Reinventing Enterprise in Igbo Land

NKATA UMU IBE | MARCH 2019

Centre for Memories: Ncheta Ndigbo
Topic: 'Mkpuru Onye Kuru'
Reinventing Enterprise n' Ala Igbo. Speaker: Ike Chioke (Group Managing Director, AFRINVEST)

Of Nnewi and a Resourceful Igbo Town

(By Eromo Egbejule) – The Small Town Of The Super Rich 

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.