Nigerian oil tycoon Adebowale Olujimi donates solar-powered science labs to his old school

Nigerian oil tycoon Adebowale Olujimi has paid for the renovation and equipping of the chemistry and physics laboratories at Government College, Ibadan, the nearly century-old boys' school he attended and one of the most prominent secondary schools in Nigeria.

The laboratories, which run on a 24-kilovolt-ampere solar power system, were funded through the Emadeb Development Foundation, the charitable arm of his Emadeb Energy Group. Oyo State Governor Seyi Makinde commissioned them and unveiled the plaque on Saturday at the annual general meeting and reunion of the Government College Ibadan Old Boys Association in Ibadan, the state capital. The cost was not disclosed beyond being several million naira.

Olujimi, the group's chief executive, finished at the school in 1985. Olugbesoye Olujimi, executive director of Emadeb Energy and of the foundation, also attended the handover.

Government College, Ibadan was founded in 1929 and was modeled on British public boarding schools. Its former students include Nobel literature laureate Wole Soyinka, former Oyo State governor Victor Olunloyo, former ambassador to Britain Christopher Kolade and lawyer and businessman Wale Babalakin, who chairs the old boys' board of trustees.

From fuel imports to offshore oil

Olujimi started Emadeb in 2007 as a downstream business distributing and selling petroleum products, and it began operating the following year. The company later moved into storage, liquefied natural gas and lubricants, and in July 2023 became the first private company to import petrol after Nigeria ended fuel subsidies, bringing in about 27 million liters worth more than $17 million. Until then, state oil company NNPC Ltd. had been the country's only petrol importer.

The group's biggest step came upstream. Emadeb won the Ibom field, an offshore discovery about 30 kilometers off the coast of Akwa Ibom State that had gone undeveloped since 1979, in Nigeria's 2020 marginal field bid round. It has invested more than $100 million in a phased development plan approved by the regulator in November 2024 and reached first oil in November 2025. The field holds an estimated 103 million barrels of oil in place.

A second phase, with two more wells, is meant to triple the field's output by the fourth quarter of this year. In April, Emadeb and its host communities in Eastern Obolo and Ibeno inaugurated a development trust, which Nigeria's Petroleum Industry Act funds with at least 3% of a producer's annual operating costs.

Emadeb joined the Commonwealth Enterprise and Investment Council as a strategic partner in March, and Olujimi was appointed to the council's global advisory board.