Inside Tycoon Mike Adenuga’s 20-year GLO Brand

BY FUNSHO AROGUNDADE 

If there is any man who has successfully proven that innovation and hard work need to co-exist for business growth and leadership, that man is Dr. Mike Agbolade Adenuga Jnr.

The multi-billionaire tycoon is a man known for perfection, peerless noble qualities and enchanting endowment, a winning combination he brings to bear in the running of his forever flourishing business empire.

When you mention his name, what readily comes to the mind of an average Nigerian is GLO. But here is a man whose business prowess spread across the oil and gas, banking, real estate, construction, telecoms and stocks.

As much as Adenuga’s biggest break came from oil and gas, his jewel in the crown is Globacom —a brand aglow with all infinite possibilities in the telecom world, of which it had with the speed of thought, beat all front-runners to become the second largest and most innovative network in Nigeria, as well as the dearest sweetheart of the multitude of subscribers nationwide.

For Adenuga who on 29 April clocked that landmark year of 70, coincidentally, on Tuesday 29 August, his Globacom, which took the industry by storm in 2003, will turn 20.

In the last two decades, Adenuga’s Glo has soared high in its aspiration to build Africa’s biggest and best telecommunications network with millions of subscribers in Nigeria and Ghana.

It has made history as the first single company to build a high-capacity sub marine fibre-optic cable, popularly known as Glo-1, the first successful submarine cable from the United Kingdom to Nigeria; with the attendant high increases in internet speeds and download rates with resultant significant improvements in online technologies.

Undoubtedly, Adenuga’s foray into the telecommunication business was a triumph of bull-ruggedness, resolute determination and resolve over the serial-intrigues that more often than none dot the fast-moving encircling sharks and crocodile-infested business landscape in which one must look before one leaps, lest one becomes prey to ravenous predators out there.

With a clear mind, the man fondly called ‘The Spirit’ knows by instinct and lived-in experience that in a dog-eat-dog scenario, one must be alert enough to ensure that one does not end up in the menu.

The battle he had to fight valiantly before he could ultimate win the licence to operate Globacom is a manifest testimony of his legendary well-acknowledged never-say-die spirit of resiliency and bullish character that has empowered him to always lead his all-conquering force onto battle that seldom take captives.

With his historical and entrepreneurial trajectory vis-à-vis the adventure of Glo in the Nigerian telephony market, there is a sense in which it can be safely assumed that the man is the brand and the iconic corporate brand is the man! In fact, there can be no divorcing the DNA of ‘The Bull’ from brand Glo’s DNA, a socio-psychological mix that has helped to create both a myth and a mystique in the minds of the people.

For this phenomenally wealthier man who obviously made money every second people made calls using his Glo, the more many people gained from his vast wealth.

In recognition of his innovative and relentless commitment to growing the Nigerian economy, Adenuga has been honoured with several top rated recognition and awards by different nations including his home country, Nigeria and his favourite business spot, France.