Hakeem Bello-Osagie

Hakeem Belo-Osagie is a 58-year old Nigerian businessman listed by Forbes as the 40th richest man in Africa.^[1] Harvard Business School-trained petroleum economist Hakeem Belo-Osagie chairs the Nigerian arm of UAE telecom provider Etisalat. Through his holding company, Premium Telecommunications Holdings, he controls a 12% stake in Etisalat Nigeria. In the 1980s Belo-Osagie worked for the government in various roles including as an assistant to the presidential adviser on petroleum and energy. That was followed by a brief stint at the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation; in 1986 he set up petroleum consultancy CTIC. In 1998 he bought 51% of United Bank for Africa from the Nigerian government and sold it for a reported $120 million in 2004. He is one of the largest donors to the African Leadership Academy, a residential secondary institution in Johannesburg that works to turn out Africa's brightest students.

Personal life

In an interview with the Harvard Business School Entrepreneurs,^[2] Hakeem mentioned that he was born in Lagos, Nigeria. His father was a professional gynecologist and mother, a nurse. At age three, he moved with his parents to England, where they lived until he was about eight and then came back to Nigeria for primary and secondary education. He moved back to England again at sixteen to complete high school. Hakeem started university at about eighteen and was in university in England for five years and then in the United States for two years from age twenty-three to twenty-five. He moved back to Nigeria afterwards where he currently lives with his wife, lawyer Myma Belo-Osagie, and children.

Academic life

Hakeem Belo-Osagie attended King's College in Lagos after which he moved to the Atlantic College in Wales.^[3][4] Hakeem holds an M.B.A. from the Harvard Business School,^[5] a law degree from Cambridge University and an M.A. in Politics, Philosophy and Economics from Oxford University. He is a member of the Nigerian Bar Association.

Career

Hakeem started his career as a petroleum economist and a lawyer. For over three decades, he has been a key player in the Nigerian economy through his participation in several businesses in the private sector particularly in the energy, finance and telecommunications sectors.

After graduating from Oxford with an M.A. and Harvard with an MBA in the early 80s, Belo-Osagie returned to Nigeria and worked with the Federal Government of Nigeria in various capacities in the energy sector ranging from Special Assistant to the Presidential Adviser on petroleum and energy, to Secretary of the Oil Policy Review and LNG Committees. He also served as Special Assistant to the Minister of Petroleum and Energy. He subsequently worked in the Petrochemicals Division of the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation. He resigned his appointment in 1986 to set up CTIC, which became a leading energy consulting firm.

He until recently served as the Chairman of the board of directors of the United Bank for Africa Plc one of the largest commercial banks in Nigeria. He was forced to resign in March 2004 due to fraudulent financial practices alleged by The Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN).^[6][7] Keem as he is popularly called by friends is being investigated by the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) over alleged siphoning of huge sums of money from the bank's branch in New York to its subsidiary in Nigeria, where Keem is believed to have substantial interest.^[8]

He is also the founder and former Chairman of First Securities Discount House, Nigeria’s leading money markets and treasury bill trading financial services firm, in which the IFC is an equity investor.

He is the Chairman of the board of directors of Emerging Markets Telecommunications Services Ltd (‘EMTS’),^[9] a mobile telephone operator which operates in Nigeria under the ‘Etisalat’ brand. He is an equity investor in that company, through one of his investment vehicles, together with Mubadala Development Company and Etisalat. He has been appointed by the Minister of the Federal Capital Territory to chair the board of directors of the Abuja Investment Company. He also serves on the board of Timbuktu Media a new publishing house that intends to publish a national daily newspaper in Nigeria. In addition he currently Chairs Chocolate City Music Group,^[10] a leading entertainment company in Nigeria.

Keem has been President of his Alumni Association- King's College Old Boys' Association (‘KCOBA’) since 2010,^[11] He has had 3 terms of 1 year each and is currently on his 4th and final term of 2 years (2010-2011, 2011-2012, 2012–2013, 2013-2015).

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