All three of them are with their father at their Lagos corporate headquarters in Ikoyi, and they are all working for the Dangote group as Dangote’s business executives, understudying their legendary father before he takes a bow and goes into retirement.
Mike Adenuga’s daughter, Bella, is running Glo by proxy for him.
Tony Elumelu is grooming his daughter Oge. Once she is done with her studies at the London School of Economics, she will join him immediately in running his own family business, called Heir Holdings in Ikoyi.
For Nigeria to grow, my generation needs to pay attention to our different family businesses and see how we can reinvent the wheel by scaling it.
Olam started as a small family business in Nigeria.
The Aswanis, who own the Indomie brand, are in the same boat. They started as a small family business in Indonesia inside a container shop, but today, look at them.
They are all global conglomerates with yearly revenues in the billions of dollars, with their head offices moved to Singapore from Nigeria, to reflect their global ambitions.
One of the favorite family business stories I have come across is what my two Oga’s, Celestine Ebubeogu and Don Ebubeogu, did with Tiger Foods Limited after it was handed over to them by their late mum in the 90s.
Tiger Foods is the producer of popular food brands in the market like Tiger curry, Tiger Mayonnaise, and the rest.
After their mum handed it over to them, it was a tiny business; they could not even afford to buy a truck to convey their spicy products to the relief market in Onitsha.
Yes! They used wheelbarrows to convey their spicy products to the relief market during their early days, asking themselves when they would be as big as their competitors. The company’s chairman, Chief Celestine, whom I fondly call Ide 1, told me the last time we were together at Oriental Hotel Lagos.
Today, look at how big they are.
From that humble beginning, they have grown to become one of the biggest food companies in West Africa as their spicy products can be found all over the West Africa food market, from Cameroun to Togo, Liberia, and Ghana.
Tony Elemelu once shared the story of his daughter Oge, who earns 250 dollars every month working for the family business when she is at home for vacation.
For the daughter of a billionaire, 250 dollars is a pittance, but Tony mentioned that he encourages Oge to save and invest from that 250 dollars that Heir Holdings pays her, and then Oge gives him a breakdown of how she invested at the end of the month.
Tony is teaching Oge that every penny counts and is earned for
He is also teaching her not to be entitled to other people’s money, to save her income and invest, and most importantly, to develop the financial prudence and money management skills that she will need when she takes over the family business from him.
By Chukwudi Iwuchukwu