The Chair of the Board of Directors of Access Holdings Plc, Bababode Osunkoya, is dead.

The financial services group said in a statement on Thursday that Mr Osunkoya’s demise on 21 November followed “a brief illness.”

“Consequent upon this tragic event, the company now has a nine-member board comprising six non-executive directors (two of whom are independent) and three executive directors inclusive of the group chief executive officer,” Nigeria’s biggest lender by asset, stated in the document.

He was a graduate of the University of Lagos, where he completed a Bachelor of Science degree in accounting in 1984. Mr Osunkoya began his career at Premier Hotel Limited, Ibadan in 1985, later joining Z.O. Ososanya & Co (Chartered Accountants) that same year. At the time he left the company in 1988, he was an assistant audit manager.

Between 1989 and 1993, he was an employee of Abacus Merchant Bank Limited, where he rose to the post of a manager. He joined Konsuma Credit Limited in 1993 as a general manager.

Until his death, Mr Osunkoya was the managing partner at Abax-OOSA Professionals (Chartered Accountants) and a board member of Coronation Life Assurance Limited, Haggai Mortgage Bank Limitedand Richardson Oil and Gas Limited.

He was also a member of the executive committee of the Association of Reporting Accountants and Auditors in the Capital Market.

He was a Fellow of the Institute of Chartered Accountants of Nigeria and the Chartered Institute of Taxation of Nigeria.

Access Holdings appointed Mr Osunkoya in March 2022 to chair its board of directors after restructuring into a holding company.

“We will notify the investing public subsequently of the board’s choice of his successor,” Access Holdings said.

More details as it unfolds..........