Former Military Governor of Western Region Adeyinka Adebayo is Dead

Elder statesman and former Military Governor of the defunct Western Region, retired Gen. Adeyinka Adebayo has died.

He died on Wednesday morning in Lagos, on the eve of his 89th birthday, having been born on March 9, 1928.

A family source said he suddenly took ill at his GRA Ikeja, Lagos home and was taken to the hospital where he died.

 

Adebayo became governor after Col. Francis Adekunle Fajuyi’s death in the 1966 coup, ruling from August 4, 1966 to April 1971.

 

Adebayo was born in 1928 in the present Ekiti State and joined the West African Frontier Force in 1948 as a regiment signaler.

He later completed the Officer Cadet Training Course in Teshie, Ghana, from 1950 to 1952 and later passed the War Office Examination for Commonwealth Cadets in 1952 and the West African qualifying examination in 1953.

Adebayo was commissioned as an officer in the Royal West African Frontier Force (RWAFF) as the 23rd West African military officer with number WA23 and 7th Nigerian military officer with number N7.

He later attended the Staff College course in Kimberley (Surrey) in 1960 and the prestigious Imperial Defence College, London in late 1965, where he was the only African officer.

He was constantly commended for promoting agricultural extension services and for establishing the Institute of Agricultural Research and Training, Moor Plantation, Ibadan, as governor of the western region.

He was also known to have rejected the use of force in resolving the Biafran crisis.

Adebayo later became the Chairman of the Committee on the Reconciliation and Integration of the Igbos (Biafrans) back into the Nigerian fold.

Before his death, he was Chairman of the Yoruba Council of Elders.

His eldest son, Niyi Adebayo, was a Governor of Ekiti State from 1999 to 2003.