Reported by Musa Antiketu,| Journalist at Obaland magazine.
The early story of Sahara Group, one of Nigeria’s most prominent indigenous energy businesses, has been retold in an unusual and revealing way by its co-founder, Tonye Cole, who says the company once adopted a foreign corporate identity to overcome entrenched attitudes that favoured expatriate businesses over young Nigerian entrepreneurs.
Cole disclosed that Sahara was registered abroad, including through an entity in the Isle of Man, and that the founders created the impression that they were representatives of an experienced foreign businessman identified only as “Dr J”. According to his account, the strategy was designed to navigate a business environment in which foreign ownership and expatriate credentials could command greater confidence than the abilities of young Nigerians. PUNCH reported the disclosure on July 30, 2026, citing Cole’s appearance on the Afropolitan Podcast.
The revelation offers a rare insight into the pressures that confronted indigenous entrepreneurs in Nigeria’s oil and gas industry during the formative years of the sector’s private-market expansion. It also raises a broader question about how colonial-era perceptions of expertise, legitimacy and commercial authority continued to influence business relationships decades after Nigeria gained independence.
Cole described the climate of the time as one shaped by what he called an “expatriate mentality” or “colonial mentality”. In his telling, the assumption was that foreign companies, particularly those associated with white owners or international credentials, were naturally more competent or credible.
He recalled that the environment effectively created a hierarchy in which local entrepreneurs had to work harder to prove themselves.
‘If you were white in Nigeria, then you would basically get everything’
According to Cole, the problem was not simply access to capital or technical capacity. It was also perception.
He said the founders discovered that many of the companies succeeding in the industry were foreign entities or had significant foreign connections. That observation encouraged them to rethink how they presented their young enterprise to potential customers and partners.
Cole recalled that he and his partners were in their late 20s when they were attempting to build the company. In meetings with prospective clients, he said, their age itself became a barrier.
He explained that entering an office as a 27- or 28-year-old businessman and declaring ownership of an oil company could provoke scepticism from people who simply did not believe that someone so young could possess the necessary experience or authority.
That, he said, created another obstacle: ageism.
The combination of nationality and age therefore created what the Sahara founders perceived as a credibility gap. A young Nigerian entrepreneur was not necessarily evaluated solely on his business proposition; rather, his identity could determine how seriously his proposition was taken.
For Cole and his partners, the response was to manipulate the perception surrounding the business rather than abandon the opportunity.
The birth of ‘Dr J’
Cole said the founders registered the company abroad in the Isle of Man and presented it as an expatriate-linked operation. PUNCH reported that Cole described the arrangement as involving a UK entity and a fictitious British figure known as “Dr J”, who was presented as the person behind the business.
The strategy, as Cole recounted it, involved a former teacher of one of his partners. The founders decided to tell prospective clients that they worked for the supposed foreign businessman.
Rather than introduce themselves simply as young Nigerian business owners, they could portray themselves as local representatives or employees working for an established expatriate-backed enterprise.
Cole described the arrangement as a calculated response to the conditions confronting them.
The significance of the tactic, however, was not necessarily the invented character himself. The deeper issue was what the character represented: a perceived seal of foreign credibility.
In practical terms, the strategy allowed the founders to alter the way potential clients viewed them before the strength of Sahara’s actual business proposition could speak for itself.
Cole said the approach helped create opportunities because clients believed they were supporting young Nigerians who worked for a foreign company.
That distinction is crucial. The account suggests that the entrepreneurs did not necessarily lack the technical or commercial ability to compete. Instead, they believed that the market had erected a psychological and social barrier that required them to adopt a different presentation to get through the door.
A strategy that worked — until questions emerged
The arrangement eventually became difficult to maintain.
Cole said it took approximately three years before people began asking a straightforward question: if “Dr J” was the businessman behind the company, why had nobody ever seen him?
The mystery surrounding the supposedly foreign owner became increasingly difficult to sustain as the business grew and its dealings became more visible.
The story, therefore, is not only about the ingenuity of young entrepreneurs. It is also about the contradictions of a business environment in which perception could potentially matter as much as performance.
Sahara’s eventual growth meant that its legitimacy increasingly came from its own record of execution rather than from the foreign identity constructed around its early operations.
The company’s development provides important context. THISDAY reported in 2022 that Sahara Energy Resources, one of the group’s trading subsidiaries, was based in the British Crown dependency of the Isle of Man and had expanded into international crude-oil trading after its formation by Cole, Tope Shonubi and Ade Odunsi in 1996. The report noted that the business later developed into a much larger energy enterprise with operations and interests spanning several markets.
That historical record gives an important dimension to Cole’s latest account: the overseas registration was not merely an abstract idea or a passing marketing device. An Isle of Man-based Sahara entity was indeed part of the group’s corporate structure, according to earlier reporting by THISDAY and official Sahara materials.
At the same time, the existence of an offshore or foreign-registered entity does not, by itself, establish that a company was foreign-owned. Cole’s account specifically concerns how the founders presented themselves in order to overcome perceptions in the Nigerian market.
From a young Nigerian venture to an African energy business
Sahara’s journey subsequently moved far beyond the circumstances described by Cole.
Established in 1996, the group developed interests across energy, power, gas, infrastructure and related sectors. Earlier reporting by The Guardian, drawing on Cole’s 2016 Forbes Africa interview, described Sahara as a privately owned power, energy, gas and infrastructure conglomerate and highlighted Cole’s journey from a difficult start in entrepreneurship to helping build an indigenous energy business.
