Reclusive Nigerian Billionaire Mike Adenuga Gets Highest National Honour

Culled from SaharaReporters

Billionaire Mike Adenuga

The Federal Government is getting ready to confer National Honours on 149 Nigerians, with the highest award this year going to reclusive businessman, Mike Adenuga, owner of one of Nigeria’s biggest telecoms companies, Globacom.
Mr. Adenuga will receive the Grand Commander of the Order of the Niger (GCON)
The list is contained in a press statement by the office of the Secretary to the Government of the Federation.
Mr. Adenuga is known for his role as a front for former Nigerian dictator Ibrahim Badamosi Babangida in a series of deals that saw the duo buying up some of the choicest oil blocks in Nigeria.
Just two weeks, Mr. Adenuga’s company, Conoil Plc, was listed as one of those behind the national gas scarcity, which was aimed at forcing the Nigerian government to part with fraudulent gas subsidy payments.
In 2009, Mr. Adenuga was detained for money laundering by the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission.  He later fled Nigeria and lived in London until the Umaru Yar’Adua regime granted him a “pardon”.  A political influence peddler, Mr. Adenuga made a donation of N250 million in 2005 towards former President Obasanjo’s “Presidential” Library Project.
Apart from Globacom, Mr. Adenuga also owns Conoil Producing, World Span and Southern Airlines.  He also owned the defunct Equatorial Trust Bank (ETB).