Michael Onajirevbe Ibru (25 December 1930^[1] – 6 September 2016) was a Nigerian pioneer industrialist and the founder of the Ibru Organization.^[2][3] As a traditional chieftain of his homeland, Ibru bore the tribal honorific Olorogun and often used it as a pre-nominal style. This title is also borne by the members of his large family in the same way.^[4]

Early life and career

Ibru was born to the family of Janet Ibru and Peter Ibru, a missionary worker who also worked at the Igbobi Orthopedic Hospital, Lagos.^[5] His father provided the discipline and foundation of his unparalleled drive for success, but there is also no doubt that Michael Ibru’s sharp mercantile instinct for business descended from his maternal dynasty of shrewd and wealthy traders. The trade with Europeans (in palm oil, rubber and timber) in the 19th century on Urhobo’s Atlantic coastal waterways was dominated by a handful of wealthy merchants. Amongst them was Chief Osadjere of Olomu, a 19th century millionaire who built the first story building in Urhoboland in 1914; he was Michael Ibru’s maternal grandfather. Chief Osadjere bequeathed his wealth and business to his eldest son, Ovedje, who expanded his father’s commerce into a vast enterprise during the beginning decades of British colonial rule in Urhoboland in the 20th century. Ovedje Osadjere was a warrant chief in colonial-era Nigeria and reigned as Ohworode (King) R' Olomu (1924–1949).^[6] Michael Ibru and his immediate younger brother, Felix Ibru, grew up as young boys under the towering influence of their uncle, Ovedje, and his vast trading enterprise. ^[7][8]

In 1951, after secondary school, he joined the United African Company as a management trainee. In 1956, a few years after joining U.A.C he resigned from the company and started a partnership, which he called Laibru. The corporate entity was in partnership with an English expatriate, Jimmy Large. Starting in 1957, Ibru was a pioneer in distributing frozen fish in Nigeria. Olorogun, as he was fondly called, said in one of his very few interviews that he was seeking solutions to the problem of child malnutrition when he stumbled on his fish business. "I thought of a way to combat this (malnutrition); fish is a source of animal protein, the price of beef was very high, and even relatively well-off people could only afford chicken a couple of times a week,” he said. Michael Ibru also discovered that the frozen fish market was a fertile market with the potential to deliver returns above the market rate. However, it was a tough market to penetrate; at the time, many expatriate firms and Nigerian traders were lacking, and some were not interested in the market. But he felt he could put in extra effort communicating with general traders, who played key roles in product acceptance. To trade in seafood, he established an importing company; he also rented and built cold storage facilities across the country. By the mid-1960s, Chief Ibru had become a millionaire from fish trading. In the 1970’s, chief Ibru was responsible for about 60 percent (150,000–200,000 tons) of the Nigerian frozen fish market — Fish trading had become the traditional moneymaker for the Ibru organization. In 1981, The Ibru organization's turnover was estimated at around N250m ($400m).^[9]

In 1963, chief Ibru chartered his first fishing vessel from Taiyo Gyogo of Japan, and two years later, in partnership with a Japanese conglomerate, he founded the Osadjere fishing company, one of the largest fishing companies in the world. With Mr. Gyogo holding 30 percent of the equity and providing management for deep-sea Fishing trawler and shrimpers, the company began operation with three long-distance freezer trawlers. Ibru began exporting tiger prawns and shrimps while simultaneously importing frozen fish from Russia and Holland. By the end of the 1960s, he had branched out fully into other areas of the economy. In 1969, Ibru founded Rutam Motors, a transportation arm of his business that dealt in the marketing and distribution of Mazda, Saviem, Tata, and Jeep brands of automobiles. Later, the federal government appointed Rutam the major distributor of Peugeot vehicles in Nigeria. In 1965, Ibru established Aden Farm, a large palm oil plantation that also included citrus and pineapple, on 800 hectares of land in the old Bendel State. He later acquired Mitchell Farm in 1973 from its American owners, Alizar, who had established it a decade earlier. The farm grew to become the largest supplier of day-old chicks and processed poultry in West Africa. In 1974, another business enterprise, Nigeria Hardwoods Company Ltd, a logging, sawmilling, and wood processing company, was acquired. The company, owned by the Lathem Group, UK, was originally established in 1919 and exported logs of hard wood. Over the years, the Ibru Organization has expanded into other areas such as shipping, hospitality, banking, real estate, publishing, insurance, aviation, oil, and gas.^[10][11][12]

He is known as a historical business figure who created one of the largest Nigerian-owned conglomerates. In death, Olorogun Michael Ibru is remembered for his trailblazing footprints mainly in business, where he was a colossus bestriding America’s equivalence of Fortune 500 blue-chip companies.^[2]

Education

Michael Ibru attended Igbobi College and acquired a school certificate in 1951.

Urhobo nation

The Urhobo people have benefited greatly from Michael Ibru's legacy. Urhobo men and women have profited at many levels since the rise of the Ibru brand in the second half of the 1950s. First, Urhobo market women were among the first batch of Nigerians to embrace the "Ibru" frozen fish. Many of them rose from relative poverty to higher economic brackets because they participated in the new Ibru ventures from market stalls. There were more direct beneficiaries from Michael Ibru's openness to his Urhobo people, these were the many Urhobo professionals who joined the Ibru organization. Many of them left to pursue their various dreams and ambitions conceived while at the Ibru organization.

The Urhobos have a more particular reason for admiring Michael Ibru. Well up to the 1950s, the image of the Urhobo was not among the best in the Nigerian nation. With the accomplishments and competence of Michael Ibru especially, as well as the achievements of other giants of Nigerian commerce and economics like David Dafinone and Gamaliel Onosode, the Urhobo image has been strengthened in major ways. For that, the Urhobos embraced Michael Ibru as an Historic figure. There is more in the love bond between the Urhobo people and Michael Ibru. He embraced Urhobo culture and Urhobo cultural organizations, especially Urhobo Progressive Union, in a manner that pleased the Urhobo people. It is Michael Ibru who popularized the use of the title "Olorogun" in place of "Chief."^[13]

Private citizen

Olorogun Ibru had five wives, and seventeen children, the most prominent being Oskar Ibru, (who heads the Ibru Port complex),^[14] Oboden Ibru (former ED/COO Oceanic Bank and CEO Midwestern Oil & Gas),^[15] and Emmanuel Ibru (CEO of Aden River Estates Limited).^[16]

Death

Ibru, who was the patriarch of one of Africa's foremost business dynasties, died at a medical facility in the United States in the early hours of Tuesday, 6 September 2016. Ibru was survived by his brother, Goodie Ibru; his wife, Cecilia Ibru; and several children, including Oskar Ibru, Emmanuel Ibru, Oboden Ibru, Elvina Ibru; and grandchildren.^[17]

Olorogun Ibru was posthumously honored with a blue heritage plaque by the Nubian Jak Community Trust and the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea at his Kensington Palace Gardens home where he lived for 33 years. The late Olorogun joined the likes of Bob Marley, Nelson Mandela and Malcolm X, to be recipients of the prestigious award.^[18]

References

• Tom Forrest, The Advance of African Capital: The Growth of Nigerian Private Enterprise. University of Virginia Press (August 1994). ISBN 0-8139-1562-7