A foremost Yoruba leader and former governor of the defunct Western Region, General Adeyinka Adebayo (rtd), has passed on at the age of 89, in his sleep.
He was the father of former Ekiti state governor, Adeniyi Adebayo who headed the executive arm of government in the state between May 1999 and May 2003 before losing his re-election bid to Governor Ayodele Fayose for the latter’s first stint in office.
Gen Adebayo became governor of the Western Region following the death of Colonel Francis Adekunle Fajuyi in the 1966 coup d’état. He held the position from August 4, 1966 to April 1971.
The late General was born in 1928 to a Public Works employee from Iyin Ekiti, near Ado Ekiti in Ekiti State. He attended the All Saints School, Iyin-Ekiti before proceeding to the Eko Boys High School and Christ’s School Ado Ekiti.
According to the Punch, Adebayo joined the West African Frontier Force in 1948 as a regiment signaler and later completed the Officer Cadet Training Course in Teshie, Ghana from 1950 to 1952.
He was commissioned as an officer in the Royal West African Frontier Force as the 23rd West African military officer with number WA23 and 7th Nigerian military officer with number N7 after completing the War Office Cadet Training in Eaton Hall, England.
In his lifetime, Adeyinka Adebayo was a major advocate of the Yoruba culture and at some point he was the president of the Yoruba Council of Elders.
