Michael Niyi Adenuga
Michael Adenuga: Self Effacing Entrepreneur
Michael Niyi Adenuga is an extraordinary man. He is a young man who has his hands in many pies which are well baked. Yet, he remains quiet and unobtrusive inspite of his huge success in his business pursuits. Adenuga trained at the Northwestern State University, Oklahoma and Peace University, New York both in the United States. US, majoring in business administration with a special bias for marketing. It is, perhaps, here that his natural business instincts and skills were honed.
He started business by dealing in commodities and general merchandise, even before he returned to the country. He also did some oil consultancy and petroleum marketing as well as real estate business. It was from finances generated from these business that he got money to make his presence felt in the organised private sector of Nigeria. He is the promoter and chairman of Devcom Merchant Bank Limited, a well focused wholesale bank noted fro excelling in international trade including export business. He is also a leading investor Equitoria Trust Bank, a commercial bank reputed for offering customers technology-based premium products.
However, it is in Consolidated Oil where he is chairman and promoter that Adenuga has pushed farthest the frontiers of indigenous entrepreneurship by making history as the first locally-owned firm to strike crude oil in commercial quantity in 1991. Given the huge financial investments and technology-driven nature of petroleum exploration, Adenuga is applauded as a man who dared the odds to triumph. It is to reward this endeavour that he was made the president, National Association of Indigenous Petroleum Producers NAIPEC.
His investment portfolio extends outside the Nigeria shores. He has invested in Consolidated manufacturing [West Africa] Limited, and in other countries of Europe and America. Locally, Adenuga is into food processing business with interest in making cocoa and cake and butter as well as vegetable oil. He has interests in many quoted companies in Nigeria. He is also on the board of Newswatch Communications Limited.
Adenuga is meticulous and painstaking, two factors that no doubt contributed immensely to his success in business. Unlike some other Nigerian entrepreneurs, he shuns the limelight and prefers to operate behind the shadows. The Ogun State University in 1992 awarded him an honorary doctorate for his outstanding performance and support for the University. Adenuga stands out an example of how hardwork and dedication.
Newswatch June 29, 1998
" Newswatch 1998