By Olusegun Elijah
WorldStage– Transcorp Group Plc chairman Tony Elumelu has kept his grip firm on the conglomerate with his 36 percent stake valued at N187.9 billion, and his men on the boards of the subsidiaries.
Series of disclosures the group filed on the Nigeria Exchange Group revealed about 38 percent of Transcorp Hotels Plc board have connections to the United Bank for Africa (UBA) founder: his wife Dr Awele Elumelu as chairman; Peter Elumelu, non-executive director (NED) since 2024 who retired in December; and Muyiwa Akinyemi who cycled out of the UBA as an executive in January, and landed in the subsidiary as an Independent Non-Executive Director (INED) in April.
Yet Principle 7 of the Nigeria Code of Corporate Governance (NCCG2025) states that an INED should represent a strong independent voice on the Board, be independent in character and judgment.
“… And accordingly be free from such relationships or circumstances with the Company, its management, or substantial shareholders as may, or appear to, impair his ability to make independent judgment.”
Also on the hotel board till last year was Emmanuel Nnorom, a former managing director at UBA and now CEO of Elumelu’s investment firm Heirs Holdings. Nnorom chaired the hotel’s board from 2014 till his retirement last December which brought in Elumelu’s wife as a replacement.
And for this same length of time, and up till now, Nnorom also chairs the power subsidiary’s board.
CEO Peter Ikenga, a former NED on the power company’s board till 2021, also morphed into a CEO September 2023.
The last of Elumelu’s men on the board is Christopher Ezeafulukwe. He became a NED in August 2024 after serving as the company’s MD from 2020 to 2023.
Group CEO Owen D. Omogiafo became a NED in 2020. She’s been serving on both the hotel and power companies’ boards since then.
Again, Principle 2 of the NCCG 2025 states, “No individual or small group of individuals should dominate the board’s decision-making.”
How much influence the Elumelu men have on their boards and managements is not clear yet. And the governance code doesn’t specify what forms a quorum.
But the code states in section 23 that all shareholders are treated fairly and equitably.
“No shareholder, however large his shareholding or whether institutional or otherwise, should be given preferential treatment or superior access to information or other materials.”
Other shareholders with lower stakes in the group include billionaire Femi Otedola (5.5 percent), UBA Nominees, and some of the Transcorp’s directors.
Elumelu, one of Nigeria’s billionaire bankers and one of the world’s 100 most influential men by TIME, champions Africapitalism, his trademarked philosophy guiding his investment in Africa.
