Meet The First Nigerian To Import Bulletproof Car And Got Assassinated

Celebrated politician, chief Samuel Ladoke Akintola, was the first man to import a bulletproof car into Nigeria in 1964. The car was a Mercedes Benz worth £8,000.

Akintola has been described as a political strategist and an orator of note, who rubbed shoulders with the likes of Dr. Nnamdi Azikiwe and the Cicero of Esaoke, late Chief Bola Ige.

He was the 13th Aare Ona Kakanfo XIII of Yoruba, a highly revered traditional title in Yoruba land and also a great politician who was one of the founding members of modern Nigeria.

S.L.A, as he was popularly called, was born in Ogbomosho, Oyo State on July 6, 1910, to Akintola Akinbola and his mother, Akanke. He was a Baptist Lay Preacher, a Yoruba Fundamentalist, and an Attorney.

Akintola was a school teacher, railway worker, humorous scholar, linguist with enviable brilliance. He branched into journalism when he joined the Nigerian Daily Service Newspaper in 1942, from where he rose steadily to become the Editor.

He founded “Iroyin Yoruba”, a newspaper written in the Yoruba language.

Two years after he imported the country’s first bulletproof car, Akintola was assassinated in Ibadan, in Nigeria’s first military coup of 15th January 1966 which terminated the First Republic.