Remi Olowude; Nigerian Insurance expert, fought consistently at the fore-front of the crusade to eliminate all forms of monopoly in the insurance industry. In 1992, he formed an insurance company which was the leader of a group of second-generation insurance Firms in the country, which in the spirit of the deregulation of Nigeria’s financial system in the 1990s, modernised and revolutionized the insurance industry in the country[i].
Places of Growth
Olowude was born on 26 April 1951 to Christian parents in Inisha-Ejigbo, Osun State.
Origin
Olowude’s father, a devout Baptist, was a teacher before passing the professional examination in librarianship in London in 1964. Until his retirement in 1990, he was a principal librarian at the University of Ife where he spent 24 years. A hall in his name was launched for Bowen University by Remi in 2006[ii].
Education
Before he ventured into the world of insurance, Olowude’s first discipline was Economics. He attended the University of Lagos, graduated in 1973 with B.Sc. in Quantitative Economics. He went on to enhance his mastery of the subject by travelling abroad to the United States in 1975. He subsequently bagged an M.Sc. degree in from the University of Santa Clara in 1976. Olowude returned home to his alma mater the University of Lagos for a Doctorate programme in Applied Economics. He passed the Ph.D Sitting Examination in 1978 even as be read for the qualifying examinations of the Chartered Insurance Institute London. He successfully completed the ACII exams to become a fully chartered insurance practitioner.
Experience
Remi Olowude ventured into Insurance from 1978 when he joined the National Insurance Corporation (later, NICON Insurance Plc.). For the next 13 years he established himself as a first rate insurance professional especially in the highly technical areas of Oil & Energy insurance as well as Contractors All Risk/Engineering. In 1991, Mr. Olowude left NICON to actualise this vision; the Industrial and General Insurance Company Limited, IGI, which soon become a known name in Insurance.
[i] TheNews April 7, 2003
[ii] Tell June 12, 2006
