It was Christmas week, 2025. I knew Yuletide had its unique fragrance, but I didn’t realise surprise was part of the scent. Then, it happened.
I looked round the hall. There could not have been fewer than two hundred guests seated in easy poise: manifest and latent powers; senators; key figures who belong in President Bola Tinubu’s kitchen; people of prominence from the other side; former governors, business magnates, artistes, men and women drawn from every corridor of influence in Nigeria.
It was a gathering where power wore perfume and soft laughter carried weight. Among that sea of guests, I was aware of three journalists; there could be others I didn’t notice. I was one of the three; beside Bob Dee, I sat. At the host’s table was the biggest of us, Chief Olusegun Osoba.
A few days before the event, my phone had blinked with a message that startled in simplicity: “My brother, on the 20th we have a Xmas Carol at the BELLISIMA ON THE WATERFRONT, in Banana. An evening of absolute razzmatazz. Music, comedy, connoisseur drinks and fine dining. Plse join us…A card will be sent later today sir.”
The message came from one of Africa’s richest men.
The carol turned out exactly as promised by the host—razzmatazz in its finest form. Music flowed, laughter rose with nice jokes, glasses clinked while the breeze of Lagos’ immense waters carried the fragrance of festivity.
Yet, even amid that glitter, the host himself remained what he had always been: quietly present, almost hidden behind his own parapet, but seated strategically enough to view every one of his guests and ensure their comfort.
At about 1 a.m., the host rose, and the show came to an end. One by one, the guests drifted away.
The host was Dr. Mike Adenuga Jr., the man widely known as The Bull. He clocks 73 this week.
Bellissima on the Waterfront is the name he gave his residence. That Italian word of beauty is a synonym for breathtaking, and exactly that is what the residence is. The event that held in the massive acreage could not be less stunning.
He will be 73 on Wednesday. Seventy-three is a big number. But it seldom carries the noise and excitement of the big round numbers. It, nonetheless, is a milestone that demands the aplomb of the impact the celebrator has made on the world. Even when he recoils from celebration, he is celebrated.
Some give out hens and keep a tally of the eggs they lay. The billionaire of Bellisima freely gives out horses—complete with bridle, saddle, and reins. The world may measure him in billions, but it is his humanity that gives meaning to those billions. His health is the health of an immeasurable community of beneficiaries; his success, their success. They call him the mystery man who gives and retreats before gratitude can catch him. He gives and withdraws from thanks.
Such men are rare in every civilisation, culture and age: Mansa Musa of Mali (c. 1280–1337); Ashoka of India (c. 304–232 BCE); Antoninus Pius of Rome (86–161 CE); Louis IX of France (1214–1270); and Dom Pedro II of Brazil (1825–1891)—wealthy men who wore crowns lightly and gave heavily.
Extraordinary generosity headlines tributes from Adenuga’s beneficiaries. Glo Life, the in-house publication of his telecom company, periodically chronicles his quiet acts of munificence. A 2025 edition carries a striking line: “He often reconnects with old associates and quietly showers them with millions, transforming their lives in the process.”
In a previous piece, I hinted at his famed preference of the shadows of work to the noise of applause. In the early days of Globacom, he told a group of editors from Ibadan that working hard was a habit for him.
Now the man takes his seventy-third step on the ladder of years. For someone whose days are filled with oil wells, telecommunications towers, and global boardrooms, from Lagos to Paris, to everywhere, age appears not to have slowed him; if anything, it has polished his resolve.
You saw him at a business meeting with French president, Emmanuel Macron, last year. At over 70, he still expands stakes and scales heights. He moves quietly to sign deals, in telecoms, in oil and gas; home and abroad. There was a deal signed last year in Paris between his Conoil Producing and TotalEnergies. A new medium sweet crude grade called the Obodo blend was launched and shipped exactly a year ago, diversifying Nigeria’s export portfolio. It is from his onshore OML 150 block.
The Yoruba know how to salute greatness. In the hunter’s chant, they say the elephant is not an animal that invites casual pointing. They say the elephant is the creature that one points at with all the fingers. They assert that standing before the elephant, the hunter’s boast dies in his throat. Adenuga is that elephant in the forest of enterprise and philanthropy: viewed or heard from a distance, spoken of in reverence, seldom met in person.
At seventy-three, the Bull still stands firm in the pasture of industry. May the coming years grant him continued strength, deeper quiet, and wider horizons. And, God willing, when, next year, the next birthday arrives, we shall write again of another step taken by the man whose habit is success.
The views expressed by contributors are strictly personal and not of Law & Society Magazine.
