Business
Like Father, Like Son, The Inspiring Story of The Ekehs And The Digital Sector. How They Won Thisday Awards By Jimmy Enyeh
Like Father, Like Son, The Inspiring Story of The Ekehs And The Digital Sector. How They Won Thisday Awards By Jimmy Enyeh
Victor-Marie Hugo, a French poet, novelist, and essayist died more than two centuries ago but there still stands some immortal and memorial thoughts he blessed the world with before his demise in 1885 when he once postulated and I quote: “There is one thing stronger than all the armies in the world, and that is an idea whose time has come.”
Hugo’s thoughts bear striking parallelism to the fecundity of fresh ideas, vision, and drives which the Ekehs have injected into the digital sector.
Recognising their superlative and unprecedented achievements which culminated into what many have described as a rare feat, Thisday and Arise Television honoured Mr. Stan Leo Ekeh and his very innovative son, Prince Nnamdi Ekeh on Monday, January 27, 2025 in Lagos.
The colourful ceremony saw the serial digital entrepreneur shared the same podium with his son, Prince Ekeh, as winners in different categories of the much-coveted awards.
The top rated awards commemorated the 30th and 12th anniversaries of Thisday Newspapers and Arise News, respectively.
While the father, Leo Stan Ekeh, Chairman of Zinox Group, was honoured with the CEO of the Year award, his Oxford-trained son, Prince Nnamdi Ekeh, CEO of Konga Group, was bestowed with the Young Global Leader Award for his transformative role in navigating Konga as a foremost composite e-commerce giant in Nigeria and Africa.
It was indeed a splendid sight to behold being the first time ever that a father and his son would be honoured on the same night in the nation’s Infotech ecosystem.
Unknown to many, debonair and handsome Prince Ekeh was 19 and a student at University of Lancaster, United Kingdom, when he birthed the idea of Yudala, a brutally ambitious e-commerce outpost.
The silent and reclusive brilliant bloke has remained consistent like the shinning star since he came up with Yudala.
His record speaks volumes and are humongous beyond imagination.
That the youner Ekeh has gone this far is not far fetched as he majored in Economics/Politics with a minor in Entrepreneurship which apparently motivated him to take Yudala to the pinnacle
Prince Ekeh returned home to serve his fatherland through the National Youth Service Corps (NYSC),
He nurtured Yudala to the peak, employing over 250 staff at that time. And ever since, he has navigated the company to the crest of e-commerce players in Africa.
He would later top up his academic kit with an MBA from Oxford and numerous entrepreneurial certifications from Lagos Business School, Leysin American School, Switzerland, and Harvard, among others.
Yudala was the first composite e-commerce outpost in Nigeria (a hybrid of the online-offline one-stop-shop). This idea has caught global attention and is now being replicated across the continent.
Prince Ekeh in 2018 achieved what many thought impossible. His start-up, Yudala, acquired Konga, a top player in Nigeria’s e-commerce space, in a landmark merger that became effective May 1, 2018. The whizz-kid has since expanded Konga to a leading e-commerce house in Africa, retaining the composite character of Yudala. He has creatively expanded the market share value and networth of Konga by building its business verticals to include logistics, fintech, travel, and leisure.
Young Prince Ekeh is not new to awards. He had been nominated for the prestigious Future Awards for Business Excellence, and featured as Top 100 Most Influential People of African Descent (MIPAD) in response to the proclamation by United Nation’s General Assembly Resolution 68/237, and had been awarded Icon of Human Transformation by the National Association of Nigerian Students. The Thisday award is, therefore, another feather to the decorated cap of the result oriented entrepreneur.
So slso for the digital mogul, Leo Stan who was honoured with the CEO of the Year Award in the private sector, the only CEO in the highly competitive and sometimes treacherous private sector to be so honoured. The historical and symbolic moment was not lost on him. He recognised the honour of sharing the same platform with his son, both being rewarded for their peerless contribution to Nigeria, nay Africa, digital economy. It was a rarity, more so, as they shared the same podium with President Bola Ahmed Tinubu, who was voted Thisday Man of the Year for his bold reforms and leadership exemplum on the African continent.
Leo Stan is not keen on competition but to keep extending and expanding the frontiers of the digital sector.
He is not new to awards as he bagged numerous prestigious awards in the past.
Among the top rated awards bestowed on the astute businessman are Personality of the year award by the Nigeria Computer Society (NCS),
Fellow, Nigeria Computer Society,
Fellow, Nigeria Law School,
Forbes Best of Africa Leading Tech Icon,
National Award of Officer of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, OFR (2004).
