Nigerians Doing Great Outside Nigeria

There used to be a popular belief that blacks were intellectually lazy. That we loved to try out easy ways only. And that was why we invaded industries like music, basketball, and numerous other industries that do not require high intellectual work. You would hardly find us inventing any new technology, running a developed country (or turning a developing country to a developed one), starting a business that competes successfully on a global scale, or doing anything that requires a combination of high intelligence and risk-tolerance. We would rather leave our country for greener pastures than water our own pasture. We would celebrate mediocrity as long as it's got hype and money, anyday anytime, over ingenuity. We were satisfied with being in the shadows of the other races rather than aspire to rise above them. We would rather leave the planet's running and progress to the other races. We didn't see beyond rising above our fellow black man.

Unfortunately, things haven't change much. We still run the music industry and the basketball world. We are nowhere to be found on the high tech radar, no black nation is in the community of developed countries , and we are still obsessed with migrating to greener pastures. However, one bit changed. We now have a black man running America. We have blacks running a couple of the world's best companies. And today, I will be telling you about a few Nigerians who are among these blacks running the global corporate world.

1. Adebayo Ogunlesi

image: anancymag.com

Adebayo Ogunlesi is the Chairman and Managing Partner of one of the world's biggest Private Equity firms that specialize in infrastructure investment, Global Infrastructure Partners (GIP). The company owns Gatwick Airport, UK's second largest airport and the world's busiest single runway airport; London City Airport and Edinburgh Airport.
He is also the only black on Goldman Sachs board of directors. He was once named the 7th most powerful black Executive in the world. He is extremely popular in the US investment banking world, and has been referred to as extremely intelligent with a deep global understanding of the investment world. The year he got into Harvard, he was one of the only 3 non-US students that got in that year. He, with another black colleague, were the first Africans to be editors of the Harvard Law Review. On graduating from both Harvard Law School and Harvard Business School, he became the first non-American to clerk at the US Supreme court. He is probably the most successful investment banker from Nigeria, and he's doing exceptionally well on a global scale.

2. Onyeka Nchege

image: onyekanchege.com

Onyeka Nchege is the CIO of Coca Cola Bottling Co. Consolidated (CCBCC), the largest independent Coca-Cola bottler in the United States. Ordinarily, I wouldn't put him in this list but he's not just a CIO like any other CIO. He is a CIO who's doing what most other CIOs are scared of doing. You can read more about it here http://www.appcelerator.com/blog/2014/06/four-cios-mobility/ 

3. Dr. Victor Ukpolo

image: nola.com

Dr. Victor Ukpolo is the chancellor of Southern University at New Orleans. He's probably the first native-born Nigerian to head a university in USA. In 2012 the Carnegie Corporation selected Ukpolo as one of 45 naturalized citizens of the United States for Carnegie's Americans by Choice award.

4. John Agwunobi

image: wikipedia.org

John Agwunobi was US Assistant Secretary of Health from 2005 to 2007. He oversaw the US Public Health Service and its Commissioned Corps for the Secretary. Then he resigned to become Vice President for Professional Services at Wal Mart.


These are the few I could come up with. But I'm sure there are a lot more.