We can’t keep calm, our Founder is a year older today!

Otunba (Dr.) Michael Olasubomi Balogun, the Founder of FCMB Group and Olori Omo-Oba of Ijebuland is clocking 83 years today, and we are very excited to celebrate a living legend.

Otunba has come a long way from a young man with dreams of instilling the culture of excellence into every facet of the average Nigerian’s life to exceeding those dreams and becoming one of the most outstanding bankers, entrepreneurs and esteemed philanthropists Nigeria has ever produced.

Despite several setbacks and disappointments, Otunba made history by founding the first ever Nigerian private bank to be established in Nigeria without foreign direct investments or funding from the government of Nigeria. This is an enduring legacy that sets the FCMB group of companies ahead of time and contemporaries.

Otunba is forever setting up rungs on the ladder of success for young people everywhere. He has awarded over 300 scholarships to many Nigerians at secondary and tertiary levels, including his annual award of scholarships to the best students in Muslim College, Ijebu-Ode, in honor of his late father; and another scholarship endowment in honor of his mother known as “Iye Subomi Scholarship”.

He didn’t stop there. Through First City Merchant Bank Limited, Otunba was the first ever in Nigeria to endow a Professorial Chair in the Premier University of Ibadan, where he set up a Chair for Capital Market Studies in the Department of Economics and Finance in 1987. He also funded a Research Fellowship in the Legal Department of the University of Lagos.

His contributions to the Nigerian School for the Blind at Oshodi, Annual National Marathon Championship for Disabled Athletes, Otunba Tunwase National Paediatric Centre-Otnpc- Ijebu Ode (an emergency children’s unit in University of Ibadan named after him), and so many others, all display his commitment to the welfare of the less privileged and physically challenged in our society.

What then, do you give a man who has time and time again proven that nothing is impossible with God, a man who has set records and surmounted them, and who continues to shine as a beacon of inspiration and role model to the young and old alike?

We thank God for the exceptional life he continues to live, and we wish him the happiest birthday ever!

Enjoy the celebration, Baba!