Zenith Bank announced at its 35th Annual General Meeting in Lagos that founder and group chairman Jim Ovia is retiring after the expiration of his tenure, marking the end of his time as chairman of the lender. Ovia told shareholders the meeting would be the last he would attend as chairman and said he was stepping down after completing the 12 years allowed under Central Bank of Nigeria governance rules.
The board at a meeting on April 27 approved Engineer Mustafa Bello as Ovia’s successor, and the bank disclosed the retirement in a corporate notice issued on May 5, 2026, according to Channels Television. Shareholders at the AGM also approved a final dividend of N8.75 per share, bringing the total payout for the 2025 financial year to N10 per share; the bank said the total dividend value amounted to N410.69 billion.
Ovia became Zenith Bank chairman on July 16, 2014, after earlier serving as the bank’s founder and Group Managing Director/CEO from 1990 to 2010. He told the meeting that his retirement reflected the Central Bank’s corporate governance provision limiting service to 12 years for non-executive directors and chairmen, and that the board had met and nominated Mustafa Bello to ensure continuity. Ovia also said the Central Bank had approved the appointment.
Zenith Bank described Bello as the bank’s longest-serving director. Bello joined the board on December 29, 2017, and, before his elevation to chairman, served as a non-executive director, Channels Television reported. The report added that Bello graduated with a B.Engr. in Civil Engineering from Ahmadu Bello University in 1978 and that his public service includes time as Federal Minister of Commerce from 1999 to 2002 and as Executive Secretary and Chief Executive Officer of the Nigerian Investments Promotion Commission from November 2003 to February 2014.
The move closes a defined chapter in Zenith Bank’s governance: Ovia’s departure follows the exact 12-year non-executive term described by the CBN and by Ovia himself, while the board frames Bello’s appointment as continuity rather than rupture. That framing will be tested immediately by the scale of the dividend approved at the AGM and by investor expectations for steady governance after a founder’s exit.
For now, the succession is formal. The board’s April 27 approval and the Central Bank’s endorsement cited by Ovia clear the path for Bello to take on the chairmanship. Ovia’s retirement at the AGM ends his official stewardship of the bank he established and led for two decades, and the next measure of the transition will be how Bello’s chairmanship sustains the bank’s performance and governance in the coming year.
