Sir Gabriel Osawuru Igbinedion was born to parents Okunozee and Josiah Agharagbon Igbinedion. While his father was a civil servant working for the Works department of the government, his mother was just a trader who stayed home and smoked fish to help contribute to the family income, showing how humble a beginning this great man had.
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As much as they had limited resources and the father is the main breadwinner of the family, the Igbinedion family suffered another great blow when he was just 14 years of age and his father died. In a bid to help out the family, one of his father’s brothers who goes by the name of Mr. Idahosa came around to take young Igbinedion back to Benin with him.
On getting to Benin, he was enrolled in the catholic school and here he was christened with the name Gabriel. For his primary school education, he was sent to the Baptist Primary school in Benin and he went on to further his education at Eko Boys High School in Lagos. Before he could finish his secondary school education however, he suffered another fatal blow in his life with the loss of his mother.
After his secondary education, Gabriel took to trading and started assisting his uncle in some of the business he ran then, one of the earliest being his involvement on his uncle’s block industry. When the year 1955 came, he switched industries and started to work as a messenger in Audit Education, finally dumping that venture to join up the Police Force in1959. He was serving in the police force for 4 years and within these years, met his wife who also happened to be an expatriate.
In the year 1964, he went back to Benin to take up a position as a regional sales manager with Leventis and in the year 1967, left the firm because of the sea of experience he had gathered there and with the thought that on his own, he would be able to recreate that same level of success.
With the help of his wife, he launched his first company (Mid Motors) which they were both operating out of the comfort of their living room.Three years after the launch of this business, they became the first car assembly in Nigeria having gotten a deal to assemble Hino trucks in the country. Marking the start of a revolution for the business, he also got distributor deals with Marco Polo buses, Yamaha and Fiat. From then on, he has succeeded in branching out of the automobile industry and investing in other sectors, the most notable being the real estate and financial sector also.
He owns a very large and expansive estate in Benin which he got off buying the properties of dead chiefs in Bini. Formerly owning an oil licence which was registered under the company Moncriief Oil, Sir Gabriel Igbinedion was one of the principal investors in Crown Merchant bank, holing the highest shares in the organisation as at year 1990. He also launched a business on the side later which he called Okada and this became a front for him to acquire many other business and get even more investments under his portfolio.