Banks despatched fairly women to me for deposits, thugs to get better debt – Femi Otedola

Femi Otedola, billionaire businessman, has recounted probably the most turbulent interval of his enterprise profession.

In excerpts from his forthcoming memoir, Making It Huge: Classes from a Life in Enterprise, to be revealed on August 18, 2025, Otedola revealed how Nigerian banks that when pursued him with allure shortly turned aggressive when his empire collapsed in 2009.

FO, who rose to prominence via Zenon Petroleum and later Forte Oil, shared the candid story of his monetary downfall in his forthcoming memoir, Making It Huge: Classes from a Life in Enterprise, to be revealed on August 18, 2025, by FO Books.

In excerpts from the memoir, Otedola detailed how a mixture of financial shocks, plunging oil costs, naira devaluation, and ballooning mortgage pursuits introduced his once-thriving empire to its knees.

“All instructed, I misplaced greater than US$480 million to the plunge in oil costs, US$258 million via the devaluation of the naira, US$320 million due to accruing curiosity, and one other US$160 million when the shares crashed,” he wrote.

“It was devastating, like a horrible nightmare, however a nightmare would have been higher: day would break, and I might get up. There was no waking up from this.”

In accordance with him, banks that had as soon as gone out of their technique to do enterprise with him utterly modified their tone as soon as he bumped into bother.

“One second, I used to be the darling of the banks, who did every thing on the earth to court docket me, do enterprise with me, give me loans, and take deposits from me. They might ship bewitching women to make their affords extra convincing,” he revealed.

“And now I used to be waking as much as the sight of hefty, barrel-chested males standing menacingly in entrance of my gate, ready for the second I’d step out of my compound.”

The start of the crash, he defined, was triggered by a diesel cargo ordered in 2008, when crude oil offered for $147 per barrel. By the point the cargo arrived, the worldwide oil market had tanked, and crude had dropped to $40 per barrel. To make issues worse, the naira was devalued from ₦120 to ₦167 per greenback, drastically elevating the price of servicing his foreign-denominated loans.

The upcoming memoir—Otedola’s first—has already garnered widespread acclaim from prime international and African enterprise leaders.

Dr. Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, Director-Basic of the World Commerce Group (WTO), praised it as “a outstanding story of resilience and reinvention.”

Akinwumi Adesina, President of the African Growth Financial institution, known as it “a must-read for Africa’s subsequent technology of entrepreneurs.”

Different notable endorsements embody Africa’s richest man, Aliko Dangote; enterprise mogul Samuel Adedoyin, founder and chairman of Doyin Group; and Arunma Oteh, former Vice President and Treasurer of the World Financial institution.