The immediate past chairman of the Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC), Senator Olabiyi Durojaiye died yesterday morning in a private hospital in Lagos after a brief illness, aged 88.
Durojaiye, a lawyer and an ecomist, was born in 1933 and worked for 35 years in the public sector including 28 years as a director of the Central Bank of Nigeria and the nation’s security printing and minting company. He was also a former president of the prestigious National Institute of Strategic Studies (NIPSS), based in Kuru near Jos.
He also served as chairman of the National Communications Commission.
He was elected Senator in 1999 for the Ogun East constituency of Ogun State, at the start of the Nigerian Fourth Republic, running on the platform of the Alliance for Democracy (AD) .
Durojaiye earned a BSc (Economics) London, and an LLB, London. He was called to the Nigerian Bar in 1979, and was a Barrister and Solicitor of the Supreme Court of Nigeria.
Senator Durojaiye will be remembered as one of the prominent figures in the National Democratic Coalition (NADECO that battled the brutal dictator Sami Abacha and languished in detention for months.
A great lover of his community, Ijebu Igbo, he was conferred with the chieftaincy title of Otunba Kolawolu, by the last Orimolusi of Ijebu Igbo, Oba Adetayo Sami for the developmental projects he initiated or collaborated in bringing to the town.