President Muhammadu Buhari, Minister of Youth and Sports Development Mr Sunday Dare and Governor Seyi Makinde have felicitated with Chief Adebayo Adelabu, on the occasion of his 50th birthday, on 28 September 2020.
Adelabu, a former Deputy Governor, Operations, Central Bank of Nigeria, was Oyo State gubernatorial candidate of the All Progressives Congress (APC) in the 2019 elections.
The President congratulates the politician and astute businessman on attaining the Golden age, wishing him greater years of service to God, the country, and humanity in general.
President Buhari lauds the Fellow of the Institute of Chartered Accountants of Nigeria (ICAN), Fellow, Chartered Institute of Bankers of Nigeria (CIBN), for his strides in professional life, and prays that his boundless skills and dexterity will be brought to bear on society, for the good of the greater majority.
Also, Dare, in a statement, said, ” Happy birthday to my brother Oloye Bayo Adelabu. To have attained the golden age of 50 is no mean feat and you must thank God. When you look back, you realise that it’s been God that has sustained you in the last 50 years. As you celebrate this special occasion, I pray that you will enjoy more grace to serve God and humanity. It is indeed a great moment to savour and reflect on how to serve our people better.
I wish you many long years in good health and sound mind in the service of our great state Oyo and Nigeria at large.”
Governor, in a statement by his Chief Press Secretary, Mr. Taiwo Adisa, expressed gratitude to God for granting Adelabu, his opponent in the 2019 election, the grace to witness the golden jubilee of his birth.
He noted that achieving such a landmark age can only be a privilege from God.
The governor admonished the businessman, who flew the governorship flag of the All Progressives Congress (APC) in the 2019 election, to see the new age as a great responsibility and a challenge to put in more efforts into serving humanity and making meaningful impact on the society.
He further admonished him to imbibe politics without bitterness by freely contributing his quota to the development of the state without any hint of political consideration.
According to Makinde, anyone who reaches the 50th birthday landmark is on his way to becoming an elder statesman and, as such, bears more responsibilities on his shoulders.
He said: “I celebrate my brother, Oloye Adebayo Adelabu, the governorship candidate of the APC in the March 9, 2019, governorship election, in our dear state, on the occasion of his 50th birthday.
“Anyone who lives to celebrate the golden jubilee must see it as a great privilege from God and one should be grateful. It is on this note that I give gratitude to God on behalf of Chief Adelabu.
“Also, a 50th birthday is always celebrated with fanfare, because it is considered a landmark; it is the invitation to becoming a statesman and it confers on one a great respect as well as responsibility.
“I encourage Chief Adelabu to note that this is the time for politicians across all divides in the state to eschew politics of bitterness by freely contributing their quota positively to the developmental efforts of the incumbent administration, since the saying is always right: government comes and government goes but the people always remain.
“I will admonish my brother to, in the spirit of this new age, freely discharge his responsibility to the people by committing himself more to serving humanity and making meaningful impact on the society.
“It is my expectation that as he clocks 50 and with the responsibilities that come with it, Chief Adelabu will attune his mind to collaborating with the Oyo State Government to return the State to the Pacesetter status it occupied especially in the First and Second Republics.
“As he celebrates his golden jubilee, I pray to God to continue to grant him good health.
“I wish him a very Happy birthday and many happy returns.”
The Man, Adelabu
Adebayo Adelabu was born September 28, 1970. He was deputy governor, operations of the Central Bank of Nigeria and 2019 Oyo State gubernatorial candidate for the All Progressives Congress.
Adelabu was born to Aderibigbe Adelabu of Oke-Oluokun compound, Kudeti Area in Ibadan. His grandfather was Adegoke Adelabu. Adelabu attended Ibadan Municipal Government primary school, Agodi Ibadan from 1976 to 1982 and Lagelu Grammar School, Ibadan from 1982 to 1987.
Adelabu, according to media reports, aggregated by Wikipedia, received a first class degree in Accounting from Obafemi Awolowo University, Ile-Ife. 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. Adelabu has also taken up professional courses in various business schools, including Harvard, Stanford, Wharton, Columbia, Kelloggs, Euromoney, and the University of London.
‘Adelabu started his career with PriceWaterhouse (now PricewaterhouseCoopers), an international firm of chartered accountants and management consultants. During his seven years 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 on secondment to the Central Bank of Nigeria 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 was later promoted to Chief Inspector of the Bank in 2002 and Group Head of National Public Sector Business in 2003.
Adelabu moved to Standard Chartered Bank as the West African Regional Head of Finance and Strategy (Consumer Banking Business) with dual offices in Lagos and Accra. He was there till 2009 from where he became an Executive Director/Chief Financial Officer (CFO) of Nigeria’s largest bank, First Bank of Nigeria Plc. (FBN) at the age of 39.
Adebayo was appointed by former President Goodluck Ebele Jonathan in February 2014 as Deputy Governor, Operations of the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN).
Adelabu serves as the Chairman, Board of Directors of the Nigeria InterBank Settlement Systems (NIBBS) and has chaired the board of Financial Institution Training Centre (FITC). He is also a serving member of the Board of Federal Inland Revenue Services (FIRS), Nigeria Security Printing and Minting Company (NSPMC), the Assets Management Corporation of Nigeria (AMCON) and the Nigeria Incentive-Based Risk-Sharing System for Agricultural Lending (NIRSAL).
Adelabu is also a businessman and has investments spanning the hospitality, entertainment, agriculture and real estate industries. He is the Group Chairman of Bayse One Group of Hotels, the Best Western Plus Hotels, Ibadan and Bayse One Farm.
Adelabu resigned from Central Bank Nigeria with the intention of seeking election into the governorship position of Oyo State in 2019. He made his intention official on June 20th, 2018 when he visited the All Progressive Congress party secretariat in Ibadan to make his declaration and also pick up the governorship aspirant form. On 30 September 2018, he emerged as the gubernatorial candidate for the APC (All Progressives Congress) Party in Oyo State at the party primaries held at the Lekan Salami Stadium in Ibadan. On March 9, 2019, Adelabu lost to Oluwaseyi Makinde of the people’s democratic party in the 2019 Oyo state gubernatorial election.