Akintola Williams

Chief Akintola Williams (9 August 1919 – 11 September 2023) was a Nigerian accountant. He was the first Nigerian to qualify as a chartered accountant. For his primary education in the early 1930s, he attended Olowogbowo Methodist Primary School, Lagos. Williams then attended the CMS Grammar School, Lagos.

Accounting career After returning to Nigeria in 1950, Williams served with the Inland Revenue as an assessment officer until March 1952, when he left the civil service and founded Akintola Williams & Co. in Lagos. The company was the first indigenous chartered accounting firm in Africa.

Public sector positions held by him include Chairman of the Federal Income Tax Appeal Commissioners (1958–68), member of the Coker Commission of Inquiry run by his brother-in-law Justice G.B.A. Coker, a Lagos High Chief 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. On 8 May 2011, the Nigeria-Britain Association presented awards to John Kufuor, past President of Ghana, and to Akintola Williams, for their contributions to democracy and development in Africa.

Death Williams turned 100 in August 2019, and died at his home in Lagos on 11 September 2023, at the age of 104.