By Our Correspondent

Olorogun Michael Christopher Onajirhevbe Ibru, the patriarch of the Ibru family and Otota of Agbarha-Otor kingdom is dead.

Late Olorogun Michael Ibru.

A statement by the family says “one of Nigeria’s foremost business mogul passed on peacefully at a medical facility in the United States in the early hours of Tuesday, September 6, 2016 after a protracted illness. He was aged 86.”

The late Olorogun Michael Ibru, until his death was the Chairman, Michael and Cecilia Foundation (MCF).

He was also a member of the Business Advisory Council of the International Finance Corporation (IFC) and served as Council member of the following bodies: Lagos Chamber of Commerce and Industry and the Nigeria-United States Business Council.

He attended the famous Igbobi College, Lagos between 1948 and 1951 and distinguished himself in academics and in extracurricular activities such that in his last year in school, he was appointed the senior prefect, a position usually reserved for the best students with leadership traits.

After leaving Igbobi College, he secured a job in the United African Company (now UACN), as a manager- in training between 1951 and 1956. He resigned from the company and at the age of 24, formed Laibru, in partnership with an expatriate, Jimmy Large, whom they both worked at UAC.

In 1965 he founded the Osadjere Fishing Company in partnership with a Japanese Conglomerate, one of the largest fishing companies in the world.

By 1974, he extended his business adventure with the acquisition of Nigerian Hardwoods, a logging and sawmilling and wood processing company Ubiaroku, at a low price from the Lathem Group, UK.

He is touted among his people to be a major pillar in the economic empowerment of the Urhobo nation.