Biography
Jubril Adewale: Meet Tinubu’s nephew described by Forbes as ‘King of African Oil’
Jubril Adewale Tinubu is a Nigerian businessman, consultant and lawyer, who is the group chief executive of Oando PLC.
Wale Tinubu is the Group Chief Executive of Oando PLC, the leading indigenous integrated energy company.
He serves on the board of several blue-chip companies as Chairman and Director.
In 2007, he was named a Global Young Leader by the World Economic Forum, Geneva, in recognition of his achievements as one of the leading executives under 41.
He was described in the 2011 Edition of Forbes Magazine as “The King of African Oil”.
Adewale Tinubu is the nephew of Chief Bola Tinubu, a Nigerian politician and former governor of Lagos State, and the national leader of the All Progressives Congress (APC).
Early Life
Adewale Tinubu started out his career working in his father’s law firm, K. O. Tinubu and Co., as a lawyer specialising in corporate and petroleum law. Even though he had spent years studying to do exactly what he was doing, he soon got bored of the profession, and his hands started itching to put on the entrepreneurial gloves. Tinubu longed for bigger challenges that would take him around the world, brokering and sealing mouth-watering deals.
For as long as he worked in his father’s law firm, he knew he would remain in his father’s shadows and never get the chance to do the things he really wanted. In 1992 and only 25 years old, Adewale quit his job and started a company, working out of his father’s garage since he did not have enough money to rent an office space. He installed a telephone which he borrowed from the family house, and also borrowed some office supplies from his father.
Education
He had his early education in Nigeria, obtaining his West African Senior Certificate in 1983, before proceeding to the United Kingdom at the age of 16 to study law at the University of Liverpool, England.
After his law degree, he went to the London School of Economics to get his Masters in Law in 1989, before returning to Nigeria at 22 to attend the Nigerian Law School. He was called to bar in 1990.
Age
Adewale Jubril Tinubu was born on 26 June 1967, in Lagos, Nigeria.
Wife
Jubril Adewale Tinubu is married to his lovely wife, Bola, Unlike some of her fellow billionaires’ wives who love a flashier lifestyle, she lives a fairly quiet life and is rarely seen at most high society parties. But her breathtaking philanthropic interest has impacted several lives.
On Christmas Day— the adorable couple marked their wedding anniversary amidst torrents of felicitous messages from friends and family members.
In her own message, Bola, on her social media handles, had described her hubby, Wale as “My Rock”. A successful corporate lawyer with a tight schedule.
Children
Wale Tinubu and Bola both have five beautiful children.
Career
He began his career in 1992 as an attorney, specialising in corporate and petroleum law assignments.
In 1994, he co-founded Ocean & Oil Group and guided its strategic development from an oil trading and shipping company.
Source of wealth
Here’s how Forbes described him
Tinubu is inspired by the former General Electric boss. This much we know. But aesthetics aside, it is difficult to catch Tinubu in the same place for long; he’s always on the move: London today, New York tomorrow, Paris the next.
You know the type. After being on his trail for several weeks, and exchanging numerous phone calls and emails with his corporate communications staff, our persistence paid off. We were finally meeting with one of Africa’s most storied oilmen.
In case you were unaware, Tinubu is the group chief] executive officer of Nigerian energy giant, Oando.
Oando is a Pan-African energy corporation with operations actively spanning all aspects of the energy value chain, including the marketing and distribution of refined petroleum products, exploration and production, refining, and power generation.
Oando is the largest non-government-owned Energy Company in Nigeria and has a market capitalization north of $1 billion.
It is the first Nigerian company to achieve a dual listing on both the Nigerian and Johannesburg Stock Exchanges.
Tinubu has made himself Nigeria’s most venerable energy tycoon and inserted himself atop the pecking order in the major league of Nigeria’s oil industry.
Tinubu’s vision shaped Oando. So did his relentlessness. Forty-four-year-old Tinubu is apparently very proud, almost to the point of being cocky, of how much his company has achieved.
“Our business started 17 years ago as a very small service company delivering fuels to the upstream service providers, and it has grown to become the largest indigenous oil and of multinationals operate here, but there are very few indigenous oil corporations that span the downstream, midstream and upstream like we do.”
When he divulges that the group’s revenues hit the $3 billion mark in 2010, he says it flippantly, almost detached– like $3 billion is pocket change.
Tinubu’s characteristic composure and demeanour make it seem like success has been easy. But it hasn’t always been this way.
Oando’s early beginnings were humble. While Tinubu easily comes across as Nigeria’s most powerful energy entrepreneur today, his initial ambition was to be a lawyer.
As the story goes, at the age of 16, he left Nigeria to study law at the University of Liverpool in England.
