₦airaland Forum

frog12:
i don tell you. i only know him street name. even that name is no longer mentioned in advertisements again. the reason for these is they did not invent or manufacturer anything popular in their names. all of them, louis ojukwu, awolowo, mko abiola.

frog12:
nigeria does not remember these people because nothing in their names still exists or shines

frog12:
what remains? tell us! you see their properties have become carcasses for fraudsters because the foundation is poor. him, mko abiola, louis ojukwu, awolowo, etc

frog12:
so which of it do you use?

frog12:
nigeria does not remember these people because nothing in their names still exists or shines

frog12:
you are right. sorry and thank you.
even this one, one must question how he own everything

tommy589:
No competition for Fan milk. Dominating the market in Nigeria and some West African countries. Naptu, who produced parmalat in Nigeria then or was it imported?

naptu2:
This, for me, was the definition of heaven. Cold chocolate! The orange flavour was good, but the chocolate. . .pure heaven!

Foremost dairies (Sir Mobolaji Bank-Anthony) made Samco.

UAC made Wall's Ice Cream (including Big Dip and Supreme). All Wall's ice creams have now been rebranded as Supreme Ice Cream.


FAN made FANIce and FAN Yogo.


Check out the prices!

naptu2:
Sir Mobolaji Bank-Anthony



Writing about this man's contributions to Lagos is not an easy task. That's because he did not like publicity, adulation or making a lot of noise about the things that he did. Some of the things that I'm going to write here are straight from my memory and you might not find them online because he did not like to trumpet his achievements.


Business

Sir Mobolaji Bank-Anthony was one of the wealthiest people in Nigeria during his time. His father owned A. Bank Anthony and Sons Ltd, a firm of undertakers. The firm still exists at the lower end of Odunlami Street on Lagos Island (that place is well known for having a lot of coffin makers and undertakers). However, Mobolaji Bank-Anthony initially went to work for the Posts and Telecommunications Department (P&T) as a junior clerk before resigning to venture into the business world. He traveled to Germany and England in 1931 to study palm oil making and later established M. de Bank Brothers, a general merchant firm originally trading in Palm Oil and then patent medicine. The venture could not succeed because he lacked the funds needed to import the machines. But an opportunity presented itself when Henry Carr and St. Mathew Daniel died in Lagos and their families wanted monuments erected for them on their graves at the Ikoyi Cemetery. Mobolaji took the contract of supplying tombstones and with the money realised he got himself into real business.


Mobolaji Bank-Anthony used the money he realised and switched to importing watches, clocks and fountain pens. At one time, he was the third largest seller of fountain pens in Nigeria after UAC and the United Trading Company. In the 1950s he brought in a few European firms to Nigeria and was one of the earliest Nigerians to become chairman of a European company when in 1950, after introducing an Italian firm to the Nigerian market, he became chairman of the Italian construction firm Borini Prono and Company. The firm was later involved in the construction of the Ijora Causeway, Benin-Asaba road and the Sapele-Onithsa road.

He also brought the American firm, Foremost Dairies to Nigeria and was initially a minority investor in the firm. He became the largest investor in the 1970s when Nigerians took control of the company. Foremost Dairies made the very popular Samco drink. Foremost Dairies (Samco), along with UAC (Walls, Big Dip and Supreme) and Fan (Fan Ice, Fan Yogo) were the most popular makers of "ice creams" in Nigeria in the 1970s and '80s. He was a director of Friesland Foods Nigeria, which eventually took over Foremost Dairies. Friesland had shares in the West African Milk Company (WAMCO) which makes the very popular Peak Milk (it later completely took over the company).


Bank-Anthony was also involved in setting up the Nigerian branch of Law Union and Rock Insurance Company in 1950. It had T.A. Braithwaite as head of the brokerage office; Bank Anthony and Braithwaite also set up an unsuccessful insurance partnership.He was a minority investor in Aero-Contractors before indigenous shares were acquired by the Ibru Organization. At one time, he held the distributional rights to cars manufactured by Rootes Group. He acquired shares in a few companies during his business career including Weide Nigeria Limited that dealt with completely knocked down electrical parts, an Italian partnership called Motor Parts Industries, a plywood business venture in Cross River State, the Nigerian arm of May and Baker and Pressed Metal Works in Ikeja, Lagos. He was also a director of Mobil Nigeria. He was the council president of the Lagos Stock Exchange, a fellow of the Institute of Directors and a member of the Nigerian-American Chamber of Commerce.


