From working as a cab driver on the streets of New York in America to fund his education to trading in lace, a clothing fabric and Coca-Cola, he rose to become a telecoms giant, an oil and gas behemoth and a real estate mogul with a net worth of $10.8 Billion to hold the position of Nigeria’s second richest man and Africa’s 7th.
On the 29th of April 1953, an incident that will shape the history of Nigeria happened. A boy was born to the family of Oloye Michael Agbolade Adenuga Snr, a school teacher and Juliana Oyindamola Adenuga a businesswoman of royal Ijebu descent. That boy was Michael Adeniyi Agbolade Ishola Adenuga Jr.
Adenuga received his secondary school education at the Ibadan Grammar School, Ibadan. To achieve his dream of tertiary education, he worked as a taxi driver in New York, United States of America. He later graduated from North-western Oklahoma State University and Pace University, New York with degrees in Business Administration.
Like a man whose palm kernel was cracked by a benevolent spirit, his dalliance with the military and the high and mighty led to him receiving an oil drilling licence in 1990 and in the same year, his oil company, Consolidated Oil, struck oil in the shallow waters of South Western Ondo State, the first indigenous oil company to do so in commercial quantity.
Thus began the journey of the business mogul called Adenuga.
Having conquered the oil and gas industry, Adenuga spread his tentacles into Telecommunications.
With his Communications Investment Limited, CIL, he was issued a conditional licence in 1999 and frequencies to operate the Global System of Mobile Communications (GSM). The licence was later revoked. Once again, when in 2002, the government through the Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC), organised new auction for the GSM licence, the CIL participated and was one of the four that won the bid. He paid the $20 million mandatory deposit.
However, in the process of effecting the release of the balance payment of $265 million, the corporation was adjudged to have failed to pay within stipulated time. CIL lost both the licence and $20 million deposit. He later went on to bid for the Second National Operator (SNO) licence, and deposited another $20 million. This time around, he was lucky.
He won the bid in August 2002 through his Globacom Limited. The SNO has a wider range of operations as Globacom has the right to operate as a national carrier, operate digital mobile lines, serve as international gateway for telecommunications in the country and operate fixed wireless access phones.
Adenuga’s Globacom Limited revolutionised the face of Telecommunications in Nigeria. Before the advent of Globacom, Nigerians were told that per second billing was impossible, but, with Adenuga and Glo, it became a reality.
On the 29th of August, 2003, Glo Mobile was launched in Nigeria. Glo Mobile introduced lower tariffs, pay-per-second billing alongside other value added services. Although the fourth GSM operator to launch in Nigeria, within seven years of its operation, Globacom’s subscriber base had grown to over 30 million to occupy the second position.
In the first year of operation, it had one million subscribers in over 87 towns in Nigeria and over N120 billion in revenue.
In May 2008, GLO acquired an operating license through its Glo Mobile division in Ghana. In April 30, 2012 GLO was officially launched in Ghana after series of postponement.
In June 2008, Glo Mobile was launched in the Republic of Benin with an unprecedented sale of 600,000 SIM cards in the first ten days of operation.
GLO built an $800 million high-capacity fibre-optic cable known as Glo-1, a submarine cable from the United Kingdom to Nigeria.
Ranked Nigeria’s second richest man, Adenuga’s mobile phone network, Globacom, is the second largest operator in Nigeria with 32 million subscribers. It also has operations in Ghana and the Republic of Benin. A higher estimate of Globacom’s revenues led Forbes to increase the value assigned to it and ranked him the 7thrichest African with a net worth of $10.8 Billion
His exploration outfit, Conoil Producing, operates six oil blocks in the Niger Delta. He also owns the real estate firm, Proline Investments, which has hundreds of properties throughout Nigeria.
Adenuga’s business estate and company shares traverse several countries in Western Europe, North America and the Middle-East.
In 2012 he was made Grand Commander of the Order of the Niger (GCON).
Mike Adenuga Jr is also the major shareholder in Sterling Bank, formerly Equitorial Trust Bank (ETB)
In May 2015, Adenuga made a takeover bid to purchase Ivorian mobile telecom’s operator Comium Côte d’Ivoire for $600 million.
A darling husband to Titi Joyce Adenuga and a proud father of Bella Adenuga-Disu, Michael Babajide Adenuga, Eniola Adenuga, Tunde Paddy Abolade, Adetutu Oyindamola Emilia, Chief Mike Adenuga Jr is showing no sign of slowing down in his drive to expand the frontiers of his business empire.
