So, what drives Mike Adenuga?

What drives Dr. Mike Adenuga, the man who once built and owned banks, struck oil, and went on to create Globacom—the telecoms giant that gave Nigerians their voice and identity in the digital age? What inner fire keeps this quiet billionaire awake at night, dreaming new dreams, chasing new frontiers? What pushes him to keep climbing when he has already reached the summit?

It is a question that has intrigued admirers and mystified rivals. Unlike many men of wealth, Adenuga is a man of silence. He rarely grants interviews. He avoids the limelight. Like the oil he struck, he prefers to stay deep beneath the surface. His daughter Bella once joked, while I was interviewing her for a book on her dad, that it was the coming of Globacom that finally dragged him into public view.

Yet, in the quiet of his boardrooms and the hum of his late-night calls, Adenuga reveals himself—not in speeches, but in his passion for work, his obsession with perfection, and his restless pursuit of achievement.

He once said, in one of his rare interviews: “Yes, people say I am a slave driver. I believe that for you to achieve success in life, you have to drive hard. There are no two ways about it. Then you must have passion for whatever you do. For me, Globacom is driven by passion.”

That word—passion—is the key to understanding Adenuga. It is his heartbeat. Whether it was banking, oil, or telecoms, he approached every venture with a burning desire to win.

“You have to build a brand and nurture the brand,” he said. “I love the process of gradually building a brand and the brand growing into a bigger global thing.”

Those who work with him say he notices everything. Travel with him and pass a faded Glo billboard—he will see it before anyone else and call for replacement. Branding, to him, is identity. It is the public soul of the company.

Behind that polished brand lies a man who has known setbacks—and refused to be broken by them. When he lost $20 million in the old CIL GSM licence saga, many advised him to walk away. But he refused.

“Some people were urging me to walk away from it all,” he recalled, “but I felt that walking away is the easy part. The question is: if I walk away, who will do the job?”

That single question captures the essence of Mike Adenuga—the builder who never abandons his construction site. For him, business is not just about making money. It is about adding value.

“If I can be seen to be adding value to Nigerians,” he said, “then I would be fulfilled.”

It was this sense of purpose that brought him back into the telecoms race, determined to give Nigerians a network they could call their own. The result was Globacom—the people’s network, born from resilience, fuelled by patriotism, and carried on the back of one man’s conviction that Nigeria deserved better: better equipment, better telephony and better rates.

To understand the mind that drives him, one must go back to April 29, 1993—his 40th birthday. On that day, Adenuga put his philosophy into words on a crystal tablet he titled On Achieving:

“Achieving is a thing of resolve and persistence. It is the state of attaining success as a goal through sustained consistency. The achiever is a leader, a winner, all the time, not just once. Achieving is an attitude.”

He declared that “leading the pack is the only worthwhile resolve for the achiever. There is no room for second place.”

And this powerful line that could be carved in marble: “Running a business is similar to leading a military operation. The overriding objective is to outsmart the other party, to outperform the competition—to achieve.”

He called business epic combat—not for the faint-hearted, not for those who rely on luck, but for those who bring every fibre of their being into the arena.

Yet, he added a caveat that reveals the moral core beneath his competitive edge: “I do not believe that men must be dehumanised to acquire an achieving attitude. I am a staunch believer in the Divine Presence of God and recognise the necessity of human decency and goodwill.”

For Adenuga, success without goodness is hollow. The true achiever, he said, must give back—through philanthropy, through the promotion of knowledge, through impact that outlives profit.

Ian Randolph, one of Adenuga’s close executives, describes him as a “big dreamer who turns dreams into reality through perseverance.”

As a student in America, Adenuga would jokingly pose as an oil baron, saying: “Don’t you know who I am? I’m an oil baron from Nigeria,” recalled Randolph. “And today, he is more than that. Everything he has done, he first dreamt it.”

That habit of thinking big and acting bold defines his business model. He believes in scale, in buying and producing big to gain advantage. “The larger you buy, the lower the price,” Randolph said. “So he could land things cheaper than most importers and had a big edge.” Dreaming, for Adenuga, is not wishful thinking—it is a blueprint for action.

Dr Ebi Omatshola, the pioneer Managing Director of Conoil (Upstream), calls him a man with extraordinary energy: “He stays long hours working. He could call at 2 a.m. to bounce ideas off you. He doesn’t give up. If he has a vision, he just doesn’t give up. Obstacles will come, but you need to focus and ask yourself: where am I going? He remembers every number, every figure, every conversation. Nothing slips past his mind. When a man is smart, he doesn’t suffer fools gladly.”

That relentless pursuit of excellence runs in the family. He threw his children into the fire early—not to burn them, but to refine them.

Adenuga’s daughter, Mrs Bella Disu, who holds a powerful position in his corporate empire, tells the same story from a family angle. “My dad is involved in every single detail,” she said. “He almost believes that nothing is impossible. He says: ‘If you put your mind hard enough to something and you work hard enough, you’re going to achieve it.’”

Femi Akinrinade, Adenuga’s first-ever business partner, whom I also interviewed, describes him as a man of integrity: “If any money comes in that you are not expecting, Mike will put it on the table. We never had any argument over money. He is starkly honest. He hates lazy people. But he is a listener. If you’re talking, he waits until you finish. Once he makes up his mind, it’s final. But he will never do anything to hurt anybody.”

Beneath the corporate armour, there is a man of faith. He believes that talents come from God and must be used well. “If God gives you a talent,” he often says, “use it properly.” He believes success is meaningless if it does not lift others.

That is why his businesses create jobs, his philanthropy opens doors, and his investments remain rooted in Nigeria. He is a patriot who believes Nigeria must develop its own champions.

So, what drives Mike Adenuga?

It is the hunger to succeed, the courage to dream, the discipline to work, the humility to listen, the faith to believe, and the love of country that runs through his veins.

He is a man who measures success not by wealth but by impact. A man who fights his battles quietly and wins them loudly. A dreamer who became a doer. An achiever who never stops achieving.

And in his own words, carved in the marble of his creed:

“Achieving is an attitude.”

For Mike Adenuga, it is also a way of life.

(Excerpt From a Book Being Written)