Michael Ibru dies at 86
Olorogun Micheal Ibru, head of the Ibru dynasty died at aged 86 in Florida U.S.
Ibru, the Otota of Agbarha-Otor Kingdom and an Officer of
the Federal Republic (OFR), passed on after a protracted illness.
Michael Ibru (1930) is a prominent Nigerian businessman from
Agbarha-Otor, Delta State.
He was the head of the Ibru Organization, one of
the largestconglomerates in
Nigeria. As a traditional chieftain of his homeland, Ibru bore the tribal
honorific Olorogun and often uses it as a pre-nominal style. This
title is also borne by many of the members of his large family in the same way.
Ibru was born to the family of Peter Ibru, a missionary worker,
who also worked at the Igbobi Orthapaedic Hospital, Lagos. After secondary
school, he joined theUnited
African Company, as a management trainee. In 1956, a few years after
joining U.A.C, he dropped out of the company and started a partnership, which
he called Laibru. The corporate entity was in partnership with an expatriate, Jimmy Large.
After engaging in general trading with some success, in 1957, Michael Ibru
discovered that the frozen fish market was a fertile market with the potential
to deliver returns above the market rate. However, it was a tough market to
penetrate, at the time, many expatriate firms and Nigerian traders were lacking
and some were not interested in the market. But he felt he could put extra
effort communicating with general traders, who played key
roles in products acceptance. To trade in seafood, he established an importing
company, he also rented and built cold storage facilities across the country.
By the mid-1960s trading fish had become the traditional money maker for the
Ibru organization.
Though he had other profitable interests such as
transportation and construction, fish trading helped him secure financing and
other forms of capital to engage in large scale trading. He established a
partnership with a Taiwanese company, Osadjere
Fishing Company, which provided Trawlers and other accessories for
trading. By the end of the 1960s he branched out fully into other areas of
the economy.
Like a lot of his contemporaries, he established a transportation company,
called Rutam. He also invested in palm oil production.
Over the years, the Ibru Organization has expanded into other areas such
as Tourism,
Brewery, Timber and Poultry.
His death was coming exactly six months after the burial of
his younger brother and former Governor of Delta State, Felix Ibru. Felix died
on March 5, 2016.
He was known as an entrepreneurial figure who created one of
the largest modern Nigerian owned groups with other figures such as the low key
Bode Akindele.
Michael Ibru attended Igbobi College, and
acquired a school certificate in 1951.
Chief Ibru had five wives and seventeen children, the most
prominent being Olorogun Oskar Ibru (who heads Ibafon Ports) and Oboden Ibru
(who is a key player in Oceanic bank International PLC). He also tried his
hands in politics, in 1983, he was a gubernatorial candidate but lost to Samuel Ogbemudia. He was
also a member of the Liberal Convention and the New Movement, which
metamorphosed to become NRC.
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