₦airaland Forum

Aufbauh:
Anything that makes them feel good they should kotinu.

The irony is that the people who pride themselves as the average richest people in Africa are still the ones crying victimization and marginalization.

allrightsir:
my friend stop quoting Nigerian newspapers or Nigerian aurthors
Here is Daily telegrapgh of the UK
this is source no4
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/motoring/2726896/A-man-with-a-passion-for-Rollers.html
it is on record that this car was sold to Ado Bayero the Emir of Kano
"Gulbenkian redeemed himself with his later commissions on the Wraith chassis, which were graceful yet still dramatic variations on Hooper's standard themes.
His next, built in 1952, was a four-door cabriolet that was also used by the Queen on a visit to Nigeria."

For instance, Sir Ojukwu’s personal driver at the height of his fame and fortune in Lagos was one Sunday, a Yoruba man. His appointed auditor for all his business interests till he died was Mr. Akintola Williams, the first Nigerian certified accountant who is also a Yoruba man. And when Sir Ojukwu became pioneer Chairman of the Nigerian National Shipping Lines in 1956, the first indigenous Managing Director he appointed was also a Yoruba man called Mr. Nathaniel Oyesiku. Further establishing Sir Ojukwu’s broad-mindedness, at the first visit of Queen Elizabeth to Nigeria in 1956, his Rolls Royce was the official car used to convey the British monarch

https://www.thisdaylive.com/index.php/2016/05/08/in-quest-of-perpetuity-the-ojukwu-nigerians-didnt-know/.

When Queen Elizabeth II visited Nigeria in 1952, the Nigerian government couldn’t afford a Rolls Royce, so they borrowed this Rolls-Royce Silver Wraith LWB from Sir Louis Ojukwu, father of President Odimegwu Ojukwu.

http://dailymail.com.ng/when-queen-elizabeth-ii-visited-nigeria-in-1952-they-borrowed-this-rolls-royce-silver-wraith-lwb-from-sir-louis-ojukwu/

Shortly before Nigeria’s independence in 1960, Louis Odumegwu Ojukwu, reportedly Nigeria’s first black billionaire, and founding president of the Nigerian Stock Exchange, was knighted by Queen Elizabeth II. The royal honor came after he helped the British during World War II with his fleet of trucks. He was so wealthy that during the Queen’s visit in 1956, she was chauffeured around in his Rolls-Royce – apparently the only one in the country at the time – on the request of the colonial administration

https://www.forbesafrica.com/wealth/2017/08/07/small-town-super-rich/

Moneyyy:
The small Nigerian town of Nnewi has more naira billionaires per capita than anywhere else in the country.

Shortly before Nigeria’s independence in 1960, Louis Odumegwu Ojukwu, reportedly Nigeria’s first black billionaire, and founding president of the Nigerian Stock Exchange, was knighted by Queen Elizabeth II. The royal honor came after he helped the British during World War II with his fleet of trucks. He was so wealthy that during the Queen’s visit in 1956, she was chauffeured around in his Rolls-Royce – apparently the only one in the country at the time – on the request of the colonial administration.

Profiled in September 1965 by TIME magazine, Ojukwu made his money by importing dried fish for resale, and diversifying into textiles, cement and transport. When he died a year later, his wealth was an estimated $4 billion in today’s economic value.

His son, Chukwuemeka, who also ended up a billionaire, returned from Oxford University at 22 with a master’s degree in history and led his fellow Igbos into the Nigerian civil war as head of the secessionist state of Biafra in 1967.

Their hometown Nnewi, in the southeastern state of Anambra, either by good fortune or hard work, has bred more naira billionaires than any other town in Nigeria, and possibly Africa. The Igbos, who sometimes refer to themselves as the ‘Jews of Africa’, have entrepreneurship in their blood. They have built themselves from the ground up, with little help from the government, after a controversial policy left them all with 20 pounds each, regardless of their bank balance, at the end of the Nigerian civil war in 1970.

