Business

Mike Adenuga, the bull with a heart of gold, hits platinum

As Dr Mike Adenuga, GCON, celebrates his 70th birthday this week, SULAIMON OLANREWAJU looks at the trajectory of this unique businessman who gets a kick out of giving others a wing.

IT is not for nothing that Dr Mike Adenuga is called ‘The Bull’ by his associates, he is indeed a bull. This is because he is courageous, clever, calculative, creative and consistent. He combines these attributes with the vision of an eagle, the speed of a cheetah, the precision of a hawk and the patience of a vulture. Thus, he is gifted with the skill to identify opportunities, the tenacity to develop them and the capacity to appropriate same. These qualities have worked for him, propelling him to the pinnacle of critical sectors of the economy such as telecommunications, oil and gas, banking, real estate, construction and hospitality. Today, with a vast business empire, Adenuga is a source of inspiration for many budding entrepreneurs across the globe.

But Adenuga didn’t wake up to find himself at the top. He was neither born into wealth nor raised in affluence. Rather, he had to climb the stairs to the top through a dint of hard work and a dose of luck.

After his university education in the United States of America and his return to Nigeria, Adenuga resolved to go into business. He started with the distribution of clothing materials and carbonated drinks. Fortune smiled on him early and by 1979, when he was barely 26 years of age, he had already made his first million. But his big break didn’t come until ten years later in 1989. That was when the administration of General Ibrahim Babangida decided to grant Nigerian entrepreneurs licences to prospect for oil with a view to encouraging indigenous participation in the critical sector. Dr Adenuga was one of the 11 beneficiaries of the gesture. But unlike some of those awarded the licence who opted to sell same while others developed cold feet, Adenuga deployed his resources and trudged headlong into the project. After a while, his company, Consolidated Oil Limited, struck oil in 1991. Thus, the company emerged the first among those awarded licences to bring to reality the expectation of the government.

Apart from the fortune and fame that oil prospecting has conferred on him, his pioneering effort in the field gave fillip to others to toe his path with the effect that today, the country is the better for it as it is no longer solely dependent on International Oil Companies (IOCs) because there are many thriving indigenous companies in the sector. Currently, Conoil Plc, (as Consolidated Oil is now known), is one of the largest and most profitable oil marketing companies in Nigeria.

But if Adenuga’s venture in the oil and gas industry is inspiring, his adventure in the telecommunications is even more so; it is a stuff of which legends are made.

After the transition to democratic rule in 1999, the new government sought to deepen the country’s telephone density and advertised to sell four Global System for Mobile Communications (GSM) licences to operators through the auction system in 2001. Adenuga’s company, Communications Investment Limited (CIL), paid the required initial deposit of $20 million and got a conditional licence which was later revoked, thus he forfeited the deposit. But he was undaunted. Two years later, Globacom, another company owned by him, was awarded the Second National Carrier Licence.

Globacom’s entry into the telecoms industry on August 29, 2003 was the game changer Nigerians had long awaited as tariffs tumbled following the introduction of the per second billing system which other networks had said was not possible at that time. Globacom was also responsible for the crash of the price of SIM card from the prohibitive N25,000 or more, which other networks were charging, to less than N1,000. Thus, for the first time in the nation’s history, low income people had access to telephone. Ordinarily, these feats should have sufficed as the company’s unique selling proposition given the pull they had for subscribers, but Glo was out to make an unequivocal statement that it was (and still is) passionate about customer satisfaction. So, it also introduced the 2.5G technology, which offered GPRS with services such as multimedia messaging, mobile banking, mobile internet and BlackBerry, among other services that were hitherto not available in the country as other telecoms companies had operated on the 2G technology.

Then, in 2008, Glo launched the third generation technology (3G Plus), thus scoring another first, as the pioneer of this technology which supports video calling, high speed internet (HSI), mobile TV and video not only in Nigeria but in the whole of the West African sub-region. This has since been upgraded to the 4G technology.

In 2011, Globacom became the first single telecommunication company in the world to own its international submarine cable when it unveiled Glo 1, the 9,800 km-long submarine cable with a minimum capacity of 2.5 Tbit/s. Glo 1, which enables direct connectivity between West Africa, and the rest of the world, has landing points in Lagos in Nigeria, Accra in Ghana, Senegal, Nouakchott in Mauritania, Casablanca in Morocco, Bude in England and Vigo in Spain, among others. Recently, Glo signed a partnership agreement with an Israeli network equipment supplier, Ceragon Network, to improve its service in rural areas and also increase broadband access to the latest 5G network.

Currently, Globacom, which started two years after other networks, has over 55 million subscribers in Nigeria and is a major player in a number of other West African countries.

