Adebayo Adelabu biography, family, career, life story

Adebayo Adelabu is a former deputy governor of operations of the Central Bank of Nigeria, and 2019 Oyo State gubernatorial candidate for the All Progressives Congress.

He is the present Minister of Power for the Federal Republic of Nigeria.

In this piece, Enigeria newspapers navigates through the biography, career and life story of Adebayo Adelabu

Profile Summary

Name: Adebayo Adekola Adelabu

Born: 28th September 1970

State of Origin: Ibadan, Oyo State, Nigeria

Education: Obafemi Awolowo University, Harvard Business School, Boston, USA

Political party: Accord

Occupation: Banker, Politician, Businessman

Early Life

Adebyo Adelabu was born on September 28th,1970 in to Aderibigbe Adelabu of Oke-Oluokun family, Kudeti Area in Ibadan, Oyo State, Nigeria.

Education

Adelabu’s early education was at Ibadan Municipal Government primary school, Agodi Ibadan from 1976 to 1982 his high school was at Lagelu Grammar School, Ibadan from 1982 to 1987.

After his secondary education, he went further to Obafemi Awolowo University, Ile-Ife and graduated with a first class degree in Accounting.

He also took professional courses in international business schools such as Harvard, Stanford, Wharton, Columbia, Kelloggs, Euromoney, and the University of London.

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.

Career

Adelabu began working with PriceWaterhouse (now PricewaterhouseCoopers), an international firm of chartered accountants and management consultants. He managed and audited different financial institutions while working with the firm.

He led the finance team on the CBN re-engineering and corporate renewal project tagged “Project EAGLES while he was on secondment to the Central Bank of Nigeria in 1999.

He joined the Atlantic Bank as the Financial Controller and Group Head of Risk Management and Controls in 2000 and was later promoted to Chief Inspector of the Bank in 2002 and Group Head of National Public Sector Business in 2003.

In 2009, from he became an Executive Director/Chief Financial Officer (CFO) of Nigeria’s largest bank, First Bank of Nigeria Plc. (FBN) after working at Standard Chartered Bank as the West African Regional Head of Finance and Strategy (Consumer Banking Business) with dual offices in Lagos and Accra.

In 2014, he was appointed by former President Goodluck Ebele Jonathan 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 serves as 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.

Political life

He started his political career in 2018 when he declared his intentions to contest for the governorship position of Oyo State in the 2019 gubernatorial elections.

He won in the All Progressive Congress ( APC) primary elections and became the party’s gubernatorial candidate.

During the polls in 2019, Adelabu lost to his opponent from the people’s Democratic party ( PDP).

In 2022, Adelabu defected to Accord Party after he lost the primary election to Teslim Folarin who emerged as the APC gubernatorial candidate.

On 16th August, 2023 he was made the Minister of Power of the federation by president Bola Ahmed Tinubu.