Nicknamed the Japan of Africa, Nnewi is famous as a hub for automobile spare part dealers, and most recently, Innoson, Nigeria’s first indigenous car assembly plant. The town is also known for its factories that manufacture household goods and is home to the biggest road transport companies in the country. Nnewi, with a little over two million residents, is a 30-minute drive from the Onitsha – the biggest outdoor market in West Africa – on the banks of the Niger River.

These are 10 of the most prominent naira billionaires from Nnewi, in no particular order:

Cletus Ibeto: The Ibeto Group has been described as the largest industrial enterprise in southeast Nigeria. Starting out as an apprentice to an already established auto spare parts dealer, Ibeto eventually branched out on his own and effectively ended importation of lead acid car batteries in Nigeria in the late 80s. The result is a conglomerate dealing in hospitality, motor products, real estate, petrochemicals, agriculture and cement.


Cosmas Maduka: One of the country’s foremost car dealerships, Coscharis Group, is the brainchild of a man who lost his father at four and had to drop out of school to sell bean cakes, a popular food staple. His company, one of the largest car dealerships in Nigeria that deals with BMW, Jaguar, Range Rover and Rolls-Royce, has diversified into agriculture.


Innocent Chukwuma: Another school dropout, he is the founder of Innoson Nigeria Limited which produces sport utility vehicles, commercial buses and passenger cars at the first indigenous assembly plant in Nigeria. The company has factories in Nnewi and Enugu and has the governments of Anambra and Enugu states, as well as a few federal agencies, among its customers.


Gabriel Chukwuma: The elder brother of Innoson, Gabriel is invested in sports, real estate and hospitality. As chairman of Gabros International Football Club, he oversaw its rise into the Nigerian Premier League and partnership with English side, West Ham FC before selling to fellow Nnewi entrepreneur, Ifeanyi Ubah. He began business as a patent medicine dealer.


Alexander Chika Okafor: Chicason Industries, and one of its products – A-Z Petroleum, are household names in Nigeria. The conglomerate has made significant inroads in the mining, manufacturing, and real estate in Nigeria and Sierra Leone. Okafor, its founder and chairman, was named in 2011 by the Senate as one of the beneficiaries of the subsidy fraud under the Goodluck Jonathan administration, pocketing as much as N18 billion ($54 million).


Augustine Ilodibe: An orphan and mass server in the Catholic church, young Ilodibe was gifted £35 by one of the priests and he initially invested in motor spare parts trading. By the sixties, he pioneered the interstate luxury bus transport service; for years, he was the sole importer of these buses. After helping organize vehicles for the Biafran side during the civil war, he established the hugely popular Ekene Dili Chukwu Transport, his main cash cow and later diversified into brewery and agriculture.


Ifeanyi Ubah: The flamboyant businessman funded parts of the Goodluck Jonathan campaign ahead of the 2015 presidential polls and unsuccessfully ran for the governorship of his home state, Anambra, in 2014. His wealth comes from investments in oil and gas, as well as exportation of motor spare parts and, recently, from sales of football players. In June 2015, Ubah – described by one Nigerian newspaper as ‘the new sugar daddy of Nigerian football’ – completed the purchase of Gabros FC for N500 million and renamed it Ifeanyi Ubah FC.


Louis Onwugbenu: The head honcho of Louis Carter Industries dropped out of school in 1967 when the Nigerian civil war broke out. He got his nickname from weekly trips to Lagos to sell motor spare parts under the popular Carter Bridge in the city. His reinvested profits allowed him to diversify into manufacturing car batteries and pipe fittings, agriculture, food processing, real estate and, by the age of 30, he was already a naira multimillionaire. The headquarters of his conglomerate sits in the Carter Industrial Estate, spanning many acres in Nnewi.


Obiajulu Uzodike: Nigeria is one of the foremost cable producers in the world due to many indigenous manufacturers across the southeast. One of the top cable companies is Cutix Nigeria, whose founder, Obiajulu Uzodike, cut his teeth in the business as a staff at a US-based aircraft and military wires and accessories company. By 1982, the Harvard Business School alumna and civil war veteran set up Cutix with N400,000 ($1,200), nurturing it to eventually become the first indigenous firm in the southeast to be listed on the Nigerian Stock Exchange.