On October 1st, 2001, Ekeh was honoured as Icon of Hope by former President, Chief Olusegun Obasanjo, for his sustained pioneering efforts in deepening Information Technology in Africa and as a pride to modern Nigeria.
Mr. Ekeh’s ceaseless zeal for productivity and excellence was rewarded by the administration of President Muhammadu Buhari with the National Productivity Merit Award (NPOM) in November 2019.
A distinguished member of the Nigeria Economic Summit Group and Fellow of the Nigeria Computer Society, Ekeh is a recipient of one of the country’s highest National Honours – Order of The Federal Republic (OFR).
He is rated by professionals as a global digital giant and a man whose vision and performance have bolstered integrity for the indigenous players in the ICT sector. His unmatched interventions have seen him receive over 60 local and international awards. He has also served on a good number of Federal Government Committees, which includes the Presidential Committee for Job Creation, Nigeria Thinkers, ICT Roadmap, among many others.
Other awards won by Ekeh are National Productivity Order of Merit Award, 2019,
Doctor of Science (Honoris Causa), University of Jos,Doctor of Business Administration (Honoris Causa), Imo State University
Doctor of Science (Honoris Causa), Federal University of Agriculture, Makurdi
Doctor of Technology (Honoris Causa), Federal University of Technology, Owerri
Doctor of Business Administration (Honoris Causa), Federal University Birnin Kebbi.
He has over 15 Honorary Fellowship Awards from Nigerian Federal and State Polytechnics
The older Ekeh is academically sound. He bagged B.Sc. (Hons.) In Economics from Punjab University, India, a Post Graduate Diploma in Risk Management, Nottingham University, England,
Pioneer ICT
Leo Stan Ekeh is Africa’s foremost innovative serial digital entrepreneur. He is a living legend, an exemplar of visionary leadership and integrity, a serial disruptor endowed with uncommon courage to dare and a knack to anticipate the future. He does not only anticipate the future, he creates the future.
An outlier and first-rate India-trained Economist and former Global Advisor to Microsoft, Mr. Ekeh holds a Post Graduate Degree in Risk Management from Nottingham University, England in addition to several honorary doctorate degrees from highly respected universities for his impactful entrepreneurship and pioneering efforts in the field of Information Technology.
A Forbes Best of Africa Leading Tech Icon, Ekeh is currently the Chairman of Zinox Group, Sub-Saharan Africa’s biggest integrated technology conglomerate with its businesses spreading from Africa, Asia, the Middle East and Europe.
With a mindset to disrupt and transition Nigeria from analogue to digital economy, he started out as a desktop publishing company in a flat at Alausa, Ikeja, Lagos. He has scaled up the startup into a global enterprise comprising Zinox Technologies Limited, Zinox Telecoms Ltd, Task Systems Ltd., TD Africa, Ashour Corporation FZE, Dubai, Infotech UK, among others. Over time, the conglomerate has invested in oil and gas, real estate, composite e-Commerce, Fintech and still counting.
A gifted and futuristic risk-taker, Ekeh runs one of the most structured and tech driven conglomerates in Africa. He has inspired several generations of budding entrepreneurs and startups, many of whom are currently disrupting the technology space in Nigeria and beyond.
His business odyssey is a journey of many firsts and pioneering feats. He pioneered e-commerce in Nigeria with BuyRight Africa Dotcom and made a remarkable rebound in 2018 with the acquisition of Konga from its previous majority investors, Naspers and AB Kinnevik, in what is regarded as one of the most ambitious, seamless and discreetly managed corporate acquisitions in Africa.
He pioneered Desktop Publishing and Computer Graphics in Nigeria in 1987 with his first company – Task Systems Ltd. He launched the first ICT support company in Nigeria – ITEC Solutions Ltd. He pioneered the deployment of digital dispensing pumps for petrol and gas stations in Nigeria in partnership with Elf Oil (now Total Plc.) after he was cheated by an attendant at a fuel station in Lagos. He pioneered ICT Distribution in West Africa with the launch of Technology Distributions Limited (today known as TD Africa) which has remained the biggest technology, lifestyle and cutting-edge solution distributor in the West African sub-region.
Zinox was the first internationally certified indigenous computer brand in West Africa and the first computer brand in the world to incorporate the Naira sign (N) on its keyboard. The first Original Equipment Manufacturer (OEM) in sub-Saharan Africa to receive Microsoft Windows Hardware Quality Lab Certification (WHQL); first Microsoft Prime Production Online Automation Partner in Sub-Saharan Africa with the OA Version 3.0; first Intel Premium Partner; first OEM in West Africa to attain the ISO 9001-2015 Certification; first to acquire the Google Mobile Application Distribution Agreement (MADA) in West Africa; first OEM in Nigeria to introduce renewable energy and lifestyle products and attaining the status of Intel Platinum Partner in sub-Saharan Africa, amongst others.
