Abraham Adesanya

Abraham Aderibigbe Adesanya (July 24, 1922 in Ijebu Igbo – 27 April 2008) was a Nigerian politician, lawyer, activist, welfarist, aristocrat and liberal progressive. He was the son of a famous and powerful traditional healer, the late Ezekiel Adesanya aka Baba Obu’keagbo who lived between the 19th and 20th centuries.He is married to Rosannah Arinola Adesanya née Onafalujo who died 2 years after the death of her husband and they were blessed with 4 children namely Adebayo Adesanya Oluwasegunfunmi Adesanya Modupeola Adesanya (Adelaja) Oluwafemi Adesanya. They have 10 grandchildren

Adesanya attended Ijebu Ode Grammar School after which he worked as a teacher before travelling to United Kingdom to study law at the then Holborn College of Law Greys Inn.

In 1959, Adesanya returned to Nigeria as a qualified lawyer and joined the Action Group led by Obafemi Awolowo. The same year, he was nominated and eventually elected to the defunct Western House of Assembly to represent Ijebu Igbo constituency in the December 12, 1959 House of Representatives Election.

Having qualified as an ambassador of the Action Group's core social democratic ideals, he secured another nomination to the second republic Senate. He was said to have preferred his senatorial appointment to the Governorship ticket that was originally offered him by the Unity Party of Nigeria, a successor to the Action Group. This principle was to be further justified in the roles played by him in the effort to re-define Nigerian politics and Nigerian democracy.

He was a religious Awoist. He led a team of lawyers that defended Chief Obafemi Awolowo against the Nigerian Federal Government's exaggerated charges of treason in 1962.

In the aftermath of the deaths of Obafemi Awolowo and Adekunle Ajasin, Adesanya assumed the honorific title ' Asiwaju of Yorubaland ' and simultaneously became more active politically, allying with Bola Ige (Ayo Adebanjo, Ganiyu Dawodu, and Bola Tinubu to fight their way to victory in six states of the defunct Western region, with their political party, Alliance for Democracy (AD).

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