When Ade (as he was universally known) died, the President of Nigeria said that his country had lost an icon. Ade would have liked the word because of its classical connotations; not only was he an academic surgeon with an international reputation, but he was also an author and an historian with a wide knowledge of both English and African literature. Ade Elebute was born in Nigeria into a prominent family. He received his primary education in Lagos, before the time when the lagoons (which give Lagos its name) were dominated by the huge concrete flyovers that now exist. It was obvious from the beginning that he was bright and he was given a place at the famous Church Missionary Society (CMS) Grammar School, about which, and the prominent Nigerian business man who endowed it, J P L Davies, Ade wrote a book (*The life of James Pinson Labulo Davies: a colossus of Victorian Lagos* Lagos, Prestige, 2013). It was at the CMS Grammar School that the foundations of his lifelong Christian faith were laid and where he thrived on a curriculum of science, foreign languages and English and Nigerian classics, as well as music. This education, for which he was ever grateful, paved the way for him to progress from being head boy to a scholarship at Trinity College Dublin to read medicine. So grateful was he for this education that, on his return to Nigeria, he became a passionate philanthropic supporter of the school, gifting, amongst other things, the school’s current grand piano. Trinity College Dublin proved a fertile ground for his medical education, as shown by him winning the majority of the available prizes in the pre-clinical and clinical curricula and culminating in the Fitzpatrick scholarship for the best performance throughout all professional examinations in his medical school year. He graduated in 1956, subsequently proceeding to an MD by thesis. Thereafter, he commenced his surgical training in major hospitals, including Birmingham Accident Hospital, the Midland Centre for Neurosurgery, Hammersmith Hospital and the Royal National Orthopaedic Hospital, Stanmore. He returned to Nigeria to work at University College Ibadan until 1962, when he was invited to join the staff of Lagos University Teaching Hospital (LUTH), where he rose to be professor of surgery in 1969, subsequently becoming provost of the college of medicine in 1977 and chief medical director in 1978, holding these two posts until 1980. Throughout this time, he also sought to raise the standards of surgery in West Africa in general and Nigeria in particular. Key to this was the inauguration of the West African College of Surgeons. Amongst other positions in Nigeria he was president of the Nigerian Medical Association and president of the National Postgraduate Medical College of Nigeria. He also helped ensure the African presence on the international stage through his membership of the executive committee of the International Federation of Surgical Colleges and of the executive council of the International Society of Surgery. He also served on the editorial board of the *World Journal of Surgery*. He had a distinguished research career having served as senior Buswell research fellow at the University of Rochester, New York and Commonwealth tropical medicine senior research fellow at the Medical Research Council’s toxicology unit in Carshalton. Throughout his career, he maintained links with UK surgery not only through his fellowship of the Royal College of Surgeons of England and of Edinburgh and his membership of the editorial board of the *British Journal of Surgery*, but also through his attendance at meetings of the Surgical Research Society and the Association of Surgeons, which, in 1996, awarded him its honorary fellowship. One very close link was with Manchester Medical School, where he was invited to undertake a visiting professorship in the department of surgery at Hope Hospital in Salford, which housed Manchester University’s first Medical Research Council unit – the trauma unit – led by H B Stoner. This academic attachment proved very fruitful and he collaborated with the scientific staff of the unit to produce several papers, in particular one notable paper on a new system of sepsis scoring (‘The grading of sepsis’ *Br J Surg*. 1983 Jan;70[1]:29-31). In the 1980s he gradually moved from academic life to become involved in the business life of his country by becoming chairman of the Glaxo group of companies in Nigeria, a post he held for more than a decade. He oversaw the transition of the company, through several amalgamations, to GlaxoSmithKline (Pharmaceuticals) Nigeria in 2001, at which time he retired. From 1985, together with his wife, he promoted a healthcare company, Hygeia, to provide health care, initially in Lagos, but later across Nigeria. Not only did this provide high quality medical care through a group of multispecialty hospitals, the Lagoon Hospitals, it also promoted universal health insurance for the population, including low income groups. Throughout his professional life, he was supported by his wife Oyinade Elebute, a distinguished academic physiologist and nephrologist. They were proud of their family of one son and three daughters, one of whom has followed her parents into medicine and is a consultant haematologist in London. Ade Elebute died on 23 February 2019, aged 87. A proud African and exemplary Nigerian, an internationally-renowned academic and master surgeon, a passionate entrepreneur, friend of Britain and British surgery, and a devoted family man: Ade Elebute was truly an icon.