Popular Nigerian businessman and motivational speaker, Ubong King is dead. He reportedly died on Saturday, December 26th 2020. The security exp
Popular Nigerian businessman and motivational speaker, Ubong King is dead. He reportedly died on Saturday, December 26th 2020.
The security expert and founder of Protection Plus Security Limited who was also known as the ‘Troublemaker’ was said to have tested positive for COVID-19.
King was also the president of the Ubong King Foundation, a non-profit, non-governmental organisation targeted at training young people towards leadership.
King was a former chairman of The American Society of Industrial Security (ASIS) International Chapter 206, Lagos. He facilitated and spoke at leadership and management retreats within and outside Nigeria.
Ubong King began his career as a volunteer guard in the protocol department of the church he was attending at the time. King also worked as a consultant in a piggery, before venturing into the security industry. King went on to start Protection Plus Security Limited.
Ubong also curated the ‘ThinknationXX’ annual event that gathered people across Nigeria and Africa to help them with mental shift for business growth.
In an interview he granted Vanguard earlier this year, recalled what prompted him to set up a security outfit. He said, “Revenge was my first motive owing to the fact that my father passed on as a result of being poisoned by someone.
“I wanted to join the navy, learn to use a gun, then come back to kill the person who killed my dad. But as I grew up the person who poisoned my father died, so I could not take my revenge. Moreso, I became a born again Christian.
“This thought was the driving force which made me want to learn to protect other people. I read a lot of magazines on security which I bought at Ojuelegba, Ikeja bus stop and CMS in Lagos. These magazines directed my interest that this could be a profitable industry.
“I watched a film by Kevin Costner and Whitney Houston called Bodyguard and I said to myself, this is who I want to be, a body guard. VIP protection became an interest for me. The more I studied it, the more I was getting sucked in, so I began to see executive protection specialist, emergency armed response services and secured transportation for VIPs as a path I wanted to tow.
“Most Nigerian security companies focus more on guarding services and as I read extensively, I saw that there were many other services I could offer. I spent some time working for some companies before I started my own. That was very important because it was like an apprenticeship model for me before I jumped into starting my own. Through that, I understood the market, the opportunities and how to structure my own company.
Ubong King is survived by his wife and four children.
