*JIMOH IBRAHIM Reveals His Investments There.

*Owns SAO TOME’s 2nd Largest Bank.

*The Biggest Insurance Company There.

*And How He Set Up SAO TOME’s 1 University.

Not many people know that Nigerian billionaire businessman Jimoh Ibrahim is a big businessman outside Nigeria.
Only very few actually knew that he has huge investments in Sao Tome, Ghana, London, the US and Dubai. For instance, this Harvard trained businessman who sits atop 17 flourishing companies in Nigeria is the biggest foreign investor in that little Island of Sao Tome located on the Atlantic Ocean by the Equator in Central Africa.

Before you wonder how big is his involvement there, lets promptly hit you with the fact that Jimoh Ibrahim controls the commanding heights of the economy of this fast growing country. How?

He owns one of the 2 biggest banks called Energy Bank. Two, he owns the biggest Insurance Company in Sao Tome called NICON which are the major insurers of the government of Sao Tome. He has also set up the 1 and only University in this beautiful country which will start academic session this September.

In addition to this, he has been made the Honourary Consul to this country that has a lot of beautiful beaches. So, he carries the prefix of His Excellency and travels with a diplomatic passport. He has the powers to issue visas to all intending visitors from Nigeria. His main brief from the government of Sao Tome is to help attract more and more investments into the tiny country which was colonized by the Portuguese many years ago.

Why is he investing into his country which recently discovered Oil in commercial quantity?

These and many more were the questions SEYE KEHINDE asked him when they both visited STP for 2 days to view his huge investments.

Most Nigerians don’t know you are heavily involved in Sao Tome, that you ply big in the economy of this small country. How did all of these begin? What is the attraction that Sao Tome & Principe hold for you?

Jimoh Ibrahim: We stared investing here 7 years ago now. The calculation is a very simple one for me. It is in Central Africa. It is located on the Gulf of Guinea which has 40% of the world’s Oil deposit. This is a very huge figure. The Nigerian government is also very strategic here except that the policies were not comprehensive enough. For instance, there have been joint venture projects between Nigeria and Sao Tome on Oil exploration. Regrettably, that is in the high sea, what informs my entry into Sao Tome is because I want to invest for the future not for immediate. Even from the word, itself, Investment means something you put in place for the purpose of the future not something you put somewhere and hope to take it back immediately. Then, more often than not, it is better to invest in hard places, not in places that are already saturated.

One of the policies of our organization is to invest in poor African nations and try to assist in bringing them up. That is why we decided to build a University for them to raise a new generation up that will come and transform Sao Tome.

You will be surprised that in the whole of this country there is no single University when I came here I was touched and I told the President and Prime Minister that I am going to do a University here. We are about to start the University now. We are just concluding preparing to get the first set of students, about 200 to resume from September.

We started our investments in Sao Tome with Insurance. We brought NICON Insurance here. There are only 2 insurance companies on this Island. Interestingly, we bided for and we won to insure the government of Sao Tome. So we insure the government here. Everything about the government here is in our care, in terms of Insurance. It is not about money, but the privilege to insure a whole government, the Army, Police equipment, the Seaport, we insure everything. That projects a very good image for our dear country, Nigeria.

In the process of our investing here we were able to buy one of Nigeria’s banks here, courtesy of Sanusi’s banking reforms. We bought Oceanic Bank here and turned it to Energy Bank of Sao Tome because licence for banking is difficult here. Although they would have given us if we had applied for it. but I didn’t want another Nigerian Bank to collapse here. It will give us a bad image. So we had to salvage what was left of Oceanic Bank. We have been cleaning the books since we started our investment in Sao Tome is not investment that will give you money immediately. It is an investment you look forward to in 10 years time. If you look at Bill Gates definition of proper investments, as short term investment is about 15 years.

But how many people can wait that long before getting returns or profits. The kind of investments we are doing here we don’t expect any return or profit until about 15 to 20 years time.

Nigerian government is also trying to improve on its involvement here. President Jonathan was here the other time. He has been here twice now. It portray good image for Nigeria. He was able to lay the foundation for Nigerian House.

From the chat I had with the Prime Minister, the Nigerian government has also made some donations available here which is not less than 30 million dollars. This is very important because the government here is run by donations, by whatever aids they can get from countries. I think it’s better for Nigerian to invest more here rather than for them to allow countries to take over.

www.famouspeoplenews./2013/02/09/how-i-became-the-biggest-investor-in-sao-tome/

let me use this medium to say hapi bday bro

Odunharry: let me use this medium to say hapi bday bro

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God bless u..Thanks