Sheikh Alli Balogun: The titan, his life of philanthropy and his mosque

Reputed to be one of the wealthiest in his era, religious and affluent; his opulence, business acumen and humanitarian gesture touched all and sundry. Sheikh Alli Balogun, a renowned businessman born in 1830, was a Nupe Prince of Tapa ancestry whose mother was an Awori woman of IsaleEko extraction. He died in 1931 and 90 years after he remains unforgettable.

His name is synonymous with Lagos. So popular was his name that nearly a century after his exit from the planet of earth, he remained iconic. Alli Balogun was a wealthy business man, religious leader and politician in Lagos in the late 18th century. Alli Balogun in his early life was a deeply spiritual kids who is well grounded in reading and learning Qur’an. Not long after, his father passed and his uncle took charge of his upbringing.Shortly after, his uncle also passed.

A man of destiny who wouldn’t allow his circumstances to hamper his vision, barely into his twenties, he had known that the inherited business game his father established had to change and be built upon. From being harboured, tutored and guided, he now had to break out on his own and fully take control of his life.

His first effort at fully fending for himself was in trading in bits and ends, especially iron bands (ojaagba). He started off brightly but things moved rather slowly. Very soon, he analysed his competition and his opportunities and came up with the idea that, all alone, he could not reach all of his intended targets without some form of assistance from deploying more human resources to his business. So, he employed a band of people to assist him trade extensively while he conducted the business from the top. Fortune soon smiled on him because by trading outside religious, ethnic and other sectional lines with his itinerant small timers, he was able to garner a critical mass of customers to satisfy on a daily basis. But, much more than his trading instincts, was his ability to keep his accounting books.

He was so adept at keeping his accounts, it was said that he knew by rote all his transactions and those carried out by his subordinates. With time, he opened his own shops and he was no longer itinerant, even though his employees still were. Sensing his business acumen and his visible success, he was approached by a retinue of European companies to be their representative in Lagos and in the hinterland, trading in merchandise.

This was the beginning of the stupendous wealth of Alli Balogun. Having to trade with those in the hinterland, he figured out pretty quickly that he had to invest more in a transport system. He chose to massively invest in merchandise bearing canoes along the rivers, lagoons and creeks by which he could easily reach out to the hinterland. This was to markedly improve his fortune and earned him the sobriquet Alli Oloko (essentially because of his merchandise bearing trading canoes).

Like all forward looking shrewd business people, he decided to diversify into another line of business that will challenge more his sharp intellect. Meanwhile, he had become so successful from merchandising and he was living large. He had imported a Rolls Royce car from the United Kingdom and after a few years, bought yet another Rolls Royce, making two, the second of which he rode during Muslim holidays and festivities.

Then came the idea of supporting entrepreneurs to engage in any line of business and be successful at it, especially those who lacked the financial muscles to attain a decent start or those who had run into financial rough weather in the process. Combining his book keeping skills and his money liquidity, he set up shop to be a financial potentate in what was then a loose financial regulatory environment. In a short while, he became adept at it, made so much money that he became a first point of call, an alternative and subsequently a competitor, to the risk management functions of the only bank in Nigeria at the time- the British Bank of West Africa (the precursor of today’s First Bank of Nigeria).

Clearly, the most financially successful man of his time, Alli Balogun was the largest depositor in the British Bank of West Africa in that era. Having conquered the business world he expanded his empire.  Alli Balogun decided to venture into real estate. While he invested in properties with his own proceeds, he also benefited from properties as a result of asset foreclosures and forfeitures from his risk management business.

He built a lavish property of his own on Victoria Street (now Nnamdi Azikiwe Street) and called it “Makanjuola House’, a name which also became one of his many aliases. At Muslim festivities, he had the habit of returning the title deeds of foreclosed properties to their former owners. This gesture was always anticipated and was met with joy and celebrations, every year. Still, by the time Alli Balogun died in July 13th, 1933, he had a total of 44 properties; all on Lagos Island, except for the one in Iddo; opposite the Railway Terminus.

One other noticeable interesting attitude of Alli Balogun was his non-belief in courtship between young people before marriage. He would simply give out his daughters in marriage to his friends and acolytes. Indeed, his first daughter was given out in marriage to the Chief Imam of Lagos, Imam Ibrahim. Subsequently, his other marriage- age daughters were betrothed to other noble Lagos families.

Given his reach, wealth and influence in Lagos, it was a question of time before Alli Balogun played the politics of his time. The seed for his full involvement in Lagos politics was sown by the British Colonial Government in 1899 when the Colonial Governor, Sir William MacGregor appointed Alli Balogun a member of the General Sanitation Board.  Mixing business with religion and politics, the business magnate succeeded.

And many years saw him calling the shot in Lagos politics. While he was dip in the politics of Lagos there were some policies in terms of levels and constitutional matters such as appointments that were resisted. The intrigues that led to the suspension of the then Oba Eshugbayi. But sense of reason prevailed, Oba Eshugbayi was reinstated after he agreed to cancel his controversial appointments.

That Alli Balogun was a deeply religious man was an understatement. There was a fraca in the religious setting at that time where different factions emerged.  It was in the midst of all these that Alli Balogun decided to build his own mosque, a stone throw from the Central Mosque, on Victoria Street, now Nnamdi Azikiwe Street. An architectural masterpiece, it had cost him £10,000 at its completion, in 1925.

His mosque would later serve as a Central Mosque where Jumat prayers will be held. It was such a prophetic riposte. Six decades down the line in the 1980s when the old Central Mosque was pulled down for the building of a new one, the Alli Balogun mosque assumed the position of the Lagos Central Mosque, for the number of years it took for the new Central Mosque to be built.

Of tall, imposing and stately stature, Alli Balogun was highly reputed for his philanthropy, particularly in his avowed and unflinching support to the cause of Islam. Indeed, it was asserted that Alli Balogun was formally introduced to Lagos Royalty by the King of Saudi Arabia in the 1800s because of his philanthropic activities.