Akinade Ogunbiyi is one of the prominent sons in Osun and one of the leading aspirants for the Osun gubernatorial election under the flag of the People’s Democratic Party (PDP).
The investment and insurance expert grew up in Ile-Ogbo, a town in Osun State. His parents were farmers, and his father was a member of the Trade Association, which he also chaired.
Profile:
- Date of Birth: September 12, 1962
- Place of Birth: Osun state
- Nationality: Nigerian
- Education: Obafemi Awolowo University, Ile-Ife
- Profession: Business Tycoon
- Interest: Insurance, Agriculture Investment, and Politics
Academic Qualifications:
For his elementary education, he attended Ile-Ogbo Primary School, Ile-Ogbo, Osun State. From there, he proceeded to Ile-Ogbo Modern School and Luther King’s College, Ile-Ogbo.
He attended the College of Art and Science, Ile-Ife (OSCARS) to special classes for the Unified Tertiary Matriculation Examination (UTME).
He proceeded to the prestigious University of Ife (now Obafemi Awolowo University (OAU) after his West African Senior School Certificate Examination and UTME which he passed in flying colours.
At OAU, he bagged BSc in Agricultural Economics. He has a degree in History and an M Sc in Industrial Relations and Personnel Management from the University of Lagos (UNILAG).
He would later attend an Executive Masters in Business Administration at the International Graduate School of Management, University of Navarra (IESE) in Barcelona, Spain.
His love for quality education prompted him to proceed to the University of Oxford to attend Oxford Advanced Management & Leadership Programme and Harvard Business School, Boston, Massachusetts, USA.
Not just that, he is also an alumnus of Lagos Business School and a PhD in Insurance and Risk Management
Professional Career:
He is a member of the Chartered Insurance Institute of Nigeria and the Chartered Insurance Institute of London (FCIIN).
He is a member of the Nigerian Institute of Directors (FIoD), the West African Insurance Institute (BAII), and the Risk Managers Society of Nigeria (RMSN) (RIMSON).
Akinade has earned the highest honour bestowed by the prestigious University of Ife, The Commander Great Ife (CGI) title, where he started his educational career, at the London Insurance Institute, he is ranked as an Associate.
Entrepreneur journey
He’s taken a lot of big challenges in his business endeavours. One of these is his position in the Insurance Consultancy business where he has succeeded even more than some people he met in the profession.
He was one of the proactive staff members at NICON to pursue this new venture in insurance consulting.
On October 2, 1995, Akin Ogunbiyi established Mutual Benefits Assurance Plc, the company has grown to be one of the competitive insurance firms in Nigeria with many products for Nigerians including Mutual Benefits Microfinance Bank.
Today, the company has subsidiaries, and branches in two African countries.
How Akin Ogunbiyi Started Mutual Benefits Assurance
In 1973, he went to Lagos, Nigeria’s commercial city, for holidays where he worked as a vendor on the streets of Lagos, and Lagos worked as a bus conductor even when he was an undergraduate at the university.
While hundreds of people nursed the fear of what lies ahead if they quit their jobs, Ogunbiyi never did when he pulled out of a company in 1990s to fulfil his dream of becoming an employer of labour.
In an interview published by The Punch on June 3, 2018, the founder of Mutual Benefits Assurance revealed some of the challenges he faced when he started the company on October 2, 1995.
According to him, his supportive wife was part of the success story of a company that has today become a household name across Nigeria’s insurance sector.
He said he sold his four cars after seeking the approval of his wife who was at the time operating a supermarket and doubled as a teacher.
He said:
“At a point, we got stuck and my wife sold everything in the supermarket and gave me N4m. The only thing left was the cash machine. So, that was how we started the company.”
While they were pushing on, they were also living in a rented apartment at Agege, Lagos.
Political Career
In 2018, Ogunbiyi decided to venture into politics fully, and he registered under the People’s Democratic Party (PDP). He picked the nomination form to contest for Governor of Osun State in the same year. Ogunbiyi was defeated by seven votes on July 23, 2018 PDP primaries by Ademola Adeleke.
Despite his loss to the competitor at the primaries, he supported Adeleke before and the governorship election, but his party narrowly lost to the All Progressive Congress (APC)
Second Time Ambition
In Ogo-Oluwa area of the state capital, Akin Ogunbiyi has made it crystal clear that he will not rest until he becomes the state’s executive governor.
In a speech to the party’s top brass and supporters in attendance, Ogunbiyi demonstrated his readiness for the race and his dedication to the party. The state party received a 60-seater bus as a gift from him.
As a successful businessman and man of high moral character, his entry into the race has upped the stakes.
He said he is bringing to the table a wealth of private sector experience, having built Mutual Benefits Assurance into a globally recognized conglomerate.
Akin Ogunbiyi has been dubbed “The Game Changer” in Osun politics because of all of the above and his impressive resume. As a result, he will benefit from the fact that political observers in the state believe that Osun West Senatorial District, which has been marginalized since the state was created from the old Oyo State, has finally had its turn.
Sen. Isiaka Adeleke, an Ede-born politician from Osun West Senatorial District, was the state’s first elected civilian governor when it was created in 1991. When the military junta took over, he only had 22 months to lead the state.
It’s important to note that on January 13, 2022, he was among the six governorship aspirants in Osun who were cleared to slug it out at the party’s primaries.
His political rivals for the primaries are:
- Sen. Ademola Adeleke
- Alhaji Abdulateef Akinbade
- Mr Omirin Emmanuel Olusanya
- Dele Adeleke
- Mr Dotun Babayemi
What’s Akin Ogunbiyi’s Net Worth?
The founder of Mutual Benefits Assurance is a core investor and at the time of this report, the worth of his investments in Lagos, Osun, and other African countries have not been quantified or made public by any reputable firm.
However, his investment is worth several billions of naira. And at the time of this report, the market capitalisation of Mutual Benefits Assurance Plc (MBENEFIT) was NGN5.2 Billion.
and a lover of education which prompted the founding of Akin Ogunbiyi Foundation
Conclusion
At the time of this publication, Ogunbiyi is the Chairman, Board of Directors Mutual Benefits Assurance Plc, one of the reputable insurance companies in Nigeria
Featured Image:
- By Business Journal Nigeria