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Family Business, Detouring, And Its Perks [Ventures Africa](Ventures Africa Via Acquire Media NewsEdge) This article was first published in Ventures Africa magazine’s #Richlist issue VENTURES AFRICA – Upon his death in 1966, Louis Odumegwu-Ojukwu was one of the wealthiest men in Nigeria. In a September 1965 profile, Time magazine wrote: "Sir Odumegwu Ojukwu, 66, knighted shortly before independence, started off by importing dried fish for resale to the nonfishing Nigerians, then decided to ship the fish inland himself instead of leaving the job to others. He also amassed the country's largest fleet of 'mammy wagons', the trucks that carry Nigerians (including market women, which gives the trucks their name) from place to place." Odumegwu-Ojukwu's eldest son, Chukwuemeka, was sent to King's College in Lagos, and then Oxford University. He was barely 22 when he returned to Nigeria with a Masters Degree in history. Ahead of him lay a bright future as inheritor of the impressive Ojukwu business empire. But the younger Ojukwu seemed to have different ideas. He followed a stint in the colonial civil service in Eastern Nigeria with an army enlistment in 1957. Ojukwu senior had definitely not wanted an army career for his eldest son, but his son was not given to deferring to other people's wishes. It turned out to be a stellar military career. Emeka Ojukwu became, as historian Max Siollun notes in his book, Oil, Politics and Violence, "the first university graduate to obtain a combatant commission in the Nigerian army". He was also the first Nigerian to be appointed quartermaster general. In 1966, the year his father died, when he should have taken over the family business, Ojukwu instead was appointed military governor of the Eastern Region. He was only 32 years old. His international renown soon matched and then surpassed his father's: In August 1968, as head of state of the breakaway Republic of Biafra, Ojukwu made the cover of Time, one of only two Nigerians so honoured in the magazine's history. Ojukwu Was An Outlier Not everyone will be an Emeka Ojukwu, a “prodigal son” who is able to have his cake and eat it too. Despite the younger Ojukwu's refusal of a business career, it just so happened that he inherited the elder man's vast wealth just as he was about to embark on a military campaign that would stamp his name into the history books. A more likely fate for the child of a billionaire is to end up in a boardroom, burdened by the intimidating legacy of the previous generation. An October 2009 report, "Africa's Endangered Kings of Capitalism," lists, among 55 billionaires from across the continent, eight Nigerians: Michael Ibru (shipping, agriculture, aviation, banking), Subomi Balogun (banking), Michael Ade Ojo (automobiles), Pascal Dozie (banking), Samuel Adegbite (insurance, packaging), Julius Adelusi-Adeluyi (pharmaceuticals), Goodie Ibru (hospitality) and Oba Otudeko (oil and gas, flour milling). Virtually all of them have their eldest children in their direct line of succession. Ibru's empire – the Ibru Organisation, founded in 1956 – is run as an extended family business; Michael's eldest son Oskar is now group executive director. Balogun's FCMB is run by his third son, Ladi. Adegbite passed on his business to his son, Adewale. Ade-Ojo's son, Ademola, is managing director of Elizade, the automobile sales company his father founded in 1971. And Otudeko's son, Obafemi, is group executive director of Honeywell, on his way to succeeding his father at the helm of the family business. Waiting for Godot? Sometimes, however, the bequeathing process can become complicated. Nigerian business wealth has a notoriously short lifespan. Because of problems in succession planning, most empires die with their founders. Most of the businesses owned by the men listed in the 1965 Time magazine report have shrunk or disappeared in the past five decades. "People who were rich in the seventies have disappeared," says analyst Opeyemi Agbage, who runs a Lagos-based strategy and business consultancy. Some 15 years after the death of MKO Abiola, once believed to be Nigeria's wealthiest man (his first big break came in the 1970s, as vice president of telecommunications giant ITT Africa) much of the business empire he built has collapsed. His conflict with the country's military, which annulled the presidential elections he was believed to have won in 1993, resulted in a four-year prison stint, during which he died. These events played a significant role in crippling his businesses. Family squabbles, complicated by interminable court cases, can also pose problems for billionaire children with an eye on the estate of a departed parent. Abiola is believed to have left behind more