StOla:
Dude the article is about wealth, which I have not challenged in anyway.

Rather, I have underscored the apt description given to a town many on this forum have vehemently argued is a city only to be called a small town by Forbes.

My argument and revelation is straight forward, and anyone bitter about the content of my argument is only angry that lies previously boasted about have fallen flat and prostrated to the truth.

The bitter reaction is called deflated ego.

Rapture4real:
Is Evans not from Nnewi?

oglalasioux:
Igbos are the richest among the black people of the world.

And it's 80% hardwork.

OMANBALA1:
You are a demonic tribalistic goat that should be burnt with hot boiling oil. You are a wicked soul...If this thread was done for the Yoruba you won't be here finding incriminating details. Your life is a piece of sorry !

obiezed:
LOLl,you went from trying to discredit the post to Eromo egbejule is Igbo to trying to discredit Forbes editorial team,all to prove what??,that you are a miserable butthurt gimp.and I was even begging amarabae to take it easy on you.okay,carry in with your tomfoolery and have a miserable life.

louqas:
False News
ijebu has more billionaires than any other town in Nigeria.

Proudly yoruba

Amarabae:
Every Tribe came into this group and congratulated IGBOS Except One Tribe.
Anything good about Igbos gives them nightmares.
Very sadistic in nature and envious in character.
Always obsessed with Igbos and behave like people with inferiority complex.

plaetton:
And doubling down on your knee-jerk BAD BELLE is simply called DOUBLE BAD BELLE.

StOla:
I don't need to double down, you are the one trying to distract me with matters I already ignored from the onset.

I have focussed on my concern on the false and self awarded city status boasts, a bubble that Forbes has helped to burst.

allrightsir:
Interview with the man who drove the queen in 1956

http://allafrica.com/stories/201605020869.html

By Ibraheem Hamza Muhammad

How did you become the chief driver to the late Premier, Sir Ahmadu Bello?

I am about 80 years old now. When we were kids, children crowned me "sarkin mota," literally meaning chief driver in the office of the then Mai Unguwa Datti in Unguwan Madaka in Zaria city because I was good in rolling used car tyres about.

One fateful day, the driver of the Turaki, Malam Bawa Gwandu, who worked with the Ministry of Works (MOW), told me to start his car - then cars were started using a crank- a long bended iron with a T-shaped top - which was inserted into the engine and turned to fire the vehicle. As I was turning the crank, the engine backfired and the metal hit my hand and I sustained a fracture. When that happened to me, I made a promise to myself that I must learn how to drive.

I was born during the reign of Sarkin Zazzau Ibrahim and I knew him before his death, he was succeeded by Sarki Jafaru.

I started learning car repair under the late chief mechanic, Malam Iyal (the father of Captain Shehu Iyal, a former Special Assistant to the President on Aviation).

After my training as a mechanic, Turaki Aliyu who was a prince of Zazzau emirate, made me his driver. He was married to Amina, my elder sister, and the grand-daughter of the Dan Galadiman Zazzau Abbas. He took me as his son, because he had no child of his own then.

He was a friend of the Sardauna and he introduced me to him at the then Provincial Office near the post office at Sabon Gari in Zaria.

Before they departed by train from Zaria to Lagos for the constitutional conference, one Yusuf was told to stay behind to drive the Sardauna to the Iyan Zazzau's house, but he came up with some excuses so Malam Iyal directed me to drive the Sardauna home. That made Sardauna happy, and he asked who my father was and I told him. He told the Turaki to allow me be on his staff but Turaki told him that I was a small boy, that he would allow me to join him when I grow up.

The Sardauna took me along to the Emir of Katsina Usman Nagogo, Emir Jafaru Dan Isiyaku of Zazzau, Emir Yahaya of Gwandu and Ciroman Kano, Alhaji Muhammadu Sanusi, who represented his father, the Emir of Kano, Alhaji Abdullahi Bayero.

What type of cars did parliamentarians use then?

They were to choose between Vanguard, Citroen, Chevrolet and Pontiac. They were given Pontiacs. And Sardauna collected a Station Wagon.