However, Adenuga’s life does not just revolve around mining gold; he is a man with a heart of gold. Probably what he loves more than identifying money-spinning businesses is using his means to resolve societal problems and putting smiles on people’s faces.

In March 2020, when COVID-19 was raging and spreading across the country, Mike Adenuga Foundation, the body that coordinates his philanthropic endeavours, donated N500 million to the Lagos State Government and N1 billion to the Federal Government to support efforts to curtail the scourge. Recently, he reached out to former football star, Peter fregene, who has been bedridden for a number of years. He undertook the upgrading of Fregene’s residence and put him on a good monthly allowance to meet the needs of his family. Such interventions happen almost on a weekly basis. For Adenuga, benevolence is a culture.

Through Globacom, he has supported Nigeria’s entertainment industry to the hilt and improved the lot of many entertainers. The company has the longest list of brand ambassadors in the country.

Adenuga has been a major pillar of support for football in Nigeria and Africa. At a point, Globacom sponsored the Nigerian league and paid the salary of the Super Eagles Technical Adviser, Berti Vogts, between 2007 and 2008. According to a former Minister of Sports, Bala Ka’Oje, Globacom expended over N3 billion to sponsor the Nigeria Football Federation (NFF) and the then Nigeria Premier League (NPL) during his tenure as minister. Globacom also sponsored the premier league in Ghana. It has also transformed the annual CAF Awards and made it the most glamorous and prestigious sports event on the continent.

A major supporter of African culture, Globacom has consistently sponsored the annual Ojude Oba Festival in Ijebu Ode. It has also sponsored the Ofala Festival in Onitsha, Lishabi Day in Abeokuta, the Puuskaat Festival in Mwangu, Plateau State; the Benin Great GSM Village Festival and a host of others. Adenuga also collaborated with the French Government to build the Alliance Francaise, a French Cultural Centre in Ikoyi, Lagos. Globacom also supported the Wole Soyinka Prize for Literature for a number of years.

But perhaps the greatest strength of this billionaire is his humility. C.S. Lewis, novelist and poet, says humility is not thinking less of yourself, it is thinking of yourself less. Similarly, Rick Warren, an accomplished author, says humility is not denying your strengths; it is being honest about your weaknesses.

Humility is respecting the other person irrespective of his status, tribe or stature. It is being considerate about others’ feelings even when they have no power over you. It is treating others as you would want to be treated were the roles to be reversed. Because he thinks of himself less, Adenuga puts others first. His focus is doing that which is right; his activities are geared towards empowering and enabling others; his thoughts are targeted at giving wings to others’ dreams. This is why he always pulls out all the stops to help those in need.

On a personal note, for over eight years, this reporter has received a personally signed Christmas card from Dr Mike Adenuga. In addition, each time I wrote anything about him, there was always a letter acknowledging it.

According to Professor Jim Collins, author of Good to Great, every company that transited from being good to becoming great must have had the good fortune of being led by someone who combined unﬂagging humility with unwavering competence. That is the story of Conoil. That is the story of Globacom. That is the story of Dr Mike Adenuga, the man who gets his joy from empowering others.

A well-decorated man, Adenuga holds Nigeria’s second highest title of Grand Commander of the Order of Niger (GCON). Before being conferred with the GCON, which is the highest individual honour for a private citizen in Nigeria, he had earlier been awarded at different times, the Officer of the Order of the Niger (OON) and the Commander of the Order of the Niger (CON). In 2017, he was conferred with The Companion of the Star of Ghana, the highest national award in Ghana. That same year, he bagged the award of the “Chevalier la Legion d’Honneur”. In July 2018, the French President, Emmanuel Macron, elevated him to ‘Commander of the Legion of Honour’, France’s highest national honour. Adenuga is probably the only African holding the highest national honour in three different countries.

Dr Adenuga is the Otunba Apesin of Ijebuland. He also holds honorary doctorate degrees of the University of Ibadan and the Olabisi Onabanjo University, Ogun State. During Nigeria’s 50th anniversary celebration, he was one of the 50 Nigerians conferred with the Special Golden Jubilee Independence Anniversary Awards by the Federal Government.

Michael Adeniyi Agbolade Ishola Adenuga (Jnr) was born on April 29, 1953, in Ibadan, into the family of Chief Michael Adenuga Snr., a school teacher and Madam Oyindamola Adenuga, a successful trader, who later became the Yeyeoba of Ijebuland. He attended Ibadan Grammar School, Ibadan in Oyo State, Nigeria, for his secondary education and studied Business Administration at Northwestern State University, Alva Oklahoma in the United States. He also earned a Masters degree at Pace University, New York, majoring in Business Administration with emphasis on Marketing.

READ ALSO FROM NIGERIAN TRIBUNE