Francis Edo-Osagie

Francis Edo Osagie (1914) was a notable Nigerian businessman from Benin. He was born into an elite Benin family; his father worked at the forestry department and was also a farmer in Benin. He attended the Baptist primary School in Benin and the Baptist High School, Ibadan for secondary education. After completing his secondary education, he took on a variety of duties, from being a transport clerk, to a sales agent and an accountant. It was while working as an accountant that he noticed the potential of trading in timber, especially the prospective wood resources available in the Southeastern part of the country. He left his job and formed a joint venture with two other partners to explore timber but the venture yielded little as timber prices crashed. After the closure of the venture, he started his own firm, Osagie & Sons. The new venture stayed in the timber business and finally found a successful way of selling timber. The company was advised to explore some areas where Toledo worms seemed to have caused some devastation on some trees. It was discovered that with inspection, and a few work, the core of the trees could be saved. He started exporting large scale timber from the area to Europe and America and was very successful.

He was also an apolitical community leader, this allowed him to mediate on civil duties particularly does affecting the oil companies, their workers and the communities they operate in.

References

• Tom Forrest, The Advance of African Capital:The Growth of Nigerian Private Enterprise, University of Virginia Press (August 1994)