How Mike Adenuga Enriches Lives, Communities

It takes courage to be Dr. Mike Adenuga Jnr. You have to travel aeons back perhaps to encounter a charitable heart like his. Much of his gestures stem from his ability to feel, visualise, and appreciate the miseries of society’s underprivileged and build livable lives for them from the ground up. Adenuga defies stereotypical projections of the multibillionaire as the shark next door, the deal-maker or the calculating prospector. There’s something about the feeling he imparts in all his acquaintances, that triggers a change in their circumstances, writes Lanre Alfred    

Dr Mike Adenuga Jnr’s  bank of love is never bankrupt. He is the proverbial benefactor who was born into a world of iron, that he might make it a world of gold. The only lean aspect of his life is his pride. Blessed with a good heart and a fat purse, if Adenuga had his way, he would banish extreme poverty from the world. For the Globacom Chairman, to give is interred in his innate nature, thus a single act of kindness is like a drop of oil on a patch of dry skin—seeping, spreading, and affecting more than the original need.

In a world where most of his billionaire peers live like the Dead Sea, always taking in and never giving out, Adenuga is remarkably different. His kindness is like a magical spell meant to enchant hearts and lift weary souls so that they might fly. While many draw attention to society’s most pressing problems, Adenuga resolves them.  Adenuga is never far removed from his roots and the indigent, however far and near. He is compassionate in an unrelenting sort of context. When he gives out money or favours he spends himself completely with the gesture.

 If the Chairman of Globacom were crowned the richest man in the world today, it wouldn’t matter to him. He had never been a sucker for worldly and ephemeral titles. Thus he’d keep doling out his fortune to nourish dreams and flesh the hopes of the starving.

If you ask him, he would tell you that he has not lived in a day, until he has done something for someone who can never repay him. Thus while some billionaires toss satellites into orbit and strive to harness the sun, Adenuga commits his fortune to nobler, simpler objectives, like raising society’s underprivileged from privation to surplus.

His footprints are prevalent in the humanitarian sector. An army of donees and devotees hang on to his beneficence. Unassuming yet indomitable, Adenuga redefines philanthropy and affluence.

Contrary to pervasive notions of affluence that hold most billionaires as glassy, shallow creatures, furloughed from reality all the time, Adenuga is unmistakably different.

Nestled atop his fantastic business empire, the chairman aspires to beneficence, guided by the wisdom of the ancients: a kind gesture can reach a wound that only compassion could heal, he has learnt.

Thus he is never far removed from his roots and the indigent, however far and near. Adenuga is compassionate in a beneficent, unrelenting sort of context.

In other words, his generosity may be the best measure of his humanity. Adenuga understands that to become fabulously wealthy and to earn great fame are triumphs not of humanity but of vanity. Thus over the past four decades of his robust entrepreneurship, he has desisted from reveling in vanity. There is a garden in Mike Adenuga’s heart, where roses and white lilies grow. This explains his penchant for giving. In Adenuga’s world, giving is akin to sowing. Thus his charitable gestures may be likened to growing a flower. To grow one flower, however, is no easy fit. A flower is never just a flower, it is the start of a whole garden.

It takes a nurturant spirit to grow one flower let alone immeasurable hectares of flowers.

Adenuga is an unusual giver, a fertile soul forever yearning to enrich bare and barren tracts. Every sunrise invites him to rise and brighten someone’s day. Take his charitable gestures during the Yuletide, for instance; Season after season he keeps doling out huge amounts of financial and material gifts to his employees, friends, relatives and business associates. No individual or group within his social circuit is left out; Adenuga touches every life on his radar with matchless and unforgettable acts of generosity.

There is no gainsaying Adenuga understands the needs of the shrinking world, growing inequality; demographic change and the spectre of poverty. He understands that these forces haven’t just tested our security and our prosperity, but are testing our democracy, as well.

How we meet these challenges, according to Adenuga, will determine our ability to eradicate poverty, educate our kids, create good jobs, and protect our homeland. In other words, the act of cheerful giving; how much we give and at what magnitude, determines our future.

Hardly do we have a household that doesn’t feel Adenuga’s magical hands directly or indirectly. The billionaire magnate widely acknowledged as a rare citizen of humanity and inspiring spirit of Africa, is known for reaching out to his loved ones and even mere acquaintances within and outside the festive period. Adenuga’s acts of charity are informed by his understanding that neither democracy nor any other system of governance would work without a sense that everyone has equitable economic opportunity and access to resources.

Thus he endeavours to spend his fortune to better the lives of the people within his immediate and remote environment.

If you ask him, he would tell you that, God gave him an enormous fortune to enable him to impact lives on the African continent positively. He’d tell you that no billionaire should engage in philanthropy simply to score points or take credit, but to make people’s lives better.

But for all the real progress that he has made, in his quest to improve lives and communities in Nigeria and across the African continent, Adenuga would argue that no charitable gesture is ever enough hence it must be sustained, over time, with noble and cheery intent.

The miserly magnate would always argue that the economy doesn’t work as well or grow as fast when a few prosper at the expense of a growing middle class and ladders for folks who want to get into the middle class. But this is just a frantic economic argument.

