Nigeria is blessed with many prominent capitalists and wealthy industrialists who own multi-billion dollar conglomerates with assets exceeding trillions of Naira and who collectively employ thousands of Nigerians in their various business operations, thus contributing significantly to the size, scope and direction of our nation’s economy.
Prominent among these are Aliko Dangote, founder and chairman of Grupo Dangote, which has large-scale interests in the commodity, agriculture, real estate and oil subsectors of our economy, and is now ranked by Forbes magazine as the richest man in Africa with a net worth of US$20.8 billion, as of November 2013, Otunba Mike Adenuga, the telecommunications magnate whose operations now span across central West Africa and who has a worth US$4.3 billion, as of March 2013, as well as the young Femi Otedola, founder and CEO of Forte Oil Plc, who was ranked by Forbes in 2009 with a net worth of US$1.2 billion.
Among these enviables, however, none is more inspiring to me than Jimoh Ibrahim, the 46-year-old lawyer turned oil baron from Ondo State, southwestern Nigeria, now said to be worth a few hundred million dollars, and the founder of a large conglomerate in Nigeria, with interests in the insurance, hospitality, oil and gas, and media sectors of the Nigerian economy.
Unlike Dangote or Otedola, Ibrahim is a man who had humble beginnings as he was born without a silver spoon and came from a very harsh background with many hardships in his growing up days. Reportedly from a polygamous family, Ibrahim managed, against all odds, to gain admission to the University, eventually graduating as a lawyer from the University of Ife, now Obafemi Awolowo University in 1991.
So while the Dangotes and Otedolas of this world had the privileges of being born with silver spoons (Dangote, being from a wealthy industrial family from the North and Otedola, the son of a former civil governor of Lagos State), Ibrahim had no such luxuries but had an intense desire and strong conviction to succeed in life, concluding in his mind that getting a university degree was the only promise for a better life and a rewarding future.
The story of this great entrepreneur is one that I believe all young Nigerians and aspiring entrepreneurs should pay close attention to as it could serve as the much-needed inspiration to make giant strides in business as well as great achievements in life. After earning his law degree from OAU, Ibrahim saw that waiting to gain work experience as a trainee lawyer in an established law firm, as is common practice among many young lawyers in Nigeria today, could take many years, so he decided to specialize in tax, which was an area of interest to him during his undergraduate days and even the subject of some of his thesis papers.
With this wealth of information about Nigerian tax practice, Ibrahim, unlike many recent Nigerian university graduates, some of whom believe that securing gainful employment first after graduating school might be the only way to chart a successful future, set out to conduct tax trainings and workshops for local and state governments and then the federal government of Nigeria, becoming a nationally acclaimed tax advisor in the process.
Honing his expertise in the areas of tax administration, financial reform and management and later earning his Masters in Public Administration and international taxation from the OAU and Harvard University in the United States respectively, Ibrahim was at one time chief executive consultant to the federal government of Nigeria on oil tax payment, collection and control, a member of the Federation Accounts Allocation Committee, a consultant to the IMF on tax reform in Croatia and Lithuania and also a key member of the team that designed the tax reform for the Bangladeshi state.
Needless to say, by the time he turned 30, while some of his peers were still looking for jobs, Jimoh Ibrahim was already a billionaire! So when he decided to set up his conglomerate in 2003, after a miserable attempt to become executive governor of Ondo State on the platform of the former All Peoples Party (APP), he was well armed with a wealth of experience on how business works in Nigeria, how government policies are formulated and implemented, and how to raise enough capital to start a business.
For many budding entrepreneurs, what are the lessons to be learned about building great businesses from attorney Ibrahim’s journey and strategy? For me, one of them is that when planning to start a business, going out to raise all the necessary capital may not be the most important thing and may even amount to putting the cart before the horse, at times.
This is because, in a country like Nigeria, dreaming of raising capital to start a business using bank loans or debt capital, without having grown the business to a substantial state where sound financial management and ambitious growth plans can be adequately demonstrated to financial institutions or angel investors, can seem like a mirage!
Looking at the phenomenal growth of some of Mr. Ibrahim’s business ventures, one wishes to note some of the principles he has instilled, which have contributed greatly to the growth of those businesses today. Some of these include sound financial management, persistence, short-, medium-, and long-term planning, effective use of credit, and prompt repayment of credit when taken.
However, while Lawyer Ibrahim’s passion for building and growing large business organizations that would provide gainful employment to thousands of young Nigerians while positively impacting our economy is to be lauded, it remains to be seen what the clear corporate social responsibility (CSR) drive of some of these companies is and how they seek to improve lives and impact individuals and communities as well as create jobs.
It is interesting to note that while many large corporations and giant-sized companies in Nigeria like those of Ibrahim, Dangote or Otedola make a lot of profit through patronage of the majority of Nigerians and even repatriate those profits home at little or no cost, in the case of multinationals only a few do very little to give back to society through life-changing scholarships, schemes and programs that can benefit the entire population. Very few wealthy Nigerian capitalists or industrialists own notable foundations such as those created by Bill Gates, the world’s richest man and founder of Microsoft and his wife, as well as those established by notable American businessmen such as Henry Ford or John D Rockefeller.
Another important point worth noting among the most successful businessmen in Nigeria is the lack of a system or structure where proper mentorship can be provided to build an ecosystem of great businessmen and outstanding young businessmen in Nigeria. To this end, many budding entrepreneurs are often left confused about how to set up their businesses, what tools to use and what to discard, and how to harness the brains of many of these great entrepreneurs who have made it through. It is through efforts like this that great Nigerian businessmen like Ibrahim, Dangote, Otedola or Adenuga can leave a worthy legacy because as far as many Nigerians are concerned, the legacies of some of these men still remain unclear, if not completely unknown or undefined!
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