The former Chief Executive Officer of Zain Nigeria, Bayo Ligali is dead. Mr Ligali died around 12.25pm yesterday. He was aged 52. .
He was credited while at Zain for spearheading the growth of Zain through the introduction of several innovative products and services that rapidly increased the company’s market share in the Nigerian competitive telecoms terrain.
Under his watch, Zain Nigeria, became the fastest growing network despite the challenges posed by board squabbles and several name changes with over 200 per cent increase in base station and switches, and a corresponding increase in network capacity.
Ligali, was a Fellow of the Association of Chartered Certified Accountants (UK) and an Associate of the Institute of Chartered Accountants of Nigeria. He had over 15 years top management experience, having held various executive positions within the Unilever Group. Prior to his appointment as CEO of Zain Nigeria in October 2006, he was the Managing Director of Dangote Pasta Plc. He was also a Fellow of the Association of Chartered Certified Accountants and an Associate of the Institute of Chartered Accountants of Nigeria.
He will be remembered as the CEO who publicly apologised to Zain subscribers for poor quality of service which was a recurring decimal in the telecoms industry. He also pledged and took immediate steps to remedy the situation through accelerated network expansion of Zain.
In order to ensure that Zain had a network capacity that will tackle the challenges posed by poor quality service, he secured over $1 billion in investment from the Zain and in no time tripled the subscriber base of the company.
Ligali resigned his appointment with Zain Nigeria last year after three years of overseeing the company for ‘’personal reasons’’.
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