Bode Agusto, founder of Nigeria’s first credit rating firm, dies at 68

Bode Agusto the man who established the first indigenous credit rating agency in Nigeria, has passed on at 68.

The digital news outlet TheCable reported his demise on Thursday, citing a source at the firm Agusto & Co, with the cause not yet known.

Mr Agusto would go on to start the consultancy two years after partnering with associates Fola Adeola and Tayo Aderinokun to set up GTB, which has evolved into the financial institution that is today’s Nigeria’s biggest lender by market capitalisation at N1.1 trillion.

Those two were the pioneer CEO and deputy CEO of the bank, while Mr Agusto was once a non-executive director.

At Agusto & Co, he served for a decade and a year as the chief executive.

He was a chartered accountant with a tremendous practice of over 30 years, covering both the private and public sectors.

He graduated from University of Lagos with a degree in Accounting and held an executive certificate in Strategy & Innovation from Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

Mr Agusto was at a time an assistant vice president of Citibank Nigeria and a partner at the consultancy PricewaterhouseCoopers.

Former President Olusegun Obasanjo hired him during his second tenure between 2003 and 2007 to be the director-general and adviser on budget matters.

That service earned him in 2003 the national honour of Member of the Order of the Federal Republic, the high point of his stewardship being building the savings that allowed Nigeria to be considered for a much-needed debt relief.

Variously, he had been a non-executive director of the Shell Nigeria Pension Fund, the National Pension Commission and was a member of the monetary policy team of the Central Bank of Nigeria.

Before his death, he was an independent researcher and a consultant.