As fresh as the year 2022 is, it has been extremely good and epochal for billionaire magnate, Abdul Samad Rabiu. In January, the news hit the town that the head honcho of BUA Group has become Nigeria’s second-richest man with a net worth surging above $7 billion. The valuation tanked after Rabiu’s BUA Foods Plc, one of his closely held businesses, completed the listing of its shares on the Nigerian Exchange after it received the requisite approvals from the regulatory authorities. Rabiu actually spun off his five food businesses—BUA Sugar Refinery, BUA Oil Mills, IRS Flour, IRS Pasta and BUA Rice Limited— into an entity: BUA Foods Plc and then took the new firm to the NGX for proper listing. Afterwards, the market capitalization of the consolidated food business increased to N792 billion ($1.92 billion). Thus, the value bump caused Rabiu’s fortune to increase from $5.3 billion to $7.2 billion.
For a man whose story has been that of from zero to hero, his life could well be valuable for every student looking to bag a degree in business-related courses. Rabiu is mindful of God’s goodness, hard work, doggedness and element of the proverbial lucky star that aided him to rise from nothing to become something. And he sees no reason to engage in any plot that might hurt ordinary people. Call him a neo-capitalist, the Kano-born billionaire and the majority owner of one of Africa’s fastest-growing cement makers, BUA Cement, might be at home with such a title because he seemingly detests monopoly. Rabiu, it was gathered, has refused severally to join the powerful cartel who are allegedly plotting at all time maximising their monopolistic power to the disadvantage of average people. The latest was his resolve early this week to distance his BUA Group from any plan to create artificial scarcity of sugar in the country by the alleged decision of some major producers to suspend sales.