TONYE COLE REVEALS HOW SAHARA GROUP USED FOREIGN IDENTITY TO OVERCOME BIAS
Read Time:3 Minute, 1 Second
By; Aina Daniel
Sahara Group co-founder, Tonye Cole, has disclosed that the energy company adopted a foreign corporate identity in its early years to overcome what he described as the “colonial mentality” that favoured expatriate businesses over indigenous firms in Nigeria’s oil and gas sector.
Speaking on the Afryopolitan podcast published on Wednesday, Cole said Sahara Group was registered in the Isle of Man and operated through a UK entity to create the impression that it was a foreign-owned company. He explained that the strategy was designed to help the young Nigerian founders gain credibility and access business opportunities.
According to him, foreign companies were widely perceived as more competent at the time, making it difficult for local entrepreneurs to compete.
“What I remember about back then was that there was what you would call the expatriate mentality, colonial mentality at the time. It just meant that if you were white in Nigeria, then you would basically get everything,” Cole said.
He explained that, in addition to the preference for foreign firms, he and his partners also faced age-related discrimination, as many potential clients struggled to believe that people in their late twenties could own and run a company in the oil and gas industry.
“We would go into offices and realise that if we went in as young 27 or 28-year-olds and said we owned the company, people would look at us as if to say, ‘Who are you? You can’t do that.’ So there was that ageism issue,” he recalled.
Cole said they observed that most successful businesses in the industry either belonged to foreigners or had foreign affiliations, prompting them to establish Sahara Group’s overseas identity.
“Everybody who was succeeding in the business had foreign companies or they were foreign companies. So we registered the company abroad in the Isle of Man. We had a UK entity,” he said.
To reinforce the image, the founders enlisted the help of one of their former teachers, who became the fictional face of the company under the name “Dr J.”
“We agreed with one of my partner’s teachers and said, ‘We’re going to say that we work for you.’ You had a lovely name, Dr J, which was not a Nigerian name,” Cole explained.
He said they introduced themselves to clients as employees rather than owners, adding that the arrangement earned them sympathy and trust because many believed they were simply young Nigerians working for an expatriate company.
“We were representatives to ourselves, but we would just say we were staff. People thought they were helping young Nigerians working for this expatriate company, and that helped us gain acceptance,” he said.
Cole, however, noted that the strategy became difficult to maintain after about three years, as clients began asking questions about the mysterious foreign executive whose signature appeared on official correspondence but was never seen.
“It took them about three years to ask, ‘This Dr J who signs all the letters, how come we’ve never seen him?’” he said.
Reflecting on the experience, Cole said it highlighted the structural challenges many Nigerian entrepreneurs faced in building successful businesses at the time.
He also recalled that his entrepreneurial journey started while studying Architecture at the University of Lagos, where he and his partners built architectural models for firms, experiences he said shaped his understanding of innovation, partnerships and adaptability.
Since then, Sahara Group has grown into a multinational energy company with operations across several countries. Cole later entered politics and contested the 2023 Rivers State governorship election on the platform of the All Progressives Congress.
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