Oloye Sir Joseph Odeleye Fadahunsi,

KBE KBE may refer to: * Knight Commander of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire, post-nominal letters * Knowledge-based engineering Knowledge-based engineering (KBE) is the application of knowledge-based systems technology to the domain o ...

(1901 – 12 May 1986) was a

Nigerian Nigerians or the Nigerian people are citizens of Nigeria or people with ancestry from Nigeria. The name Nigeria was taken from the Niger River running through the country. This name was allegedly coined in the late 19th century by British jour ...

businessman and politician who was a vice president of the

National Council of Nigeria and the Cameroons The National Council of Nigeria and the Cameroons (NCNC) later changed to the National Convention of Nigerian Citizens, was a Nigerian nationalist political party from 1944 to 1966, during the period leading up to independence and immediately ...

. He also represented the Ilesha district in the House of Assembly during the nation's first republic. An Oloye of the

Yoruba people The Yoruba people (, , ) are a West African ethnic group that mainly inhabit parts of Nigeria, Benin, and Togo. The areas of these countries primarily inhabited by Yoruba are often collectively referred to as Yorubaland. The Yoruba constitute ...

, he subsequently served as the governor of the Western Region of Nigeria.

Life

Fadahunsi was born in

Ilesa Ilesa () is an ancient town located in the Osun State, southwest Nigeria; it is also the name of a historic kingdom (also known as Ijesha) centred on that village. The state is ruled by a monarch bearing the title of the Owa Obokun Adimula of Ij ...

in 1901. He was educated at Osu Methodist Elementary School and then attended Wesley College, Ibadan. Fadahunsi started work as a teacher at a government assisted school in Ilesha and later taught at schools in Lagos and Ikorodu. Uninterested in teaching, he asked the head of management of the school he was teaching at to assist in a career in commerce. The head subsequently introduced him to United Trading Company (UTC). Fadahunsi developed a relationship with UTC in 1927 and became a buyer under the United Trading Company, a branch of the Swiss Lutheran Church's missionary association, the Basle Mission. He started his business buying

cocoa Cocoa may refer to: Chocolate * Chocolate * ''Theobroma cacao'', the cocoa tree * Cocoa bean, seed of ''Theobroma cacao'' * Chocolate liquor, or cocoa liquor, pure, liquid chocolate extracted from the cocoa bean, including both cocoa butter and ...

from farmers and hiring transporters to deliver the produce to the

Ibadan Ibadan (, ; ) is the capital and most populous city of Oyo State, in Nigeria. It is the third-largest city by population in Nigeria after Lagos and Kano, with a total population of 3,649,000 as of 2021, and over 6 million people within its me ...

office of the United Trading Company. He then earned enough profits to buy his own transport vehicles and his enterprise soon expanded into the transport sector.18 The final tour
/ref> He founded Ijesa United Trading and Transport Company Ltd to transport produce from his other businesses and also service other commercial firms. His transport business began to earn in some regional recognition. In the late 1940s, he became member of the boards of the Nigerian Cocoa Marketing Board and the Western Region Production Development Board. In 1951, Fadaunsi joined

, he was elected to the regional House of Assembly as a representative of Ilesa South West. At the assembly, he was deputy leader of the opposition. In 1962, a fracture in the ruling party in the Western region led to the creation of the United People's Party by a splinter group led by the regional premier. The group then went into a coalition with NCNC members. Fadahunsi was appointed as Governor of the region in 1962.

References

National Council of Nigeria and the Cameroons politicians Members of the House of Representatives (Nigeria) Governors of Western Nigeria Knights Commander of the Order of the British Empire Nigerian recipients of British titles Nigerian knights Nigerian royalty People from Ilesha 1901 births 1986 deaths Yoruba businesspeople 20th-century Nigerian businesspeople 20th-century Nigerian politicians Nigerian schoolteachers Yoruba educators {{Nigeria-business-bio-stub