Billionaire Femi Otedola is writing a sequel to his award-winning memoir Making It Big

Femi Otedola is writing a second book, a follow-up to the memoir that has collected two international prizes since its release last year.

The Nigerian billionaire disclosed the project on X on Monday, posting from Geneva. "This sunny afternoon today in Geneva, taking a ride after a busy morning writing a few pages of my next book, Making It Bigger," he wrote, alongside a video of himself cycling through the city in joggers and sneakers. He gave no release date and said nothing about what the book will cover.

The title is a deliberate echo. His first, "Making It Big: Lessons from a Life in Business," was published on August 18 last year. It ran 286 pages, blending memoir with business primer, and became an Amazon bestseller within 24 hours, reaching No. 4 in business biographies and memoirs before climbing to No. 1 in the starting-a-business category.

The awards followed. In March, the book won the Business Book Gold medal at the 2026 Axiom Business Book Awards in the United States, a prize administered from Michigan whose past gold medallists include the economist Robert Shiller, the investor Ray Dalio and the historian Doris Kearns Goodwin. On July 3, at the Institute of Directors in London, it was named first runner-up for the Business Council for Africa's African Business Book of the Year, taking second place from a shortlist of nine titles and a $5,000 award. The judging panel was chaired by Arnold Ekpe, the former chief executive of Ecobank.

Aliko Dangote, Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala and Akinwumi Adesina all endorsed the first book, calling it an important contribution to African business writing.

The material for a sequel has accumulated fast. Otedola began writing "Making It Big" in 2017, finished the manuscript in 2019 and shelved it through the pandemic, meaning the book that reached readers last year described a career that had already moved on by the time it was published. What has happened since would fill a second volume on its own.

On December 29, he sold his 95% controlling stake in Geregu Power to MA'AM Energy in a transaction valued at N1.088 trillion, about $750 million, financed by a consortium of banks led by Zenith Bank. It was one of the largest single-asset exits by a Nigerian businessman, and it closed the chapter on the company he had turned into the first publicly traded power business on the Nigerian Exchange.

The proceeds went almost entirely into banking. Otedola became chairman of First HoldCo, the parent of Nigeria's oldest lender, in January 2024, and has since built his combined direct and indirect stake to 20.42% after a recent share purchase of about $21.6 million (N30 billion). He has committed roughly $230 million (N320 billion) of his own money to the institution, and has said pointedly that none of it is borrowed.

The through-line of the first book was loss and recovery. Otedola founded Zenon Petroleum and Gas, which supplied more than 90% of Nigeria's diesel between 2001 and 2007, then took control of African Petroleum in 2007 and rebranded it Forte Oil. He made his first billion dollars at 41, becoming the second Nigerian after Dangote to appear on the Forbes global list and still the youngest ever to do so. Then crude prices collapsed, the naira was devalued, and the banks that had courted him turned on him. He wrote about waking to find men stationed outside his gate.

He rebuilt through power, buying a 414-megawatt plant during Nigeria's privatisation push and turning it into Geregu. He sold Forte Oil in 2019 and moved on. He holds no university degree.

The Geneva post is the first sign the second book exists, and Otedola has offered nothing beyond the title and the fact that he is putting words on the page. Whether "Making It Bigger" covers the Geregu sale, the First HoldCo campaign, or the rivalry with Dangote that he pointedly left out of the first book remains unknown.

He hosted Dangote in Monaco earlier this year and predicted his friend's fortune would reach $200 billion.

The son of the late Sir Michael Otedola, a former governor of Lagos State, he holds the national honour of Commander of the Order of the Niger, serves as chancellor of Augustine University in Epe and is vice president of Save the Children UK, to which he gave $14 million in 2019.