Nigerians seem to prosper in Diaspora than when living at home. One would wonder why most Nigerians living abroad are usually very successful in their chosen career, could it be as a result of an enabling environment?, the zeal to achieve success or sheer determination to outshine other race who may see Nigerians as second class citizens?
Whatever the reasons are, 95 percent of Nigerians have been able to breakthrough what ever stereotype they face in their host country.
Amongst the numerous Nigerians making the country proud is 64-year-old Adebayo Ogunlesi, a Nigerian-born lawyer and investment banker based in the United Kingdom.
Adebayo, born to Prof and Mrs Theophilus Ogunlesi, a renowed professor of medicine at the University of Ibadan, hails from Sagamu, Ogun State.
His early academic life began at King's College, Lagos, from where he left to England to study Philosophy, Politics and Economics at the prestigious Oxford university, where he bagged a Bachelors of Art, with first class.
In 1979, Adebayo received a J.D. magna cum laude from Harvard Law School and an M.B.A. from the Harvard Business School, which he ran concurrently.
Adebayo didn't stop at obtaining these various degrees, he went into practise, starting as a law clerk and gradually advanced into an associate justice Thurgood Marshall of the United States Supreme Court.
Ogunlesi Adebayo first ventured into investment banking in 1983, when he joined First Boston investment bank as an advisor on a Nigeria gas project.
After only a few years of hard work, on the basis of merit, Ogunlesi was appointed Global Head of CSFB's Investment Banking Division in 2002.
In July 2006, in a deal worth more than £1.455 billion, Adebayo bough the London City Airport, in the name of his firm, Global Infrastructure Partners, GIP which he started in the same year.
In 2009, Adebayo bought one of UK's busiest airport, the Gatwick Airport and in 2012, he acquired the Edinburgh Airport.
Ogunlesi Adebayo is estimated to be worth over £900 billion Pounds.
The successful Nigerian businessman is happily married to british born optometrist, Dr Amelia Quist Ogunlesi, and they are blessed with two children.
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