All Hail The Latest Instagram King, Tony Elumelu!
It’s official: Nigeria’s superrich are bored with their wild extravagance and lust for expensive material toys like private jets, yachts and posh homes in exclusive neigbourhoods around the world. They have devised another means to perpetuate their hankering for elitist consumption and status enhancement. Yes, the rich take their pleasures blithely, after the fashion of whatever seems to be trendy. Hence it is not in habit but in novelty and the clich that many a billionaire often pursues and acquires joie de vivre and pleasure.
The jury is still out on what billionaire businessman, Tony Elumelu, is more passionate about between taking endless pictures for social media exhibitionism or living life to the hilt. Tony, the extravagantly generous chairman of Heir Holdings, is known to love the high life. He was one of the few rich bankers that held the society by the jugular in their younger days when the streets bowed to their whims. Now in his 50s, the banker has parlayed his youthful exuberance to showing off on the narcissist’s coven called Instagram where he regularly posts pictures of his social and professional activities.
Check out his social media page, it’s revealing and pretty entertaining. Like billionaire oil mogul, Femi Otedola, from all indications, Tony does not appear he would be piping down anytime soon. His activities on Instagram have portrayed a man at peace with himself, who is ready to shatter the myth of seclusion normally associated with men of wealthy means. He seems to have burst the bubble of limiting engagement that ordinarily confines many billionaires of his ilk to their heavily walled fortresses and inner shells. Little wonder many a young Nigerian goes to his page to see the latest in fashion, lifestyle and wisecracks.
Tony, a businessman with a clear-cut vision, boundary-shoving commitment to birthing novel and noble ideas and passionate belief in the Nigerian dream, these are the ideals that have kept the chairman of United Bank for Africa (UBA) alive and awake to the power and plausibility of his beliefs. The avid reader, fitness enthusiast, motivational speaker, philanthropist and father of five girls and twin boys, maintains a private life devoid of ostentatious material acquisitions. You may see him at the ringside of popular boxing matches in Los Angeles (a la Floyd Mayweather vs. Conor McGregor fight where ringside tickets cost as much as $100,000), hobnobbing with Hollywood celebrities and global leaders, but you won’t see him displaying McLaren and Rolls Royce even though he has a couple in his homes scattered across the world. Elumelu is that guarded.
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That relentless spirit often pays off. It guides them through perilous quagmires of global commerce till they emerge, victorious in spirit and resolve, like the champions they set out to become. Louis Ekere, the head honcho of Homeland Group is one of them. Yes, he is one of those who have parlayed influence into affluence. The imaginative and unrelenting few who fell off a cliff and built a plane on their way down. As far as business ideas and innovations are concerned, Louis turns nothing down, except the collar of his shirt.
Blessed with vigorous optimism, a boots-on-the-ground approach to his endeavours, an unflinching belief in destiny, it did not come as a surprise that barely a decade after he ventured into the oil and gas business, he was leading older, more established players in the industry by the hand. Some days ago, he opened a multibillion naira WellMed Healthcare Ltd, in Lagos. WellMed is an indigenous healthcare company that offers one-stop diagnostic solution services with state-of-the-art medical equipment including 1.5 Tesla MRI, 64-slice CT Scan, 4D Ultrasonography, fully digital X-ray, 3D Echocardiography, Resting and Exercise ECG and fully automated pathology laboratory with a menu of over 3,000 tests.
Dr. Brown, as he’s fondly called, is also the Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of Homeland Integrated Offshore Services Limited. An indigenous oil and gas company which was incorporated in 2006 with a staff capacity of over 500 employees. The company specialises in engineering, procurement and construction services, marine vessels , technical manpower agreement services, offshore and onshore automated gas oil services , oil country tubular group services etc.
As a CEO, he has negotiated and won several contracts ranging from marine services to engineering, procurement and construction contracts, his direct interaction with major players of the oil and gas industry and his international contacts have been the major factors that fuelled the growth of the company. His sterling and professional performance have steered Homeland IOS LTD to greater heights and have won several awards both home and abroad, the recent being the Certificate of Merit by the US Coast Guard, Department of Homeland Security, United States of America (USA).
He is involved in several philanthropic activities, the recent being the free medical testing on world hepatitis day, free medical outreach at Ajah and environs where residents were screened for chronic lifestyle diseases including diabetes, hypertension and obesity. He has offered free high-end radiologic and pathology investigations including MRI and CT scan, hitherto unaffordable, to indigent patients of public hospitals including Massey Street Children’s Hospital, General Hospital Lagos and Epe General Hospital. He has employed and sponsored indigenes of host communities where Homeland IOS Ltd operates amongst several other activities.
Half a century is a long time in a man’s life. And Edward Edozien, the suave and smooth-talking first son of Prof. Emmanuel Edozien, understands and appreciates this, and how far he has come in life. When he turned 50 some weeks ago, the patently and decidedly self-effacing dude didn’t receive a card from a chiropractor. Neither for him were the thoughts of Led Zepplin’s summation that age 50 is halfway up the stairway to heaven. He was however not unmindful of the fact that at 50, life now seems shorter but in words and deeds, he evinced his gratefulness to God for the grace and good health to daily wake up without any aches and anxieties.
Expectedly, he rolled out the drums in London and basked in the blizzard of good wishes and felicitations that buffeted him. It was a classy party! His father, an accomplished professor of International & Development Economics, boardroom guru, administrator, philanthropist and the Ojiba of Asaba, Prof. Edozien was the Economic Adviser to President Shehu Shagari and adviser to successive Nigerian presidents until his 80th birthday crept in on him.