What Makes the Muhammadu Indimi Brand Stand Out?

Raheem Akingbolu

Marketing savant, former dot.com executive and best-selling author, Seth Godin’s definition of what a brand is has always fascinated me.
According to Godin “A brand is the set of expectations, memories, stories and relationships that, taken together, account for a consumer’s decision to choose one product or service over another.”

When people talk about brands, they think primarily of the visual representations like logos, colours and all those outward elements put together by brand and marketing experts.

But what of the human elements? How do the people who set up and run companies as well as those who work in those companies affect the way consumers and the general public perceive their companies and the products they produce?
A consideration of this aspect of a brand will help us understand why a tweet by Elon Musk can have a salutary or deleterious effect on the share price of Tesla and why Jeff Bezos or Bill Gate’s indiscretion will have an effect on the companies and brands associated with them.

People matter and the way they conduct themselves affect their brands and products and companies for good or ill.
Alhaji (Dr) Muhammadu Indimi is a Nigerian “businessman and philanthropist”. That is how he is described in a Wikipedia entry for his name. But those two words do not tell the full story of this colossus who could be described with adjectives that run the gamut from enterprising to diligent as well as focused and passionate and generous.

Born 74 years ago in Maiduguri to a father who earned his keep from selling hides and skin. Like most children in Northern Nigeria then, he was not fortunate to pursue formal education – because the number of schools were limited at the time, with the result that majority of children were deprived of what is known as Western education. Given this situation, parents who were unable to place their children in the few available Government schools, ended up sending their children to attend Quranic schools. Despite this, Alhaji Indimi speaks six languages: Kanuri, Hausa, Fulfulde, English, French and Arabic. He never went to formal school; he taught himself how to speak and write English, as well as becoming proficient in French language.

His first foray in business was as an understudy for his father who dealt in hides and skin but he could sense that the universe of a dealer in hides and skin was a severely circumscribed one. So, when he was barely twenty years old, Muhammadu Indimi took a loan from a friend and pivoted leaving the family business to pursue his fortune as importer of clothes from Chad and Cameroon.
It was as a clothes and textile merchant that Muhammadu Indimi began to come into his own as an enterprising and influential businessman gaining national prominence.

Call it a case of preparation meeting opportunity and you will not be too far off the mark. By 1990, Ibrahim Badamasi Babangida was Nigeria’s military president and he had taken the very unusual action of appointing a medical doctor to head Nigeria’s oil ministry.
The new minister was Professor Jubril Aminu, a first class brain and the one who would eventually change the landscape of Nigeria’s oil and gas industry. As Peju Akande and Toni Kan write in “A Safe Pair of Hands”, their magisterial biography of oil and gas maestro, Austin Avuru “When Professor Aminu was appointed oil minister by Ibrahim Babaginda, he had zero oil industry experience. He was a medical doctor who lectured at the University of Maiduguri.

But he was not just a medical doctor, he was a brilliant one and had graduated top of his class at the University of Ibadan. It was this medical doctor turned oil minister who midwifed a deliberate policy, as Minister of Petroleum, to introduce indigenous participation in the industry, even though naysayers scoffed that it wouldn’t work. On a trip to a Chevron facility, Prof. Aminu was surprised by the sheer number of Nigerians who were at the top, right there in the field, running their operations, and he figured that, really, Nigerians ought to be given an opportunity to participate. So, in November, 1990, Professor Aminu awarded oil blocks to 11 Nigerian entrepreneurs on a discretionary basis.”

Alhaji Muhammadu Indimi was among the beneficiaries. When the story of successful indigenous participation in the Nigerian oil and gas space is told, the name of Muhammadu Indimi must be writ large as leading the way for others like Seplat, Neconde, Midwestern, Nestoil, Aiteo and many more to follow.

