Tribute to An Industrialist, Philanthropist Mike Adenuga at 72
Dr. Mike Adenuga Jr.,
The Chairman of the Mike Adenuga Group, Dr. Mike Adeniyi Ishola Adenuga Jr., born on April 29th, 1953, will be 72 years old on Tuesday.
Adenuga is a study in diligence and entrepreneurial excellence. In the last few decades, he has emerged as a shining symbol of the irrepressible spirit of the quintessential African entrepreneur. He is passionate, committed, resilient, and extremely hardworking.
The billionaire was born in the ancient city of Ibadan, into the family of Chief Mike Adenuga Snr. and Madam Oyindamola Adenuga, a successful trader and Yeyeoba of Ijebuland. He attended the famous Ibadan Grammar School, 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 Master’s degree at Pace University, New York, majoring in Business Administration with an emphasis on Marketing.
In recognition of his business accomplishments and outstanding contributions to the growth of the country, he was awarded the Grand Commander of the Order of the Niger (GCON). He also holds honorary doctorate degrees conferred on him by the University of Ibadan and the Ogun State University. During Nigeria’s 50th anniversary celebration, Adenuga was one of the 50 pre-eminent Nigerians who were conferred with the Special Golden Jubilee Independence Anniversary Awards by the Federal Government of Nigeria.
The hard work has paid off spectacularly, and he is today one of the best-known names in business and investment on the African continent. Adenuga has put his imprimatur of excellence on key sectors of the Nigerian economy, leading him to currently preside over one of Africa’s largest business empires, spanning oil and gas, telecoms, aviation, banking, and real estate.
Each of his businesses in these sectors plays a leadership role, helping to set the pace and contributing to the growth of the Nigerian economy.
For instance, in the oil and gas sector, Conoil Plc is one of the largest and most profitable oil marketing companies in Nigeria. Conoil Producing, the downstream arm of the conglomerate, made history by becoming the first Nigerian company to strike oil and produce it in commercial quantity in 1991. In banking, Equitorial Trust Bank (ETB) was one of the few banks that effortlessly met the N25 billion capital requirement during the 2005 banking consolidation exercise without going to the stock market. It only merged with Devcom Bank which was also owned by Adenuga. A few years back, ETB merged with Sterling Bank and has remained one of the leading financial institutions in the continent.
Adenuga also has a multi-billion-dollar investment in real estate. These companies provide direct employment to thousands of Nigerians and people from the international community, as well as millions of other indirect employment.
In telecoms, Globacom is one of the most innovative networks in Africa and has operations in Nigeria and Ghana with footprints in Senegal, Gambia and Cote d’Ivoire. Adenuga made history in 2010 when his telecoms firm inaugurated its solely-financed international submarine cable, Glo 1. The cable has provided a solution to the long-standing problem of insufficient internet bandwidth for Africa. It connects 14 nations in the West Africa sub-region, including some of them that are landlocked. By going from Europe to the West Coast of Africa, the company avoided the more turbulent but cheaper to maintain Middle-East and North Africa region.
This ensures the availability of bandwidth to Wholesale, Enterprise and SME customers in West Africa. The undersea cable delivers a much faster and robust connectivity for voice, data and video with some of the lowest latencies between Africa and its gateway in London. It unleashes limitless opportunities for global and other African carriers, global content and digital media providers, government and corporate bodies in Nigeria and West Africa.
Glo-1 powers financial institutions, internet service providers and data consumers and all organisations that are Globacom’s subscribers have continued to carry on with business as usual despite* the breakdown of other telcos and internet services producers.
He is credited with playing a major role in the telecom revolution in Nigeria as Globacom’s historic introduction of Per Second Billing and crashing of SIM cost to as low as N100 led to the over 165 million active telephone lines in Nigeria today. The network also pioneered such revolutionary products as Blackberry, mobile internet and mobile banking services in Nigeria.
Digital solutions provider, Globacom, has since it began operations in Nigeria on August 29, 2003, pioneered numerous innovations which have helped propel the rapid growth and revolutionary changes witnessed in Nigeria’s telecommunications industry.
Its crash of the cost of acquiring SIM cards from about N25,000 to just about N200 and pioneering of Per Second Billing system are primarily responsible for the massive telephone penetration in the country.
Prominent among the innovations Glo pioneered in Nigeria are Blackberry Services, Multimedia Messaging Service (MMS), Magic Plus, Glo Direct, International MMS, Inflight Roaming, Prepaid Roaming, Glo Mobile Internet, GloFleetmanager, M-Banking, Glo Mobile Office, Glo TV, Glo Cloud, Glo Always On, and Glo Berekete.
