Michael Adeniyi Ishola Adenuga, more commonly called Mike Adenuga, is a brutally bullish entrepreneur who combines tenacity with self-effacing boldness. He is always there in the thick of transactions without imposing himself on the deal. It is a high art of negotiation that makes everybody feel your presence without seeing your face. Besides, he seems to have mastered the art of corporate stubbornness. He is ruthlessly tenacious and won’t let go until he has had his way. Forbes 2015 ranking of global billionaires places his value at a little over $4 billion but he is far more than this.

The manner he got his telecom licence and the franchise as second national operator are themselves emblems of a man who pushes beyond limits to get what he wants. He lost a telecom licence (a digital mobile licence) the first time of asking in controversial circumstances in 2001. It was a deal gone awry and he lost a whopping $20 million in the process. Rather than dim his spirit, it fired him up to go for the juicier portion, the second national operator, and he got it.

The self-styled ‘gold digger’ was educated at North-Western University, Oklahoma and Pace University, New York, both in the United States where he studied business administration, it is obvious that the young Adenuga even as a student has had his eyes on business.

Today, he straddles corporate Nigeria with interests in banking, oil and gas (Consolidated Oil) and telecom (proud owner of Globacom), the second largest telecom company in Nigeria.

His current billionaire status often makes us forget he was once a cab driver and security guard in the US during his student days. Fortune always favours the brave. His doggedness paid off early: at 26, he was already a millionaire.

He is a rare patriot who believes in Nigeria. Whether it was patriotism or sheer business that motivated him, it was to his credit that Nigerians started enjoying lower tariff on phones. His company, Globacom, was the first to introduce per second billing scheme as against the old practice in which subscribers were billed per minute even when talk duration was for just five seconds. More than any Nigerian, he has impacted positively on the Nigerian entertainment industry by making the icons of Nollywood (Nigeria’s movie industry) and the artistes the ambassadors and iconic models of Globacom.`

His strength: Dogged, innovative, patient, bold. Unlike some Nigerian billionaires who enjoy lavish federal government patronage, some shrouded in acute illegality, Adenuga grew all his businesses practically by sheer combination of the modern entrepreneurial resources: people and technology. Again, unlike his contemporaries who were propped up and supported by the Nigerian government, Adenuga at a time suffered persecution in the hands of the federal behemoth. But rather than buckle, he waxed stronger and bolder expanding his frontiers with the bullish mien of a Bill Gates and the visionary lustre of Carlos Slim.

Below, we examine a few of the entrepreneurial qualities that have stood him out of the clustered crowd of proven entrepreneurs and pretenders.

VISIONARY

Every entrepreneur is a dreamer but dream is not a vision, hence there are too many dreamers but very few visionary men and women. Adenuga is the quintessential visionary entrepreneur. His business far-sightedness has seen him profit from the short-sightedness of the competition. He made an early foray into banking, morphing from merchant banking to commercial banking but he was able to sniff ahead of others the rot that was to attend the banking sector and deftly made a switch, pushing his strength and might in telecom. Today, his vision has paid off. Adenuga makes more money from his telecom empire than all his efforts and investments in banking could ever give him. Visionary entrepreneurs do not wait for the future to happen, they create the future. The Bull simply created his own future and brought the rest of humanity to co-habit it with him. He saw ahead of others that the once lethargic telecom sector would be the real deal in Nigeria’s emerging economy. Smartly and strategically, he divested from banking and pushed through the competitive telecom bourse to emerge at the cusp as one of the top players out of Africa.

TENACITY

Inflexibility, stubbornness or being resolute is one attribute that runs through the grain of successful entrepreneurship. Adenuga has it in good measure. Obstinate and unflinching, he pursues his vision with bullish determination. When his company, CIL, lost the GSM licence in 2001 in controversial circumstance, not many gave him a chance to play in the telecom market having lost a goodly $20 million deposit in the process. But Adenuga dug deep into his inner resolve to pitch for an even bigger stake in Nigeria telecom. He would later win the slot as Nigeria’s second national carrier. Whereas other entrepreneurs would have sulked away from a deal gone awry, not Adenuga, the Bull got more bullish, abandoning the shallow waters to fish in the deeper ocean. His catch? Something bigger than GSM, indeed, the ultimate prize in any country’s telecom market – national carrier status.