Who were the personalities you drove before the Sardauna?

Emir Jafaru took me to Sarkin Fada Sambo, he then transferred me to Madaki Shehu, the son of Emir Dalhatu of Zazzau. Though I didn't want to drive, as my passion was to be a mechanic, we spent five years together. He never had a driver who lasted three months with him because he was a disciplinarian. He treated me well in Makarfi. I used to drive him to meet the Sardauna in Kaduna.

At the eve of election, Turaki Aliyu said I will relocate to Kaduna and work with him. That if he won, I will stay with him and if he lost, I will go back to Zaria. In Kaduna, he took me in the evening to greet Sardauna at Unguwan Sarki in Nasarawa (Ministers Quarters). That was when Sardauna told Turaki that from then on I was on his staff; that he had seized me from Turaki and also told his younger brother, Sarkin Fada Nuhu, that he should proceed on retirement from being his driver. The Sardauna bought him a truck and gave him some capital as retirement benefits. That was how I became the chief driver and mechanic. I was his chief driver for seven years before he was assassinated by Major Chukwuma Nzeogwu in a coup.

You were sent to the UK to learn how to drive and repair Rolls Royce cars. How did it go?

I was told to go to England and learn how to drive and repair Rolls Royce cars. While in London the White men told me that there was nothing left that I needed to learn about driving and vehicle repair as they had tested and found me to be competent. So instead of staying for six months, I only spent some weeks. The only thing they taught me was that the car had three removable covers: One for normal drive; another for ceremony and the third for very important visitors.

How did it feel driving Queen Elizabeth?

In 1956, before independence, the Governor General was to host Queen Elizabeth. The Aide de Camp (ADC) to the governor sat in the front and he was the tour guide. An English man called Mr. Samson who was the chief engineer in Kaduna first drove the Queen, but later left me to carry on.

She was lodged in the Government House in Kaduna near Tudun Wada. I drove the Queen briefly during the dinner. It was during the visit of the Queen that the city gate of the Nigeria Defence Academy (NDA) Junction by Badarawa bus stop was erected.

Did you talk to the Queen?

I was told not to talk to her. She was busy smiling and waving hand at people. The weather was cold, but I was sweating profusely. I also drove the Queen's sister, Princess Alexandria, during her two visits. I usually go in advance to durbars in Kano and Maiduguri and she will follow by flight and I will drive her in the Rolls Royce or Oldsmobile open roof car.

plaetton:
Your BAD BELLE is even deeper than previously thought.
The joke is on you.

laudate:
Madam, if Egbejule is not an Igbo name, then kindly tell us what part of Nigeria bears that name. Is it an Efik name or an Igala name or a Kanuri name? Forbes relies on writers to supply it with stories. Or does Forbes manufacture stories from thin air? Are there robots who insert those stories inside Forbes? There are no lies or propaganda anywhere. Such traits are the stock in trade of your people.

Madam, if you must argue, please do so like an educated person and not an ignorant one. Even a primary school pupil, knows that newspapers and magazines rely on journalists to supply them with stories. The argument is not about whether Forbes published it or not, but who wrote the story. The fact that you are spewing insults left and right shows how pained you are. Try to get over it. Thanks.

aonag:
Any Yoruba person willing to take the trip, I would fully sponsor a tour around Nnewi or better still Osumenyi, a county within the town of Nnewi to show you what you have not seen even in VGC before. Igbos use houses as competition and not clothes and Jewelries as others do.

StOla:
I don't need to double down, you are the one trying to distract me with matters I already ignored from the onset.

I have focussed on my concern on the false and self awarded city status boasts, a bubble that Forbes has helped to burst.

allrightsir:
for the slowpoke called panda2

https://classics.honestjohn.co.uk/news/general-news/2013-08/image-of-queens-rolls-royce-takes-exhibition-centre-stage/


Image of Queen's Rolls-Royce takes exhibition centre-stage
Published 22 August 2013

A highly evocative image of a famous Rolls-Royce is to star in an exhibition of photos by the celebrated photographer George Osodi. Entitled Nigeria Monarchs, it is being held at the Bermondsey Project, London, 3 October-3 November.

