●The billionaire’s heart has financed cathedrals, classrooms, and countless lives
●How each act of charity retells his family’s legacy of love, benevolence
●From scholarship to salvation: a magnate’s lifelong tithe to humanity
By Lanre Alfred
It takes a lifetime to brace wealth with beneficence. But, at 63, Femi Otedola has managed to do just that. In his sixty-third year, the billionaire magnate towers as Nigeria’s most inspiring businessperson and merchandiser of grace. Thus, his birthday, today, is less a celebration of years than a reflection of purpose: of how struggle birthed strength, and strength matured into stewardship.
From the oilfields of Lagos to the lecture halls of Ilara-Epe, the Geregu Power chairman has learned that the true measure of prosperity lies not in what is owned, but in what is offered. So, as he marks another year of grace, Otedola’s legacy flourishes in the ledgers of enterprise and in the lives he has lit up.
There is no gainsaying Otedola has grown into the quiet majesty of a man who made wealth a moral art. His life embodies his discipline, faith, and the generosity of spirit that transforms fortune into fellowship. In a world where success often becomes a fortress, he has made his an open door, where scholarships bloom, hospitals breathe, and hope finds a sponsor. Therefore, his birthday surpasses a milestone; it is the celebration of a man who has learned that greatness is not in gathering but in giving.
Through decades of enterprise and public service, Otedola has built both businesses and bridges, connecting privilege and poverty, success and service. From education to healthcare, faith to humanitarian aid, his philanthropy, exceeding ₦11.57 billion, has become both compass and calling, proof that wealth finds its truest meaning in the warmth it leaves behind.
Consider, for instance, his recent donation to Augustine University. On Thursday, October 30, the sun rose differently over the citadel of learning at Ilara-Epe. It glistened the university’s rooftops with light and burnished them with revelation in same breath. It was impossible not to get caught in the momentary dazzle, as Otedola, the university’s Chancellor and one of Africa’s most enigmatic titans of enterprise, stood before its 7th convocation audience, belting out blessings with quiet power.
Otedola announced, almost casually, a N4 billion donation; an entire edifice devoted to the study of Electrical and Electronics Engineering. This is a gift appreciable for its timeless discipline and anthem.
The hall erupted in applause, but Otedola merely smiled; the knowing smile of a man who understands that true wealth is measured not by accumulation but by the light one leaves behind. He had brought with him a cheque of N500 million, the first down payment toward a dream already brokered in his mind’s map. By the university’s next convocation, he declared, the new building would rise functional and fit for the vision it was meant to serve.
This was scarcely philanthropy as spectacle. It was grace made flesh; thanksgiving turned into stone, steel, and circuitry. For Otedola, giving is not an act, it is his idiom and dialect of gratitude to the divine for triumph over tempests unseen.
It is no doubt a manifestation of uncommon fervour, for a man who built empires out of diesel and strategy to generously donate and build sanctuaries of knowledge. At Augustine University, his generosity has long become legend. The Lady Doja Otedola Faculty of Engineering, named after his beloved mother, was his earlier endowment, a N2 billion complex that redefined the skyline of the campus and the promise of technical education in Nigeria.
At the university’s seventh convocation, he renewed his vow to the future with another monumental gesture: a N4 billion Electrical/Electronics Engineering block. Inflation, he explained, had tripled construction costs, but faith demanded fulfilment. He would not retreat from the promise. “I hereby announce my donation to the university of the Electronics Engineering block at the cost of N4 billion,” he said, hardly in the tremor of a boast but with the calm of conviction.
Otedola’s giving has the texture of inevitability, as though generosity were the natural climate of his spirit. Beyond buildings, he breathed compassion into the convocation by gifting N10 million to a physically challenged philosophy graduate, Emmanuel Opeoluwa, who rolled forward in his wheelchair to thunderous applause. It was an image that distilled the essence of Otedola’s creed: that dignity must never bow to circumstance, and that success is incomplete until it lifts others.
He also gifted 1,000 copies of his internationally acclaimed book, Making It Big, to every student, faculty member, and administrator, a thousand seeds of insight sown into young minds who might one day reimagine the world.
