By Chris Udochukwu
Pa Taiwo Akinwumi, the Yoruba man who designed the Nigerian flag in 1959 dies.
He died at 87 in the early hours of Tuesday after a brief illness.
His demise was announced via the Facebook account of one of his children.
He wrote, “Life is indeed transient; I can say boldly that you live a life with a landmark. Continue to rest, my father! Pa Michael Taiwo Akinkunmi (O.F.R.): Great Man has gone.”
Akinkunmi who was born on 10th May 1936, was the older of a set of twins. He hailed from Owu in Abeokuta, Ogun state and attended Baptist Day Secondary School, Ibadan for his Primary education and Ibadan Grammar School, Ibadan for his Secondary education.
He lived with his father until he was 8 years old before he relocated to the Northern part of Nigeria.
He began his early education in the North. After his father’s retirement, he came down to the West and was re-enrolled at Baptist Day School, Idi-Ikan in Ibadan. He finished from Baptist Day School Idi-kan in 1949 and proceeded to Ibadan Grammar School (IGS) in 1950 where he enjoyed a very good education.
He left IGS in 1955 and took an appointment as an agriculturist at the Western Region Secretariat in Ibadan as a civil servant. He would then work some years before gaining admission to the Norwood Technical College in London where he studied electrical engineering.
While studying there, he designed the Nigerian Flag. It was an open competition and he came tops with the green-white-green design. He won a prize money of £100 for his design in 1959.
He returned to Nigeria in 1963 and went back to the agricultural department at the secretariat in Ibadan to continue where he stopped.
He worked as a civil servant until 1994 and retired as Assistant Superintendent of Agriculture. He was honoured with Officer of the order of Federal Republic (OFR) and honorary life presidential adviser on 29 September 2014 at the Conference Centre Abuja.
He entered the competition which he came across in a library. In his own words, “I took details of what is [to be] expected to design a flag that would be used by a country that was about to witness [its] independence. I took part in the competition and my design was selected as the best in the year 1958.”
In 2021, Akinkunmi unveiled the world’s largest national flag in Ibadan, the Oyo state capital.
