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Chief Antonio Oladeinde Fernandez (12 August 1929 – 1 September 2015) was a Nigerian billionaire business magnate. He was Permanent Representative of the Central African Republic to the United Nations. He was considered one of the richest men in Africa.
Chief Fernandez was also the Baron of Dudley in Scotland. He purchased this title for £59,000, and held it until his death.
Fernandez had six wives or long-term partners, and he acknowledged nine children.
(1) ✍️ Princess Ibilola Lipede of Egbaland was his first wife. Their daughter Olateju Phillips learned accountancy and served as the Commissioner for Commerce and Industry in Lagos State. Olateju married British engineer Lanre Phillips and had four children; their son Derin Phillips built a music career as DJ Caise, and in 2018 married Xerona Duke, the daughter of Governor Donald Duke.
(2) ✍️ Folashade Bankole was Fernandez’s second wife, the marriage producing Gbemi Fernandez and Anthony Fernandez.
(3) ✍️ His third wife was a first generation West Indian black American Barbara Joyce who married Fernandez in 1961 in Virginia, bore him three children in the U.S., separated from him in 1984 or early 1985, then filed for divorce in 1987. The offspring of this marriage are Akintokunbo Fernandez, Christina Titilola Unzicker and Adekoyejo Fernandez.
(4) ✍️ Fernandez was married to Princess Abiola Dosunmu, who later became the fourth Erelu Kuti of Lagos. When she met Fernandez in 1972, she was a widow with two children. Dosunmu and Fernandez were married in Nigeria at the Palace of the Oba in April 1973 in a ceremony attended by famous Nigerians including Admiral Adekunle Lawal. They had one child, a daughter named Antoinette Oyinkansola Fernandez – a London-based writer and filmmaker who stood for a seat in Parliament in July 2024 as a Green Party candidate.
(5) ✍️ His fifth partner was African-American Sandra Inett Price. She took the name Aduke Fernandez at their union, which she said began in 1982 with a tribal wedding in Nigeria, though at their divorce proceedings in 2003 he said they were never formally married. Two daughters were born of this union: Atinuke Fernandez in 1984, and Abimbola Fernandez in 1989. The family lived in a chateau in Pontpoint, France, then moved to New York and bought the historic All View Estate, and later lived in Edinburgh.
(6) ✍️ The sixth partner of Fernandez was Halima Maude, once a beauty queen of Kano. She was previously married, and had two children before meeting Fernandez. They married in 2003 when he was 74, and lived in Brussels. She remarried in July 2018, three years after the death of Fernandez.
C: Nzeh Daniel Bernoulli
#history #nigeriaindiaspora #marriage #portugese #family #african #centralafricanrepublic #wealth.
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