With Ekeh’s supervision, his company Zinox Technologies delivered integrated digital equipment in weeks worth over $370m that altered for good the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) voters’ registration in 2006 and 2010 when foreign contractors could not deliver after months of promises. He also supervised the digital registration of voters in Guinea Bissau which Zinox deployed the tech equipment.
These were rated the largest ICT rollouts in Africa. Under his leadership, Zinox Technologies and Zinox Telecoms pioneered and delivered the largest single e-Library and Wireless Cloud rollout project on the continent. By him and through him, INEC has eliminated fraudulently introduced exotic names like Mike Tyson, Michael Jackson, etcetera, from its voter register. He has been hailed as the power behind Digital Democracy in Nigeria and some West Africa countries.
Using his special purpose design, Zinox Technologies delivered nationwide the technical backbone for the yet-to-be conducted Nigeria’s first ever digital census expected to produce the most credible human and housing data on Nigeria since Independence.
A humanitarian capitalist, his Zinox Group pioneered the highly commendable practice of granting paternity leave in Nigeria to reduce stress on young male staff and enable them support their spouses when they welcome a new baby.
He has quietly touched many lives through the Leo Stan Foundation – his personal foundation. Among these are charitable works such as donation of N100m to Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs) in the North-East, over N200m to the Nigeria Computer Society, the umbrella body for all professional computer associations. He has one of the most active platforms for scholarship awards to hundreds of indigent students across Nigeria to study both at home and abroad, as well as the inauguration of a N1.5bn revolving loan scheme for disadvantaged students and entrepreneurs, among several others. An advocate of digital democracy, he has donated cutting-edge and well-equipped digital centres to several secondary and tertiary institutions across Nigeria.
Ekeh has silently invested in education, provided medicare to the needy and supported churches and other religious organisations through the Foundation. During the Covid-19 lockdown, the Leo Stan Foundation leveraged on staff of the various companies in the Zinox Group to feed over 7,000 families across Nigeria for two weeks. He has also regularly supported state governments in various parts of the country by funding construction of roads. He has donated patrol vehicles to improve security in some states, among other donations.
Ekeh, a former mass servant and chorister in his Imo state community’s Catholic church, is one of the foremost champions of gender equality in Nigeria. He has consistently advocated for and also empowered women and the girl child, whom he regularly addresses and challenges to aspire to greatness at various public fora. His passion for gender equality is reflected in the Zinox Group where women, led by his wife, Mrs. Chioma Ekeh, occupy the first four executive management positions at TD Africa, the biggest company by revenue in the Group. Also, he has another female as Managing Director of Zinox. The Group’s Human Resources Unit is also headed by a female.
He is happily married to Mrs. Ekeh, a Mathematician, Fellow of the Association of Chartered Certified Accountants (ACCA) and CEO of TD Africa.
The union is blessed with successful children.
Jimmy Enyeh, a renowned Journalist wrote in from Abuja
BUA Foods Records 91% Surge in Profit After Tax, Hits ₦508bn in 2025
By femi Oyewale
Business
Adron Homes Unveils “Love for Love” Valentine Promo with Exciting Discounts, Luxury Gifts, and Travel Rewards
Adron Homes Unveils “Love for Love” Valentine Promo with Exciting Discounts, Luxury Gifts, and Travel Rewards
In celebration of the season of love, Adron Homes and Properties has announced the launch of its special Valentine campaign, “Love for Love” Promo, a customer-centric initiative designed to reward Nigerians who choose to express love through smart, lasting real estate investments.
The Love for Love Promo offers clients attractive discounts, flexible payment options, and an array of exclusive gift items, reinforcing Adron Homes’ commitment to making property ownership both rewarding and accessible. The campaign runs throughout the Valentine season and applies to the company’s wide portfolio of estates and housing projects strategically located across Nigeria.
Speaking on the promo, the company’s Managing Director, Mrs Adenike Ajobo, stated that the initiative is aimed at encouraging individuals and families to move beyond conventional Valentine gifts by investing in assets that secure their future. According to the company, love is best demonstrated through stability, legacy, and long-term value—principles that real estate ownership represents.
