First Nigerian Chartered Accountant Akintola Williams Passes Away at 104

The first chartered accountant of Nigeria, Akintola Williams is dead. Reports say the accounting guru died on Monday, September 11, 2023. He was aged 104.

The deceased pioneered Nigeria’s accounting profession and was instrumental in developing the country’s financial sector.

Late Akintola was born in 1919. He began his education at Olowogbowo Methodist Primary School, Bankole street, Apongbon, Lagos Island, Lagos, in the early 1930s.

He studied accounting at the University of London and qualified as a chartered accountant in 1947. He returned to Nigeria to set up his accounting firm, Akintola Williams & Co., now Deloitte & Touche, in 1952.

His firm later grew organically and through mergers to become the largest professional services firm in Nigeria by 2004.

Akintola Williams participated in founding the Nigerian Stock Exchange and the Institute of Chartered Accountants of Nigeria.

Public sector positions held by him include Chairman of the Federal Income Tax Appeal Commissioners (1958–68), member of the Coker Commission of Inquiry into the Statutory Corporations of the former Western Region of Nigeria (1962), member of the board of Trustees of the Commonwealth Foundation (1966–1975), Chairman of the Lagos State Government Revenue Collection Panel (1973) and Chairman of the Public Service Review Panel to correct the anomalies in the Udoji Salary Review Commission (1975).

Other positions include President of the Metropolitan Club in Victoria Island, Lagos, Founder and Council member of the Nigerian Conservation Foundation and Founder and chairman of the board of Trustees of the Musical Society of Nigeria.