To the graduates, he spoke like a father addressing his heirs: “Be global in outlook but local in impact; courageous in conviction but humble in service.” His voice carried the weight of experience, and the serenity of a man who has fought battles, won wars, and learned that real conquest is the mastery of the self.
Yet, Otedola’s philanthropy is not an isolated event, it is a continuum, a flowing river whose current traces back decades. His donations do not emerge from wealth’s surplus but from the philosophy of gratitude.
Philanthropy, for Otedola, is neither pastime nor publicity. It is pilgrimage, a sacred ritual inherited from his parents and perfected through experience. His recently released memoir, Making It Big, unfurls this philosophy like scripture. Across 286 pages, the billionaire peels back the layers of empire to reveal the gentle pulse beneath, a heart trained early in the discipline of generosity.
He writes of his father, the late Sir Michael Otedola, whose own life radiated benevolence long before public office adorned him. The elder Otedola, who once benefited from a scholarship to study in the United Kingdom, established the Michael Otedola Scholarship Scheme to help indigent students find their own wings. That tradition of giving became family gospel. “My mum passed on the spirit of charity to me,” he recalls. “My father, too, was kindness and generosity personified. His magnanimity is remembered far and wide.” It was within that atmosphere of compassion that the young Femi learned that fortune, unguided by service, decays into vanity.
Generosity, for him, thus became both a duty and a form of worship. “Those who are better off,” he writes, “have a responsibility to make life less burdensome for the disadvantaged.” He sees philanthropy as divine intervention, wealth multiplied by empathy, humanity divided into shared grace. To him, the act of giving is spiritual mathematics where compassion is the constant, and joy the unending remainder.
His benevolence has since traversed every sector of need — education, health, religion, and humanitarian relief — with an estimated N11.57 billion given in personal donations. The figures, though staggering, are mere footnotes to the stories they have rewritten.
In 2004, he began with a N200 million endowment to the Sir Michael Otedola Scholarship Awards Foundation, extending his father’s legacy to a new generation of students. The following years saw his reach expand — N300 million to the National Ecumenical Centre in Abuja, N25 million to the Abuja Central Mosque, and another N75 million to the Ilorin Central Mosque, gestures that transcended creed and geography. He strengthened education with N100 million to the Michael Otedola College of Primary Education in 2009, later transformed into the Sir Michael Otedola University of Education.
His hand found its way to sanctuaries and classrooms alike: N50 million to Christ the King Catholic Church, N100 million to the University of Port Harcourt, and N30 million for the construction of Our Lady of Perpetual Help, Victoria Island. Between 2017 and 2019, he fortified the Lagos State Security Trust Fund with N100 million, helping to keep a restless city safe. In each gift, there is a logic beyond philanthropy.
For the sick and the forgotten, Otedola’s charity has been both balm and resurrection. His giving is as intimate as it is immense, a cascade of quiet interventions that have restored health, hope, and dignity to many.
In 2019, his N65.6 million intervention saved veteran actor Victor Olaotan from medical despair. That same year, he gifted N19.5 million to rescue football legend Christian Chukwu and N20 million for the rehabilitation of ex-footballer Peter Fregene. To the late broadcaster Sadiq Daba, he offered N10 million for medical treatment; to Professor Daramola and media professional Kayode Ajala, over N30 million combined for care. Even the ailing musician Majek Fashek, stranded in London and shadowed by ill health, received his kindness to the tune of £5,500.
Each donation resonates as a salute to life’s fragility. As Otedola signs cheques, he intervenes positively in his beneficiaries’ life stories. He gives to preserve and rescue from the jaws of neglect.
When Otedola pledged N5 billion to Save the Children in 2019, it was not whim but conviction. The decision was shaped by two moments: a conversation with Princess Anne, the charity’s patron, and his daughter, DJ Cuppy’s firsthand report from an internally displaced persons’ camp in Maiduguri. The sight of suffering filtered through his daughter’s eyes became unbearable silence. He had intended to give N2.5 billion; he doubled it instantly. “Nothing compares to the spiritual pleasure of giving,” he wrote, describing philanthropy as a “virtuous circle of prayers and goodwill.”
