Simeon Olaosebikan Adebo was born in 1913 in
Abeokuta, he was a Nigerian 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. In 1962, he
was appointed the Permanent Representative of
Nigeria to the United Nations.
As a chieftain of the Yoruba people residing in the
historic mountain stronghold of Abeokuta, he held the
title of the Okanlomo of Egbaland .
After the end of the Nigerian civil war, General Yakubu
Gowon instituted a commission to review wages and
salaries of Nigerian workers 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 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 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 in Nigeria.
Simeon Adebo died on September 30th, 1994 but THE NEW YORK TIMES published a story on 11th November, 1994 simply put that
" Simeon Adebo graduated from King's College in Lagos, went to England to study law and upon
graduation from London University was admitted to the bar. He then rose through the ranks
in his country's Ministry of Finance and the Treasury and in 1961 became head of the Civil
Service and Chief Secretary to the Government of Western Nigeria.
Along the way, Chief Adebo acquired the reputation of a leader who would thresh out vexing
policy matters and encourage his subordinates to speak their minds freely.
During his years in New York he served as a vice president of the Association of World
Federalists, president of the Society for International Development and a consultant to the
Center for the Study of Democratic Institutions in California.
Back home in the 1970's he became a business executive and head of a number of
corporations and headed the National Universities Commission and the National Institute for
Policy and Strategic Studies.
Before becoming Chancellor of Lagos University in 1984 he held
the same position at Obafemi Awolowo University at Ile-Ife.
Anglican and deeply religious, he was a former First Registrar of the Church of the Province
of West Africa and member of the Diocese of Lagos. He also published two volumes of
memoirs in the 1980's.
He married another chief's daughter in 1941, Regina Abimbola Majekodunmi, who survives.
He is also survived by a daughter, Funlayo Adebo-Kiencke, and three sons, Prof. Oluwole
Adebo, Abiodun Adebo and Dr. Oladipo Adebo, all of Nigeria"
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