The company’s transformation is significant because it illustrates the extent to which indigenous African businesses can evolve when local entrepreneurship is combined with international exposure, capital, partnerships and institutional capacity.
Sahara itself has previously highlighted its growth from a Nigerian energy enterprise into a multinational organisation with operations across multiple regions. Its corporate history and public statements also show that the group has engaged with global institutions and international markets over the years.
For Cole, however, the early struggle appears to remain an important lesson about how societies assign credibility.
The colonial legacy beyond politics
The phrase “colonial mentality” carries a deeper meaning in the African context.
For decades, post-colonial scholars, political thinkers and social commentators have examined how colonial systems of hierarchy survived beyond formal independence through social attitudes, institutional structures and perceptions of Western authority.
In business, the phenomenon can manifest in subtle ways. International credentials may be treated as automatically superior to local experience. Foreign accents or corporate addresses can sometimes influence perceptions of professionalism. Young entrepreneurs may struggle to command authority because commercial success is associated with age, established networks or imported legitimacy.
Cole’s account presents his experience as an example of this wider structural problem.
The broader lesson for Africa is that indigenous enterprises should ultimately be judged by their competence, governance, innovation, financial discipline and performance rather than by the nationality of their founders or the geographical location of their registration.
Indeed, if Cole’s story demonstrates anything, it is that a perception of inferiority can become an economic obstacle in its own right.
A talented entrepreneur who cannot secure the first meeting with a client has little opportunity to prove his competence.
The age factor in Nigeria’s business environment
Cole’s comments also point to a second issue that remains relevant in contemporary Nigeria: ageism in entrepreneurship and leadership.
The assumption that a young person cannot possess the maturity to control a serious business can discourage innovation and shut talented entrepreneurs out of opportunities.
Nigeria’s youthful population and rapidly expanding technology ecosystem have made the question increasingly important. Young founders are now building companies in fintech, technology, manufacturing, agriculture, media and other sectors, but access to investors, contracts and institutional partnerships can still be influenced by perceptions about age and experience.
Cole’s own account suggests that the challenge is not simply about giving young people motivational speeches. It is about creating systems in which ability can be demonstrated and evaluated fairly.
His story also reinforces the importance of mentorship. The former teacher who became part of the “Dr J” arrangement was, in Cole’s telling, already a trusted figure who had helped educate the founders. Even though the identity strategy was unconventional, the episode illustrates how relationships and networks can influence the early survival of a business.
A complicated legacy
Cole’s latest disclosure should not be interpreted as a simple celebration of deception, nor should it be reduced to a morality tale.
Rather, it reveals how entrepreneurs sometimes respond to environments in which formal rules and informal social expectations do not operate on equal terms.
From an ethical perspective, deliberately creating a fictitious identity can raise legitimate questions about transparency. Yet the wider context of Cole’s remarks is that the founders believed they were confronting a system in which being visibly Nigerian and visibly young could itself undermine their commercial credibility.
That tension is central to understanding the story.
The real significance lies less in “Dr J” as an individual character than in why the character was believed to be commercially useful in the first place.
If a company had to appear foreign before some people would take it seriously, then the deeper problem was not the inventiveness of the entrepreneurs. It was the perception structure that rewarded foreign identity over demonstrated Nigerian capability.
What Sahara’s story says about African enterprise today
Three decades after Sahara’s establishment, Africa’s entrepreneurial landscape is changing rapidly.
Indigenous companies are increasingly operating internationally, African founders are attracting global capital, and businesses created on the continent are competing in sectors that were once overwhelmingly dominated by foreign firms.
Yet the credibility challenge identified by Cole remains relevant.
The most sustainable response cannot be permanent dependence on imported validation. African businesses have to build institutions, brands and reputations strong enough to command international respect on their own terms.
That requires more than symbolism.
It requires transparent governance, strong professional standards, reliable infrastructure, access to finance, credible regulation, quality education and business environments where entrepreneurs are assessed on performance rather than race, nationality, age or social connections.
Cole’s account is therefore both a business story and a social commentary.
It captures the lengths to which a group of young Nigerian entrepreneurs believed they had to go to gain entry into an industry where foreignness was seen as an advantage. It also charts the transformation of that same enterprise into a major African energy business whose identity eventually became rooted in the performance of the company itself.
Sahara’s early experience may have been shaped by a need to appear foreign, but its subsequent history demonstrates a different reality: African companies can compete globally without surrendering their identity.
For Nigeria and the wider continent, that may be the most important lesson in Cole’s recollection.
The challenge before the next generation is not merely to find ways around old stereotypes. It is to build institutions and businesses so strong that such stereotypes no longer determine who gets a seat at the table.
Sahara Group — Official corporate records and historical statements concerning the company’s development, international operations and Cole’s resignation from executive responsibilities in 2018.
Editorial note: At the time of publication, Obaland magazine could independently verify PUNCH’s report and the underlying Afropolitan interview reference for the latest disclosure. The additional sources above are provided primarily for historical and corporate context, rather than as claims that they independently published the July 2026 disclosure.
Tonye Cole reveals how Sahara Group used an overseas registration and the fictional “Dr J” identity to overcome colonial attitudes, ageism and foreign-business bias in Nigeria’s early oil and gas industry.