Power Tussle Forces New First Bank Chairman, Remi Babalola To Resign

The Chairman of FBN Holdings Plc, Mr. Remi Babalola has resigned.

FBN Holdings made the disclosure in a notice seen by THE WHISTLER.

The resignation of Babalola who was a former Minister of State for Finance is coming seven months after the CBN sacked the bank’s board led by Ibukun Awosika, the former Chairman in April.

Mr Oba Otudeko was the Chairman of the board of FBN Holdings and was replaced by Babalola on the directive of the apex bank.

The Awosika-led board had sacked Sola Adeduntan as Managing Director, a move the apex bank condemned as not following due process.

The company said, “We hereby notify the Nigerian Exchange Limited and the investing public of the resignation of Mr. Remi Babalola as a Non-Executive Director and Chairman of the Company effective 17 December 2021.”

Alhaji Ahmad Abdullahi will replace Babalola as Non-Executive Director and Chairman of the Company.

There has been several battles for the control of First Bank between billionaire businessman Femi Otedola and Tunde Hassan-Odukale.

Otedola recently increased his investments in FBN Holdings to N44bn effectively making him the largest investor in the holding company of First Bank Plc.

Oedola who is the founder of Zenon Petroleum and Gas Ltd now has 7.57 per cent of the shareholding structure of the company.

On October 25, First Bank notified the investment public that Otedola acquired a total of 1,818,551,625 units of the bank’s 35,895,292,791 share capital through two companies, APT Securities and Funds Limited.

FBN Holdings had said Otedola owned 5.07 per cent of the bank’s shares which no single individual owns.

But barely three days later, Hassan-Odukale who replaced the former MD, Ibukun Awosika, was announced as the largest shareholder.

FBN Holdings disclosed that Hassan-Odukale’s shareholding as of October stood at 5.36 per cent ahead of Otedola’s 5.07 per cent.

Godwin Emefiele, the CBN Governor had in November said that the bank is too big for individual ownership.

Emefiele had said, “It is a strong aggressively domestically important bank in Nigeria. If anything happens to First Bank, it means something has happened to the Nigerian banking system and that is why we are taking our guidance about how to get the bank afloat very seriously.

“Six years ago, like I said, because of the aggressive build up of Non Performing Loans, the shares of First Bank fell to N2 per share. We took it on, everybody was running away from the shares of First Bank.

“Because we have cleaned the balance sheet now, the NPL has dropped aggressively, people are seeing that this money-making machine, First Bank, is back again in the race for profitability and they are now competing for the shares of First Bank.

“Why should I quarrel that people are competing for the shares for First Bank which six years ago was N2 and they were running away from it? Today the shares of First Bank when I looked at it were N11.55 during the weekend. I am happy to see that they are competing for the shares.”