INNOVATIVENESS

Innovation is thinking out of the routine, changing the convention and shifting the paradigm. When Globacom arrived the telecom scene, so much had happened. The early birds had taken over the cream of the market, but it is never too late for an innovator. Adenuga’s innovative mind configured a marketing formula that got Globacom not only a huge chunk of the market but sent the competitors back to their strategy rooms to be able to contain the Glo tsunami that was about to swallow them up. At that time, the theory from service providers was that per second billing was impossible. Nigerians were haemorrhaging under the N50 per minute billing system but Glo bucked the criminally exploitative trend by introducing the per second billing regime. With this innovative marketing, it clawed its way into the hearts of Nigerian telecom consumers to rank as one of the top two GSM services providers. Add to this Glo’s fibre optic network and what you get is a giant telco out of Africa. Today, thanks to Adenuga Nigerian telecom consumers enjoy per second billing and it has become the standard in the marketplace.

PATRIOTISM

No Nigerian entrepreneur consistently ranked in the Forbes Billionaire list in living memory has exhibited more patriotism and love for country than Adenuga. In a nation with a long history of public sector thieves who steal from the national treasury and stash their loot away in foreign lands, it is soothing to know there are Nigerians who would at all times invest at home. But Adenuga is not a public servant, neither is he numbered among the crooks. He is a private sector player who has over the decades built his enterprise into a flourishing conglomerate. Ordinarily, Adenuga is not obligated to invest and keep reinvesting in Nigeria but he has remained an incurable patriot who believes that wealth at home is indeed the real wealth. Adenuga has kept his wealth in Nigeria, using same to create more wealth, empower the people and create jobs. He is by far Nigeria’s most patriotic billionaire entrepreneur.

One area Adenuga has lavishly displayed his pan-Nigeria spirit and patriotism is in entertainment industry. From sports to music and Nollywood, he towers above all in his commitment to the development of the sector. No Nigerian, living or dead, has impacted more positively on all the gamut of entertainment than Adenuga. Today, thanks to his generosity and patriotism, Nigerian movie stars, comedians and musicians have become proud Ambassadors of Glo, earning millions of naira to match their public status. He insists that those who must be the face of his products and services are Nigerians irrespective of their tribe and tongue. When Stephen Keshi, the most successful indigenous coach, won the Nations Cup with Super Eagles and threatened to resign, it took the intervention, benevolence and magnanimity of Adenuga to persuade Keshi from walking out on the nation in her moment of pride as the champion of the continent. He remains the biggest indigenous sponsor of Nigerian football and chief promoter of soccer excellence on the continent courtesy of the yearly Glo CAF Awards.

ABSENT BUT PRESENT

One enduring trait of Adenuga is his cultured ability to be absent yet present. He is reclusive but his silhouette is all over the business and socio-political space. He plays in the big league of social life but rarely can you find him in any public function including the one organised exclusively for billionaires of his calibre. Yet, though absent, he would never miss out on any deal struck at such gathering. He has mastered the art of being absent yet present at all times. Whereas billionaires and entrepreneurs of his class have cultivated a penchant of throwing themselves at senior government functionaries as a way of guaranteeing them government patronage, Adenuga on the other hand shies away from such gatherings and more curiously, you are not likely to see him grace any occasion including the ones hosted in the surreal and palatial chambers of Aso Rock but from his safe distance he keeps his claws firmly rooted in the subconscious of the high and mighty in government. It is a special skill that calls for a deeper analysis and inquisition.

CONCLUSION

According to Peter Drucker, “the best way to predict the future is to create it.” Mike Adenuga remains the outlier Nigerian entrepreneur who created a less stressful future for Nigerian telecom consumers when he bucked a trend that almost choked the people. He did not only create a better, friendlier future in Nigeria telecom, he opened the doors for all shades of Nigerians – sportsmen and women, actors and artisan, the young and the old etcetera – to be part of that future. He got people talking and through his oil and gas business, he got the nation powered. Indeed, he has set the captives free and it is only fitting that the nation finds a befitting national honour to serve as his epaulet for his patriotism, pan-Africanism and for demonstrating that genuine entrepreneurship shorn of cronyism is possible in Africa.

Author: Ken Ugbechie