Foremost corporate law icon, statesman, philanthropist and business mogul, Chief Chris Ogunbanjo is dead.

The statesman died on Saturday, October 7, 2023, two months and seven days to his centenary birthday.

Ogunbanjo was born on December 14, 1923 in Erunwon-Ijebu into one of the most prominent families in Ijebu land. Coincidentally, he was born in 1923 and died 2023.

His father, Daniel Ajayi Ogunbanjo, was a famous Headmaster, committed Deacon who later became a very prominent Pastor and Canon within former Western Region. His mother, late madam Towobola, hailed from Ijebu-Imushin.

The legal icon attended St. Phillips Primary School, Aiyetoro in Ile-Ife before proceeding to Oduduwa College also in Ile-Ife for his secondary education in 1936.

In 1938, he moved to the prestigious Igbobi College in Lagos where he completed his secondary education. He obtained a degree in Law in 1949 and was called to Bar a year later in 1950.

Chief Ogunbanjo began his Legal Practice in 1950 as a Partner in a law firm then known as Samuel, Chris & Michael. The law firm was co-owned by late Chief Samuel Akintola, former Premier of Western Nigeria, Chief Christopher Ogunbanjo and late Justice Michael Odesanya with office situated at Tinubu Square in the heart of Lagos.

After the dissolution of the partnership in 1960, he moved on to set up Chris Ogunbanjo & Co; a Commercial Law firm considered to be the solidifying platform for many successful corporate legal luminaries in Nigerian legal practice.

Ogunbanjo deployed his profession, Law, as a veritable instrument of change in the Nigerian Legal, Corporate, Industrial and Management Practice. He was an early advocate of domiciliary accounts in Nigeria which later came to existence through the promulgation of the Foreign Currency Decree 18 of 1985.In the late 1960s, he was among the group of businessmen who supported local equity participation in foreign firms operating in Nigeria.

Within a few years of specialising in Corporate Law, he was spotted and appointed “Retainer-Solicitor” to the NIDB project and International Finance Corporation by the federal government.

The legal icon was also part a major promoter of several top companies including West African Batteries, Metal Box Toyo, Union Securities, 3M Nigeria, ABB Nigeria, Roche Nigeria and Chemical and Allied Products Limited. Until his death on Saturday, he had spent seventy-three years in the Nigerian Bar.