Nigeria, Sept. 24 -- On a humid afternoon in Lagos, whispers filled the financial press: Jim Ovia had just pocketed another 7 billion in dividends. It was not the first time, and it would not be the last. For some, it sounded like an unimaginable windfall; for others, it was the punctuation mark in a story that had been unfolding since 1990-when a young banker dared to plant a seed in Nigeria's rocky financial soil. That seed, watered with vision, discipline, and resilience, grew into Zenith Bank: an oak tree whose roots now run deep into every corner of Nigeria's economy. The tale of Zenith is inseparable from the story of Ovia himself. Picture Lagos in the early 1990s: the city restless, the economy reeling from inflation, uncertainty h...