By Modupe Olubanjo
His journey is a storied edifice of hardwork, discipline and doggedness; his business a beacon of enterprise etched in pro-people purpose. His success is a definition of very clear vision and well-defined mission; his legacy gracious and enviable.
This is about The Bull clocking 72 but what I celebrate here is more than his life of means and the fruitful years he has amassed. I add to the celebration his success as a proud father of Grade A children. In those children shine the values that define the dad: I speak about vision, about excellence, humility, integrity, purpose.
The man is Dr. Michael Adeniyi Agbolade Ishola Adenuga. He clocks 72 in a few days.
His standards are measured in gold. The more I look at him and the top quality offspring he sired, the more I marvel at how monumental his blessings are. Our society once had a past anchored on positive family values; our own age is different in priorities. We live in this age of decadence with wealth and position becoming licenses for raising rotten, entitled children. But The Bull’s positive example teaches that it is possible to be truly big and be successful all round: success in business; success in town; success at home with well-turned-out children.
A billionaire in dollars with godly children is rare to come by. But we have this man, having all his children, all eight, spic and span in character, in discipline, in focus. In father and children is a family that is an oasis of peace and sanity.
Dr Adenuga’s entrepreneurial years span about 46 years. Across those years, he made billions and had children. As he worked hard and made money, he did not forget to birth and raise disciplined children that add value to his name and essence. As his vast business empire grows, his home front blossoms also in solid human architecture. He is blessed with money but I think his greatest assets are his topnotch children. They crown his blessing and glory.
Adenuga’s parenting style is a stark contrast to the acute permissiveness in others that often stare watchers in the face. Look around you. What do you see in the lives of children of the wealthy and the politically well-heeled? Permissiveness; indulgence; decadence. With Dr Adenuga, our society can learn and build a model in combining successful entrepreneurship with successful parenting.
Astute in business with interests in telecommunications, oil, estate, banking etc., Adenuga has repute, not only for success in all the pies that he has his Midas hands in, but also for the intentional and principled style of raising his children. Himself a last born child whose comfortable parents pampered not. He was raised in a loving Anglican home where parenting was modeled after biblical principles. Dr. Adenuga has advanced the legacy handed to him and made a contemporary model of same which other parents can copy.
Let us look at his eight children – Oyin, his first child: quiet, unassuming, non-flippant. She is an effective executive in one of her dad’s many businesses. Babajide, his first son, popularly known as Bobo has carved a niche for himself in winery and related enterprise making a success of it; Agbolade, his second son, popularly called Paddy, once held sway at Globacom as an Executive Director before veering into his own ventures where he is quietly raking in mega bucks. His second daughter, Bella, delectable like a gazelle, brilliant without making a fuss out of it, works as Executive Vice Chairman at Globacom alongside Folasade, her sister who is Group Executive Director with Abimbola, another of the Adenuga girls, also at some point working as a director at Globacom. Bella also doubles as a director in Julius Berger, a construction giant where her dad is said to have very vast shares. Eniola, another son also made a mark at Globacom while Adeniyi(Jnr.), his last born is making steady growth, and taking sure steps at enterprise which is etched in his DNA. All of them are evidently thriving in their respective fields. In all the years that his children have been involved in his businesses, not once has it been recorded that they threw their weight around as COO -‘Children of Owner’, nor did they at any time oppress workers in the employ of their dad’s businesses.
A close family source said that from an early age, the children had fair but marked shares of household chores. While they did that, they were expected to maintain high academic standards in the high-brow schools they attended. Again, in addition to all that they must attend periodic family meetings where personal and family goals and targets were reviewed and amended as the situations dictated.
And so, they grew to be children of excellence they are. Those who know will say never for the Adenugas is the fast life of clubbing and its attendant vices; never for them is the entitled systemic spoilage of the lives of kids of success.
Rather than immersing his children in pools of poisonous privileges, Adenuga infused in all of them the notion of authority walking hand in hand with responsibility. He has shown that with privileges come accountability.
All his children have evidently achieved personal successes in addition to becoming exemplars of discipline, ethical lifestyle, and responsible leadership. Evidently, these are virtues instilled in them through their father’s personal example of industry and studied calmness.
Adenuga’s parenting style may have seemed strict to some at some point, but the results in the children he biologically sired and the millions he gained or adopted over the years, are impossible to ignore. In fact, many of his acolytes in his businesses act and behave like him in many instances underscoring the great impacts he has made on their lives.
Everyone who has followed Adenuga’s history is confident that the values he has inculcated in his children and disciples will outlast him. He is a legend who has consistently taught us that wealth is not built and concretized with zillions of cash alone. He teaches that steadfastness, industry, discipline and clear-headed vision are the building blocks of success.
Adenuga’s future of peace is assured as he waltzes gracefully into advanced age. He has helped this society raise another generation of entrepreneurial patriots; prime assets in human form. His many businesses will undoubtedly survive and wax stronger with his well-read, capable children as the face of the future.
As we celebrate his years, it is also necessary to emphasise that The Bull is the stuff quiet legends are made. The Spirit of Africa from the pristine land of Ijebu is not tired of writing his own script of greatness away from the glares of floodlights. Quietly and deliberately, he does his thing with disarming aloofness while putting humanity at the core of his enterprise.
From his modest beginnings, he has built a business empire rooted in diligence, foresight, and integrity. He started menial and small, trading in simple stuffs; then he increased his pace and moved into massive investments.
Today, people who know the weight of hard work sing his story and chant his charm. They celebrate not just his wealth, they applaud his very unique ways which have earned him the respect of peoples and palaces. In markets and on verandas; in the eyes and gaze of folks, rural and urban, we see an admiration of Adenuga’s uncommon grace; we see a celebration of someone whose success represents resilience, discipline and successful parenting.
I stand and say on this rooftop that his most enduring legacy will lie more not in any brick and mortar or in his multiples of nine-figures. His real legend is in the children, biological, professional, social that he trained—children who reflect his values; children who stand tall in their own right.
Not many men of means are that blessed. This exactly is what I celebrate today in addition to the impactful interventions Dr. Adenuga continues to make in the lives of millions of our needy compatriots.
Much like America’s Samuel Moore Walton (1918–1992), who founded Walmart; and Haroldson Lafayette Hunt Jr. (1889–1974) who rose from humble beginnings to build a vast fortune through oil investments, and whose names are etched in America’s hall of fortune, The Bull has succeeded in beating the path to a sustainable future.
Many happy returns to The Bull at 72. May you continue to dig gold until hoar hairs.
Congratulations, sir.
