Life and Times of Festus Samuel Okotie-Eboh

History often remembers its figures by dates and offices, but some lives resist such narrow measure. Festus Samuel Okotie-Eboh belonged to that rare company of men whose story is better told as a journey of ambition, industry, and a restless belief in possibility.

He was born Festus Samuel Edah along the waters of the Benin River, in the Old Warri Division, where commerce and culture met the tide. From 1932 to 1936, he attended Sapele Baptist School, a modest beginning that foreshadowed an uncommon ascent. On leaving school, he tasted the routines of colonial administration as a clerk in the Local District Office, then returned briefly to the classroom as a teacher, imparting knowledge even as he sought more of it for himself.

In 1937, his path turned decisively toward commerce when he joined the Bata Shoe Company as an accounting clerk. Numbers became his language, discipline his companion. While others rested, he studied bookkeeping and accounting, preparing himself for larger responsibilities. By 1944, his diligence carried him to Lagos, where he served as Chief Clerk and West Coast Accountant. A year later, he returned to Sapele as Deputy Manager, no longer merely an employee but a man being groomed by experience.

The world widened for Okotie-Eboh in 1947, when Bata sent him to Prague, Czechoslovakia, for advanced training. There, he earned a Diploma in Business Administration and Chiropody, acquiring not only technical skill but an international outlook rare among his peers. Upon his return, he made a defining choice: to leave paid employment and trust his own vision.

He entered the demanding world of enterprise, founding businesses that spoke to Nigeria’s untapped potential. Through the Afro-Nigerian Export and Import Company, he exported ribbed smoked sheet rubber to Europe and North America, placing Nigerian produce on global markets. In 1958, he established a rubber-creping factory, and by 1963, he had realized a long-held dream with the Omimi Rubber and Canvas Shoe Factory a symbol of indigenous industrial ambition.

His entrepreneurial reach extended further through partnerships with Dizengoff and Coutinho Caro, promoting ventures such as the Mid-West Cement Company, with its clinker plant in Koko, and the Unameji Cabinet Works. These enterprises were not merely businesses; they were statements of faith in local capacity at a time when such faith was still contested.

Politics came calling in 1951, encouraged by Dr. Nnamdi Azikiwe, and Okotie-Eboh answered with the same resolve he brought to commerce. He won election to the Western Region House of Assembly, and by 1954, had become Treasurer of the National Council of Nigerian Citizens (NCNC) and a representative of Warri Division in the House of Representatives.

In January 1955, he was appointed Federal Minister of Labour and Welfare, and two years later, Minister of Finance a role that placed him at the fiscal heart of a young nation. In the early years of independence, he stood out not only for policy and persuasion, but for his flamboyant elegance and unapologetic confidence, embodying the optimism and contradictions of the First Republic itself.

That promise was violently cut short on 15 January 1966, when Okotie-Eboh was assassinated alongside Prime Minister Sir Abubakar Tafawa Balewa in the military coup that ended Nigeria’s First Republic. The nation awoke to loss, and history turned on a darker page.

Yet, in a poignant footnote, two days before his death, Okotie-Eboh had met Lee Kuan Yew, Prime Minister of Singapore. In a speech delivered in 1993, Lee recalled that Okotie-Eboh had been contemplating leaving the government to devote himself fully to establishing a shoe factory a quiet return to the world of making and building.

It is therefore no coincidence that, by God’s grace, his life was marked by exceptional accomplishments that transcended his time. Among these enduring legacies are:

1. Founding Father of the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), providing the institutional backbone for monetary stability and economic governance.

2. Trailblazing businessman in the leather industry, demonstrating the power of indigenous enterprise and entrepreneurship.

3. Architect of modern taxation in Nigeria, helping to shape a sustainable fiscal framework for national development.

4. Benevolent philanthropist, whose generosity uplifted individuals and communities beyond public office.

5. International diplomat, representing Nigeria with dignity and influence on the global stage.

6. A proud Nigerian, whose distinctive attire and cultural expression projected national identity with confidence across the world. He often took Itsekiri dance troupes to Europe to perform before royalty, including the Queen, and took great delight in Nigeria’s native delicacies affirming that cultural pride is an essential pillar of nationhood.

Thus, his life closed where it had begun: in enterprise, vision, and belief in the dignity of work. Festus Samuel Okotie-Eboh remains not merely a figure of history, but a symbol of what Nigeria once dared to imagine and what it may yet become