Trust and unity rose beyond the ordinary when the popular Ibru family seized my world a few days back.
It all started with a news items about kids of the late Michael Ibru, the brain behind the Ibru Organisation. These are no ordinary children. These are children born with golden spoon in their mouths. To say they were born with silver spoon will be under-estimating the wealth at the beck and call of the late Olorogun from Agbarha-Otor in Delta State. You need to see Oskar, Oboden and their 14 siblings to know what I am talking about.
Unlike the kids, their father was not born with a silver spoon not to talk of a golden one. His father, Peter, was a missionary worker. He worked as a nursing superintendent at the popular Igbobi Orthopedic Hospital. His mother, Janet, sold fish in the creeks to help with the family’s upkeep.
Ibru was only able to enrol at the Igbobi College, Yaba when he was 18. He was brilliant and ended up as the Senior Prefect. His brilliance manifested when, in 1948, he moved straight from Elementary School to Secondary Class 2. In Class Four, Ibru passed the Cambridge School Certificate Examination with Distinction.
After secondary education, the Olorogun took up paid employment at the United African Company, as a management trainee, in 1951. By 1956, he had had enough of U.A.C. He quit and started a firm known as Laibru. It was in partnership with an expatriate, Jimmy Large. He was just 24. The duo started with general trading and a year later, the late Ibru found that he could make a kill with the frozen fish market. This was a fertile ground no one was working on. Through perseverance, he broke even by establishing an importing company and building cold storage facilities. He triumphed over competitors who labelled his product ‘mortuary fish’.
So good was business that by the mid-1960s, Ibru had become a millionaire from fish trading. Poverty was now history, far forgotten. By the 70s, he was responsible for about 60 per cent of the frozen fish market. The turnover was over N90 million. His partnership with a Taiwanese company, Osadjere Fishing Company, brought in trawlers and other accessories for trading.
Before long, his hands were in other pies, such as transportation, palm oil production, tourism, brewery, timber and poultry. Olorogun also expanded into oil storage (Ibafon Oil Limited), aviation (Aero Contractors), banking (Oceanic Bank), and insurance (Minet Nigeria Ltd).
In 1983, Ibru tried to be governor of the old Bendel State. He lost to Chief Sameul Ogbemudia. He was also a member of the Liberal Convention and the New Movement, which metamorphosed into the National Republican Convention (NRC).
He died last September and five months later, I am sad for this great family. This was a family that was like a bunch of broom despite the fact that the patriarch had kids from about five women. The close-knit nature of the family was emphasised by Oskar, the eldest son, during his 80th birthday: “The only thing I can say about my family is that we grew up as team. We were like a bunch of broom sticks.”
Oskar’s father and his siblings, Felix, Goodie and Alex, were also like a bunch of broom sticks. He helped his brothers with their education, gave them stakes in the Ibru Organisation and helped them to chart their own paths.
Sadly, the 16 Michael Ibru children are in a legal tussle over their paternity and his multi-billion naira assets. This fight showed clearly to me that unity is impossible without trust and love stands no chance when distrust rules supreme.
Oboden, who was a major player in Oceanic Bank, blew the lid on the fight by approaching the Igbosere High Court, Lagos, for a declaration that all the kids are entitled to the estate of their father. He was countered by his sister Janet, who through an affidavit, urged the court to declare that only persons whose paternity are confirmed by a diagnostics centre in the United States are entitled to an equal share of the estate.
Oboden’s suit was filed on February 8 by a Senior Advocate of Nigeria (SAN) Chief Bolaji Ayorinde (SAN).
The defendants in the suit are: Oskar, Peter, Emmanuel, Gloria, Elaine Ibru-Mukoro, Elvina, Mamemo, Janet, Obaro, Vivi Ibru-Stankov, Edesiri, Christiana, Jero, Vikwesiri, Gabriel and the Probate Registrar, High Court of Lagos State.
At stake are: No. 20, Queens Drive, Ikoyi, Lagos; 6, Kensington Park Gardens, London; Starcross Farm; Hillcrest Apartment; Zabadne Plot, Abuja; Maitama Plots, Abuja; Maroko Plots, Lagos; 7, Randle Close, Apapa, Lagos; all shares in Oceanic Bank; Oteri Holdings Limited’s shares in Minet Nigeria Limited; Oteri’s shares in Ibachem and the portion of Ibafon land occupied by Ibachem and Ovwian land.
Others are: 1, Marine Road, Apapa, Lagos; 47, Marine Road, Apapa; 49, Marine Road, Apapa; 52, Marine Road, Apapa; 5,7,9 Emotan Road, Apapa; 3,5,7 Ladipo Oluwole, Apapa; Daska House; Blomfield Court; 33, Michael Ibru Boulevard; 6, Louis Solomon Close, Victoria Island, Lagos and 5/7, Queens Barracks Road, Lagos.
I believe there is enough to go round. May be I am thinking like this because my father left seven of us only two houses to share.
Oboden is seeking a declaration that a January 2, 2001 Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) on the distribution of the late Ibru’s assets remains valid.
He also seeks a declaration that the judgment delivered by Justice John Tsoho of the Federal High Court, Lagos, on April 17, 2014, remains valid and subsisting, having not been set aside by any court of competent jurisdiction.
The ex-Oceanic Bank big boy also wants an order appointing him, Christiana, Oskar and Jero, as administrators of the Ibru estate. He equally wants the court to give an order appointing PricewaterhouseCoopers Limited to conduct a forensic audit of the shareholdings and assets of the late Ibru in Oteri Holdings and any other company in Nigeria and elsewhere.
And finally, he seeks an order directing the administrators to divide the assets into 16 equal shares for the surviving children.
But as far as Janet and her backers are concerned, Oboden is talking nonsense. No scientific confirmation of your paternity, no inheritance, she insists. Janet also wants a refund of all expenses on her father in his dying days, including the $48,000 she incurred defending the law suits by one of her siblings.
The turn of event in the Michael Ibru clan brings to mind the fight-to-the-finish between Goodie Ibru and the late Alex Ibru’s wife, Maiden. The fight has led to law suits jamming law suits. The major victim has been Ikeja Hotels Plc, which was suspended from the Stock Exchange as a result of the bitter fight over the company’s chairmanship. The Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) has been involved in this dirty fight. The courts have been busy too. Two Ibru sisters filed two suits in Lagos and there was another one at the Federal High Court, Abuja, on the feud.
The larger Ibru family has been involved in this quarrel too. Newspapers have made money carrying advertorials and counter-advertorials. Extended family members, such as the Clark family, have also been bloodied in this quarrel that I feel is beyond settlement. It can be patched, but real settlement looks like a mirage to me. Yet, this was a family whose strength lay in being together and doing all possible to lift up the other. The norm was greater interest of the whole. These are certainly not the best of times for the Ibru family.
The fight, in my view, robbed off on attendance at the funeral ceremonies of the late Michael Ibru. Some key ‘extended’ family members stayed away.
Now, my final take: Jokes apart, trust breeds unity. Once broken, trust is difficult to get back. And that is the crux of the affliction in the Ibru family. How on earth will siblings who were like a broom when their father was alive now begin to ask for paternity test? This simply means trust has broken down. Sister-in-law and brother-in-law can only drag each other to court and the EFCC if trust has broken. Certainly, the pieces that make up the Ibrus’ broom are no longer held together by the rope at the head and when that happens, they cannot sweep the ground clean.
