Prof. Tayo Popoola, Professor of Communication, University of Lagos, has eulogised the doggedness of Dr Mike Adenuga Jr., Chairman of Globacom, as the telecommunications company marks its 23rd anniversary.
Popoola, in his message titled: “An Ode to the Bull: Celebrating Mike Adenuga and Glo at 23,” made available to the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) on Thursday, described Adenuga as dogged, ambitious and focused.
He said that Adenuga’s famous nickname, “the Bull,” was “more than a colourful tag attached to one of Nigeria’s most successful businessmen.
“It has become a fitting metaphor for a career marked by persistence, audacity and an unusual willingness to enter difficult territory,” the don said.
He recalled how Adenuga faced difficulties in 1999, when his first telecom licence was taken away.
“Instead of giving up, Adenuga tried again in 2002 and won the licence to start Globacom.
“That is the first lesson in the story of the Bull: a closed door is not necessarily the end of the road,” Popoola said.
NAN recalls that Globacom started its mobile network on Aug. 29, 2003.
The company entered the telecom industry while other big companies were already leading the market, but redefined it with a big change called “per-second billing”.
This allowed telecom users to pay only for the exact seconds they spent on a call, instead of paying for a full minute.
“Glo arrived late without arriving timidly. Its most memorable early challenge to the established order was per-second billing.
“At a time when consumers were largely paying for mobile calls by the minute, Glo introduced billing by the second from its launch.
“It also pushed down the cost of acquiring a GSM line. The significance of that moment is easy to underestimate today.
“A new company had entered a market controlled by established players and, rather than simply imitating them, questioned one of the market’s assumptions.
“ Glo did not have the advantage of being first. It found another advantage: the freedom to challenge what everyone else had accepted. That was the first charge of the Bull,” Popoola said.
He said that besides making phone calls cheaper, Globacom spent a lot of money to build a massive 9,800-kilometre internet cable under the sea called Glo-1.
The professor said that Globacom’s investment in the Glo-1 submarine fibre-optic cable represented a much bigger ambition than competing for mobile subscribers.
He said that the approximately 9,800-kilometre cable connected Lagos with international landing points including Accra and Bude in the United Kingdom.
“If per-second billing was the Bull’s charge above ground, Glo-1 was the charge beneath it.
“ It entered service in 2010 and gave Globacom direct ownership of an international telecommunications infrastructure asset.
“The symbolism is difficult to miss because Glo had first challenged the price of communication. Then it invested in the infrastructure behind communication.
“That distinction matters. A company can compete by offering cheaper calls, attractive data packages or promotions.
“Building international connectivity infrastructure requires thinking beyond the immediate customer and investing in the system on which future communication depends,” Popoola said.
The professor also said that Globacom used football and music to connect with ordinary people, showing that phone networks were really about human relationships.
“Its long association with football and entertainment helped take the brand beyond the SIM card and into Nigeria’s popular culture.
“ Globacom’s sponsorship of the CAF African Player of the Year Awards, which began in 2005, became one of the company’s most prominent international sporting associations,” he said.
According to him, staying in business for 23 years shows real strength and hard work.
“At 23, Globacom represents more than the survival of a Nigerian telecommunications company.
“It represents the consequences of entering an established industry and refusing to be defined solely by the advantages of the incumbents.
“ Glo came after the pioneers, but it found ways to make the pioneers respond. It challenged pricing, invested in infrastructure and built a brand that reached beyond the technical business of telecommunications,” he said.
Popoola said that the achievement was simply neither that of a Nigerian businessman becoming wealthy nor that of a company that had lasted 23 years.
He said that the more interesting achievement was the demonstration of what Nigerian enterprise could attempt when willing to think beyond the obvious limits of the moment.
Popoola lauded Adenuga’s brave work in introducing positive change in the Nigerian phone market forever.
“Twenty-three years after Glo entered Nigeria’s telecommunications arena, the market has changed.
“The technology has changed and the consumer has changed, but the tracks of the Bull remain.
“Perhaps that is the enduring lesson of Glo at 23: sometimes the rules of the market are not walls. Sometimes, they are simply fences waiting for someone bold enough to charge through them,” he said.( NAN)
