Oscar tells me in a forthcoming Ibru biography

By MIKE AWOYINFA (THE IBRU FAMILY BIOGRAPHER)

When Olorogun Michael Ibru, the legendary entrepreneur who taught Nigerians to eat protein-rich frozen fish died interstate on September 6, 2016 aged 85, leaving behind a massive business empire, his firstborn Oskar Ibru naturally took over in a case of succession by primogeniture.  The Wikipedia describes primogeniture as “the right, by law or custom, of the firstborn legitimate child to inherit the parent’s entire or main estate in preference to the shared inheritance among all or some children, any illegitimate child or any collateral relative.  In most contexts it means the inheritance of the firstborn son (agnatic primogeniture); it can also mean by the firstborn daughter (matrilineal primogeniture).”

For years, Olorogun Michael Ibru—the founder of the Ibru family business empire—suffered unfortunately from Parkinson’s, a disease which turned him into a vegetable, such that he could not talk nor function in any active capacity until he died.  Having not left any will or any succession plan, his first son Oskar automatically took over his father’s estate, continuing from where the old man left off.

Five years after his father’s death, I met Oskar on September 29, 2021, just as he was moving in for the first time into his father’s office at No. 6 Louis Solomon Close, off Ahmadu Bello Way, Victoria Island, Lagos—an office commanding a breathtaking view of the Lagos lagoon and the Apapa Port bustling with vessels.  On this afternoon, he arrived at the office from Apapa by his own yacht moored to the pier as he stepped out to enter his late father’s office, now his office.

“It took me five years to move into this office,” he told me as the interview for the family biography kicked off.  “When my father died, I should have moved the next day into his office here at Louis Solomon Close but I don’t think it would have been the best thing to do.”

It’s not as if he was a complete stranger to the father’s office.  “My brothers and I have always been here,” he explains.  “Me, Emmanuel and Peter.  Peter is the one in between me and Emmanuel.  We were the first three boys.  My dad got us an office right across there.  Three of us were together.  We were groomed by him from here.  He used to open his door and leave the other door opened.  He would open his door and say: ‘Come!’   After he passed away, the idea of just moving in here was difficult.  But finally, we decided to move in.”

For over two hours, Oskar recounted his father Olorogun Michael Ibru’s long battle with Parkinson’s disease and how he, as his heir apparent, also inherited the deadly disease.  He recalls: “I was tremendously ill before my father died.  For almost three years, I had Parkinson’s disease.  I was in a state where I couldn’t speak, I couldn’t write.  I was in America, on my own, with my wife.  And then in London as well.  But just before he died, I just recovered, almost fully.  So, I came back home.  Luckily, my younger brother Peter, a very competent fellow, he handled everything concerning this burial on my behalf.  With his co-operation, everything went fine.  I came for my father’s burial just in time but still sick.”

As the first son, Oskar shares a lot of insights into what he saw growing up with his grandparents, what he heard about his maternal great grandfather Osadjere, a “slave trader” who “didn’t allow anybody from our tribe to be sold into slavery” and who made “a ritual or a covenant with water, that water will not carry any of his children away.”  Oskar tells how he and his brother were beneficiaries of Osadjere’s water covenant: “I was carried away by water but one Igbo man saw me and brought me back.  My brother Peter also spent three days in coma after getting drowned in Ikeja.  But he woke up.  There were several incidents like that.”

On becoming the successor to his father’s empire and the attendant fallouts, Oskar says: “After my father’s death, there was only one male firstborn child which everybody knows.  Everybody knows who he is.  So succeeding my father was not a problem at all.  I am the eldest son.  Where I come from, I am called Ovwaran which means ‘his house is my house, his wives are my wives.’  Ovwaran means the first son of the deceased, the primogeniture, the one who inherits everything he left behind.  I am the administrator of the entire estate.  My dad died interstate.  So when you die interstate, you don’t leave a will.  Automatically, your first son takes over as Ovwaran.  Definitely, it came with problems but I am not going to go into details because as far as I am concerned, they are solved.  The only problem was that my father had many wives.”

On taking over his father’s empire, what were the problems he met on ground?  How has he solved the problems?  What has he tried to do?  What is the state of the Ibru business today?  What is it like stepping into his legendary father’s shoes?  Where is he taking the business to?  These are some of the questions thrown at him.  Oskar Ibru is the first to admit that “A book on the Ibrus, honestly speaking, is a difficult book to write at this point in time.  There are several complications which even I don’t feel is my position to let them out.  I might be blamed later for one reason or the other which has nothing to do with the fact.  There is a lot happening within the family and I’d rather not be the one to talk about all of these because it’s tantamount to washing your laundry in public.  Because there is no family in the world that doesn’t have skeletons.”

The Ibru name and brand under his watch, Oskar says, “will continue.  And if it is the last thing I will do, I shall ensure that in my own time, nobody can ever say that I am the one that caused any downfall or bad name of the Ibru Organisation or the family.  Especially not Michael’s name.  He is my dad.”

He kicks off with the reminiscences of his parents: his legendary dad Olorogun Michael Ibru and how his mum Mrs. Elsie Nelly Krupp Ibru helped her husband at the early stage when things were tough for him.  From there, he goes on to artistically weave his childhood impressions of his “smart and savvy” entrepreneurial grandma and the business lessons he learnt from her.  Here are some nuggets straight from the mouth of Oskar Ibru who unfortunately did not live to read the Ibru family biography currently with the printers:

                                                ***

We had a wonderful father in the person of Olorogun Michael Christopher Onajirevbe Ibru.  Actually, I have no reservations about him at all.  My father was a very kind person, very humble.  That was what he tried to teach us to be all the time.  It is not an easy thing to be humble.  But we also had the influence of our mother as well.  My mother was very, very cool.  My father was very, very charming.  He had a way of pulling people in.  You just want to talk to him on anything under the sun.  He was a very disarming person.  He was a charming man.  He had this way about him: He never wore a wristwatch.  His time was his time.  He would be here till two o’clock in the morning working.  And by seven in the morning, he is back at work.  And he expects you to be back too.  Even when you were young, he won’t want you to go out and play.

(To be continued)