Only two Black Africans made the Forbes List of the richest immigrants in the United States, and both are Nigerians, with the two being Lukumi Yoruba. Congratulations to Adebayo Ogunlesi and Tope Awotona, who have represented Black Africa well by producing enough clean money to be on that list of 125 high-net-worth movers and shakers in the U.S.
There are other Africans on that list, but only these two are Black. They are the beacons of light that show the way to young Africans at home and abroad, and I urge the Federal Government of Nigeria to honour them so that they and the larger world know that their nation appreciates them.
And even further, I encourage our Ivory Towers and other citadels of learning to study what about Lukumi Yoruba culture aids those from that background to achieve stellar success locally and globally, so that just as the world is learning from the Japanese concept of Ikigai, and the strong work ethic and group spirit that aids Jewish worldwide, people in Nigeria and abroad can buy in to the Omoluabi ethos that ensures that the Lukumi are the most successful indigenous Black African ethnicity bar none.
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For example, they produced the first Black African Nobel laureate for an academic category (Wole Soyinka), the first Black African military ruler to have voluntarily handed over to a civilian President (Olusegun Obasanjo), the first Nigerian to win a Grammy Award (Sade Adu), and the first person born and bred in Africa to have won a Pulitzer Prize (Dele Olojede).
And speaking of the Grammy Awards, almost all of Nigeria’s Grammy Award winners (90%) are Lukumi.
On the big screen, the top ten highest-grossing Nigerian movies of all time are all by Lukumi directors, including A Tribe Called Judah, Battle on Buka Street, Omo Ghetto-The Saga, The Wedding Party, Chief Daddy, Brotherhood, King of Thieves, King of Boys, Ada Omo Daddy, and Malaika.
In terms of national politics in the Western Hemisphere, the most influential Nigerians Wale Adeyemo, who was Deputy Secretary of the Treasury in the cabinet of President Joe Biden, and Kemi Badenoch, who was almost Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, and then became that country’s Secretary of State for International Trade of United Kingdom, and is now the official leader of His Majesty’s opposition in the United Kingdom.
In religion, the Redeemed Christian Church of God, founded by a Lukumi Yoruba man, Josiah Olufemi Akindayomi, and presently led by another Lukumi gentleman, Pastor Enoch Adeboye, is probably the Pentecostal Church with the largest members and branches on Earth. It has 35,000 branches in 197 countries and almost ten million members.
In sports and athletics, they are not left out, with the incumbent African Footballer of the Year being Lukumi in the person of Ademola Lookman and Asisat Oshoala having the record of winning the African Women’s Footballer of the Year award a record six times—more times than anyone alive or dead.
There must be something the Nigerian nation and the world can learn about the philosophy driving the ethnicity with the highest adult literacy rate in Nigeria, whose regional literacy rate is higher than those of Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia, Montenegro, North Macedonia, Serbia, and Slovenia, and whose contribution to Nigeria’s economy, as recorded by their VAT contribution to the Federal purse is unmatched.
The more we know about their collective successes, the more we can replicate them.
Once again, congratulations to Adebayo Ogunlesi and Tope Awotona for proving to the world that Nigerians can make clean, honest money at the highest levels wherever they are!
