The managing director of First Bank of Nigeria Limited, Adesola Adeduntan, has resigned his appointment from the company after nine years of holding the top executive position.
He was due to retire in December when his tenure would have been fully completed.
“I have however decided to proceed on retirement with effect from 20 April 2024 to pursue other interests,” he said in a copy of his resignation letter seen by PREMIUM TIMES.
First Bank is the flagship subsidiary of FBN Holdings, Nigeria’s foremost financial institution, which abruptly announced the cancellation of an extraordinary general meeting on Saturday morning after Mr Adeduntan resigned.
The meeting had been earlier “scheduled to be held virtually on Tuesday, April 30, 2024, at 10 am for the consideration and authorisation of the company to undertake a capital raise of up to N300,000,000,000,” FBN Holdings said in its notification to the Nigerian Exchange.
Mr Adeduntan joined First Bank in 2014, first as a chief financial officer and as an executive director.
Before this, he served at the Africa Finance Corporation as the pioneer chief financial officer/business manager and as a director as well.
His range of expertise covers investment finance, commercial and investment banking, consulting and audit.
He was once a senior manager at the auditing and professional services firm KPMG and held the role of Senior vice president & chief financial officer at Citibank Nigeria Limited.
Perhaps the biggest upheaval of his career, a leadership tussle among vested interest at the bank in 2021 saw the power bloc of Oba Otudeko, FBN Holdings’ chairman at the time, and Ibukun Awosika, the then chair of First Bank, sack Mr Adeduntan, announcing a replacement in his stead.
It took the supreme intervention of industry regulator the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) to restore him to that coveted position with a verdict that his dismissal was in breach of corporate governance.
The CBN would later fire the duo of Mr Otudeko and Ms Awosika for the misconduct.
Mr Adeduntan is a 1992 graduate of veterinary medicine from the University of Ibadan. He holds a Doctor of Science, Honoris Causa, from Cranfield University UK in addition to an MBA from the same institution.
