ODE TO ADEBAYO ADEKOLA ADELABU (PENKELEMESI) @47

HERITAGE OF SERVICE:

ODE TO ADEBAYO ADEKOLA ADELABU (PENKELEMESI) @47

“No great man lives in vain. The history of the world is but the biography of great men” -Thomas Carlyle.

On the glorious Monday, 28th September, 1970, the Almighty God blessed Mr.  & Mrs.  Aderibigbe Adelabu of Adegoke Adelabu’s Compound, Oke-Oluokun, Ibadan, Oyo State, with a “Star”. He is  Adebayo Adekola Adelabu. His grandfather was the late Alhaji Adegoke Adelabu (popularly known as Penkelemesi), the most flamboyant and articulate grassroots politician of the pre-independence political era and Nigeria’s first Federal Minister of Social Services and Natural Resources.

As great men are like eagles that build their nests on some lofty solitude, Bayo had his primary education at Ibadan Municipal Government Primary School, Agodi Ibadan between 1976 and 1982 and secondary school education at the famous Lagelu Grammar School, Ibadan between 1982 and 1987 with Distinctions.

According to Henry Wadsworth Longfellow : ”The heights that great men reached and kept were not attained by sudden fight, but they, while their companions slept, were toiling upward in the night”. Bayo holds a First Class Degree in Accounting from Obafemi Awolowo University, Ile-Ife and he is a Fellow of the Institute of Chartered Accountants of Nigeria (ICAN), a Fellow of Chartered Institute of Bankers of Nigeria and an Associate Member of the Institute of Directors of Nigeria and the United Kingdom.

Adebayo Adekola Adelabu, until his appointment as Deputy Governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), was an Executive Director/Chief Financial Officer (CFO) of First Bank of Nigeria Plc. (FBN).

Prior to that, he held the positions of General Manager as the West African Regional Head of Finance and Strategy (Consumer Banking Business) for Standard Chartered Bank.‎
He had his professional training with PriceWaterhouse (now PricewaterhouseCoopers), an international firm of Chartered Accountants and Management Consultants where he worked for seven years. While with the firm, he led and managed various audit and consultancy engagements for large banks and non-bank financial institutions within and outside Nigeria. He was also on secondment to the CBN for one year (in 1999) when he led the Finance team on the CBN re-engineering and corporate renewal project tagged (Project EAGLES).

He left the firm in year 2000 as an Audit Manager and Senior Consultant to join First Atlantic Bank as the Financial Controller and Group Head of Risk Management and Controls. He also held various other positions while in First Atlantic Bank including the Chief Inspector of the Bank (2002) and Group Head of National Public Sector Business (2003).
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Bayo  Adelabu had attended various local and International trainings, seminars and conferences including the University of London School of Management Development, the Euromoney Executive Education, UK, the United States Institute of Internal Auditors in Orlando, Florida, Harvard Business School, Boston USA, Wharton Business School, Pensyvalnia, USA, Stanford Business School, Carlifornia, USA and Columbia University Business School, New York USA.
Bayo currently serves as the Chairman, Board of Directors of the Financial Institution Training center (FITC) and also sits on the board of the Assets Management Corporation of Nigeria (AMCON), the Nigerian Security Printing and Minting Company (NSPMC) and the Nigeria Incentive-Based Risk-Sharing System for Agricultural Lending ( NIRSAL).
He is a member of Ikoyi Club 1938, Jericho Businessmen Club and Ibadan Golf Club. A responsible and complete family man, Bayo is happily married to Oluwaseyi  Omolara  and blessed with children.

‎ Bayo Adelabu is the pioneer Chairman till date of the 1982/87 Set of the Lagelu Grammar School, Ibadan Old Boys’ Association and once the Treasurer of the Lagos branch of the National Alumni Association. In year 2012, he led his set, while celebrating their 25th graduation anniversary, to renovate 2 blocks consisting of six classrooms, to donate 500 units of students’ chairs and tables, 10,000 pieces of big exercise books and10 computer workstations to the school. This is in addition to other various supports his set alumni have been rendering to the school under his able leadership. Also this year July,  he led his set while celebrating their 30th graduation anniversary, to donate a block of modern toilets consisting of eight rooms.

He is the Chairman, Governing Board of Lagelu Grammar School, Ibadan and Chairman,  Oyo State Security Trust Fund.

In his personal capacity, Bayo uses the platform of his NGO, Bayo Adelabu Foundation (BAF) to execute his various philanthropic gestures to the society which include but not limited to Scholarship and Other Education support to indigent students, Health support to the less privileged, Artisans and Traders Finance support, Youth Engagement and Rehabilitation, Support for the Aged, Widows and the Physically challenged and Basic communal infrastructure supports. He also engages himself in Public Motivational Speaking and Youth mentoring activities.

It is in recognition of all these that the Central Council of Ibadan Indigenes (CCII) conferred on him in year 2010 the honour of Ibadan Distinguished Fellowship Award. In addition to this in 2012, the then Olubadan of Ibadan, Oba Odulana Odugade counted him worthy of conferment of a Chieftaincy title of Agbaakin Parakoyi of Ibadanland.

Beyond his official assignment as a Financial and Banking guru, Bayo is an urban renewal and development freak with special passion for Hospitality, Entertainment and Real Estate.

“Men make history and not the other way around. In periods where there is no leadership, society stands still. Progress occurs when courageous, skillful leaders seize the opportunity to change things for the better” - Harry S. Truman.  Also, according to John J. Pershing “ : “A competent leader can get efficient service from poor troops, while on the contrary an incapable leader can demoralize the best of troops”.      

Bayo Adelabu is graciously blessed with seven qualities of a good leader as follows:

(1) Ability to create vision, articulate vision, passionately own the vision and relentlessly drive it to completion;

(2) Courage to pursue the best and achieve success;

(3) Integrity to fear nothing. With this integrity, Bayo is always willing to do the right thing;

(4) Humility to carry all along and to give people their deserved respects with self –confidence and self-awareness, to recognize the value of others without feeling threatened;

(5) Strategic Planning to look ahead and to anticipate with some accuracy. He is a leader with foresight that can gain the “first mover”;

(6) Focus on the past successes rather than the past failures, and on the next action steps needed to take, rather than all the other distractions that life can present;

(7) Ability to gain cooperation of others by making a commitment to get along well with each person every single day.

Here is the “Penkelemesi” of our own generation. He is young, dynamic and vibrant. He is a complete epitome of “The Best”. The man that is poised with the heritage of service to God and humanities. The man that doesn’t lead by hitting people over the head but always apply great simplifiers and cut through argument, debate, and doubt to offer a solution everybody can understand.

Kindly join us to celebrate, congratulate and wish our dear Chairman, the Agbaakin Parakoyi of Ibadanland and “Penkelemesi” of our generation a Happy Birthday at  47.
This is just the beginning of the best.

Ibukun Ogunniran
General Secretary, LAGSOBA 1982/87 Set.