Just like it did with the 2.5G and 3G technologies, Globacom was the first telecom operator to accomplish a nationwide launch of 4G-LTE network in Nigeria in 2016. With the 4G LTE Network in Nigeria, Glo provides seamless voice and data connectivity; enabling superfast HD video streaming, video downloads, online gaming and much more.
The 4G LTE Advanced technology combines three spectrums of 700 MHz, 1,800MHz and 2,600 MHz to provide a better internet experience to subscribers. It is faster, stronger, and better. The video and voice quality in video calls on different applications like Facebook Messenger, WhatsApp, Viber etc is a lot clearer while the picture quality is crispier, and the transmission is faster. It also enables optimum performance for use in a variety of other life-enhancing cases such as telemedicine, e-agriculture, 3D Games, etc.
Additionally, Glo is credited with crashing the cost of internet services and is today the preferred cable system by global OTT providers. It connects thousands of kilometres of national fibre to all parts of Nigeria and cross connects with landlocked West African countries providing them access to world class internet services and enable these countries connect with Content Delivery Networks (CDN) & caching with Over The Top (OTT) networks in Lagos.
The business accomplishments of Adenuga have continued to seek him out for national and global accolades. In Ghana, he was given the highest national award, “The Companion of the Star of Ghana” in 2016, while in 2017, he was honoured by the French government with the award of the “Chevalier la Legion d’Honnuer” in 2017. In July 2018, the French President, Emmanuel Macron, elevated him to ‘Commander of the Legion of Honour’, France’s highest national honour.
A self-effacing philanthropist, Adenuga Jr., through his company, Globacom, is the biggest supporter of football in Africa and has raised the profile of football in Nigeria and Ghana with the sponsorship of the Premier Leagues and national football teams of the two countries for several years.
The company spent over N15 billion in cash and kind on Nigerian football. It also transformed the annual CAF Awards and made it the most glamorous sports event on the continent. CAF awarded Adenuga the Pillar of Football in Africa for his strong support for African Football at both national and continental levels.
Adenuga has won numerous other awards in recognition of his personal and business accomplishments, among which was the ‘Titan of the Year’ at THISDAY’s 30th commemoration awards held in Lagos, earlier this year. In 2020, THISDAY named him ‘Entrepreneur of the Decade’ at its Silver Jubilee celebration, and in 2010, voted him as Nigeria’s Most Outstanding Business Personality in the last 50 years.
Only recently, he received one of the highest honours in African sports as he was celebrated as the Pillar of Sports in Africa at the South West Games 2025. In addition, he had won the African Telecoms Entrepreneur of the Year for his courageous and rapid investment in the telecoms sector. Also, he was early 2010 voted Nigeria’s Most Outstanding Business Personality in the last 50 years by THISDAY Day, Nigeria’s most influential newspaper.
In 2009, Adenuga won the coveted Silverbird Man of the Year Award, polling over 75 per cent of the votes cast to beat other eminent personalities nominated for the same award. Similarly, several other media organisations, Sun Newspapers, Independent Newspapers, Tribune, Leadership Newspapers; City People and Ovation International Magazine have also honoured the Globacom Chairman with their Man of the Year Award within the last few years.
He is the first Nigerian to be conferred with a Knight of the Legion of Honour (Chevalier de la Legion d’Honneur) award by the President of the French Republic, Mr. Emmanuel Macron.
The award was then presented to Adenuga at the glamorous Bellisma on the Waterfront, Banana Island, Lagos, by the Ambassador of France in Nigeria, Denys Gauer, on behalf the France President.
The Legion of Honour, (Ordre National de la Legion d’Honneur) is the highest French order of merit for military and civil merits, established in 1802 by Napoleon Bonaparte.
Ultimately, Chief Adenuga’s 72nd birthday offers a moment to appreciate the remarkable synergy between his roles as an industrialist and a philanthropist. These are not separate facets of his persona, but rather interconnected elements of a larger vision for progress. His business acumen has generated resources that fuel his philanthropic endeavors, while his commitment to giving back undoubtedly informs his approach to leadership and innovation. As he marks this significant year, Adenuga stands as a compelling example of how economic success and social impact can be mutually reinforcing forces.
Oluchi Chibuzor writes on the philanthropic role and entrepreneurial excellence of the Chairman of the Mike Adenuga Group/Globacom
