The Chairman, PUNCH Nigeria Limited, Mr. Gbadebowale Wayne Aboderin, is dead.
He died on Wednesday, May 30, 2018 at 6.05am after a heart surgery at the First Cardiology Consultants, Ikoyi, Lagos, at the age of 60.
Aboderin took over as the Chairman of the company’s Board on May 1, 2011, following the retirement of Chief Ajibola Ogunshola as the Chairman of PUNCH on April 30, 2011 after 24 years of meritorious and dedicated service.
Before the appointment, Aboderin, businessman and first son of the founding chairman of Punch Nigeria Limited, the late Chief Olu Aboderin, was appointed a member of the Board of Directors on May 21, 1984. Aboderin, who became vice-chairman of the company on July 2, 2010, was born in London, United Kingdom on April 17, 1958. A trained pilot, he was also a basketball enthusiast.
Aboderin was also the founder and chairman of Dolphins Female Basketball Foundation, a charity organisation in Lagos which he founded years ago when he returned to Nigeria after living in the United States for years. He was a former chairman of the Lagos State Basketball Association (a position he held for eight-and-a-half years) and a one-time vice-president of the Nigerian Basketball Supporters Club.
A former member of the Nigerian Handball Federation, Aboderin, was an alumnus of the Government College, Ibadan. He was a founding member of the board of trustees of the Word of Life Rehabilitation Centre, a ministry committed to the rehabilitation of drug addicts and substance abusers. He was also Chairman, PUNCH Commercial Printing Limited and Lukahed Properties Limited, PUNCH’s subsidiaries.
A devoted family man, he is survived by his wife, Titilayo, a chartered accountant, and children.
Meanwhile, some prominent Nigerians have been commiserating with PUNCH and the Aboderin family over the devastating incident.
