Chief Simeon Olaosebikan Adebo (October 4, 1913 - September 30, 1994) 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 ...

administrator, lawyer and diplomat who served as a United Nations Under-Secretary General. He was the former head of the civil service in Nigeria's old Western Region. As a

chieftain A tribal chief or chieftain is the leader of a tribal society or chiefdom. Tribe The concept of tribe is a broadly applied concept, based on tribal concepts of societies of western Afroeurasia. Tribal societies are sometimes categorized a ...

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 constitut ...

residing in the historic mountain stronghold of

Abeokuta Abeokuta is the capital city of Ogun State in southwest Nigeria. It is situated on the east bank of the Ogun River, near a group of rocky outcrops in a wooded savanna; north of Lagos by railway, or by water. , Abeokuta and the surrounding a ...

, he held the title of the Okanlomo of

Egbaland The Egba people are a subgroup of the Yoruba people, an ethnic group of western Nigeria, a majority of whom are from the central part of Ogun State that is Ogun Central Senatorial District. Ogun Central Senatorial District comprises six local ...

Education

He finished his secondary education at

King's College, Lagos King's College, Lagos (KCL) is a secondary school in Lagos, Lagos State, Nigeria. It was founded on 20 September 1909 with 10 students on its original site at Lagos Island, adjacent to Tafawa Balewa Square. The school admits only male student ...

in 1932 and studied law at London School of Economics, where upon graduation he was admitted to the bar.

Career

Adebo worked at the Federal Ministry of Finance and in 1961 became head of the Civil Service and Chief Secretary to the Government of then Western Region. He was appointed Nigeria's

Permanent Representative A permanent representative is a diplomat who is the head of a country’s diplomatic mission to an international organisation. Organizations that receive permanent representatives from their member states include the United Nations, the World Tr ...

at the United Nations from 1962 to 1967 and as United Nations Under Secretary General and Executive General of the United Nations Institute for Training and Research until 1972. After the end of the

Nigerian civil war The Nigerian Civil War (6 July 1967 – 15 January 1970), also known as the Nigerian–Biafran War or the Biafran War, was a civil war fought between Nigeria and the Republic of Biafra, a secessionist state which had declared its independence ...

, Nigerian Head of State General

Yakubu Gowon Yakubu Dan-Yumma 'Jack' Gowon (born 19 October 1934) is a retired Nigerian Army general and military leader. As Head of State of Nigeria, Gowon presided over a controversial Nigerian Civil War and delivered the famous "no victor, no vanquishe ...

instituted a commission to review wages and

salaries A salary is a form of periodic payment from an employer to an employee, which may be specified in an employment contract. It is contrasted with piece wages, where each job, hour or other unit is paid separately, rather than on a periodic basis. ...

of Nigerian

workers The workforce or labour force is a concept referring to the pool of human beings either in employment or in unemployment. It is generally used to describe those working for a single company or industry, but can also apply to a geographic reg ...

and to look into means of ameliorating the economic conditions of workers, the importance of the commission was due to the rise in cost of living as a result of uncontrollable inflation during the civil war. Simeon Adebo was called to head the commission which later became known as the Adebo commission. Workers who had demanded wage increases were happy for the choice of Adebo, he was seen as an

apolitical Apoliticism is apathy or antipathy towards all political affiliations. A person may be described as apolitical if they are uninterested or uninvolved in politics. Being apolitical can also refer to situations in which people take an unbiased po ...

administrator who could look thoroughly into workers plight and investigate the concerns of workers in the civil and private sector. An earlier government review of wages, which called for wage increases in 1964 had been followed by the private sector. In its first report, the commission under Adebo, recommended a COLA or Cost of Living Award for all workers, ranging from $10 increases to $24. However, the commission desired to work within the

administrative Administration may refer to: Management of organizations * Management, the act of directing people towards accomplishing a goal ** Administrative Assistant, traditionally known as a Secretary, or also known as an administrative officer, administ ...

structure of the 1960s and only focused on how to review and adjust technical problems of the structure instead of a total overhaul of the wage and salary system of the Federal Government or in totality that of Nigeria. He was also the chairman of a sub-committee that reached a compromise on the intractable and explosive sharia debates of the 1977

constitutional assembly A constituent assembly (also known as a constitutional convention, constitutional congress, or constitutional assembly) is a body assembled for the purpose of drafting or revising a constitution. Members of a constituent assembly may be elected b ...

in Nigeria.David D. Laitin. Hegemony and Culture: Politics and Change Among the Yoruba, University of Chicago Press. He retired as Chancellor of the

University of Lagos The University of Lagos, popularly known as UNILAG, is a public research university located in Lagos, Nigeria and was founded in 1962. UNILAG is one of the first generation universities in Nigeria and is ranked among the top universities in th ...

in 1992.

Education

Career

References

Further reading