Samuel Akintola

Samuel Akintola Biography / Profile

Samuel Ladoke Akintola was born on July 10th, 1910 into the Akintola Family in Ogbomosho, Oyo State, Nigeria. He was a Nigrian administrator and politician, premier of the Western Region and an early victim of the January 1966 military coup.

Samuel Akintola Age

Samuel Akintola would have been 114 years old, if he were alive today. May his soul rest in peace.

Samuel Akintola Early Life

The Akintola family, famed in Military background and substantial wealth, emigrated with Ladoke to Minna in 1914, where he had his early education at C.M.S. Minna. Shortly after, his father was caught in the Adubi War on his way to Lagos to buy textiles and did not return until 1918. Ladoke was thereafter sent back to Ogbomosho in 1922, to live with his grandfather, Akinbola, where he continued his education at the Baptist Day School from 1922-1925. In Minna, he had honed his skill and proficiency in English, Yoruba, Nupe and Hausa language.

After his elementary education, he moved to Baptist College Ogbomosho – a teacher training and Seminary school in 1925 and after completion of Secondary Education in 1930, being a brilliant student, he was sent to Baptist Academy, Lagos, as a tutor of General Science, Biology and Bible Knowledge.

Samuel Akintola Career

Akintola was a teacher in the 1930s and early 1940s and a member of the Baptist Teachers’ Union and the Nigerian Youth Movement. He left teaching to study public administration and law in England and returned to Nigeria in 1950. He became a legal adviser to the Action Group, the dominant Western Region party, and by 1954 was deputy leader under Obafemi Awolowo. He was simultaneously active in the federal government; he became minister of labour in 1952 and later held the portfolios of health, communications, and aviation.

In 1959 Akintola became premier of the Western Region, coming to be recognized as a representative of conservative, business-oriented interests, who was content to concentrate party efforts on the region—in diametrical opposition to Awolowo’s growing interest in democratic socialism and to his attempt to win minority tribe votes in the North. In mid-1962 Awolowo’s supporters repudiated Akintola as a party leader and had him replaced as premier. The Northern-dominated federal government, however, hostile to Awolowo, declared a state of emergency in the region and restored Akintola to his post (1963). He formed the Nigerian National Democratic Party but was never able to win the votes of the majority of the region.

The division of roles in the Western Nigeria government led to a conflict between SLA and Awolowo; the AG party broke into two factions leading to several crises in the Western Region House of Assembly that led the central/federal government, headed by the Prime Minister Sir Abubakar Tafawa Balewa to declare State of Emergency rule in the Western region and an Administrator was appointed. After a lengthy court battle, SLA was restored to power as Premier in 1963 and won in general election of 1965 not as member of the Action Group party but as the leader of a newly formed party called Nigerian National Democratic Party (NNDP) which was in an alliance with the Northern People’s Congress (NPC) the party that then controlled the federal government.His blatantly rigged election in 1965 was undoubtedly an immediate cause of the January 1966 coup in which he was slain.

Samuel Akintola Personal Life

Whilst in school, Akintola started dating Faderera Awomolo, a sister of his friend in Baptist College, who had also trained as a Nurse in Baptist Hospital, Ogbomosho. Faderera’s father, a very strong willed Policeman, from Igbajo- an Ijesha speaking community, in present day Osun State, also had very strong views. Faderera inherited her father’s stubbornness and married Samuel Ladoke Akintola in 1935 when she was sent on a domestic errand to Lagos.

The couple had five children, two of whom were later to become ministers of state for finance in the Nigerian Third Republic - Chief Yomi Akintola and Chief (Dr.) Abimbola Akintola. Yomi Akintola also served as Nigeria's Ambassador to Hungary and Samuel Akintola's daughter-in-law, Mrs. Dupe Akintola, was Nigeria's High Commissioner in Jamaica. His fourth child, Chief Victor Ladipo Akintola, dedicated much of his life to ensuring the continued accurate accounting of Samuel Akintola's contributions to Nigeria's position on the world stage. He published many works including a biography that highlighted his father's love of his country and lifelong commitment to its progress (Akintola: The Man and the Legend). His youngest child, Tokunbo Akintola was the first black boy at Eton college and features prominently in the best selling book by Dilibe Onyeama, Nigger at Eton.

Along with many other leading politicians, Akintola was assassinated in Ibadan the capital of Western Region on January 15, 1966 during the first military coup. The coup also terminated Nigeria’s First Republic. The Ladoke Akintola University of Technology, Ogbomosho, was named after him.