The award will be presented to Mr Rabiu alongside other winners of the various award categories.

A business mogul and Chair of the BUA Group, Abdulsamad Rabiu, has emerged winner of the 2023 Man of the year Leadership Excellence Awards.

In a seven-day Leadership Excellence Awards voting by Nigerians via online platforms, monitored by the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN), Mr Rabiu was voted ahead of three other nominees.

The BUA chairperson polled a total of 568,247 votes to defeat other nominees including Allen Onyema, chair of Air Peace; Auwalu Rano, CEO A.A Rano Nigeria Limited and Aloysius Ikegwuonu, founder, Ebubechukwuzo Foundation; who polled 478,117; 286,374; and 68,352 votes respectively.

The prestigious Leadership Excellence Awards (LEEX Awards), the fifth in a row, is organised annually by IgbereTV that recognises and honours the outstanding impacts of leaders across both the public and private sectors in Nigeria.

LEEX Awards also promotes outstanding leaders and personalities, whose impacts have been felt in Nigeria’s political, social and economic spheres.



Abdulsamad Rabiu, who was born Aug 4, 1960, in Kano State, is widely known and recognised for his philanthropy across the African continent, through his foundation, the Abdulsamad Rabiu Initiative Africa (ASR Africa).

Mr Rabiu was equally nominated for the ‘Man of the Year’ award category by Nigerians during the last two editions but lost out to Peter Obi in 2022 and Obi Cubana in 2021.

The BUA founder recently came to the aid of the Nigerian educational system with a 5.5 billion naira grant for infrastructural development to 22 universities and other tertiary institutions. The grant came under the ASR Tertiary Education Grants Scheme.


NAN recalls that the new recipients brought to 30 the number of Nigerian higher institutions that have benefited from the scheme.


Before the new set, eight Universities in Nigeria had benefited from the Scheme, receiving billions of Naira in grants with some of their targeted projects nearing completion.


The LEEX Awards was endorsed in 2020 by the African Union Economic, Social and Cultural Council (AU-ECOSOCC), and in 2021 by the African Union Film Institute (AFI).

The award will be presented to Mr Rabiu alongside other winners of the various award categories November 4, 2023 to be held at the Abuja.

(NAN)