Under the promo structure, clients who make a payment of ₦100,000 receive cake, chocolates, and a bottle of wine, while those who pay ₦200,000 are rewarded with a Love Hamper. Payments of ₦500,000 attract a Love Hamper plus cake, and clients who pay ₦1,000,000 enjoy a choice of a Samsung phone or a Love Hamper with cake.
The rewards become increasingly premium as commitment grows. Clients who pay ₦5,000,000 receive either an iPad or an all-expenses-paid romantic getaway for a couple at one of Nigeria’s finest hotels, which includes two nights’ accommodation, special treats, and a Love Hamper. A payment of ₦10,000,000 comes with a choice of a Samsung Z Fold 7, three nights at a top-tier resort in Nigeria, or a full solar power installation.
For high-value investors, the Love for Love Promo delivers exceptional lifestyle experiences. Clients who pay ₦30,000,000 on land are rewarded with a three-night couple’s trip to Doha, Qatar, or South Africa, while purchasers of any Adron Homes house valued at ₦50,000,000 receive a double-door refrigerator.
The promo covers Adron Homes’ estates located in Lagos, Shimawa, Sagamu, Atan–Ota, Papalanto, Abeokuta, Ibadan, Osun, Ekiti, Abuja, Nasarawa, and Niger States, offering clients the opportunity to invest in fast-growing, strategically positioned communities nationwide.
Adron Homes reiterated that beyond the incentives, the campaign underscores the company’s strong reputation for secure land titles, affordable pricing, strategic locations, and a proven legacy in real estate development.
As Valentine’s Day approaches, Adron Homes encourages Nigerians at home and in the diaspora to take advantage of the Love for Love Promo to enjoy exceptional value, exclusive rewards, and the opportunity to build a future rooted in love, security, and prosperity.
*Why Nigeria’s Banks Still on Shaky Ground with Big Profits, Weak Capital*
*BY BLAISE UDUNZE*
Despite the fragile 2024 economy grappling with inflation, currency volatility, and weak growth, Nigeria’s banking industry was widely portrayed as successful and strong amid triumphal headlines. The figures appeared to signal strength, resilience, and superior management as the Tier-1 banks such as Access Bank, Zenith Bank, GTBank, UBA, and First Bank of Nigeria, collectively reported profits approaching, and in some cases exceeding, N1 trillion. Surprisingly, a year later, these same banks touted as sound and solid are locked in a frenetic race to the capital markets, issuing rights offers and public placements back-to-back to meet the Central Bank of Nigeria’s N500 billion recapitalisation thresholds.
The contradiction is glaring. If Nigeria’s biggest banks are so profitable, why are they unable to internally fund their new capital requirements? Why have no fewer than 27 banks tapped the capital market in quick succession despite repeated assurances of balance-sheet robustness? And more fundamentally, what do these record profits actually say about the real health of the banking system?
The recapitalisation directive announced by the CBN in 2024 was ambitious by design. Banks with international licences were required to raise minimum capital to N500 billion by March 2026, while national and regional banks faced lower but still substantial thresholds ranging from N200 billion to N50 billion, respectively. Looking at the policy, it was sold as a modern reform meant to make banks stronger, more resilient in tough times, and better able to support major long-term economic development. In theory, strong banks should welcome such reforms. In practice, the scramble that followed has exposed uncomfortable truths about the structure of bank profitability in Nigeria.
At the heart of the inconsistency is a fundamental misunderstanding often encouraged by the banks themselves between profits and capital. Unknown to many, profitability, no matter how impressive, does not automatically translate into regulatory capital. Primarily, the CBN’s recapitalisation framework actually focuses on money paid in by shareholders when buying shares, fresh equity injected by investors over retained earnings or profits that exist mainly on paper.
This distinction matters because much of the profit surge recorded in 2024 and early 2025 was neither cash-generative nor sustainably repeatable. A significant portion of those headline banks’ profits reported actually came from foreign exchange revaluation gains following the sharp fall of the naira after exchange-rate unification. The industry witnessed that banks’ holding dollar-denominated assets their books showed bigger numbers as their balance sheets swell in naira terms, creating enormous paper profits without a corresponding improvement in underlying operational strength. These gains inflated income statements but did little to strengthen core capital, especially after the CBN barred banks from using FX revaluation gains for dividends or routine operations. In effect, banks looked richer without becoming stronger.
Beyond FX effects, Nigerian banks have increasingly relied on non-interest income fees, charges, and transaction levies to drive profitability. While this model is lucrative, it does not necessarily deepen financial intermediation or expand productive lending. High profits built on customer charges rather than loan growth offer limited support for long-term balance-sheet expansion. They also leave banks vulnerable when macroeconomic conditions shift, as is now happening.
