Alhaji Jimoh Akintola Odutola(1905- 2010) industrialist, mining magnate, textile dealer and philanthropist.
Jimoh Odutola was one of Nigeria’s pioneering Industrialists and most successful businessmen. Born in Ijebu-Ode, Ogun State, he was the younger brother of the famous businessman/ philanthropist Chief Timothy Adeola Odutola. Jimoh did not have the benefit of Western education. He started out at age 12 as a Houseboy and apprentice Cattle trader to Alhaji Abdul-Kareem Otupa. That stint ended in 1918 due to the global influenza pandemic of that year. At age 16 with £6 seed money from Sanni Bilesanmi, his stepfather, he started his own business as a textile trader. In 1927, he ventured into the transport business, by 1929, he went into cocoa produce merchandise, achieving great success both in terms of resources and reputation.
In 1932, at his mother’s insistence, he went into partnership with his brother, Adeola Odutola, who had been a court clerk and a part-time trader, with considerable experience as an administrator. The brothers were involved in produce marketing and export, weaving, gold mining. In 1948, the partnership failed with each brother going his own way, they became each other’s rival, their rivalry was bitter. As fate would have it, each became phenomenally successful in their own right.
In 1950, he set up J.A Odutola and Company Ltd as the corporate umbrella for his business. Four years later, he set up the West African Tyre Retreading and Company Ltd, the first tyre retreading company in Africa, so successful was this company that Jimoh Odutola was invited by the governments of Ghana and Kenya to come and set up factories in their countries. Odutola was also a pioneer in the manufacturing of rubber and plastic foam with his establishment of the Nigerian Rubber Foam Company in 1958, and the Nigerian Plastic Foam Company in 1960. By 1951, he had opened an office in the United Kingdom, in Oldham. In 1967, he was awarded a certificate of merit as the first African to visit the North Pole. The same year, he was the first African to fly on Lufthansa Airline from Tokyo to Alaska, Alaska to Copenhagen.
Even though he had no Western education, he made sure that all his 24 children were educated to the best of each person’s ability. One of his children is Prof. (Mrs). Ebun Clark, a pioneer Professor of Theatre Arts in Nigeria and wife of renowned writer/ poet the late Prof. J.P. Clark.
Alhaji Jimoh Odutola was a great philanthropist. He built a secondary school and a Koranic institute in Ijebu-Ode – jummah Odutola College. He built a 9 miles road from Irogbo to Ipinredo, in Ilesha, also worthy of mention was his donation of 200 mattresses to the Ibadan Garrison organisation in support of the Nigerian Government during Biafran War.
He lived to the ripe old age of 105 years and remained throughout an epitome of modesty. He shunned the limelight and ostentatiousness.
source: shola adebajo/ Bimbola Babarinde
