Jimoh Ibrahim is a serial entrepreneur with huge business interests, born 1967 in Igbotako to a bricklayer father who had at least seven wives and 40 children, and a fish seller mother. Ibrahim went to St. John’s School, and then to Community Grammar School, both in Igbotako. Thereafter, he attended Federal School of Arts and Science, Ondo and then to the University of Ife where he read Law. He also obtained a Masters degree in Economic and International Tax at Harvard University. As a student in Harvard, Ibrahim consulted for International Monetary Fund on tax reforms in Croatia and Lithuania.
During his National Youth Service Corps, Ibrahim collaborated with institutions like the Administrative Staff College of Nigeria, holding series of workshops, taking advantage of President Babangida’s local government autonomy in an attempt to help administrators with supplementing the lack of laws at the local government level. He acquired with the money he made from seminars a swampy land at the Victoria Garden City (VGC) gate, which he later transformed into an ultra-modern filling station with two expensive banking halls, an innovative move that would inspire his foray into real estate.
In 2003, Ibrahim modified his plans for a state owned oil company which he promised in his manifesto in contest for the governorship of Ondo State which he lost. The Global Fleet Oil and Gas, consequent of this, has over 200 gas stations. Ibrahim’s Global Fleet Group, a diversified conglomerate, based in Nigeria, with business interests in neighbouring West African countries has insurance, airways, holdings, banking, and hotel management subsidiaries. As a corporate adventurer, he was often immersed in controversies.
