A foremost Nigerian soldier and elder statesman, Major General Robert Adeyinka Adebayo (rtd), has passed on in his Lagos home, 24 hours before his 89th birthday which would have been on March 9. He belonged to the first generation of Nigerian young men who built the foundation of what is today the Nigerian Armed Forces. An Intelligence Officer who won his spurs in the Congo, Adebayo was the First Nigerian army officer to be appointed General Staff Officer Grade 1. He was one of the moderating voices in the Army at the onset of the crisis that engulfed the nation in the aftermath of the first military coup of 1966.
Imbued with a sense of maturity which he demonstrated as he yielded his position to a junior, General Yakubu Gowon, he helped to temper an already charged atmosphere soon after the countercoup of July 1966. General Adebayo was later appointed the governor of the now defunct Western State of Nigeria, 1966–1971 after Col Francis Adekunle Fajuyi died in that same bloody 1966 coup d’état that also claimed his guest and Head of State, General Johnson Thomas Aguiyi Ironsi. Soon after, a civil war ensued when the Governor of Eastern Region, Col Emeka Odumegwu Ojukwu declared the State of Biafra.
In one of the most prescient and articulate quotations of the war, Adebayo advised against the use of force in resolving the Biafran crisis and said: “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”. But his wise counsel fell on deaf ears. The rest, as the saying goes, is now history. It is, therefore, no surprise then that after the war, he was appointed by Gowon, as the chairman of the committee on the reconciliation and reintegration of the Igbo back into the Nigerian fold.
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. Also, during his tenure as governor, he deftly and dexterously managed the infamous farmers’ “Agbekoya” revolt over taxation which was eventually resolved peacefully and harmoniously. Adebayo retired from the Nigeria Army as a major general in 1975. His post service life saw him playing some active roles in politics and was one of the founding members and vice chairman of the National Party of Nigeria (NPN) from 1979–1983. He was also the chairman of the Yoruba Council of Elders.
Adebayo, born on March 9,1928, was 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 signaller 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.
Between 1957 and 1958, he was an aide-de-camp to the last British Governor-General of Nigeria- Sir James Robertson-1957; Company and Detachment Commander, Ikoyi, 1958 to 1960; First Nigerian General Staff Officer, Grade 2 (Intelligence) at the United Nations Headquarters in 1961; First National General Staff Officer, Grade 2 Nigerian Army Headquarters, 1961–1962; Commander, Nigerian contingent in the Congo, 1963. He served as Staff Officer in the United Nations Peacekeeping Force during the Congo crisis, 1961–1963; Chief of Staff, Nigerian Army Headquarters, February 1964 – November 1965.
Adebayo was Chairman, Organisation of African Unity (OAU) Defence Planning Committee, 1963–1965; Head of Nigerian delegation to the OAU Summit in Ethiopia, November 1966; Commandant, Nigerian Defence Academy, 1971–1972; Ceremonial military duties, 1972–1975 and retired from the Nigerian Army with the rank of Major-General, July 1975.