Jim Ovia, Emefiele’s Predecessor At Zenith Bank, Bags President Tinubu’s Job

By Adesina Soyooye

One of Africa’s Best Bankers, Businessman and entrepreneur, Jim Ovia, has been picked by President Bola Tinubu to Chair the Board of the very important  Nigerian Education Loan Fund, NELFUND.

The appointment, which has been described by many as putting a round peg in a round hole, given Ovia’s many accomplishments and foray into Education, was announced Friday in a statement  by the Special Adviser to the President on Media & Publicity, Ajuri Ngelale. “It shows the President means business”, a couple of them posited.

Part of the statement reads:

“Mr. Ovia is the founder of one of Nigeria’s leading banks and a respected business leader, with a surfeit of efforts and benefaction towards nurturing and empowering young Nigerians.

“He is an alumnus of Harvard Business School and holds a Master’s in Business Administration from the University of Louisiana.

“The National Student Loan Programme is a pivotal intervention that seeks to guarantee sustainable higher education and functional skill development for all Nigerian students and youths.

“The Nigerian Education Loan Fund, the implementing institution of this innovation, demands excellence and Nigerians of the finest professional ilk to guide and manage.

“The President believes Mr. Ovia will bring his immense wealth of experience and professional stature to this role to advance the all-important vision of ensuring that no Nigerian student suffers a capricious end to their pursuit of higher education over a lack of funds and of ensuring that Nigerian youths, irrespective of who they are, have access to higher education and skills that will make them productive members of society and core contributors to the knowledge-based global economy of this century.”

The embattled former Governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria, Dr. Godwin Emefiele, succeeded Ovia as the Group Managing Director/Chief Executive Officer of Zenith Bank Plc. Ovia is believed to have, allegedly, recommended Emefiele to former President Goodluck Jonathan for the CBN top job.

Both Ovia and Emefiele hail from the same Delta Igbo speaking area of Delta State, with some people alleging they are relations. The question they are asking is why Ovia has not been able to broker a soft landing for his embattled “kinsman and boy.”

Yet, not a few insist that given the gravity of the allegations against Emefiele, it will be unfair to say Ovia “abandoned him to his fate.” Perhaps, the seasoned banker, they say, is so overwhelmed by the allegations against Emefiele,  that he decided to keep off, and pray that things gradually sort themselves out since, according to one of them: “Emefiele did not run CBN with Ovia.”