Adenuga: The Man Who Never Takes No for an Answer

By Simon Kolawole

This is stranger than fiction: in my three decades as a journalist, I have met Dr. Mike Adenuga Jr, chairman of Globacom, only once — in December 2003. I was part of a group of editors that regularly met with then-President Olusegun Obasanjo at his Ota farm in Ogun state. On one of those occasions, Obasanjo was having breakfast with the big entrepreneurs. That was how I finally set my eyes on Adenuga, who was full of smiles as we entered Obasanjo’s living room. I walked up to him, introduced myself and he shook hands with me warmly. The “big boys” soon left the room and we were alone with Obasanjo, discussing the 2003 elections and other issues of significance.

I would later meet Adenuga through the eyes of my friends who worked with him: Chidi Uzor and Olabode Opeseitan. Chidi was once my deputy when I was editor of THISDAY, The Saturday Newspaper. The day he told me he was leaving THISDAY for Globacom, I was not too happy. I had no problems with Adenuga or Globacom, but as someone who has sworn to be a journalist for life, I was unhappy that yet another brilliant brain was leaving our cherished profession. We kept in touch. He had only good things to say about his new boss, always giving me interesting insights into Adenuga’s marketing ingenuity. I was often in awe of how the telecoms company took the market by storm.

For those who may not know, or might have forgotten, we used to pay at least N50 anytime we made a pay-as-you-go call when mobile phone services were launched in 2001. If you made a call that lasted for just one second, you would still pay N50. One second and 60 seconds attracted the same charge. In those days, network connection was poor — largely because of inadequate infrastructure. It was so common for the caller and the receiver not to hear each other but N50 would be gone within the twinkle of an eye. Nigerians were enraged and demanded that they should pay for only the seconds used. The networks said per-second billing was “technologically” impossible in Nigeria.

Until Adenuga entered the scene. In August 2003. And changed everything. Forever.

By introducing the “impossible” per-second billing, Adenuga broke, as it were, the backs of MTN and Econet (now called Airtel after going through a dozen changes in ownership and branding). You would only pay for the seconds you used. Simple. As icing on the cake, he also brought down the pay-as-you-go tariff to about N35 per minute. Tariffs were already dropping before Glo entered the fray, but it was a double treat to its customers that they could pay per second and also pay less for a minute. Like magic, the other networks that had sworn per-second billing was a daydream, or pipeline, ate the humble pie and started implementing what was technologically “impossible”.

But Glo had already eaten into their market. If Glo was not your first mobile line, then it was your second. Within its first year, it had amassed over a million subscribers in a market thought to have been cornered by the two dominant operators. Glo would go on to introduce a number of value-added services, such as mobile internet and vehicle-tracking. It built Glo 1, the first submarine cable from the United Kingdom to Nigeria, to provide faster internet access, among other things. Today, Glo has 60.7 million subscribers — only behind the colossal MTN. The vision of one man has not only improved the fortunes of millions of people but has steadily contributed to national development.

At this point, I need to make a confession. When I first heard of Adenuga in the 1990s as an upcoming player in the oil sector, my impression was that he was fronting for a military general. Although I was one of those later celebrating his strides, the notion that he was fronting for a former military ruler naturally curtailed my enthusiasm. It was sometime in 2009 when I read the interview of Professor Jibril Aminu in Daily Sun that I finally let go of my petty prejudice. Aminu was the petroleum minister when Adenuga’s Consolidated Oil got its first oil block. It struck oil in commercial quantity in the shallow waters of Ondo state in 1991. It was a first for a wholly Nigerian company.

In the interview, Aminu spoke on a number of issues. One, he said he discovered that the big oil companies did not own the rigs. “They were all hiring rigs from the oil service companies, like Schlumberger,” he said. “I discovered that oil was just another business. I discovered that a lot of the chiefs of the international oil companies I met were not necessarily petroleum engineers or chemical engineers. They were businessmen, some were accountants; some were lawyers.” This appeared to have opened Aminu’s eyes to the fact that it was all about entrepreneurship. Get the oil block, get the personnel, get the finance and get going! He told himself that Nigerians too could play the game.

Two — and this is the part that is relevant to this essay in honour of Adenuga who clocks 70 today — Aminu told of how Adenuga got the oil block. Describing him as “a great businessman”, Aminu said he got to know Adenuga in 1990 when he came in company with Mr David Ogbodo (Aminu’s special assistant) to see him. Aminu said: “I didn’t even know him… [Ogbodo] introduced him to me… And if he came [to see me], he would not go until he got whatever he wanted. He kept on saying: ‘We are your children, sir, we are your children. David and I are your children.’” Adenuga relentlessly lobbied Aminu and got an oil block. There were no open biddings in those days — it was purely discretionary.

In that interview, Aminu swore that Gen Ibrahim Babangida had nothing to do with Adenuga’s oil block. He did admit that he later discovered Adenuga knew people at the top. He said: “President Babangida had nothing to do with my meeting Mike Adenuga. He was brought by David Ogbodo and I didn’t know him at that time. I had heard of Devcom and Equatorial Bank, but I didn’t know he was the owner of the two banks… Babangida had nothing to do with it. He had nothing to do with my allocating the oil block to him or allocating it to anybody else. Naturally, some of the people around him would phone you but not him, nor his wife. That I can say before anybody, before man and God.”

