OBITUARY: Oladeinde Fernandez… reclusive billionaire, Mandela’s friend, ‘Rihanna’s father’

Seventy-nine-year-old Antonio Oladeinde Fernandez, Nigerian businessman, diplomat and permanent representative of Central African Republic (CAR) to the United Nations, died on Tuesday evening in Belgium as a man whose personal life was largely shielded from the prying public.

Not that he entirely succeeded in living a private life. But for a septuagenarian who was worth a staggering $8.7 billion as at 2014, who held some of the most coveted public offices in international circles, and who built or bought imposing mansions in all the countries he lived all over the world, he largely succeeded in evading the spotlight for most of his life. Until his ex-wife, Aduke, publicly pursued a divorce – and his daughter began to chase a limelight-inducing career.

MULTICULTURAL CAREER

Fernandez was born in Lagos in 1936 into the popular Fernandez family, which originally from Cuba, was the first European migrant to the state. Between 1982 and 1984, he was appointed advisor to the Angolan government on economic matters. He was then named deputy permanent representative of Mozambique to the United Nations. For three years beginning from 1992, he was appointed special adviser to the president of Mozambique on international economic matters.

He was permanent representative of Central African Republic (CAR) at the United Nations in 1997, and was also deputy minister of foreign affairs of the landlocked country. His most known business enterprise is oil company Petro Inett, which he owns. But he also has concerns in bauxite (for aluminum) exports, gold mines (in Angola) and diamonds pits; and he has shares in View, Sandcat Petroleum, Sanantonio, Goldfields, Voguehope, Grantdalem Inuola, Sandcat Goldfi elds and Woods.

In 1996, Petro Inett obtained a 50% share with South African-based Energy Africa Limited in a deal with the state oil company for exploration rights in a 4,700 km2 area of Angola’s coast.

LATE-MARRIAGE DIVORCE

Fernandez was married to Aduke, but what they had built for decades came crashing in July 2003, following a £300 million divorce suit in Scotland. Aduke’s counsel, Charles Macnair QC, wanted Lord Brodie, who presided over the case, to compel the businessman to pay his ex-wife a lump sum of £5 million and an allowance of £75,000 monthly for three years, but the judge dismissed the case. Aduke would die 10 years later.

In the same year that the divorce was finalised, Fernandez, aged 67, married Halima, the beautiful daughter of Muhammadu Maude, who was presidential liaison officer for Kano state during the presidency of Shehu Shagari. Both of them have a daughter named Mahreyah.

NIGERIA’S RIHANNA

In 2014, Abimbola, his daughter from another ex-wife Barbara Joyce, told New York Post that she wanted to be the next Rihanna. The aspiring songstress, who loved to be addressed simply as ‘Bim’, had just released her first single, titled Let’s Take It Naked.

Speaking in her New York City home, which is flanked by original artworks by Picasso and Dr. Seuss, she named Rihanna as her idol but acknowledged her background of affluence will count for nothing if she didn’t prove her musical prowess.

“Money can’t buy a record deal. It can’t buy good music. You can either sing or you can’t.

“I think that, unfortunately, everyone’s perception of socialites has been pretty accurate so far, which is what I want to change.

“People think I’m exactly like Paris Hilton, that I do nothing, I don’t work for myself, I don’t take my own money, I just spend my dad’s money, and I’m a spoiled brat. I hope they’re not right.”

Before embarking on her music career, Bim had stints with modelling. In 2009, her face was the album cover for platinum selling artiste Cobra Starship’s CD ‘Hot Mess’. She also modelled for the cover of the single, Good Girls Go Bad. She was also a Nigerian model for Vivienne Westwood at the Edinburgh Fashion Week.

As she would reveal, her public life is one that privately worried her father.

“He’s terrified because I’m his baby – especially with (me) revealing (my) wealth. And me being alone in the country, he’s terrified of someone kidnapping me and holding me for ransom,” she said in the interview.

“He also just doesn’t want people taking advantage of me because I have been sheltered my whole life.”

A FULL LIFE

Fernandez had the finest things of live: riches, beautiful women, magnificent houses. He owned gold and diamond mines in CAR. He had a roster of friends that included Nelson Mandela, former president of South Africa; Kofi Annan, former secretary-general of the United Nations; Goerge Bush Snr., former US president; and José Eduardo dos Santos, who has been president of Angola since 1979.

He owned houses in Kano, built a tower for himself in Lagos, and also in New York where he last resided. He had imposing homes in Scotland, France, Belgium and the United Kingdom as well. He had accounts in the Cayman Islands, France, Switzerland, Ireland, Hong Kong, Scotland and the United States. He also owned at least six private jets. So rich was he that he was believed to have a habit of air-lifting norther Nigerian delicacy, Tuwo, from Lagos to his home in New York with one of his private jets.

In death, Fernandez can have absolutely no complaint. He lived for nearly eight decades and it was a life of splendour – the type that millions of people will not mind to live for just one year!