than a hundred children. He also left a will that insisted that all but six of his children take DNA tests before benefiting from it. Almost a decade after his 1998 death, the tests revealed that as many as one out of every five persons who claimed to be an Abiola child was not. Rotimi Williams, Nigeria's best known and most successful lawyer– the first Nigerian to become a Senior Advocate of Nigeria (SAN), and also the first Nigerian to be appointed Queen's Counsel (QC) – died in March 2005. He left his four sons, three of whom are lawyers like their father, embroiled in a bitter fight over his estate. More than seven years on, the dispute remains unresolved. Life Beyond Business Even without inheritance troubles, life is rarely easy for rich kids, who often find themselves caught between living big on parental wealth and carving a niche independent of a parent's name. Being born into money is supposed to expand a person's sphere of possibilities but sometimes it works to constrict that space. Trying to pursue an independent business within a parent's industry is almost never an option, since all it does is open the door to the cynicism of friends and strangers: How far would the child have gone without the door-opening name and wealth of a parent? Some children react to the pressure by moving in the opposite direction. A number of Nigerian heirs who have an eye on making names for themselves outside of their parents' spheres of influence have turned to the arts. Musician Davido (David Adeleke), 20, is the son of a businessman whose debut album was titled Omo Baba Olowo (Rich Kid). His father is given to effusive displays of support for his son, attending his album launch with a group of wealthy friends and allowing his son to hop between same-day concerts in Accra and Lagos on the family's private jet. Florence 'Cuppy' Otedola, the 21-year-old daughter of billionaire Femi Otedola, has also embarked on a career in music, combining her London education with DJ work. She released her debut single, 'I Love My Country', in July this year, with her father's full support. The Perks and Pains If Nigerian billionaire parents are worried about the potentially pernicious effect of their wealth on their children's lives, anecdotal evidence suggests that they are not as vocal as their Western counterparts. Bill Gates has spoken publicly about his plans to leave each of his children only "[a] minuscule portion of my wealth" – no more than a few million dollars per child, it has been rumoured. Defending that decision earlier this year, he told an Australian news network: "I think a kid should grow up knowing that they're going to have to make their own way in terms of finding work and that they won't be giving out sums of money or just have all the money they'll need. I do think that having kids receive large sums of wealth, actually, has been more negative for them than positive." Fellow American billionaire, Warren Buffett, shares this philosophy. Nonetheless, the children of these billionaires will have the basics sorted out. Gates has said of his children: "They will be given an unbelievable education and that will all be paid for. And certainly anything related to health issues we will take care of." The perks are to be appreciated. As an Oxford student in 1950s England, Emeka Ojukwu was known for his flashy sports cars, which he liked to drive at great speed – his father's Rolls-Royce, meanwhile, was well known in Lagos. In the 1980s, when he was in his twenties, Kola Abiola drove the streets of Lagos in a convertible Mercedes-Benz. And not too long ago, Lagos gossip blogs buzzed with news that Folorunsho Alakija, Africa's richest woman, had recently ordered four brand new Mercedes-Benz G-Wagons – each worth $150,000 – one for each of her four sons. Many people born into money also have a fallback option unimaginable to most Africans: If all your attempts to earn a decent income fail, there is a safety net. But inheritance can be a double-edged sword. Rich people generally like to have their way, sometimes at the expense of an offspring's happiness, and astounding wealth seems to come with a compulsion to make plans for the lives of those who will inherit it. However things play out, happiness often manages to price itself out of the reach of money, whether earned or inherited. American billionaire, William K Vanderbilt, understood this, long ago observing that "inherited wealth is a big handicap to happiness." "It is as certain a death to ambition as cocaine is to morality," he said. Follow @VenturesAfrica on Twitter and on Facebook Own a tablet? Ventures Africa magazine app is now available on iOS andGoogle Play Store (c) 2014 Ventures Africa. All Rights Reserved. Provided by Syndigate.info, an Albawaba.com company |