Samuel Akintola

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Samuel Ladoke Akintola or "S.L.A."(July 6, 1910 - January 15, 1966) was a Nigerian politician, lawyer and orator born in Ogbomosho, south west Nigeria. Aare Ona Kakanfo XIII of the Yoruba.

After he was trained as a lawyer in the United Kingdom, Akintola returned to Nigeria in 1949 and teamed up with other educated Nigerians from the western region to form the Action Group (A.G) under the leadership of Chief Obafemi Awolowo.As the deputy leader of the AG party, he did not serve in the regional Western Region Government headed by the premier Awolowo but was the parliamentary leader of his AG party in the Federal House of Representatives where, in 1957 he moved the motion for Nigeria's Independence from British rule. At federal level, he served as Minister for Health and later Minister for Communications and Aviation.

In preparation for Nigeria's independence, scheduled for 1960, the Action Group party took a decision which affected the career of Akintola, the party and Nigeria when the party in late 1959 asked him to swap political positions with Awolowo by becoming the premier of the Western Region while the latter ( who also was the national leader of th AG ) became the party leader in the Federal House of Representatives and also its Leader of the Opposition

The division of roles in the Western Nigeria government led to a conflict between him and Awolowo; the AG party broke into two factions leading to several crises in the Western Region House of Assemby that forced 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. He 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.

Akintola was assassinated in Ibadan the capital of Western Region on the day of Nigeria's first military coup of 15th January 1966—which terminated the First Republic—along with many other leading politicians, mostly members of the Northern People's Congress. He had five children, two of whom were finance ministers in the Nigerian Third Republic (Chief Yomi Akintola and Dr Bimbo Akintola). Chief Yomi Akintola served as Nigeria's Ambassador to Hungary and SLA's daughter in law, Mrs. Dupe Akintola is Nigeria's High Commissioner in Jamaica. Chief S L Akintola's youngest son, the late Tokunbo Akintola, was the first black schoolboy at Eton College, enroling two terms prior to the arrival of Dilibe Onyeama (author of "Nigger at Eton").

Many institutions, including Ladoke Akintola University of Technology, Ogbomosho were established in his home town and other Nigerian cities to remember him.