Mike Adenuga is a Nigerian billionaire who was recently ranked the second richest Nigerian.
The ‘Guru’ as he is referred to in Nigerian business and social circles built his fortune on oil, telecoms, real estate and banking.
Here are 10 things you might not know about him:
- Mike Adenuga was born on 29th April, 1953 in Ibadan, Oyo, Nigeria.
- Mike’s father was a teacher and his mother, a businesswoman.
- You might only know him as Mike Adenuga but what you might not know is that his full name is Michael Adeniyi Agbolade Ishola Adenuga Jnr.
- He worked as a taxi driver to fund his university education.
- He owns Globacom, Nigeria’s second-largest telecom operator with presence in Benin and Ghana.
- Beside being the second richest Nigerian, he is also the second richest African and the second richest black man on Earth in 2018, according to Forbes. He comes after Aliko Dangote, another Nigerian.
- He was named African Entrepreneur of the Year at the first African Telecoms Awards in August, 2007.
- Mike Adenuga owns stakes in the Equitorial Trust Bank and the oil exploration firm, Conoil, formerly Consolidated Oil Company.
- He was detained for money laundering by the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission in 2009. He left Nigeria and returned after the Umaru Musa Yar’Adua regime granted him a pardon.
- In June 2016, it was revealed that Adenuga was being pursued for a combined debt of US$140.5 million, after his company ConOil failed to pay debts owed to, among others, the French oil giant Total. Bellbop, another company owned by Adenuga, had an interim injunction placed on it by the High Court in Lagos, after it too failed to pay the $9.4 million owed to the US oil and gas firm Baker Hughes
