The Olubadan of Ibadan, Oba Samuel Odulana Odugade, has died in his sleep on Tuesday, January 19, 2015.
Sources from the palace said the monarch who was aged 101 years old, died around 7.30pm in his palace in the Monatan area of Ibadan, Oyo State.
According to reports, palace guards immediately summoned Prof. Femi Lana, a son of the deceased, who relayed the message to some Ibadan high chiefs.
A source close to Lana disclosed to Punch that the monarch’s corpse had been deposited at the morgue of an unnamed hospital in Ibadan.
The source said: “I can tell you that Prof. Femi Lana and some high chiefs have taken the corpse to the mortuary but I will not tell you the name of the hospital because his death has not been formally announced.”
Another top source whose identity wasn’t disclosed, added that before Odugade’s death would be formally announced, the Olubadan-in-Council, comprising all the high chiefs would have to first pay a condolence visit to the family, which might probably be on Wednesday, January 20, 2016.
The source said, “The Olubadan is dead. He died peacefully in his sleep in his palace at Monatan and not in the hospital around 7.30pm today (Tuesday) due to old age. You know he celebrated his 100th birthday in April 2014; he would have clocked 102 this year. The palace chiefs invited his son, Prof. Femi Lana, who in turn, informed some high chiefs, including the Ashipa of Ibadanland, Chief Eddy Oyewole.”
Disclosing that the burial might not be as soon, another high chief, who spoke on condition of anonymity said: “His burial may not be immediate. He was not a Muslim but a strong member of the St. Peter Anglican Church, Aremo, and I’m sure that the church, the Central Council of Ibadan Indigenes and the Olubadan-in-Council will participate in his burial,” the chief said.
The Balogun of Ibadanland, Chief Saliu Adetunji, who was among the nine Ibadan high chiefs promoted recently by the deceased, is expected to be named the new Olubadan by the Olubadan-in-Council.
The deceased monarch was a soldier who fought in the World War II, and was also a seasoned civil servant who later became a minister in the First Republic.
He began his elementary education at Saint Andrew’s School, Bamigbola, in the present Lagelu Local Government Area in January 1922 and obtained a transfer to St. Peter’s School, Aremo in 1929 and completed his middle school education at Mapo Central School in December 1936.
He had a brief stint with the United Africa Company as a produce clerk before taking up teaching at the Church Missionary Society Elementary School, Jago, in the present Ona-ara Local Government Area, in 1938.
The late monarch was said to have utilised the lessons he learnt at his duty post so well that after the war ended in 1945, he was put in charge of the demobilisation of returning soldiers in Lagos State, which earned him an exemplary character award of the Army Fourth Brigade and this climaxed into an immediate appointment with the Colonial Office Education Department in 1946.
Odugade helped to establish several schools both primary and secondary in various parts of the old Western Region of Nigeria and voluntarily retired to embrace politics.
He represented his people in the 1959 pre-independence House of Representatives and had several other political achievements thereafter. He was later appointed the Parliamentary Secretary to the late Prime Minister, Alhaji Abubakar Tafawa Balewa, in the country’s first independent cabinet.
In 1963, he attended the epoch-making Commonwealth Conference in London. He also became the country’s Minister of State for Labour.
In 1964, he led the Nigerian Parliamentary delegation to the London Constitutional Conference to restructure the then British colonies of Rhodesia and Nyasaland now known as Malawi, Zimbabwe and Zambia.
Late Odulana was appointed the Mogaji (Head) of his Ladunni family compound, at Oja-Igbo in 1972 and later became the Jagun-Olubadanland in 1976.
