Ifeanyi IbeThe President, Bola Tinubu, has said that the impact of the founder of First City Monument Bank (FCMB), Olasubomi Balogun, will remain in celebration long after his death.
The President made this known in Ogun State on Saturday at the funeral service of the late Balogun at Cathedral Church of Our Saviour in Ijebu-Ode.
Represented by Vice President Kashim Shettima, Tinubu said, “The world is going to remain grateful to him even much longer than he lived,” adding that “he was everything our ailing world desired.”
Tinubu noted that Balogun was an institution in the Nigerian banking sector and a model for generations of bankers and lawyers, among other professionals.
A statement signed on Saturday by the State House Director of Information, Office of the Vice President, Olusola Abiola, was released and titled ‘VP Shettima represents President Tinubu at funeral service of FCMB founder, late Michael Balogun, describes him as banking sector icon.’
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The President further said the late Otunba Balogun was a philanthropist extraordinaire, and noted that his departing from this world at age 89 is a gift only a few have benefited.
“He not only immortalised your industrious spirit as the founder of the flourishing First City Merchant Bank, which we all know as FCMB, but the world is going to remain grateful to him even much longer than he lived.
“We are here to celebrate life. As he peacefully departs from this earthly realm at the remarkable age of 89, we lift our voices in prayer, offering our heartfelt appreciation for the profound impact he made during his time among us,” he said.
The President also expressed his condolences to the Balogun family, government and people of Ogun State, and offered prayers for the departed elder statesman.
In his presentation, the Ogun State governor, Dapo Abiodun who went memory lane, said the late Michael Balogun was a prodigious intellectual, an economist and a lawyer who attended the Igbobi College, Yaba, Lagos before proceeding to the London School of Economics to study law in 1956.
He said the late Balogun worked in the banking sector first, as the Principal Counsel and Company Secretary to the Nigerian Industrial Development Bank, and held many positions in the sector before he founded the First City Monument Bank.
Abiodun further said, “In 1989 Late Michael Balogun donated the newly built and fully equipped General Hospital to Ijebu Ode.”
There were in attendance at the funeral so many dignitaries, including former Head of State Gen Yakubu Gowon; Governor of Lagos State, Babajide Sanwo-Olu; former Governors of Ogun State, Sen Gbenga Daniel and Bayelsa State, Sen Seriake Dickson.
Others were the Chairman of Dangote Group, Aliko Dangote; Mr Femi Otedola; the President of the African Development Bank, Dr Akinwumi Adesina; first-class traditional rulers and Bishops of the Ijebu Anglican Diocese, Church of Nigeria, Anglican Communion, among others.
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