Top 10 billionaires in Africa and how they made their money

Mike Adenuga (Net worth: $9.2 B)
Adenuga come from humble beginnings. He attended the Ibadan Grammar School, Oyo State where he had his secondary school education. He worked as a taxi driver and security guard to support his education while studying at the Northwestern Alva Oklahoma State University and Pace University in New York.

He built is fortune in mobile telecom and oil production. Adenuga launched Globacom mobile phone network in 2006. The mobile phone network has reached about 30 million subscribers, advancing its operation in West Africa. Thus far, it has been operating in Nigeria, Benin, Ghana and the Ivory Coast.

The Nigerian magnate’s story to fortune began when he was 26 and had returned to Nigeria after studying in the US. He took over his mother’s sawmill business and distributed lace and other materials. He also sold Coca Cola and made some powerful friends in the Nigerian military. He relied on those relationships to get lucrative state construction contracts. Nigeria’s former military president, Ibrahim Babangida, awarded him an oil prospecting license. He used that to build Conoil and became the first Nigerian to strike oil in commercial quantities.

In 1990, he received a drilling license and in 1991, his consolidated oil struck in the shallow waters of South-Western Ondo State, the first indigenous oil company to do so in commercial quantity.

Adenuga was issued a conditional GSM license in 1999. He received the second one when the government held another auction in 2003 by which time the first contract had been revoked. His Telecom company Globacom spread quickly and is doing well in West Africa.

Mike Adenuga controls businesses in the aviation, banking and real estate industries.