Despite all the noise Nigerians make about making money in Nigeria and becoming self-employed, they cannot create a business empire that would stand the test of time and transcend multiple generations. It is a well-known fact that most businesses in Nigeria collapse after the death of the founder. You only have to go back to the likes of Cardoso De La Rocha to Emeka Ojukwu to Deinde Fernandez to understand what I'm talking about. Even revered MKO's businesses collapsed once he was incarcerated. Where is Concord Newspaper today? Dead. Where are his food processing factories? Dead. Airlines? Dead. Kola (the oldest) was old enough to know all of his father's businesses and associates. What did he do to keep the family business alive? Nothing. MKO's businesses, if managed properly, would have been sufficient enough to support all his kids and create employment thereby improving the GDP of the country.

Look at Sonny Odogwu. The man passed away leaving his family with a lot of debts. HIS OWN HOUSE has now been used as a collateral to settle his many debts. This could have been prevented by hiring a lawyer and financial adviser who would have advised him on the best course of action. See what happened to Diamond Bank. Pascal Dozie (the owner) left the bank at the hands of a son (Uzoma) who spent most of his life abroad and didn't understand the banking culture of Nigeria. The Ibru family are also suffering from this as Michael Ibru's siblings and kids are squabbling over his several businesses.

The reasons for all of this is simple. Lack of succession plan. Most African businessmen don't groom their intended successor in time. In developed climes, heirs to large family dynasties are groomed from a young age to take over from their parents. This starts when they are in the university. They (intended successors) intern for the business during their summer vacations starting from the bottom and working their way up to the top. In Nigeria, on the other hand, the heirs of big conglomerates are kept away from the family business and spend most of their time abroad. This prevents them from having an understanding of the business climate in Nigeria. Another problem is that most business owners in Nigeria own majority of the shares of their companies and are answerable to no one but themselves. There are no shareholders to hold them accountable for their actions.

There are exceptions of course such as the Dantata family dynasty to which Aliko Dangote belongs. A lot of law firms have been existence before independence and are ran by second/third generation lawyers. These are exceptions though. Fact remains that most family business and fortunes don't last beyond a generation due to lack of foresight.

Yeah, right.
One of the ways to tackle this is by investing massively in education to also produce a skilled workforce.

The way to sustain anything is to let it have a life of it's own separate from the founder by having a lot of stakeholders and investors without being tied to any one person

You are right. The issue is that majority of founders in this country like to have 100% control of their businesses. They don't even give their own children autonomy to run the business as they see fit or give their own input on how the business should be run. Only Dangote, Elumelu and a few others are enlightened enough to allow shareholders to purchase shares in their companies.

lawani:
The way to sustain anything is to let it have a life of it's own separate from the founder by having a lot of stakeholders and investors without being tied to any one person

gforce5:
You are right. The issue is that majority of founders in this country like to have 100% control of their businesses. They don't even give their own children autonomy to run the business as they see fit or give their own input on how the business should be run. Only Dangote, Elumelu and a few others are enlightened enough to allow shareholders to purchase shares in their companies.

Elumelu does not have any huge business he is controlling with majority stake while using bank loans and not having any expert knowledge about the business but that is what Dangote, BUA do but they are still better than Globacom. What is the rationale in controlling 90 percent of a public company even when you collect hundreds of billions of naira dividends only to pay bank debts?. It is just an ego thing as it can not be for the progress of the business since no one lives for ever. See his refinery, he did not add anything more than the idea but he wants to own it one hundred percent and use the oil demand to pay bank loans. If you start or found anything, the life of that thing must be separate from your own because it will or is expected to outlive you

True. Most African businessmen are egotistic. They believe that they would always be around and wouldn't give others a chance. It's the same reason why most of them don't have a will. They are in denial of their mortality and end up leaving their families in a mess once they depart. Hence, like the topic says, family wealth is not multi-generational like in other continents.

lawani:


Elumelu does not have any huge business he is controlling with majority stake while using bank loans and not having any expert knowledge about the business but that is what Dangote, BUA do but they are still better than Globacom. What is the rationale in controlling 90 percent of a public company even when you collect hundreds of billions of naira dividends only to pay bank debts?. It is just an ego thing as it can not be for the progress of the business since no one lives for ever. See his refinery, he did not add anything more than the idea but he wants to own it one hundred percent and use the oil demand to pay bank loans. If you start or found anything, the life of that thing must be separate from your own because it will or is expected to outlive you

gforce5:
You are right. The issue is that majority of founders in this country like to have 100% control of their businesses. They don't even give their own children autonomy to run the business as they see fit or give their own input on how the business should be run. Only Dangote, Elumelu and a few others are enlightened enough to allow shareholders to purchase shares in their companies.

The reason why most Nigerians do not want to relinquish control of their business is because an average Nigerian employee is very dishonest, immediately you hand over control of your business to him the first thing he will do is to come up with a scheme through which he will be siphoning money from the business for his own personal benefit!