Stark inequality is forever corrosive to democratic ideals. This, therefore, spurs the Globacom chairman to continually give generous shares of his wealth and income to the needy and deserving recipients in Nigeria’s inner cities and rural counties.

No one should be left behind — the laid-off factory worker; the waitress or health care worker who’s just barely getting by and struggling to pay the bills, the orphaned, widowed, and elderly are all beneficiaries of his wealth.

There is no gainsaying philanthropy like Adenuga’s, it is the only pathway to forging a new social compact to alleviate the impoverishment of the boondocks, and guarantee all our kids the education they need; it is the only pathway to ensuring that augmenting the facilities of the social safety net to cushion sky-rocketing inflation and reflect the way we live now.

Adenuga reminds us that we can all resist the excuses that guard us from giving love. Whatever power we have, whatever our wealth and attainments, we attain humaneness and immortality, perhaps, by lifting others. Especially those who are less privileged than we are.

Adenuga espouses corporate empathy and social responsibility guided by the belief that we need each other as individuals and groups to attain the completeness of corporate strategy and humanity. And his rivals and associates, loyal staff and betrayers, uniquely beckons this truth.

And in fulfilment of his perpetual desire to enrich the lives of his loved ones, the Globacom chairman treats his children and a few other family members to undiluted fun at a classy soiree every Yuletide period.

Not a few among them earnestly await the Christmas season to participate in this grand affair that parades the most expensive, mouthwatering delicacies and drinks.

Many attendees find the event, lit by glittering Christmas decor, particularly lifting their spirits. The Adenuga Yuletide celebrations have, over time, established the class and elegance of the billionaire magnate and recipient of France’s highest national honour. It is noteworthy, however, that Adenuga hardly hosts a soirée, he isn’t given to unnecessary frivolities but when he does, it’s always out of this world.

It is an open secret that every attendee at his soirees always finds it difficult to leave at the end of the party. They get carried away by the treats doled out to them by their generous host.

Thus Adenuga’s private Christmas party at his mansion in Banana Island, Ikoyi, often manifests as an Eldorado of sort to those who are privileged to be part of it.

The billionaire mogul acknowledges the need to fraternise with his loved ones at the end of the year’s busy schedule hence he hosts them to a memorable end-of-year party to spend quality time with them.

Predictably, the billionaire’s family are thrilled and positively animated by his generosity and they mince no words in expressing their heartfelt gratitude to him.

His recent gesture to his loved ones further establishes his generosity of spirit and towering humility. Friends and family attest to his modesty and indisputable reputation as the only billionaire in the country who doesn’t make noise and ride on a wave of ego to eminence. Adenuga is humble, classy and true to his loved ones; he never approaches them with unnecessary airs and pretensions of prestige. Unlike too many of his billionaire peers who continually yield to the lure of vanity. Adenuga is classy, bighearted and down to earth. He displays no mean airs. That is why he is never driven by ego or status to alienate his loved ones.

Over increasingly large swathes of Africa’s air space and beyond, the Glo network springs untrammelled by the constraints of commerce. Thanks to Adenuga, the average African now shares boundless talk time and access to data in the same air space as the super-rich.

Adenuga’s Globacom, through its ubiquitous Glo network, has made life easier for millions of Nigerians and Africans, within Africa and all over the world.

The possibility of a thriving indigenous network has been realised; now, the local telecommunication industry is no longer queerly infertile; it is flourishing and filled with the beauty of bird song. This success story may be attributed to the brilliance and foresight of the astute businessman and founder of Globacom, Adenuga. There is no gainsaying every pivot in the history of his business empire was summoned into being through desire, toil and pragmatic manoeuvring. Adenuga aka The Bull hammered his secret fantasies into life.

Through his struggle, he kept telling himself the truth when it mattered most; he submitted his dreams and his will to an innate censor long before the odds or any traducer could harangue his vision of growth. In the end, his efforts earned him vast tracts of a voluptuous empire and the reputation of an  African gem.

While several billionaires of his league forged their reputation through fraud and the devices of clever publicists, Adenuga got his reputation by earning it.

In Adenuga’s world, enterprise becomes magic; the fondling of ambition from a delicate prod into a feral grope. A grope against the odds. Against adversaries and unforgiving fate. Only a titan like Adenuga could brave these challenges and carve from it all, an Eden. In homage to his humanity and relentless strides at rewriting the African telecommunications narrative, the French government, in 2017, invested him the highest French decoration and the most famous in the world.

But unlike the proverbial warrior who lives to sing the song of his deeds, Adenuga remains impressively humble and immune to conceit. The recipient of the Grand Commander of the Order of the Niger (GCON), one of Nigeria’s highest national honours, treads a rare path to acclaim thus attracting honour in torrents, from home and abroad.

In this age of self-promotion, Adenuga simply lets his achievements do the talking for him. That’s quite big and instructive in a billionaire magnate; he is all about sincerity and humility. Despite his inestimable progress and achievements in the telecoms sector, understands that being a star is not up to him: the people will confirm his dazzle.

Everything Mike tries—from telecoms to oil and gas, and philanthropy, manifests with an inextinguishable glimmer. And that is why he remains the most respected and accomplished son of Ijebuland.