In 1999 the Nigerian government gave Mike Adenuga a conditional licence to run a mobile network, and then took it back. He did not drop the idea. In August 2003 his company, Globacom, finally launched in Nigeria with a billing system that charged callers by the second, and it became one of the country’s major mobile networks.
Adenuga was born in Ibadan on 29 April 1953, the son of a schoolteacher and a businesswoman. According to profiles, he made his first million in 1979, at 26, selling lace and distributing soft drinks, and moved from there into oil and then telecoms. Forbes has placed him among the five richest people in Africa, and he gives almost no interviews.
Why he matters: Adenuga is a rare case of a Nigerian businessman who went into two industries dominated by powerful incumbents, oil and mobile phones, and stayed in both. This profile sets out what is documented about how he did it, and says clearly where the record goes quiet, which for a man this private is often.
Key facts
Full name
Michael Adeniyi Agbolade Ishola Adenuga Jr
Date of birth
29 April 1953
Age (2026)
73
Birthplace
Ibadan, Oyo State
Education
Ibadan Grammar School; Comprehensive High School, Aiyetoro; Northwestern Oklahoma State University and Pace University, New York (business)
Known as
“The Bull”
Main companies
Globacom (telecoms); Conoil and Conoil Producing (oil); Cobblestone Properties and Estates (property)
National honour
GCON (Grand Commander of the Order of the Niger), 2012
Foreign honour
Commander of the Legion of Honour, France, 2018
Forbes net worth
$6.8 billion (March 2025), fifth in Africa
A schoolteacher’s son from Ibadan
Adenuga’s father, Oloye Michael Agbolade Adenuga Sr, was a schoolteacher. His mother, Juliana Oyindamola Adenuga, was a businesswoman of royal Ijebu descent. Adenuga went to Ibadan Grammar School, then to Comprehensive High School in Aiyetoro for his Higher School Certificate, before leaving for the United States.
He studied business at Northwestern Oklahoma State University and later at Pace University in New York. Legit.ng reports that he drove a taxi while a student to help pay his way, a detail that comes from a profile and not from his own interviews.
The first million, and the first oil
According to profiles, Adenuga earned his first million in 1979 by trading lace and distributing soft drinks. In 1990 he received an oil drilling licence, and in 1991 his company Consolidated Oil struck oil in the shallow waters off Ondo State. It is described as the first indigenous company to find oil in commercial quantity.
Consolidated Oil became Conoil, which he chairs. He also held a stake in Equitorial Trust Bank, which later merged with Sterling Bank, and his group includes the property firm Cobblestone Properties and Estates.
The licence that was taken back
His first attempt at mobile telephony came in 1999, when he was issued a conditional GSM licence that was later revoked. Globacom then won a licence in the process that followed. Sources disagree on the date, with Legit.ng saying August 2002 and Wikipedia saying 2003, but all agree that Glo launched commercially in August 2003.
At launch, Glo offered per-second billing, so a caller paid for the seconds used and not for a rounded minute. Profile writers credit it with challenging how calls were charged in Nigeria. The company went on to open in Benin in June 2008 and later bid $600 million for Comium in Cote d’Ivoire, a deal Forbes reported in May 2015.
Glo-1 and the cable under the sea
Glo’s other big project was Glo-1, a fibre-optic submarine cable about 9,800 kilometres long, running from Bude in England to Lagos with a landing in Accra. Reports put its cost at about $800 million. The exact year is disputed, with the cable reported landing in Lagos in 2009 and being described as ready in 2010. It is described as the first submarine cable built by a single African company.
Football, music and brand ambassadors
Glo has paid for visibility. It became an official sponsor of Manchester United in November 2009, took The X Factor to Africa in April 2013 with a $150,000 prize and a Sony Music deal, and has used P-Square, Phyno, Wizkid and the sprinter Tobi Amusan as brand ambassadors.
A private family
Adenuga keeps his family out of the press. Wikipedia lists seven children, including Bella Disu, who is executive vice chairman of Globacom. He is known as “The Bull”, a nickname Ventures Africa once asked about in a feature. Profiles tie it to his taste for big, risky bets in industries dominated by foreign players, though no source dates its origin.
Honours
2012: Grand Commander of the Order of the Niger (GCON), which the presidency defended in a statement
2018: Commander of the Legion of Honour, awarded by President Emmanuel Macron
2019: named among the 100 most influential Africans by New African
Net worth
Forbes estimated Adenuga’s fortune at $6.7 billion in May 2024 and $6.8 billion on its March 2025 list, where he ranked fifth in Africa. Wikipedia lists the Forbes 2026 figure as $7.0 billion. These are estimates. Globacom is a private company that does not publish audited accounts, so the figures rest on Forbes’s own analysis.
Questions readers ask
Is Mike Adenuga the second richest man in Africa? No. Forbes placed him fifth in Africa on its 2025 list, behind Aliko Dangote and others, with $6.8 billion. Some older web pages call him second richest, but Forbes does not.
When did Globacom start? Glo launched commercially in Nigeria in August 2003. Adenuga’s first conditional licence from 1999 had been revoked, and Globacom won a second licence before launching.
Why is Mike Adenuga called The Bull? Profiles link the nickname to his appetite for large risks in industries dominated by established, often foreign, players. No source gives a clear origin.
What does Globacom’s per-second billing mean? It means a customer is charged for the actual seconds of a call, not for a full minute at a time. Glo launched with it in 2003.
Did Mike Adenuga study in the United States? Yes. He studied business at Northwestern Oklahoma State University and later at Pace University in New York.
What is Mike Adenuga’s net worth? Forbes put it at about $6.8 billion in March 2025. That is an estimate, because his companies are private.
Conclusion
The most telling fact in Adenuga’s story is the one he could not control: the licence that was revoked in 1999. Plenty of businesses lose a licence and disappear. His group came back, won another and launched four years later, which says more about his persistence than any nickname.
The two sides of his empire work in different ways. Conoil, descended from Consolidated Oil, comes from the 1991 oil find and the long relationship between Nigerian business and the petroleum sector. Globacom came from a bet against incumbents, backed by per-second billing and later by the Glo-1 cable, a project described as the first of its kind by a single African company.
What the record does not show is the inner workings of any of it. Adenuga rarely speaks, his companies are private, and several of the figures that circulate about them cannot be checked. That silence is part of the profile, because it is how he has chosen to run the business.
References
Wikipedia, entries on Mike Adenuga and Glo, with their cited press coverage
Forbes, profile of Mike Adenuga and 2024 and 2025 billionaire lists; report on the Comium bid (2015)
Legit.ng, profile of Mike Adenuga at 73 (October 2026)
Vanguard, coverage of Adenuga’s GCON and of Glo’s history
Ventures Africa, feature on the nickname “The Bull”
Channels Television and The Punch, reports on the 2025 Forbes list
Max Adeyemi is a Lagos-based writer covering Nigerian and African entertainment, sport, business, and culture. He has spent over a decade tracking the careers, controversies, and quiet achievements of the people who move the culture. He writes all profiles on Nolly.
