Reuben Fasoranti

Reuben Fasoranti died at the age of 100. His death was announced on Tuesday 20 October 2026 by Ondo State Governor Lucky Aiyedatiwa in a statement he personally signed in Akure. "With a heavy heart but with total submission to the will of God, I announce the passing of our revered elder statesman, Pa Reuben Famuyide Fasoranti, who departed this world at the glorious age of 100," the governor wrote.

Aiyedatiwa described him as a patriarch and a beacon of wisdom, integrity and selfless service whose counsel and principled stand on justice and good governance would be sorely missed, and he extended condolences to the Fasoranti family, the people of Akure Kingdom and the whole state. The news was carried by Punch, Vanguard, Channels Television, The Nation, TVC News and other outlets.

The cause of death was not made public, and funeral arrangements had not been announced at the time of writing.

Reuben Famuyide Fasoranti was born on 11 May 1926 in Uso, a village in what is now Owo Local Government Area of Ondo State, in south west Nigeria. In a 2020 interview with The Punch he explained that his grandfather had lived in Akure and moved away after being denied a chieftaincy title, settling in Uso on the way to join relatives in Owo. His father later moved the family to Ayede and Ogbese.

He spent three years at the village school in Uso before his father sent him to Owo, where there were better schools. He went on to Ondo Boys' High School, then to Yaba Higher College in Lagos and to University College, Ibadan, now the University of Ibadan, where he studied English and geography. He later studied abroad, taking a postgraduate diploma in education at the University of Hull in England and a master's degree in educational administration and school management at Macquarie University in Sydney, Australia.

Fasoranti said he went into teaching reluctantly but came to love it. He started at his alma mater, Ondo Boys' High School, and after his studies abroad worked briefly at Oyemekun Grammar School in Akure. He was then invited to found Iju-Itaogbolu Grammar School, where he served as founding principal for 14 years. He went on to lead the Baptist high school in Iwo, in present day Osun State, and Olivet Baptist High School in Oyo, and retired as principal of Christ's School, Ado Ekiti.

Retirement did not take him out of the classroom. He founded Omolere Nursery and Primary School and Akure High School, both still operating, and later St Frances' Academy, Igoba, Akure, which he established in memory of his late wife. He told interviewers in his nineties that he still met teachers and kept teaching.

Politically he belonged to the progressive tradition of Chief Obafemi Awolowo. He was active in the Action Group and became one of the prime movers of the Unity Party of Nigeria in Ondo State; he recalled that early party meetings were held in his compound in Akure and that he and colleagues asked Adekunle Ajasin to lead them. When Ajasin became governor in 1979, Fasoranti served as commissioner for finance until 1983, and the administration's free education and rural development programmes were later credited in part to his careful management of the state's finances.

During the military regime of General Sani Abacha in the 1990s he stood with Afenifere and the National Democratic Coalition in the campaign for a return to democracy. On 27 April 2008 he succeeded Abraham Adesanya as leader of Afenifere, the Yoruba socio political organisation founded under Awolowo, and his home in Akure became the venue for its monthly meetings. In November 2015 he wrote that he was stepping aside, citing his age and saying the founding goals of the group had been eroded, but he remained its most senior figure and was widely described as national leader of Afenifere for the rest of his life. In October 2022 he hosted Bola Tinubu in Akure and gave his blessing to Tinubu's presidential bid, while other Afenifere figures led by Ayo Adebanjo backed Peter Obi.

Fasoranti lived for many decades in Akure, the Ondo State capital, where he was regarded as a patriarch of the town. His wife died before him, and he founded St Frances' Academy in her memory.

On 12 July 2019 his daughter, Olufunke Olakunrin, then 58, was shot dead when gunmen attacked her vehicle on the Ore road in Ondo State as she travelled from Akure to Lagos. Her killing provoked national outrage and sharpened debate over insecurity in south west Nigeria. In June 2022 an Ondo State High Court in Akure convicted three men of her murder, kidnapping and armed robbery and sentenced them to death; a fourth defendant was acquitted.

He celebrated his 100th birthday on 11 May 2026 in Akure, where Vice President Kashim Shettima, representing President Tinubu, described him as a moral compass and a living witness to Nigeria's history.

Fasoranti's life spanned the whole of modern Nigerian history, from colonial rule through independence, military government and the return of democracy. He is remembered in Ondo State as an educator who built schools both as a principal and as a private founder, and as one of the last links to the generation of Awolowo and Ajasin. President Tinubu, in a tribute for his 99th birthday, called him one of the rare Nigerians who gave all to public service and served unblemished at every opportunity, and said the schools he founded stood as monuments to his legacy.