Olorogun Michael Christopher Onajirhevbe Ibru, the patriarch of the Ibru<\/p>\n
family and Otota of Agbarha-Otor kingdom is dead.<\/p>\n
A statement by the family says one of Nigeria\u2019s foremost business mogul
\npassed on peacefully at a medical facility in the United States in the
\nearly hours of Tuesday, September 6, 2016.<\/p>\n
He was aged 86.<\/p>\n
Ibru was born to the family of Peter Ibru, a missionary worker, who also
\nworked at the Igbobi Orthapaedic Hospital, Lagos. After secondary school,
\nhe joined the United African Company, as a management trainee.<\/p>\n
In 1956, a few years after joining U.A.C, he dropped out of the company
\nand started a partnership, which he called Laibru.<\/p>\n
The corporate entity was in partnership with an expatriate, Jimmy Large.
\nAfter engaging in general trading with some success, in 1957, Michael Ibru
\ndiscovered that the frozen fish market was a fertile market with the
\npotential to deliver returns above the market rate.<\/p>\n
However, it was a tough market to penetrate, at the time, many expatriate
\nfirms and Nigerian traders were lacking and some were not interested in
\nthe market.<\/p>\n
But he felt he could put extra effort communicating with general traders,
\nwho played key roles in products acceptance.<\/p>\n
To trade in seafood, he established an importing company, he also rented
\nand built cold storage facilities across the country.<\/p>\n
By the mid-1960s trading fish had become the traditional money maker for
\nthe Ibru organization.<\/p>\n
Though he had other profitable interests such as transportation and
\nconstruction, fish trading helped him secure financing and other forms of
\ncapital to engage in large scale trading.<\/p>\n
He established a partnership with a Taiwanese company, Osadjere Fishing
\nCompany, which provided Trawlers and other accessories for trading.<\/p>\n
By the end of the 1960s he branched out fully into other areas of the
\neconomy. Like a lot of his contemporaries, he established a transportation
\ncompany, called Rutam.<\/p>\n
He also invested in palm oil production. Over the years, the Ibru
\nOrganization has expanded into other areas such as Tourism, Brewery,
\nTimber and Poultry.<\/p>\n
He is known as an entrepreneurial figure who created one of the largest
\nmodern Nigerian owned groups with other figures such as the low key Bode
\nAkindele.<\/p>\n
Michael Ibru attended Igbobi College, and acquired a school certificate in
\n1951.<\/p>\n
Chief Ibru has five wives and seventeen children, the most prominent being
\nOlorogun Oskar Ibru (who heads Ibafon Ports) and Oboden Ibru (who is a key
\nplayer in Oceanic bank International PLC). He also tried his hands in
\npolitics, in 1983, he was a gubernatorial candidate but lost to Samuel
\nOgbemudia. He is also a member of the Liberal Convention and the New
\nMovement, which metamorphosed to become NRC.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Olorogun Michael Christopher Onajirhevbe Ibru, the patriarch of the Ibru family and Otota of Agbarha-Otor kingdom is dead. A statement by the family says one of Nigeria\u2019s foremost business mogul…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":52951,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"","_lmt_disable":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[17],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-52950","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-exclusive"],"yoast_head":"\n