By Abayomi Agbetola
A billionaire businessman whose investments cut across different sectors of the economy, Adenuga is known for always considering Nigeria first in his investment moves such that his MA Group can be termed Nigeria-centric, ensuring that Nigerians are the greatest beneficiaries of his multibillion investments.
His support for the nation cut across different sectors of the economy. He is noted for:
Wealth creation,
Sports sponsorship,
Employment,
Massive philanthropy,
Empowerment,
Nation’s economic supports,
No 1 in Ambassadorial supports
Art and cultural supports and sponsorship
Dr. Michael Adenuga, the God sent Chairman of Globacom Telecommunication has quietly been at the centre of massive support for Nigeria and Nigerians over the years.
Very clairvoyant and tenacious, The guru operates codedly in his business moves and his other investments in different parts of the world, yielding millions of dollars that are only known to few. No wonder people believe he is worth more than it’s being quoted.
Apart from his family business which he helped to structure when he returned from United States, after his education, his businesses have been gigantic and big including banks: Equitorial Trust and Devcom which he founded at mid thirties, and the Oil and Gas audacious move which led to the rise of Consolidated oil, the first indigenous Nigeria Oil company to discover crude oil in commercial quantity.
His other bold moves include acquisition of National Oil marketing company which is today Conoil Marketing and the Telecoms move which gave birth to Nigeria’s Telecommunication giant, Globacom.
Adenuga loves to operate unnoticed, moving like a submarine and conquering territories after territories silently and taking over in style.
Like a Volcano, Globacom entered the telecoms sector in Nigeria erupting the larva of ‘per second billing’ that other networks, which started operations about two years before it had claimed, was impossible. Glo under Adenuga came in powerfully and offered Nigerians the package with millions of Nigerians joining the network immediately to Glo with Pride.
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Prior to the arrival of Globacom , GSM SIMs were selling for between N20,000 and N25,000. Glo brought this down to N6,999 and later to N100. Globacom also ensured that N50 per minute for calls were stopped. It crashed the tariff to as low as 1kobo per second.
Glo became the first telecom company to single handedly build an international submarine cable, Glo-1, connecting thousands of kilometers of national fibres to all parts of Nigeria and neighboring landlocked countries across Africa to the world.
The Globacom-1 (Glo-1) submarine cable system is a 9800km submarine cable connecting Bude in the UK to Lagos in Nigeria and the rest of West Africa. It has landing points in Nigeria, London, Lisbon in Portugal, Accra in Ghana, etc. It consists of 2 fibre pairs, with an initial design capacity of 320 (32*STM-64), and upgraded to 2.5Tbps.
Landing in Lagos in Nigeria in September 2009, the whole project completed in July 2010. Globacom activated the Glo-1 cable system for service in October 2010 and since then has been providing bandwidth across the country and beyond.
The Glo 1 submarine cable recently proved to be a strong force when it remained the only cable working when massive internet outages were reported in Nigeria and in some parts of Africa, following damage to international undersea cables supplying the country with connectivity.
The damage affected major undersea cables near Abidjan in Côte d’Ivoire and has led to internet downtime across West and South African countries and Telecommunications companies and a number of banks in Nigeria which relied on the affected cables for internet services were affected by the outage which lasted for many days.
It was only Glo 1, owned by Globacom, that was not affected by the damage as Data users, internet service providers and financial institutions which run on Glo 1 have continued to operate normally all through the period.
Adenuga has also been honoured across the world for these outstanding accomplishments including many national and global awards, as well as the highest individual honour for a private citizen in Nigeria, GCON, and many others of high note like “The Companion of the Star of Ghana’’ from Ghana and “Commander of the Legion of Honour’’ by French President, Emmanuel Macron.
His philanthropy is legendary. He is the biggest promoter of football in Nigeria. At a time he gave Super Eagles whooping 1 million dollars after winning the African Cup of Nations in South Africa. This is in addition to the Premier League, national teams, the Supporters Club, Glo CAF Awards and Glo Soccer Academy’s sponsorships.
Not forgetting art and culture. Top festivals in Nigeria including Ojude Oba, Lisabi, and Ofala festivals are still being sponsored by Globacom.
Another milestone recorded by Dr. Adenuga was in 2022 when he quietly signed a business contract in Paris between Globacom, and Eutelsat, the French Satellite conglomerate. Many communities across the country without access to internet links will benefit immensely from VSAT/Satellite-based internet service and Satellite-based community Wifi internet service, courtesy of Globacom.
I salute the quiet billionaire and philanthropist par excellence. Happy Birthday, Sir. Many years ahead in good health and more investments in Nigeria for the benefit of Nigerians, like you have always been doing.
God bless Mr. Chairman
