Robert Adeyinka Adebayo
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Major General Robert Adeyinka Adebayo |
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|---|---|
| Chief of staff Army headquarters | |
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In office February 1964 – 15 November 1965 |
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| Preceded by | First indigenous Chief of Staff of the Nigerian Army |
| Succeeded by | Late Colonel Kur Mohammed |
| Governor of Western Region/State | |
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In office 4 Aug 1966 – April 1971 |
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| Preceded by | Late Col. Francis Adekunle Fajuyi |
| Succeeded by | Brig. Oluwole Rotimi |
| Commandant Nigerian Defence Academy | |
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In office 1971–1971 |
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| Preceded by | Brigadier General D. A. Ejoor |
| Succeeded by | Major General E.O. Ekpo |
| Personal details | |
| Born |
9 March 1928 Iyin Ekiti, Ekiti State |
| Died | 8 March 2017 (aged 88) Lagos, Nigeria |
| Nationality | Nigerian |
| Political party | One of the founders of/Vice Chairman of the National Party of Nigeria (NPN) (1979 -1983), Alliance for Democracy |
| Alma mater | Staff College, Camberley, Imperial Defence College, London |
| Occupation | Soldier/Government/Politics |
| Military service | |
| Service/branch | Nigerian Army |
| Rank | Major General |
Robert Adeyinka Adebayo (9 March 1928 – 8 March 2017) was a Nigerian Army Major General who served as governor of the now defunct Western State of Nigeria, 1966–1971. He was also Chief of Staff of the Nigerian Army and was Commandant of the Nigerian Defence Academy.
Adeyinka Adebayo was born in 1928, the son of a Public Works employee from Iyin Ekiti, near Ado Ekiti, (present day Ekiti State), Nigeria. He was educated at All Saints School, Iyin-Ekiti, and later attended Eko Boys High School and Christ's School Ado Ekiti. He joined the West African Frontier Force in 1948 as a regiment signaler and later completed the Officer Cadet Training Course in Teshie, Ghana from 1950 to 1952. After passing the War Office Examination for Commonwealth cadets in 1952 as well as the West African qualifying examination in 1953, he was commissioned as an officer in the Royal West African Frontier Force (RWAFF) as the 23rd West African military officer with number WA23 and 7th Nigerian military officer with number N7 after completing the War Office Cadet Training in Eaton Hall, England. He later attended the Staff College course in Camberley (Surrey) in 1960 and the prestigious Imperial Defence College, London in late 1965 where he was the only African officer.
Adeyinka Adebayo became an officer in 1953. His key career milestones are listed below:
As governor of the Western region he promoted agricultural extension services in particular the establishment of the Institute of Agricultural Research and Training, Moor Plantation, Ibadan.
Adebayo advised against the use of force in resolving the Biafran crisis. In one of the most prescient and articulate quotations of the war, he declared:
I need not tell you what horror, what devastation and what extreme human suffering will attend the use of force. When it is all over and the smoke and dust have lifted, and the dead are buried, we shall find, as other people have found, that it has all been futile, entirely futile, in solving the problems we set out to solve.
At the onset of war, Colonel Adebayo, then governor of the then Western State ordered all bridges into the West be demolished to prevent the Biafran rebels from reaching Lagos the capital of Nigeria via his state. The rebels went as far as Ore in present-day Ondo State about 100 kilometres (62 mi) from Lagos.
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