Elder Patrick Adebayo Dada Awoyinka

Elder Patrick Adebayo Dada Awoyinka, second of his mother's five children, was born to the renowned family of late Pa Ibidun Awoyinka and late Princess Abolaji Awoyinka (daughter of Oba Oni Arewa Ariyowaye, the late Oore of Otun Ekiti) on January 20, 1942, in Otun Ekiti.

Though his maternal grandfather (Oore Ariyowaye) was acclaimed as the first person to ever build a corrugated iron-roofed house in the entire Mobaland as well as the first to ride a motor car in the area, poverty for the young Patrick was not a storybook idea but the merciless grinding reality of everyday life.

He was from a polygamous family where, to a large extent, every mother had to look after her wards. He therefore went through the elementary and Secondary Modern Schools with the most arrowing experience.

Through the instrumentality of his brother, Chief Joseph Adeleke Awoyinka, he left the shores of Nigeria for London, England, early in the year 1964.

Patrick Adebayo Awoyinka did GCE O-level at East London Polytechnic and proceeded for the Ordinary National Diploma at Croydon Polytechnic, London, after which he read Insurance and Statistics, qualifying as an Associate of the Chartered Institute of Insurance, ACII in October 1974. It is worth noting that he did all of these studies on part-time basis, and he emerged in flying colours.

After qualifying as a Licensed Insurer, Patrick Adebayo Awoyinka worked for Eagle Star Insurance Company, London, from 1968 to 1972. He was also at Lawndes Lambert In Brokers between 1973 and 1974. He finally returned to Nigeria in November 1974 after a ten-year sojourn abroad, with sheaves in both hands.

A job was already waiting for him at the multinational British Insurance firm, Glanvill Enthoven, and in the wake of 1975, he resumed as a Reinsurance Manager to manage the first Reinsurance Brokerage Company. It was the first Company of its kind in West Africa, and handsome Bayo Awoyinka was also the very first ReInsurance broker in the West African Sub-Region.

Brilliant, resourceful, and painstaking, Awoyinka was Technical Adviser on Reinsurance to most of the state-owned Insurance Companies in Nigeria. He was able to arrange Reinsurance Treaties, thereby retaining in Nigeria a good proportion of Premiums which would have been transferred to Insurance Companies abroad.

After a short while, he was promoted to the position of General Manager of Glanvil Enthoven. He later left the services of the multinational organisation in 1980 to become the Managing Director Of O'vika Insurance Brokers, on his own initiative at a record age of 37 years.

Patrick Adebayo Awoyinka is a man mightily used of the Lord. It is on record that he secured corporate employment for several Otun Ekiti indigenes while he was in active service and up till the day he breathed his last, he never turned away his ears to those in distress.

As a former member of the Celestial Church who hobnobbed with the founder, Papa J.B. Oshofa, in his lifetime, Patrick Awoyinka had been instrumental in the planting of the first branch of the Celestial Church of Christ in the UK.

In the years between 1984 (having left active insurance practice that same year), and the year 1993, he became a full-time minister in the Celestial Church of Christ in London and New York City, respectively.

However, in July 2005, while undertaking a project for the State Government in Makurdi, Benue State, Patrick Awoyinka received a divine direction that he should leave the Celestial sect to become a member of the Living Faith Ministry (aka Winners Chapel). Four years later, and to the glory of God, he was ordained an Elder in the Church in Makurdi.

He was a man who had a great passion for prayer and for the word of God. During the last fifteen years of his eventful life, he was accustomed to night prayers, waking up and paying between the hours of 2am and 5am, and shuttling annually between the cities of London in United Kingdom, Maryland in the United States and Lagos in Nigeria where he had become a source of joy and encouragement to his children, grand children, brothers and friends alike.

In his lifetime, Elder Awoyinka travelled far and wide in Africa, Europe, America and in Asia. He was first married in 1967 to Adijat Oladunni (nee Kazeem from Owo in Ondo State) in London. After the passing into glory of his wife in 1994, Awoyinka married again, and he was blessed with successful children. One of them, Siji, is an internationally renowned Pop Singer and an acclaimed filmmaker who has performed in various cities of the world.

A friendly and likeable personality, a provider of succour to many, making an impact in people's lives was his source of joy. He is an incurable giver and a restless mind always seeking for new frontiers to further the cause he believes in.

He was a worthy leader to all and sundry in his clan; the Ogboyes and he was fondly celebrated and called Olori Ebi worldwide.