michael Ibru.

The companies later became one of the largest wholly indigenous business conglomerates in the West Coast of Africa.

Aside being a member of the African Development Bank President’s RoundTable of Businessmen in Africa, Olorogun Ibru was also a member of the Business Advisory Council of the International Finance Corporation (IFC).

His exploits in the field of business also afforded him opportunity to serve as council member of Lagos Chamber of Commerce and Industry and the Nigeria-United States Business Council.

He was awarded Officer of the Order of the Federal Republic (OFR) in 1981; Outstanding Businessman Award of the Nigerian American Chamber of Commerce and Industry, 1983; Honorary Doctor of Laws (Hon. LL.D.) of the University of Benin (1978) and University of Ibadan (1978), Doctor of Agriculture (Honoris Causa), University of Agriculture, Abeokuta, 2004.

Reacting to the death, Delta State governor, Senator Ifeanyi Okowa, in a statement by his Chief Press Secretary, Charles Aniagwu, said Nigeria had lost one of its foremost industrialists.

“He will be sorely missed by all and sundry whose lives he affected in many several ways. I, therefore, urge all who mourn the demise of Olorogun Ibru to take solace in the fact that his was a life of great accomplishments,” the statement read.