SUNU group holds commemorative celebration in honour of late founder

SUNU group holds a commemorative celebration in honour of the late founder

The SUNU group held a commemorative celebration on Friday to mark the first anniversary of the death of its President and Founder, Mr Pathè Dione.

The celebration began with a memorial mass in Lagos at the Catholic Chaplaincy Centre, College of Medicine, and Lagos University Teaching Hospital, Idi-Araba.

There was also a Koranic reading at the Nigerian Television Authority (NTA) mosque at 2:30 p.m, and a film on the life and career of Mr Dione at Ebony Life Cinema at 4 p.m.

The SUNU Group is a Pan-African financial services group created in 1998 by Mr. Pathé Dione, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer.

The Group is present in 17 countries in sub-Saharan Africa: Benin, Burkina Faso, Cameroon, Central African Republic, Congo, Côte d’Ivoire, Gabon, Ghana, Guinea, Liberia, Mali, Mauritania, Niger, Nigeria, DRC, Senegal and Togo.

The Group has 26 Life and Non-Life Insurance companies, one bank, one microfinance company and two health managers.

In his homily, Revd. Father Martin Okoh said that there are so many things he did not know about Dione but he knew that he was created by a loving God.

Okoh said that God loved him yesterday, today and forever, adding that Dione was a Senegalese who moved beyond boundaries.

The cleric said that Dione believed in one God, and had been a committed muslim before his demise.

Okoh said: “we gather because a friend has brought us to Jesus. Among those of us gathered, are we good to our friends through our actions.

“Can our actions bring our friends to Jesus for healings and salvation?”

Elie Ogounigni, the Head of Cluster, International Conference of Insurance Markets (CIMA), non-English-speaking said it was exactly a year that Mr Dione died.

Ogounigni said that the founder had a dream for Africa and he did everything he could to ensure that Africa had a strong financial institution.

Also speaking, the Chief Executive Officer, SUNU Health, Dr Patrick Korie, said that the entire group in Africa decided to set the day aside to remember their late president specially, starting with the memorial mass.

Korie said that the mass would be followed with a Koranic recitation, after which there would be a film on the life and times of Dione.

“On this occasion of the anniversary of the death of Mr. Pathé Dione, Founder of the SUNU Group, religious ceremonies as well as the broadcasting of a film on his life and career will take place in the 17 countries where the Group is present on Friday 12th January 2024.

“Dione was a man worth remembering, because he was a great Pan-Africanist, having set up a small company that has now become Pan-African.

“He was an eminent player in the financial services sector, who devoted his entire life to contributing to the development of Africa by Africans and for Africans.

“And we’ll always remember him and what he says and does. We pray that we will sustain the stride of that Pan-Africanism in developing healthcare services, financial services and other forms of services for Africans and by Africans,” Korie said.

Also, the Chief Executive Officer, SUNU Assurance, Mr Samuel Ogbodu, said that Dione was a Senegalese who had a vision of establishing insurance services in Africa.

Ogbodu said that Dione believed that Africans should benefit from insurance and manage it by themselves.

He said that as a result of that vision, he floated the SUNU Group, which comprises subsidiaries in banking, microfinance, health, insurance among others.

Ogbodu said to drive that vision of serving Africans, SUNU Group had presence in 17 African countries with 27 companies which was a great motivation that people tapped from.

Pathé Dione, an icon of the African insurance industry, passed away on 12 January 2023 in Paris at the age of 81.

A graduate of the Centre des Hautes Etudes d’Assurance de Paris (CHEA), Dione spent a big part of his career as an insurer within the UAP group (now AXA), from which he acquired some of the life subsidiaries in 1998.

It was at this point that he founded SUNU, which he managed and chaired for over 20 years.