But what impressed me the most, it is important to say, is that unlike many Nigerians who were getting the discretionary allocations and selling them to make a quick buck, Adenuga chose to be an oil entrepreneur. The upstream sector was a strange field for Nigerian entrepreneurs, but he made history by hitting oil and has gone on to invest his wealth across sectors. He is regularly rated as one of the richest entrepreneurs in the world by Forbes. The magazine measures Adenuga’s wealth based on only his telecoms and oil businesses, using stock market value and exchange rate. He is evidently worth more than the estimated $6.1 billion as some of his companies are not publicly listed.

It has not been a smooth ride for Adenuga and this should not be odd. In a developing country, the powers of the state are awesome and the political figures can do and undo. Adenuga did not have it easy under Obasanjo. First, the first mobile phone licence he got through his Communications Investment Limited (CIL) in 2001 was revoked and his deposit of $20 million seized because he reportedly missed the deadline for the payment of the $265 million fee by a few hours. Obasanjo was clearly determined not to give him the licence: the hair’s breadth miss was an insignificant breach of the guidelines. No law was broken. In a country hungry for investments, that was baffling.

But more was in the offing. Although there were whispers that Obasanjo did not want Adenuga to get the licence because of his rumoured ties to Babangida, it also did not help that he got another telecoms licence — bigger than the one he lost — when Vice-President Atiku Abubakar presided over the affairs of the country while the president was away in the Caribbean Islands in August 2002. Globacom got the second national carrier licence, of which mobile telephony was just a part. It’s like losing a bucket of mangoes and getting a mango tree in return. While his admirers celebrated with him, Obasanjo was quietly seething with rage and Adenuga nearly paid for it with his life, literally.

As Obasanjo began to prepare to amend the 1999 Constitution in 2006 to give himself an extra term of four years in office (although he disingenuously denies it till this day), Adenuga was one of the targets marked for demolition by the third term strategists. He was seen as an ally of Atiku, who staunchly opposed the third term agenda. The Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC), headed by Mallam Muhu Ribadu, became a weapon of mass destruction in the hands of Obasanjo. They went after Atiku, but Adenuga became collateral damage in the process as they tried to create a link between his Equitorial Trust Bank (now part of Sterling Bank Plc) and the then vice-president.

In Gestapo fashion, the EFCC operatives invaded Adenuga’s Lagos home and broke down as many things as they pleased — using extra-sophisticated equipment. They had an excuse: Adenuga had failed to honour their invitations. I too wondered why he did not honour the invitations. But the war-like approach confirmed Adenuga’s fears that everything was political. The EFCC was just working to an answer. They arrested him and, as we later heard, were determined to move him to Abuja overnight by road. It was a humiliation and traumatisation strategy. He was eventually set free. He fled into exile, returning only after a wounded Obasanjo grudgingly left power in May 2007.

I fully admit that I do not know Adenuga well enough to be able to comment on his person, but like every normal human being, he must have his failings. There is nothing weird about that. However, people often talk, privately and publicly, about his generosity and philanthropy. I am more impressed that he does not make a show of it. Some so-called philanthropists will give an ailing celebrity N5 million and then spend N10 million to publicise it. Adenuga does his own quietly and discreetly. I have nothing but respect for people who do this. I am a believer in the words of the Lord Jesus Christ: “When you give to the needy, do not let your left hand know what your right hand is doing.”

There is a romantic part of Adenuga’s story that should not escape us as it comes with some inspiration. He was not born into the home of established industrialists, although his Ijebu Yoruba subethnic group is known for business acumen. His father, Oloye Michael Adenuga Sr, was a school teacher. His mother, Omooba Juliana Oyindamola Adenuga, did some trading. Adenuga, while studying for business degrees at the Northwestern Oklahoma State University and Pace University, both in the US, drove taxis to pay his way. It is a story of his life he never fails to tell. It is one worth a rumination. What if he had stayed back in the US just because of constant power and traffic lights?

Born on Wednesday, April 29, 1953, Michael Adeniyi Agbolade Ishola Adenuga Jr schooled in Ibadan, Oyo state, and Aiyetoro, Ogun state, before travelling to the US. He came back to Nigeria in the 1970s and started selling lace materials and soft drinks, a business from which he said he made his first million. His banking adventure made him richer but also landed him in danger: he allegedly survived an attempt on his life and virtually became a recluse thereafter. Regardless, he stamped his authority on entrepreneurship and earned the Grand Commander of the Order of the Niger (GCON), Nigeria’s second highest national honour, in 2012; the Companion of the Star of Ghana (CSG), the country’s highest, in 2016, “for demystifying telecoms in Ghana and Africa”; and the Légion d’Honneur (LDHr), France’s highest order of merit, in 2018.

Adenuga has surely enjoyed favours from God and man in his 70 years so far. One of my favourite verses in the Holy Qur’an that fits this story is the one from Surah ar-Rahman: “Then, which of the favours of thy Lord will ye deny?” It is not enough to dream big and pursue your dreams with determination. Yes, these are important in the story of success. But there is a place for timing and opportunity — or chance — and help from above. As the Preacher said in the Bible, “I returned, and saw under the sun, that the race is not to the swift, nor the battle to the strong, neither yet bread to the wise, nor yet riches to men of understanding, nor yet favour to men of skill; but time and chance happeneth to them all.” Adenuga can easily relate with these divine principles.