Femi Otedola has gifted the world his memoir, Making It Big: Lessons from a life in Business. A generous gesture, indeed because nothing says “self-made” like a billionaire explaining how he went from his father’s printing press to a government-blessed oil monopoly while insisting it was all hard work. In point of fact though, the book should really be called How to Be Born Connected, Get Government Handouts, Gamble with Other People’s Money, and Still Call Yourself a Genius. So let us tell the truth plainly: Making It Big is not a memoir of entrepreneurship. It is a confession, dressed up as inspiration. It teaches you nothing about building wealth from scratch, but everything about how the Nigerian state manufactures billionaires. The tragedy is not that Otedola made it big this way. The tragedy is that in Nigeria, this is the only way. Until that changes, we will keep producing billionaires without innovation, fortunes without progress, and memoirs that glorify privilege as if it were genius. Making It Big? Please, spare us the noise. Otedola made it big because the system is rigged.
Let us not mince words: the book is nothing but a hymn to Nigeria’s most reliable business model: political patronage. Otedola wants us to believe he is a swashbuckling capitalist. In truth, his wealth was fertilized by deregulation policies, watered with exclusive import licenses, and harvested from monopoly rents guaranteed by the Nigerian state. This is not a business book. It is stand-up comedy disguised as autobiography. The book unintentionally reveals the hollowness of Otedola’s empire. At one point, Otedola proudly dispenses a formula for converting diesel tons to liters suggesting you divide by 1,164. Wrong. Hilariously wrong. Imagine the “king of diesel” flunking Diesel Math 101. The man who supposedly dominated Nigeria’s diesel trade could not perform the most basic arithmetic of his own commodity. But then again, why should he? Why bother with arithmetic when your profits come from sweetheart deals and exclusive jetties handed to you by the state? Who needs multiplication when you have President Olusegun Obasanjo on speed dial? The profit margins were so obscene that a calculator was unnecessary. Otedola’s empire wasn’t built on precision, but on privilege and patronage.
And when privilege wasn’t enough, the state was always there with a safety net. In 2008, Otedola bet half a billion dollars on diesel at the top of the market – an act of breathtaking recklessness. The crash that followed left him with debts of N220 billion, enough to endanger Nigeria’s entire banking system, making him the single largest debtor in the country. Did he go bankrupt like any normal businessman? Of course not. No bankruptcy court, no auctioned homes, no “for sale” signs on the mansion gates. Instead, Nigerians, through Asset Management Corporation of Nigeria (AMCON), swooped in to buy his toxic debts, wiping away over N80 billion in losses. Vanished into the national ether. In other words, Nigerians subsidized his survival. Yet in Making It Big, Otedola calls this bailout rescue by AMCON at taxpayer expense “resilience.” Nigerians call it “our taxes.”
When Otedola tells us he controlled “93% of the diesel market” by 2004; what he really means is that the Nigerian government gave him the keys to the vault. He did not out-invent, out-hustle, or out-think anyone. He simply out-lobbied them. As if this were evidence of genius, not evidence of rigging. Controlling 93% of any market in five years isn’t entrepreneurship – it’s a monopoly wrapped in a government license. He didn’t build a company; he was handed a chokehold. And when your father is a former governor and your friends sit in Aso Rock, lobbying is not exactly a back-breaking affair.
Even his “business lessons” drip with cynicism. The lessons he offers are equally laughable. He recalls how his father lost money when the government reversed a policy on local manufacturing. The moral of the story, according to Otedola, is not that Nigeria needs consistent policies or innovation. No, the lesson is that his father should have had better access to the corridors of power. That is his gospel: don’t compete, don’t innovate, just know whose palm to grease.
This is the Nigerian paradox: our billionaires make it big while the country stays small. They build monopolies, not industries; empires, not innovations. They are obsessed not with products or customers, but with access and conquest. And the hubris! Otedola named his final ship Zenon Conquest. Of course, he did because nothing says “visionary” like reminding the world you didn’t build, innovate, or transform – you conquered. Not through brilliance, but through backroom favors and cheque-book bludgeoning. For Otedola, business is not about creating value; it is about vanquishing enemies and celebrating haters “eating grass.” Otedola’s conclusion is: always stay close to power. That is the heart of his philosophy: don’t make better bulbs – make better friends in government.
Making It Big is sold as inspiration. But it reads like parody. It’s a manual for aspiring oligarchs: Step 1: Be born well-connected; Step 2: Secure government concessions; Step 3: Mistake monopoly profits for genius; Step 4: When you gamble badly and blow up the system, get bailed out by taxpayers; Step 5: Write a book teaching others how to “make it big.”
In short, Otedola did not make it big. He was made big – by Nigeria’s broken system. His book should come shrink-wrapped with a warning label: Do not try this at home. Unless your father is a governor and you have AMCON on speed dial, these “lessons” will not work for you. So let us be clear: Femi Otedola’s Making It Big is not a memoir of entrepreneurship. It is a confession, masquerading as inspiration. A billionaire’s humblebrag dressed up as a how-to guide. A story of “big man, small country.” And if you believe his path is repeatable, then, as Otedola might put it himself: go and eat grass.
Culled: Huhuonline
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