That same year, his N391 million gift established the African Centre in New York, a cultural lighthouse for the continent’s diaspora. In 2023, he built the Lady Doja Otedola Faculty of Engineering at Augustine University, Ilara-Epe, a N2 billion investment that transformed both skyline and scholarship. To that university, he has since added an N1 billion scholarship fund, N1 million each to 750 students, plus N140 million for furnishing and N110 million for campus streetlights and a standby generator.
Even national causes find steady anchor in his generosity. In 2023, he donated N1 billion to the Renewed Hope Initiative, a programme focused on empowering Nigeria’s vulnerable citizens. His support for the Lagos State Security Trust Fund rose to a cumulative N1 billion, solidifying his record as one of its most consistent private benefactors.
Every donation forms part of a greater design, a universe of benevolence where wealth serves as instrument, not idol.
Yet, Otedola’s generosity does not sprout from surplus; it blooms from thanksgiving. He gives not because he must, but because he remembers: the years of struggle, the stumbles in academia that redirected him to business, the near-failures that became foundations for fortune. Each gesture of giving, he insists, is a psalm of gratitude to the forces that carried him through fire and shadow.
In Making It Big, he credits his parents, his faith, and the power of luck tempered by labor. “When one has been the recipient of enormous good luck,” he writes, “especially if he has amassed resources he couldn’t conceivably exhaust in several lifetimes, it rests on him to give a helping hand to the troubled.” It is a creed written not in ink but in action, one that transforms wealth into witness and privilege into responsibility.
He draws inspiration from global exemplars: Ted Turner’s billion-dollar donation to the United Nations, Bill Gates and Warren Buffett’s Giving Pledge, the altruism of Aliko Dangote, Wahab Folawiyo, and Bode Akindele. Yet Otedola’s philanthropy bears its own rhythm; it is quiet, persistent, and distinctly Nigerian. His giving flows from principle and an inheritance of kindness recast into contemporary purpose.
His business triumphs have been no less profound than his philanthropy. As Chairman of First Bank, Nigeria’s oldest financial institution, his rise was not a conquest of chaos but a coronation of composure. With quiet precision, he increased his stake in FBN Holdings to 13.15%, becoming the single largest shareholder. Each share was not a mere number but a statement of intent, to stabilize an institution that has stood as a pillar of the nation’s economy.
It was not acquisition for greed; it was stewardship for continuity. Every move bore the clarity of foresight, the discipline of an artist chiseling a masterpiece. The market watched; the nation applauded. His ascent was serene — a ballet of intellect and will, a coronation without carnage.
In the boardrooms, he has shown that strength can coexist with civility. Where others wage wars of ego, he crafts peace with elegance. His recent corporate disputes have been resolved not in rancor but in reason, each episode an ode to his belief that diplomacy, not dominance, sustains legacy.
When he parries discord, it is never retreat but refinement. He understands that in business, as in nature, restraint often reveals the deepest power. It is this quiet majesty that makes his presence felt long after the applause fades.
At 63, Otedola’s life has become a study in the art of coupling vision with virtue, and wealth with wisdom. He has proven that prosperity attains its noblest form when it serves humanity as his philanthropic footprints stretch across education, health, and child welfare, among others.
He has never sought sainthood; he seeks service. The N4 billion Electrical/Electronics block at Augustine University is not merely concrete and cable, it is the embodiment of his faith in Nigerian youth; a belief that Africa’s rebirth will not emerge from politics or prophecy, but from minds empowered by knowledge and hearts disciplined by character.
Each anniversary, Otedola seems to transcend the bounds of age, evolving into a rarer form of influence: the elder statesman of enterprise, the philanthropist philosopher.
His fortune is not fenced by self-interest but dispersed through acts that multiply meaning. From Save the Children UK to Augustine University, from healthcare donations to scholarships, Otedola’s giving is both empathy and art, a continuous devotion to humane ventures.
He once said that true wealth is not what you keep, but what you give away without fear. His life bears witness. Every cheque he signs, every structure he funds, and every life he uplifts becomes another verse in the scripture of his gratitude.
At 63, the billionaire’s story surpasses the vanity of affluence; it espouses the timeless majesty of a life fully lived and purpose fulfilled.
