List of Famous people born in Ogun State, Nigeria
Fela Kuti
Fela Anikulapo Kuti was a Nigerian multi-instrumentalist, bandleader, composer, political activist, and Pan-Africanist. He is best known for pioneering Afrobeat, a genre combining traditional Yoruba and Afro-Cuban music with funk and jazz. At the height of his popularity, he was referred to as one of Africa's most "challenging and charismatic music performers." AllMusic described him as a "musical and sociopolitical voice" of international significance.
Moshood Kashimawo Olawale Abiola
Chief Moshood Kashimawo Olawale Abiola, also known as M. K. O. Abiola GCFR was a Nigerian businessman, publisher, and politician. He was the Aare Ona Kankafo XIV of Yorubaland and an aristocrat of the Egba clan.
Funmilayo Ransome-Kuti
Chief Funmilayo Ransome-Kuti, MON, also known as Funmilayo Anikulapo-Kuti, was a Nigerian educator, political campaigner, suffragist, and women's rights activist.
Olu Jacobs
Oludotun Baiyewu Jacobs,, known professionally as Olu Jacobs, is a Nigerian actor and film executive. He has starred in several British television series and international films. Olu Jacobs has been hailed by many as one of the greatest and most widely respected African actors of his generation. Together with Pete Edochie, he is considered by several media, film commentators, critics, and other actors to be one of the most influential African actors of all time, and is widely regarded as a cultural icon.
Olusegun Obasanjo
Chief Olusegun Matthew Okikiola Aremu Obasanjo, GCFR, is a Nigerian military and political leader who served as Nigeria's military head of state from 1976 to 1979 and later as its President from 1999 to 2007. Ideologically a Nigerian nationalist, he was a member of the People's Democratic Party (PDP) from 1999 to 2015 and again from 2018 onward.
Joseph Adefarasin
Honourable Justice Joseph Adetunji Adefarasin (1920-1989), was a Nigerian Lawyer and High Court judge. He was one of the foremost students of Igbobi College, Yaba, Lagos from 1932 to 1939 and studied law at University of London from 1946 to 1949.Joseph Adefarasin was the Second Chief of Judge of Lagos from 1 November 1974 to 24 November 1985.
Wole Soyinka
Akinwande Oluwole Babatunde Soyinka, known as Wole Soyinka, is a Nigerian playwright, poet and essayist in the English language. He was awarded the 1986 Nobel Prize in Literature, the first sub-Saharan African to be honoured in that category. Soyinka was born into a Yoruba family in Abeokuta. In 1954, he attended Government College in Ibadan, and subsequently University College Ibadan and the University of Leeds in England. After studying in Nigeria and the UK, he worked with the Royal Court Theatre in London. He went on to write plays that were produced in both countries, in theatres and on radio. He took an active role in Nigeria's political history and its struggle for independence from Great Britain. In 1965, he seized the Western Nigeria Broadcasting Service studio and broadcast a demand for the cancellation of the Western Nigeria Regional Elections. In 1967, during the Nigerian Civil War, he was arrested by the federal government of General Yakubu Gowon and put in solitary confinement for two years.
Obafemi Awolowo
Chief Obafemi Jeremiah Oyeniyi Awolowo, GCFR, was a Nigerian nationalist and statesman who played a key role in Nigeria's independence movement, the First and Second Republics and the Civil War. The son of a Yoruba farmer, he was one of the truly self-made men among his contemporaries in Nigeria.
Alfred Adewale Martins
Oluyemi Adeniji
Ambassador Oluyemi Adeniji was a Nigerian career diplomat and politician who was the Special Representative of the General Secretary with the United Nations Mission in Sierra Leone (UNAMSIL) from November 19, 1999 to July 16, 2003. Later he was Foreign Minister of Nigeria from July 2003 to June 2006, then Internal Affairs Minister from 21 June 2006 to May 2007.