Wale Omole

Omole died peacefully at his home in the early hours of 11 November 2026, aged 84, according to a statement issued on behalf of the Omole family by Lateef Bakare, president of the Ijesa Society, who also conveyed the condolences of the Owa Obokun of Ijesaland, Clement Adesuyi Haastrup. Some university statements gave the time of death as the previous evening. No cause of death was made public, and the family said funeral arrangements would be announced later.

Obafemi Awolowo University, in a statement from its public relations officer Abiodun Olarewaju, called his death a painful loss to the Great Ife community, the Nigerian university system and the wider academic community. Vice-Chancellor Simeon Bamire said that Omole may have taken his final bow, but his place in the history of Great Ife remains indelible.

Adebowale Omole was born on 13 August 1942 into the Biladu Ruling House of Ijesaland in present-day Osun State, Nigeria, the son of Pa Emmanuel Adedeji Omole and Mama Beatrice Aarinola Omole.

He attended Ilesa Grammar School from 1956 to 1962. After leaving school he worked as a civil servant at the Ministry of Agriculture and Natural Resources in Ibadan before entering the University of Ife, the institution that would shape the rest of his life. He graduated with a Bachelor of Agriculture in 1968 and an MPhil in Animal Science in 1970, then crossed to Canada for a doctorate in nutritional biochemistry at the University of Alberta, completed in 1973.

Omole returned to Ife as an assistant lecturer and rose through the ranks to become Professor of Animal Science in 1980. His inaugural lecture in January 1983 examined how material discarded as waste could be recycled into the food chain and turned into a productive resource. From 1983 to 1985 he served as Dean of the Faculty of Agriculture, the first alumnus of the university to hold that post. In 1986 and 1987 he spent a period as professor of food science and animal industry at Alabama A&M University in the United States.

On 30 November 1991 he became Vice-Chancellor of Obafemi Awolowo University, again the first of its own graduates to do so. He held the post for eight years. The university later described his tenure as a significant chapter in its pursuit of academic excellence and institutional development.

The tenure ended in turmoil. On 10 July 1999 five students, among them the student union figure George Iwilade, known as Afrika, were killed in a cult attack on campus. Students accused the university leadership of failing to protect them, and Omole was removed from office amid the protests that followed. The killings remained part of public memory of his time in office.

In later life he served as Chairman of the Editorial Board of The Guardian newspaper in Lagos and took part in public affairs and intellectual life. He was honoured as a Member of the Order of the Niger (MON).

Omole was a committed member of the Ijesa community and a long-standing member of the Ijesa Society, whose president announced his death on behalf of the family. In August 2024 he launched the Wale Omole Foundation for Virtues and Ethics in Yoruba Culture in Lagos, grounding its mission in the Yoruba ideal of omoluabi, good character and ethical conduct. He set out plans for scholarships, teacher training, educational infrastructure, community development and the preservation of Yoruba heritage.

Omole is remembered as the first Ife graduate to return and lead the university as Dean of Agriculture and then as Vice-Chancellor, as a researcher who argued that waste could be turned into food, and in later life as a newspaper editorial chairman and advocate of Yoruba ethical renewal through his foundation. His record also carries the painful memory of the 1999 campus killings that ended his time in office.