Mike Adenuga drove a taxi to fund his studies. He later struck oil and built Globacom.
From selling lace and soft drinks to leading the first Nigerian company to strike oil in commercial quantity, Mike Adenuga’s climb runs through oil and telecoms.
Michael Adenuga Jr. was born in 1953, the son of a schoolteacher and a businesswoman. He attended Ibadan Grammar School, and in the United States he worked as a taxi driver to help pay for university, earning business degrees from Northwestern Oklahoma State University and Pace University in New York.
The first million
He made his first million in 1979, at 26, selling lace and distributing soft drinks. In 1990 he received a drilling licence, and in 1991 his Consolidated Oil struck oil in commercial quantity in the shallow waters of Ondo State, the first indigenous Nigerian company to do so.
Globacom
He was issued a conditional GSM licence in 1999. It was revoked, but when the government held another auction in 2003 he won a second one. His company Globacom is now the second-largest telecom operator in Nigeria and also operates in Ghana and Benin.
He was named African Entrepreneur of the Year at the first African Telecoms Awards in 2007, received Nigeria’s Grand Commander of the Order of the Niger in 2012, and in 2018 was made a Commander of the Legion of Honour by France.
The detail worth keeping for founders: a revoked licence was not the end. A second chance came, and he was ready for it.
