Born To Be A Solution 3

MIKE ADENUGA: RULE YOUR WORLD!
“… for this purpose I was born and for this purpose I have come into the world…’’ – John 18:37
“Rule your world or someone else will.’’ – Gbenga Adebambo

Napoleon Bonaparte, the first emperor of France once said, ‘’impossibility is a word only found in the dictionary of fools.’’ Life stories are full of people who have done the impossible in the midst of daunting challenges. To make significant impact in life, we must have zero tolerance for the word ‘’impossibility’’. We must vehemently believe that we are born to be a solution. You are as rich as the problems that you’ve solved. Wealth and problems are Siamese twins and great minds are excited at problems, for when it is solved, the reward is wealth. You have a goldmine when you have a solution mind!

“A problem is a solution yet to be discovered.’’ –Mark Torra

Steve Jobs was an American entrepreneur, marketer and inventor, who was the co-founder, Chairman and CEO of Apple Inc. Steve Jobs, was born on February 24, 1955 and was adopted at birth by Paul Reinhold Jobs and Clara Jobs. Paul worked as a mechanic and a carpenter and taught his son rudimentary electronics and how to work with his hands to take apart and rebuild radios and televisions. As a result, he became interested in electronics and developed a hobby of technical tinkering. Jobs attended Cupertino Junior High and Homestead High School in Cupertino, California, where he became friends with Bill Fernandez and Steve Wozniak. Following his school graduation in 1972, Jobs enrolled at Reed College in Portland, Oregon. Jobs dropped out after six months as his parents could not afford the school and spent the next 18months dropping in on creative classes including a course in calligraphy. He continued auditing classes at Reed while sleeping on the floor in friends’ dorms and returning coke bottles for food money. The calligraphy course he took despite the odds eventually helped in building his MacBook with multiple typefaces and proportionally spaced fonts.

Steve Jobs then worked for Atari with Steve Wozniak to design games for the companies’ computers. Jobs and Wozniak worked together to design a telephone blue box which was a solution to phone call charges. Using Jobs’ family garage as a base of operation, the two produced fifty fully assembled computers on their own and founded the Apple Corporation on April 1, 1979. During the early 80s, Steve Jobs controlled the business side of the company while Steve Wozniak, the design side but due to a power struggle in 1984, Jobs left Apple and founded NeXT, a high-end corporation. Ironically, Apple bought NeXT and Steve Jobs served once more as its CEO from 1997 until his retirement in 2011. Steve Jobs created a solution to web browsing by creating the first world’s web browser on NeXT software which he later transferred to the Macintosh and the iPhone.

Steve Jobs’ return to Apple birthed the iMac, iPod, iPhone, iPad and much more. The genius of Steve Jobs was the ability to bring together many unconventional threads to solve difficult problems in areas where others had failed. The Apple II with spread sheet VisiCalc transformed personal computing from a hobbyist to a business enterprise. The Apple Mac solved accessibility problems. The iPod, coupled with iTunes was a solution to the stress of carrying the Sony Walkman. The iPod became every man’s portable companion, a portable music listening device and library. The iPhone and iPad touch became the first truly successful mass-marked smartphone and PDA. The iPad was a solution to the regular desktop and laptop computers, being the first successful mass-marketed tablet computer. All problems definitely have solutions. Steve Jobs encouraged the world before his death in 2011 to “think differently”, to solve challenging problems. Steve Jobs was honoured publicly and recognized for his influence in the technology and music industries being the father of Digital Revolution. Man is born for problems; you are a solution to a problem!

‘’The man who has no problems to solve is out of the game.’’ –Elbert Hubbard

Mike Adenuga Jr. whose full names are Micheal Adeniyi Ishola Agbolade Adenuga was born on April 29, 1953 in Ibadan, Western Nigeria. He is a Nigerian business tycoon, a firm believer in the Nigerian Project and he is regarded as one of the richest black people in the world. He owns Globacom telecommunications and an oil exploratory firm, Conoil. He is the second richest man in Nigeria with a fortune estimated at $3.5 billion (November 2015) according to the Forbes’ World Billionaires ranking.

