Michael Ibru

Michael Onajirevbe Ibru (25 December 1930^[1] – 6 September 2016) was a Nigerian industrialist, founder of the Ibru Organization and patriarch of the Ibru family.^[2][3]

Ibru was born to the family of Janet Ibru and Peter Ibru, a missionary worker who also worked at the Igbobi Orthopedic Hospital, Lagos.^[4] His father's family included a number of well-known merchants. Amongst them was Chief Osadjere of Olomu, a 19th century millionaire who built the first story building in Urhobo land in 1914; he was Michael Ibru’s maternal grandfather. His son, Ovedje, expanded his father’s commerce during the beginning decades of British colonial rule in Urhobo land in the 20th century. Ovedje Osadjere was a warrant chief in colonial-era Nigeria and reigned as Ohworode (King) R' Olomu (1924–1949).^[5] Michael Ibru grew up under Ovedje's influence. ^[6][7] Michael Ibru attended Igbobi College and acquired a school certificate in 1951.

In 1951, after secondary school, Michael joined the United African Company as a management trainee. In 1956, a few years after joining U.A.C he resigned from the company and started a partnership, which he called Laibru. The corporate entity was in partnership with an English expatriate, Jimmy Large. Starting in 1957, Ibru was a pioneer in distributing frozen fish in Nigeria. In 1963, chief Ibru chartered his first fishing vessel from Taiyo Gyogo of Japan, and two years later, in partnership with a Japanese conglomerate, he founded the Osadjere fishing company, one of the largest fishing companies in the world. With Mr. Gyogo holding 30 percent of the equity and providing management for deep-sea Fishing trawler and shrimpers, the company began operation with three long-distance freezer trawlers. Ibru began exporting tiger prawns and shrimps while simultaneously importing frozen fish from Russia and Holland.

By the end of the 1960s, Ibru had branched out into other areas of the economy. In 1969, Ibru founded Rutam Motors, a transportation arm of his business that dealt in the marketing and distribution of Mazda, Saviem, Tata, and Jeep brands of automobiles. Later, the federal government appointed Rutam the major distributor of Peugeot vehicles in Nigeria. In 1965, Ibru established Aden Farm, a large palm oil plantation that also included citrus and pineapple, on 800 hectares of land in the old Bendel State. He later acquired Mitchell Farm in 1973 from its American owners, Alizar, who had established it a decade earlier. The farm grew to become the largest supplier of day-old chicks and processed poultry in West Africa. In 1974, another business enterprise, Nigeria Hardwoods Company Ltd, a logging, sawmilling, and wood processing company, was acquired. The company, owned by the Lathem Group, UK, was originally established in 1919 and exported logs of hard wood.

Over the years, the Ibru Organization has expanded into other areas such as shipping, hospitality, banking, real estate, publishing, insurance, aviation ,oil and gas, amongst others.^[8][9][10] In 1981, the Ibru organization's turnover was estimated at around N250m ($400m).^[11]

Ibru had five wives and seventeen children, including Oskar Ibru, who heads the Ibru Port complex,^[12] and Elvina Ibru, actress and on air personality.^[13]

Ibru died at a medical facility in the United States on 6 September 2016.^[14] Ibru was posthumously honored with a blue heritage plaque by the Nubian Jak Community Trust and the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea at his Kensington Palace Gardens home where he lived for 33 years.^[15]

• Tom Forrest, The Advance of African Capital: The Growth of Nigerian Private Enterprise. University of Virginia Press (August 1994). ISBN 0-8139-1562-7