Philantropy and adoptions

Sir Mobolaji Bank-Anthony donated huge sums of money to charitable causes, but you'll barely hear about it because he did not like to make a show of his donations. He was never a member of the Donation Circuit.

He donated massive sums of money to schools, granted scholarships to a lot of children and even adopted a large number of children (I know some of them).

He witnessed a terrible traffic accident when he was younger and it horrified him. He vowed to himself that he would do something for people who are in that situation and in 1977 he constructed a 140- bed accident ward for the National Orthopaedic Hospital, Igbobi, Lagos. In 1990 he donated the 130-bed Ayinke House to the Obstetrics and Gynoecology Ward of Ikeja General Hospital. It was named after his mother. He funded a cancer research project at the University of Ibadan and endowed many professorial chairs at universities across Nigeria.


The National Stadium

Sir Mobolaji Bank-Anthony was a sports lover and he sponsored many athletes and tournaments. If I remember correctly, he was also a member of the Nigerian Olympic Committee.


Dear Diary, you might remember when I told you that many people often say that Lagos was not planned, but they are wrong because Lagos was well planned. The problem is that people keep doing whatever they want and they've ended up distorting the masterplan. A great example is the case of FESTAC Town which was planned relatively recently (the 1970s) with a proper sewer system, good roads, green areas and so on, but which has been destroyed by the residents.

The Lagos Executive Development Board (LEDB) was responsible for developing many parts of Lagos like Victoria Island, Yaba and so on. When the LEDB was planning Surulere in the 1940s and '50s, Sir Mobolaji Bank-Anthony put a lot of pressure on them to reserve some land for a new National Stadium. The LEDB gave in to this pressure and committee was set up to raise funds for and oversee the building of the stadium. The famous businessman and sports administrator, Chief JK Randle was a member of the committee, but he died in 1956 before the stadium was completed.

The stadium was completed in 1961 and it was called Surulere Stadium. Surulere Stadium was reconstructed in the early 1970s because Nigeria had won the right to host the Second All-Africa Games. The newly reconstructed stadium was called the National Stadium.


Honours

Mobolaji Bank-Anthony was awarded the Queen Elizabeth II Coronation Medal in 1953 and in 1957 he was made an Officer of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire (OBE). He was knighted in 1963, receiving the Knight Commander of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire (KBE).


He received the traditional titles of Chief Ba'loro of Lagos in 1968 and The Otunba-Lofin of Ijebuland in 1988.


He was honoured with the Stella dclla Solidarieta Italiana de la Classe, Italy, in 1957 and in June 1989 he received the Most Excellent Order of Merit of the Republic of Italy (Grande Ufficiale).


He also received the national honour of Commander of the Order of the Niger (CON) in 1979.


Sir Mobolaji Bank-Anthony has also been honoured by many universities and research institutions. In 1968 he was conferred with the Honorary Doctor of Laws (Hon. LL.D) of the University of Ibadan and in 1986 he was made an honorary fellow of the Post Graduate Medical College of Nigeria. He was made an honorary patron of the Nigerian Academy of Science in October 1988 and in the same year he was also given the Honorary Doctor of Letters (Hon. D.Litt) of the Ahmadu Bello University, (ABU), Zaria.



Death


Sir Mobolaji Bank-Anthony died on May 26, 1991. Maryam Babangida drove herself (if I remember correctly, there were only two other cars escorting her) to his house at number 29, Okotie Ebo Close, Ikoyi (very close to State House Dodan Barracks) to commiserate with his widow, Lady Olamide "Lande" Bank-Anthony.

He specified in his will that he did not want a lavish funeral, neither did he want the government to name anything after him. The Federal Government, led by President Ibrahim Babangida, disobeyed his wish and renamed Airport Road in Ikeja after him. It became the Mobolaji Bank-Anthony Way. The Lagos State Government also named several schools after him in recognition of his contributions to the education sector.


Pictures 1 and 2) Sir Mobolaji Bank-Anthony.

Picture 3) Ayinke House.

Picture 4) The Governor-General of Nigeria, Sir James Robertson, Emmanuel Ifeajuna, Sir Mobolaji Bank-Anthony and someone else. This was at a ceremony to honour Ifeajuna who was the first Black African to win a gold medal at an international sports event when he won at the 1954 British Empire and Commonwealth Games.

frog12:
how did he too get all the money and properties?
remember he was Lagos governor in the 60s.