Chief Areoye Oyebola was born in Ibadan, the largest African city, south of the Sahara. He was installed a chief by the city’s paramount ruler, the OLUBADAN OF IBADANLAND, for his profound contributions as the author of twenty-six books on different subjects and as a renowned journalist and pioneer indigenous publisher.
Chief Oyebola graduated in Economics at Nigeria’s premier university, the University of Ibadan in 1964. He later obtained a Postgraduate Diploma in Education at the same institution. He also studied journalism in Plymouth, England.
And he was the only participant awarded the prestigious WATSON SCHOLARSHIP at the Haggai Institute Course, Singapore in 1998. For more than thirty years, he has given a penetrating insight into the problems of Africa in particular and the black race in general. An outstanding researcher and educationist, he has also proffered profound ideas on how his country, Nigeria, which is the world’s most thickly populated black State, can get out of its recurrent predicament of abject poverty in the midst of abundant human and natural resources.
In fact, there are not many people who can claim to have done better in enriching Nigeria with sound ideas than Chief Areoye Oyebola. In his weekly column as the first long standing graduate editor of the then Nigerian largest mass circulating newspaper, THE DAILY TIMES, Chief Oyebola gave new meaning to the power of ideas. His perception of a greater tomorrow was infinite. And when in 1976, he published the first edition of BLACK MAN’S DILEMMA, he displayed his usual downright objectivity, great courage and frankness in his analysis of black’s backwardness. His views earned him fierce criticisms as well as praise, commendation and even adoration. But while the late famous Nigerian educationist and crusader for justice and human rights, Dr. Tai Solarin described the 1976 edition of this book as a “bomb”, it is apparent from its content that the revised 2002 edition of Black Man’s Dilemma is more explosive than a bomb. Thanks to the author’s uncompromising integrity, sincerity and his passionate love for his race.
