If a list of the wealthiest or most entrepreneurally astute or most visible business tycoons in Nigeria were ever made, the chairman of Forte Oil Chief Femi Otedola will be at or near the top of each list. The man who started from humble beginnings has become a household name all over the country and beyond. Such is the reach of his influence that the biggest names in politics, business and society are falling over themselves to be in his good books.
That Otedola has taken the business world by storm comes as no surprise to those who have followed his upward trajectory over the decades. Whenever he sees a bull of a problem he seizes it by the horns and does not let go until he has wrestled it into submission.
Entering the dangerous oil and gas terrain with Zenon Petroleum, Otedola swiftly outmanoeuvred more established names in the country. Through a series of systematic moves culminating in the merger with African Petroleum and the subsequent rebranding to Forte Oil, he emerged as perhaps the top indigenous player in the money-spinning industry.
Hard as it is to imagine, in the mid nineties, Otedola was like every other young Nigerian trying to make a name for himself. Even so, the qualities that have come to define him shone through like a blazing star.
In the recent book launch of ‘PENdulum 1&2’ and ‘Fighting Lions,’ written by the publisher of Ovation International magazine Chief Dele Momodu, Otedola shared how his efforts to seek redress for the acclaimed winner of the June 12, 1993 presidential elections led to a moment of deep personal embarrassment.
He had witnessed on television how the late Chief MKO Abiola was roughly bundled out of a Black Maria while on trial for publicly claiming his mandate as the elected president. Otedola, ever the defender of the distressed, was moved to try to secure his release.
Being friends with Ibrahim Abacha, a son of the late military dictator General Sani Abacha, at that time, Otedola called him and was instructed by Ibrahim to meet him at a location in Ikoyi
Unknown to the young Otedola, the meeting place was the residence of Peter Igbinedion, the then-head of the Federal Airport Authority of Nigeria (FAAN). His decision to plead with Ibrahim on Abiola’s issue led to a thoroughly embarrassing moment.
No sooner had he asked Ibrahim to plead with his father for clemency on Abiola than Peter swiftly opened the door for Otedola and walked him out. The humiliation of the day would stay with Otedola. But it would not define him.
Fast forward to 2013 during an event at the London home of APC chieftain Asiwaju Bola Tinubu and Peter and Otedola would meet again. How the tables had turned. Peter, facing some downturns in fortune, would beg Otedola, by that point a household name, for his phone numbers.
It was at that moment that the truth of the saying to be kind to people on one’s way up because one might meet them on one’s way down sunk in for Peter, son of the Esama of Benin Kingdom Chief Gabriel Igbinedion. But by then it was too late and the damage has been done.