Alabukun Powder (Dr Jacob Sogboyega Odulate) — Companies

Why it is on record

The first pharmaceutical product wholly invented, manufactured and patented by a Nigerian: Alabukun headache powder, formulated by Dr Jacob Sogboyega Odulate (1884–1962) at Ikorodu in 1918. Continuously sold for over a century.

Record held

Oldest continuously sold Nigerian-invented pharmaceutical product (since 1918).

Founders

Dr Jacob Sogboyega Odulate, 'The Blessed Jacob' (1884–1962, Ikorodu).

Headquarters

Ikorodu, Lagos.

Lineage / corporate history

Formulated 1918 at Ikorodu; production scaled through the 1920s and 1930s; brand continuously manufactured for over a century — one of the few colonial-era African-owned consumer products to survive into the present.

Key dates

1918Dr Jacob Sogboyega Odulate compounds Alabukun headache powder at Ikorodu.
1920sBrand registered; nationwide distribution through Lagos pharmacies and itinerant traders.
1962Founder dies; trust assumes commercial operation.

Deep dive

Alabukun Powder is the oldest Nigerian-invented consumer pharmaceutical product still in continuous production. Dr Jacob Sogboyega Odulate — 'The Blessed Jacob', born 1884 at Ikorodu — formulated the powder in 1918 from a combination of acetylsalicylic acid (aspirin) and caffeine, marketing it across Lagos and the Western Region as a remedy for headache, fever and general malaise. Within a decade the brand had spread across the colonial network into the Northern provinces; by the 1940s it was one of the most widely recognised African-owned consumer brands in West Africa.

The product has been continuously sold for over a century — a span that includes the colonial regime, the Second World War, independence, every military coup, the Civil War, and every change of government of the Fourth Republic. The Alabukun packaging — the small white-and-orange sachet with Dr Odulate's photograph — has remained essentially unchanged for more than seventy years. Production continues under the Dr Jacob Sogboyega Odulate (Blessed Memory) Trust at Ikorodu, making Alabukun one of only a handful of colonial-era African-owned consumer products to survive into the present.