Amazing Biography Of Adebayo Oluyomi Adeola Harold-Sodipo

Adebayo Oluyomi Adeola Harold-Sodipo was born on the 19th April 1962 at St Bartholomew’s Hospital, West Smithfield London, the son of Chief Adedamola Taiwo Harold Sodipo and Chief Mrs. Flora Olamide Harold-Sodipo. 

His father, a civil engineer and forthright politician and the Head of the Lupo-Mosuleka Ruling Family was the Akogun of Egbaland, the Baagbimo Ogboni of Egbaland and the Oluwo of Ikija. His mother Flora was a trained seamstress and a resolute businesswoman; she was the Iya Alaje of Ikija and the Ajibade Alate Esuru of Igbeyin. 

Adebayo’s paternal grandfather is Chief Isaac Omolaja Ademoye Sodipo, a devout Christian who once had a church within his residence. He was the Babasale Ogboni Egba and the oldest member of Nigeria’s first elected House of Representatives in 1954. His paternal grandmother, Rachel Aridegbe Sodipo traded in commodities such as cocoa, kola nut and palm kernel and travelled extensively in the course of her business through Ghana, Sierra Leone and Cameroun. Omoba Rachel Aridegbe was the granddaughter of His Highness Ogunbona Agboketoyinbo who journeyed from the homestead Orile and settled at the foot of Olumo Rock, becoming the first Balogun of Ikija. 

His maternal grandfather is Nathaniel Oshokoya Adefope; a merchant Prince of Ijebu Odogbolu who had established a trading business in Kaduna that dealt in the importation and wholesale of various goods from England that included confectionary, materials, clothing and foodstuff; at that time the business was the only one of its kind in Kaduna. His maternal grandmother, Mama Alice Arajonwo Adefope exemplified the women of her day and was an astute businesswoman and principled mother. 

Adebayo went to primary school at St Saviour’s Railway Compound Ebute Metta and Parkwood Primary School in Finsbury Park North London. He started secondary school at Christ’s College Blackheath in 1973 for his O Levels; his A levels were completed at Framlingham College Suffolk in the summer of 1981 having represented his school in County events at rugby, swimming, cricket and athletics. 

He attended University College Buckland where he read for his LLB and where he was President of the African Student’s Union and later President of University Student’s Union. He finished his final year at Holborn Law Tutors and gained his LLB in 1984 at the age of 21. Adebayo’s next academic port of call was the Polytechnic of North London where he studied for a postgraduate degree in Management and Administration; he finished this in 1985 and then enrolled for a LLM at Queen Mary College University of London finishing his degree in 1986 with a Merit. 

Adebayo worked as a trainee solicitor at David Howard and Co Solicitors in Kilburn, from there following the genetic lure of trading and commerce he moved to Freetown (following in the footsteps of his maternal grandmother Rachel Aridegbe Ogunbono) and started the shipment of containers laden with commodities from Lagos from Freetown, having realized that vessels from Europe discharging cargo at Lagos often returned to Europe with minimal cargo and would sail along the coast of west Africa, he was thus able to secure favorable cargo rates.

 He left Freetown when the Liberian war spilled over into Sierra Leone and made living and doing business there extremely hazardous. 

On his return to Nigeria he opted to start his NYSC service and was posted to the Enugu State University of Science & Technology as a lecturer in Law, a position that he enjoyed immensely for the opportunity it gave him to mentor and teach his students. During this period he came to the attention of the Enugu State Government and was subsequently given a parallel assignment of teaching senior civil servants Company Law and the Law of Contract. 

In 1998, after 6 years of lecturing, Dr. Yemi Ogunbiyi asked him to work as the general manager of his company Tanus Communications; he left Tanus in 2001 to return to the UK where he worked as a procurement consultant for various UK government departments including the Ministry of Justice, the National Health Service, Her Majesty’s Prison Service, the Department for Constitutional Affairs, the Home Office, the London Olympic Delivery Organization and the Department of Education. 

Since returning to Nigeria in 2009 Adebayo has worked in ensuring business development for ESPRO Asphalt Production Company, a state of the art computerized facility, in 2010 he started working with a sister company to bid for the rail rehabilitation contract for the Eastern Line; a 463Km line that starts at Port Harcourt and ends in Makurdi. The bid was eventually successful and the project, though challenging on many fronts was completed last year with the result that trains now ply the route from PH northwards. 

He is currently running a procurement consultancy and looking forward to further pushing the heritage and history inherent in his ancestry by serving his state in all matters traditional, economic, social and commercial as the Baajiki Egba, it is safe to say that it is only now that he feels he has arrived and is complete. 

Adebayo’s daughter, Olamide is in her final year of a BSc in Photography at the University of Southampton, his partner is Rebekah Ibukun Ajibola, confidant, friend and stalwart supporter.