Mike Adenuga is a man with humble beginnings, received his secondary education at the Ibadan Grammar School. He worked as a taxi driver to fund his University education. Adenuga graduated from North-western Oklahoma State University and Pace University, New York with degrees in Business Administration. He founded the first indigenous oil company upon the reception of a drilling license in 1991. Conoil Producing Limited, made history when it became the first indigenous company to strike crude oil in commercial quantities. He was issued a conditional GSM license in 1999; after which he received a second one in 2003. On 29 August, 2003, Globacom launched a brand new identity with the pay-off “Rule your world”, a rallying slogan for catalysing commitment to the company’s corporate vision by staff and a clarion call to Nigerians to take their destiny in their hands as they have the potentials to become the best in the world. Mike’s patriotic adoption of the nation’s green and white colours for Globacom speaks volume on his deep yearning to see Nigeria attain its rightful position in the comity of nations.

One of the first breakthroughs of Globacom in the Telecommunication industry is the offer of a cheaper option of per second Billing (PSB), rather than the ‘per-minute’ model other mobile network providers have traditionally adapted to massively exploit subscribers. Globacom was the first mobile network to introduce the pay per second billing. It was a big solution to Nigeria’s problem of ensuring they weren’t billed 1 minute just for an extra one second. Mike Adenuga was the solution to Nigerian’s need to pay lower tariffs and be charged for the exact airtime used. Subsequently, Globacom’s crashing of the SIM price did not only skew the GSM in its favour but drew a lot of crowd in a short time. Globacom also offered the value added services such as MMS (Multimedia Messaging Service), Glo magic plus news and information, vehicle tracking, musical ring-back tones and mobile banking.

In 2008, Glo mobile was launched in the Republic of Benin and sold an incredible amount of 600,000 SIM cards within the first 10days of operation. Glo mobile uniquely launched Blackberry prepaid services which gives subscribers options to pay daily, weekly or monthly for the service. Blackberry prepaid service gives subscribers free e-mail access and free blackberry messenger. The company also launched 3G high speed internet services through the sale of its 3G modem. Although Glo mobile was the fourth GSM operator in Nigeria, within seven years of the company’s operation, its subscribers’ base has grown to over 25million. Mike Adenuga is not only a solution to the Nigerian telecommunication industry, he also taught millions of Nigerians how to create and rule their world. Mike believed strongly that it is our ‘sacred’ responsibility to rule our worlds or else, someone else will!

‘’Great leaders are almost always great simplifiers who can cut through problems to offer a solution.’’ –Colin Powell

In 2010, Adenuga spent over $1 billion on Glo 1 submarine cable, an undersea cable system, which stretches from Europe to Nigeria and has landing stations in 16 West African countries. Glo 1 will provide clear lines, high quality internet bandwidth at affordable prices to all telecom operators, carriers and corporations, connecting them to all the major destinations in the world. This innovation will revolutionize everything from e-commerce to e-learning. The serial entrepreneur launched a foundation in his name to focus on entrepreneurship development, education, health and rural development. One of the programmes offered by Mike Adenuga Foundation is the Mike Adenuga Fellowship Programme. The foundation award undergraduate scholarships, post graduates and research fellowships, to educationally gifted Africans who desire to contribute to the development on the continent, and who have the potential to become innovators and development drivers in their chosen fields. He was named African Entrepreneur of the Year at the maiden African Telecoms Awards (ATA) in August 2007. He received the second highest Honour award by Nigerian Government in Nigeria in 2012 as Grand Commander of the Order of Niger (GCON).

‘’Goals must never be from your ego, but problems that cry for a solution.’’ –Robert H. Schuller

It is not a sin to start small, but it is a sin to remain small, from his humble beginning as Taxi driver and a security guard in the United States, the man famously referred to as ‘’The Bull’’ now sits atop multi-billion dollar business empire spanning telecoms, energy and real estate. Adenuga once said that making money is not his goal but affecting the lives of Nigerians positively.
Albert Einstein said, ‘’problems cannot be solved by the same level of thinking that created them’’, we are in serious need of youths that can think differently. Youths that will proffer solutions to the avalanche of problems that have beleaguered the nation. I want to emphatically encourage the Nigerian youths to have a major shift in their approach to national problems; the problems that abound around us are an invitation for us to be creative, dynamic and impactful.

Gbenga Adebambo is the dean of schools at the Educational Advancement Centre (EAC), an author, youth specialist, international coach and the Editor-In-Chief of MAXIMUM IMPACT MAGAZINE. He is also the founder of the youth ministry called STOP ‘T’(Seeing Tomorrow’s Opportunities and Potentials Today), a ministry that is involved in discovering and nurturing hidden potentials in youths in order to equip them for tomorrow’s challenges, opportunities and responsibilities.