Indeed, the recapitalisation exercise coincides with a turning point in the monetary cycle. The extraordinary conditions that supported bank earnings in 2024 and 2025 are beginning to unwind. Analysts now warn that Nigerian banks are approaching earnings reset, as net interest margins the backbone of traditional banking profitability, come under sustained pressure.
Renaissance Capital, in a January note, projects that major banks including Zenith, GTCO, Access Holdings, and UBA will struggle to deliver earnings growth in 2026 comparable to recent performance.
In a real sense, the CBN is expected to lower interest rates by 400 to 500 basis points because inflation is slowing down, and this means that banks will earn less on loans and government bonds, but they may not be able to quickly lower the interest they pay on deposits or other debts. The cash reserve requirements are still elevated, which does not earn interest; banks can’t easily increase or expand lending investments to make up for lower returns. The implications are significant. Net interest margin, the difference between what banks earn on loans and investments and what they pay on deposits, is poised to contract. Deposit competition is intensifying as lenders fight to shore up liquidity ahead of recapitalisation deadlines, pushing up funding costs. At the same time, yields on treasury bills and bonds, long a safe and lucrative haven for banks are expected to soften in a lower-rate environment. The result is a narrowing profit cushion just as banks are being asked to carry far larger equity bases.
Compounding this challenge is the fading of FX revaluation windfalls. With the naira relatively more stable in early 2026, the non-cash gains that once flattered bank earnings have largely evaporated. What remains is the less glamorous reality of core banking operations: credit risk management, cost efficiency, and genuine loan growth in a sluggish economy. In this new environment, maintaining headline profits will be far harder, even before accounting for the dilutive impact of recapitalisation.
That dilution is another underappreciated consequence of the capital rush. Massive share issuances mean that even if banks manage to sustain absolute profit levels, earnings per share and return on equity are likely to decline. Zenith, Access, UBA, and others are dramatically increasing their share counts. The same earnings pie is now being divided among many more shareholders, making individual returns leaner than during the pre-recapitalisation boom. For investors, the optics of strong profits may soon give way to the reality of weaker per-share performance.
Yet banks have pressed ahead, not only out of regulatory necessity but also strategic calculation.
During this period of recapitalization, investors are interested in the stock market with optimism, especially about bank shares, as banks are raising fresh capital, and this makes it easier to attract investments. This has become a season for the management teams to seize the moment to raise funds at relatively attractive valuations, strengthen ownership positions, and position themselves for post-recapitalisation dominance. In several cases, major shareholders and insiders have increased their stakes, as projected in the media, signalling confidence in long-term prospects even as near-term returns face pressure.
There is also a broader structural ambition at play. Well-capitalised banks can take on larger single obligor exposures, finance infrastructure projects, expand regionally, and compete more credibly with pan-African and global peers. From this perspective, recapitalisation is not merely about compliance but about reshaping the competitive hierarchy of Nigerian banking. What will be witnessed in the industry is that those who succeed will emerge larger, fewer, and more powerful. Those that fail will be forced into consolidation, retreat, or irrelevance.
For the wider economy, the outcome is ambiguous. Stronger banks with deeper capital buffers could improve systemic stability and enhance Nigeria’s ability to fund long-term development. The point is that while merging or consolidating banks may make them safer, it can also harm the market and the economy because it will reduce competition, let a few banks dominate, and encourage them to earn easy money from bonds and fees instead of funding real businesses. The truth be told, injecting more capital into the banks without complementary reforms in credit infrastructure, risk-sharing mechanisms, and fiscal discipline, isn’t enough as the aforementioned reforms are also needed.
The rush as exposed in this period, is that the moment Nigerian banks started raising new capital, the glaring reality behind their reported profits became clearer, that profits weren’t purely from good management, while the financial industry is not as sound and strong as its headline figures. The fact that trillion-naira profit banks must return repeatedly to shareholders for fresh capital is not a sign of excess strength, but of structural imbalance.
With the deadline for banks to raise new capital coming soon, by 31 March 2026, the focus has shifted from just raising N500 billion. N200 billion or N50 billion to think about the future shape and quality of Nigeria’s financial industry, or what it will actually look like afterward. Will recapitalisation mark a turning point toward deeper intermediation, lower dependence on speculative gains, and stronger support for economic growth? Or will it simply reset the numbers while leaving underlying incentives unchanged?
The answer will define the next chapter of Nigerian banking long after the capital market roadshows have ended and the profit headlines have faded.
Blaise, a journalist and PR professional, writes from Lagos and can be reached via: [email protected]
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