Esther Samuel
Chief Samuel Ladoke Akintola, a Yoruba politician, is noted as the first Nigerian to import a bullet-proof car into the country.
Chief Samuel Ladoke was regarded as a respected political strategist of his time. He imported the 28,000 Mercedes Benz car into the country in the year 1964.
Chief Samuel Ladoke was born in Ogbomosho, Oyo State, on July 6, 1910. He was the 13th Aare Ona Kakanfo XIII of Yoruba, a highly revered traditional title in Yoruba land and also a great politician who was one of the founding members of modern Nigeria.
Chief Samuel Ladoke Akintola was a humorous scholar, a railway worker, a school teacher, and a linguist.
In 1942, he branched into journalism when he joined the Nigerian Daily Service Newspaper and later became the Editor. He founded a newspaper written in the Yoruba language called “Iroyin Yoruba”.
As an editor, Chief Samuel Ladoke got a scholarship to study Journalism at the London School of Journalism in 1946. After completing his one year course, he went further to get a degree in Law and was called to the Bar in 1949.
Before his murder, Akintola was the Premier of the defunct Western Region between 1960 and 1966.
He served as the Minister for Health and later Minister of Communications and Aviation.
Two years later he imported the country’s first bulletproof car, Akintola was assassinated in Ibadan, in Nigeria’s first military coup of 15th January 1966 which terminated the First Republic.
In his remembrance, the Ladoke Akintola University of Technology, Ogbomosho was established in his hometown.
