Mike Adenuga is the founder of Globacom, Nigeria's second-largest mobile phone network, with 24 million subscribers. He also owns Conoil Producing, an oil exploration company which holds the rights to some of Nigeria's most lucrative oil fields. He made his first fortune at age 26 when he returned to Nigeria after studying in the U.S. He took over his mother's sawmill business and distributed lace and Coca-Cola. He made some powerful friends within Nigeria's military and relied on those relationships to corner lucrative state construction contracts. Nigeria's former military president, Ibrahim Babangida, awarded him an oil prospecting license. Adenuga used that to build Conoil Producing and became the first Nigerian to strike oil in commercial quantities. Notoriously private, he rarely talks to the press and travels with a retinue of bodyguards.