By Babarimisa Esther
A celebrity is a person who works hard all his life to become well known, then wears dark glasses to avoid being recognized”. – Fred Allen, in Much Ado About Me
When is the right time to celebrate a man who works so hard to be known but literally wears dark glasses so as not to be seen?
The answer, I believe, is anytime God places the opportunity in the public domain!
I am sure those who know Dr. Mike Adenuga Jr. very well would also have had to ponder this at some point. Here is a man whose life has affected that of millions of people for good for several decades but is hardly out in the public space to be celebrated as much as he deserves to be celebrated.
For several people, Dr. Adenuga comes across as a man of many parts. Very few would not constantly recall his bullish efforts in breaking the back of economic scavengers who were determined to milk Nigerians to no end at the advent of GSM telecommunications services in Nigeria. I imagine if this great man did not get a licence then or if he had decided to toe the line of comfort by simply joining to exploit Nigerians!
Dr. Adenuga not only crashed the well-oiled plan to continually exploit Nigerians through the fixed cost of billing calls, he also broke the back of those who turned SIM cards to gold, for which many people had to obtain loans to acquire. If I can recall well enough, what he did by charging calls per second is not as big as what he did for millions of people to acquire Glo SIM cards with ease.
From N20,000 that others were selling SIMs, he made it possible for anyone to purchase a SIM for about N5,000 and pay for it through recharge by installment. I have a friend who got his SIM through this excellent and humanistic way put in place by Dr. Adenuga. He was literally always singing praise of Dr. Adenuga.
Those who worked with him then recalled his constant expression of love to enable Nigerians get their own Glo SIM cards and get to communicate and relate with friends and families without having to bear the burden of paying a fixed and heavy cost for every minute of call.
I am sure the benefits of that intervention cannot be told in one day and in a piece like this. Many people were shocked that indeed, a Nigerian could do that for the benefit of his people.
At 70, it is time to celebrate one of the biggest businessmen on earth and one of the quintessential sons of Africa and Nigeria. He has, with God and humility built an economic behemoth, attracting the business patronage of some of the biggest names in telecommunications infrastructure all over the world.
If it has been an easy vocation, perhaps many other people would have gone into the same venture. But like some of those who have worked with him say, once he puts his mind on a course, you either follow him or drop along the way, as he would not stop until he docks at success’ beautiful port.
In the two decades that Glo has existed in Nigeria, he has done this. Apart from his never-giving-up spirit that saw to the birthing of Globacom as Nigeria’s second national operator, he also became the first African to single-handedly finance a submarine cable running from Europe to Africa to help a continent that is badly in need of better and faster data services. Not a few people have wondered at the kind of vision that drives Dr. Adenuga in taking on such risky venture, where others would simply have given up.
He has proven to be comfortable in donning the toga of risks and he has always been more than lucky. He has always been focused, hardworking, persevering and dependent on God, traits that very few businessmen share across the globe.
When Dr. Adenuga and several other Nigerians got licences to prospect for crude oil decades back, while many others simply sold their licences to avoid plunging into the risky terrain, he dived headlong into the high risk venture. It is common knowledge how his commitment and tenacity paid off eventually when Consolidated Oil struck the black gold almost at the eleventh hour when hoped seemed to have prepared to take an exit.
Through all of this, Dr. Adenuga has been like the celebrity described in the opening paragraph, the one who works all his life to be famous but wears dark goggles not to be seen. Is it pride or what? Many of his workers would laugh at such a suggestion!
As one of them told me recently, the man they work for is anything but proud. According to him, those who know him well know that he is naturally quiet and shies away from the crowd. That is not a vice. It is a plus quality that so many men of affluence have.
Dr. Adenuga is the kind of introverted leader referenced by Dr. Jennifer Kahnweiler, in her book, “The Introverted Leader: Building on Your Quiet Strength”. He has so much of power packed on the inside that he concentrates more in solving problems and impacting the world around him. He finds his alter ego in such similarly great personalities such as Elon Musk, Bill Gates and Warren Buffet who are some of the world’s best known introverts, but are great success in business because their focus is in solving problems, either as a vocation, or as a way of giving back to the society.
Dan Pena, an American billionaire, was asked what is consistent in terms of personality type that he has seen among Billionaires. His reaction: “Oh… Easy. First of all, 98% of the high performers on the planet have one thing in common. They are Introverts”. It is a virtue that a colossus like Dr Adenuga has put to great use in the service of humanity.
As he turns the corner of the 7th decade of his blessed sojourn, he has become a gift to humanity and a blessing to everyone around. May the Almighty bless him with good health and more years so he may continue to do more of what he has been doing to positively affect humanity.
•Babarimisa wrote from Kaduna.