ALW 11 started life in 1952 as a long wheelbase Silver Wraith. Its flamboyant lines were inspired by American oil tycoon and renowned Rolls-Royce aficionado Nubar Gulbenkian and committed to metal by the British coachbuilder Hooper. Ownership of the car then passed to the Emir of Kano, Abdullahi Bayero, and its second claim to fame was its role as transport for Her Majesty the Queen and the Duke of Edinburgh during their 1956 visit to Nigeria, when they rode open-topped through the city of Kano.

By 2009 this most striking of Rolls-Royces had been handed down to the current Emir of Kano, Alhaji Dr. Ado Abdullahi Bayero and, though still much loved by the family, was in dire need of restoration. This exacting task was entrusted to long-standing independent Rolls-Royce specialist Chris Lee’s of Beaconsfield, Bucks.

Chris said: 'The instruction was to do anything that was required, irrespective of cost, and we ultimately rebuilt pretty well everything, starting with a new ash frame for the alloy body. Along the way we created replacement Perspex covers for the unique front lights, and persuaded the speedometer in the rear compartment back into life, where we also fitted a genuine Rolls-Royce badge bar to serve as a handrail for the emir when he needed to stand and acknowledge his people. The much-treasured bonnet mascot is one of the rare Rolls-Royce ‘kneeling lady’ type.

'Seeing George’s splendid photo of the emir driving ‘ALW 11’ brought back many memories, as did the garages in the background, in which we first saw this famous car together with a Rolls-Royce Silver Could III that we also restored for the emir; the relationship with whom obviously means a great deal to us.'

laudate:
That Forbes article was not well researched in my humble opinion. What was all that story about using Ojukwu's Rolls Royce to chauffeur the Queen around during her visit?


No, in this case the Igbo writer of that article in Forbes made a blunder, by rushing to press without crosschecking the facts of his story.

StOla:
That "bad belleism" accusation was the response people like me were labelled with by people like you, when arguing that Nnewi is nothing close to a city as argued by Anambrarians on this very forum in the past.

Now, has my "bad belleism" not been vindicated as factual opinion by Forbes?

The false boasts that Nnewi is a city has now been put to rest, and giant egos have been deflated like when a city is resized to a small town.

allrightsir:
If you lived in the west, the richest man you knew in those days was fajemirokun, if you lived in the east it was ojukwu because understandably the east is a very insulated place and they dont know who Fajemirokun was. That Ojukwu was known in the west and his wealth wasnt the stuff of legend like Fajemirokun would have me beleive that Fajemirokun was probably wealthier, that said what does it matter, is there any difference between Dangote and Adenuga? They are both dead and their wealth hasnt grown from one generation to another like the Fords and Walmart Dynasties.

laudate:
Yes, as that article was written for Forbes by an Igbo writer, and was devoid of any factual research whatsoever. It was just a fluffy PR piece.

NaijaEfcc:
I must say am impressed!! Well done our Igbo brothers!!
Lalasticlala mynd44 clap for our brothers nah

NaijaEfcc:
The Small Town Of The Super Rich By Forbes Africa 5 min of reading August 7, 2017


-Written by Eromo Egbejule https://www.forbesafrica.com/wealth/2017/08/07/small-town-super-rich/

cstr1000:
So i am expected to take the words of a backward illiterate filthy yoruba dingbat over Forbes Africa?
When you ponder over that question, then hopefully, you can see the depth of your inanity.
Btw, you claim to be from edo state? Wetin concern you? Are you suffering from stockholm syndrome?
Do you have any proof that your tribalist yoruba friend is correct and a forbes writer backed by forbes legitimacy and research dept is wrong?
Which tertiary institution did you attend? I am assuming you went to school.

Behumble123:
They have built themselves from the ground up, with little help from the government, after a controversial policy left them all with 20 pounds each, regardless of their bank balance, at the end of the Nigerian civil war in 1970.
...... And nobody is saying anything about that statement. The marginalisation did not start today. 20 pounds regardless of your bank balance?