The Alchemist of Capital: Gbotemi Kuti’s Latest Magic Trick

In the din of Lagos traffic and the low hum of boardroom ambition, a soft-spoken businessman is building an empire, one acquisition at a time. Gbotemi Kuti, whose career has been less loud than luminous, has just added another jewel to his growing crown: a majority stake in Air Liquide Nigeria Plc.

Yes, that Air Liquide.

With the ink now dry, Kuti’s Oak Heirs Limited has snapped up 87.31 per cent of the industrial and medical gas firm, marking one of the boldest private acquisitions of the year. The deal is not just a portfolio reshuffle but a signal of defining the future of strategic investment in Nigeria.

For a man whose early career was spent drawing buildings and managing branch rollouts at FCMB, the turn into empire-building has been both swift and deliberate. Kuti has moved with the quiet rhythm of someone who knows that time rewards precision. From high-end real estate in Ikoyi to food processing and now into the high-demand world of oxygen, argon, and nitrous oxide, he is composing a symphony of industrial relevance.

The timing, as usual, is no accident. Demand for medical gases is climbing in Nigeria’s overstretched healthcare system. Manufacturing, energy, and logistics sectors are just beginning to wake up to the operational power of high-quality gases. And just as Air Liquide’s French parent quietly retreats from parts of the continent, Kuti walks in. And it is not like a replacement, but a revelation.

It’s not often that industrial gases make headlines. But then again, it’s not every day that a Lagos-born investor with a builder’s eye and a strategist’s mind retools the machinery of a nation’s supply chain.

For Nigeria, this is more than a transaction. It’s the quiet entrance of a new kind of tycoon. Not flamboyant, not noisy. Just focused, fluid, and very much here to stay.

 Opeyemi Bamidele at 62: Leading the Senate with Grace and Grit

At 62, Senator Opeyemi Bamidele walks the marbled halls of Nigeria’s National Assembly not with the swagger of power, but with the cadence of purpose. His voice, calm yet commanding, has become the ballast of a Senate often adrift in the stormy waters of national urgency.

To some, he is simply “MOB.” But behind those initials lies a man whose journey bends like a well-worn scroll, etched with years in courtrooms, boardrooms, and campaign trails. From Iyin-Ekiti to New York, from student union protests to drafting policy in the thick of Lagos politics, Bamidele has done more than wear many hats—he’s stitched them by hand.

A lawyer, legislator, strategist, and survivor of Nigeria’s political metamorphosis, he now serves as Senate Majority Leader. His ascent in July 2023 wasn’t just a promotion; it was a punctuation mark in a career marked by deliberate preparation and quiet, enduring loyalty.

Before this chapter, there were others. There was the fiery young man studying religious studies at Obafemi Awolowo University, who later took up law at the University of Benin, then crossed oceans to earn a master’s in the United States, and the rare badge of the New York Bar.

There was the counsellor in the shadows, advising Tinubu in the early 90s, navigating legal minefields in turbulent times, and later steering youth, sport, and strategy portfolios as Lagos commissioner. His tenure wasn’t flashy, but it left its mark: steady reforms, measured policies, and a knack for building what others dismissed as unfixable.

Today, his leadership in the 10th Senate is less about theatrics and more about temperature control: cooling partisan tempers, forging consensus, and quietly raising the chamber’s moral ceiling.

As he clocks 62, Senator Bamidele stands as a portrait of seasoned statesmanship. Not one for flamboyance, yet unmistakably present. A bridge between the politics of conviction and the politics of calculation. Nigeria may yet have many voices, but MOB remains one of its most reliable echoes.