This is because 31 years down the line it is testament to his sheer drive, diligence, tenacity and sense of purpose that of those 11 blocks awarded by Jubril Aminu, Oriental Energy Resources and Conoil (formerly Consolidated Oil) are the two top success stories from that exercise with Alhaji (Dr.) Muhammadu Indimi sitting atop Oriental Energy as Executive Chairman.
Alhaji Muhammadu Indimi remains without a doubt, the moving spirit behind Oriental Energy Resources and his unblemished personal brand continues to burnish the company he set up as he remains strategic and intentional in the way his company conducts its business especially in its host community.

Deliberate about giving back, Alhaji Indimi in setting up the Muhammadu Indimi Foundation (MIF) seems to have internalized the words of Timothy Pina who has averred that “philanthropy is not about money, it is about feeling the pain of others and caring enough about their needs to help.”

Alhaji Indimi has made money and ranks among the richest Nigerians with Forbes estimating his net worth at $500m as at 2015. But the more money he makes the more deliberate and intentional is he about giving it back to impact lives.
Indimi continues to impact his host community for the best. Since 2009, he has placed 1000 indigenes of Akwa Ibom state on a scholarship. Plans are underway to build a secure housing estate for Oriental Energy’s host community in the Mbo and Effiat Local government areas of Akwa Ibom state where has also conducted an annual medical outreach since 2018 which impacts more than 15,000 persons.
He donated a Science Laboratory Complex to Community Grammar School, Ebughu in Mbo LGA, Akwa Ibom and has organized capacity building workshops on sustainable community development planning and management for the host communities.

He also built a Youth Empowerment Centre in Mbo LGA and sponsored a Sustainable Business Development and Management training for 15 members of the Board of Trustees and management staff of the Center aside the awarding of equipment maintenance and support contract for the 18 months. He also recently donated N5 million to the Mbo Empowerment Foundation as well as COVID-19 palliatives to the Effiat and Mbo host communities.

In the North East where he hails from and which has been a theatre of insurgence and carnage, Alhaji Indimi has shown that he has not forgotten the aphorism that charity begins at home. He donated N200 million naira as emergency support for victims of disaster in Nigeria; donated N2 billion to support victims of terrorism in the North-East, gave N200 million to support IDPs in Adamawa, provides an annual food and cash support for over 30,000 IDPs in Borno and has invested N600 million to build a fully equipped estate with 100 homes, school and medical centre in Bama under the MIF resettlement initiative for IDPs amongst others.

On Thursday December 23, 2021 the president commissioned Alhaji Indimi’s latest philanthropic initative; a multibillion naira purpose built complex which he built and donated to the University of Maiduguri.
The complex which boasts a suite of world class facilities is home to the Centre for Long Distance Learning as well as the International Conference Centre. Facilities include Exam Hall, conference room, e-Resources Centre, laboratory as well as staff offices and recreational areas.

His efforts have not gone unnoticed. He has been garlanded at home and abroad. In 2012, he was awarded Officer of the Federal Republic of Nigeria (OFR); in 2013, he received an honorary doctorate from Lynn University, Florida ; in 2017, he received an honorary doctorate from University of Uyo and that same year, he won the Vanguard Newspaper Businessman of the Year. He received an honorary doctorate from the Nigeria Defense Academy in 2018 and in July this year Alhaji Indimi was awarded a Doctor of Science, Honoris Causa at the 51st convocation ceremony of the University of Lagos. In December 2021, Dr Indimi was also awarded an Honorary Doctorate Degree in Technology by Kwara State University, and Honorary Doctorate Degree in Entrepreneurship by the Kaduna State University, Kaduna.

As Oriental Energy Resources strides forth on its march to its fourth decade it is clearly staking its claim as one of Nigeria’s heritage brands defined by its longevity, adherence to its core values and intentional preservation of its brand essence and reputation.
Infact a little over 10 years ago, LEAP Africa set out to commemorate Nigerian businesses that had survived a generation. If I remember correctly, they were only able to identify just a few – Lisabi Mills and Domino stores. Very soon, Oriental will be counted amongst them.