The Adebo Commission, formally the Wages and Salaries Review Commission, was appointed by General Yakubu Gowon in July 1970 under Chief Simeon Adebo, the former Nigerian Permanent Representative to the United Nations. Its remit was to review post-Civil-War wages and salaries in the federal public service and the parastatals, against a backdrop of accelerating cost-of-living inflation driven by reconstruction spending and the first oil-export surpluses.
Unable to wait for its full report, Adebo issued the First Interim Award in October 1970 — a flat ₦12-per-month cost-of-living allowance for all federal workers earning under ₦600/year. The Second Interim Award (the 'Adebo Award' proper) followed in March 1971, granting permanent salary increases averaging 30 per cent at the bottom of the grade structure and raising the federal minimum to ₦312/year (₦26/month). The Commission's final report (December 1971) consolidated these awards and extended them to state governments and parastatals.
Adebo's significance is twofold. First, it institutionalised the 'cost-of-living allowance' as a permanent recurring instrument of wage policy, separate from grade-level salaries — a device every subsequent commission used. Second, the Second Interim Award triggered the Ibadan Garment Workers' wildcat strike of April 1971 and the wave of private-sector strikes that followed, forcing Gowon to extend the award to the private sector by Decree and demonstrating that any federal wage adjustment now propagated through the entire economy. The pattern set in 1971 — federal award, private-sector extension, demand-led inflation — was the dress rehearsal for the Udoji Award three years later.