In the 1980s and 1990s, you could hear its jingle before you saw the soap. Then, almost as quickly as S.T. Soap became a household name, the brand disappeared.
What happened?
The story begins in 1979, when Alhaji Safiriyu Tiamiyu reportedly started S.T. Soaps with just ₦5,000 ($4). According to accounts attributed to Tiamiyu, ₦2,000 came from his own savings while his father provided the remaining ₦3,000. Before entering manufacturing, he had reportedly traded garri between Auchi and Lagos.
What started as a small operation around his home eventually grew into a large manufacturing business in Ijebu-Mushin, Ogun State.
And Tiamiyu understood something that remains true in business today:
A good product needs a loud enough introduction.
The jingle Nigerians couldn’t forget
S.T. invested heavily in advertising, particularly radio. Its memorable Yoruba-language jingle became one of the brand’s biggest marketing assets, helping turn an indigenous soap into a familiar name across parts of South-West Nigeria.
Decades later, people still remember the opening:
“Ose S.T. ma re ooo…”
The jingle became part of the cultural memory surrounding the brand. Contemporary accounts describe S.T. Soap as particularly popular during the 1980s and 1990s, with its advertising and distribution helping drive its growth.
From soap to a 1,000-person workforce
By the early 1990s, S.T. had expanded beyond soap manufacturing into polythene products.
At its peak, published accounts put the company’s workforce at more than 1,000 people, many reportedly from Ijebu-Mushin and surrounding communities. The factory was no longer simply a business. It had become part of the local economy.
Then came 2004.
And the company’s fortunes began to change.
The dispute that changed the atmosphere
Accounts of the period say workers began pushing for greater representation through a staff association or union, amid complaints about working conditions and management.
Tiamiyu reportedly opposed the move.
The disagreement escalated into a workplace dispute, with workers abandoning their duties. Other accounts allege that production materials were wasted during the confrontation and that some employees were dismissed.
Whatever the precise sequence of events, the dispute soon stopped being simply an employer-employee disagreement.
It became a community issue.
Police were reportedly called to the factory, and tensions escalated further. Some published accounts describe arrests and a chaotic confrontation involving members of the surrounding community. The intervention of local leaders and the police reportedly helped bring the parties to a negotiated settlement later that year.
But the most serious chapter was still to come.
The allegation that shook S.T. Soap
On 13 May 2005, Tiamiyu was reportedly arrested following allegations linking him to kidnapping and ritual-related activity.
The allegations were extremely serious.
A man identified in several retellings as Baba Oníkèké reportedly implicated Tiamiyu and alleged that he had purchased human body parts from him.
It is important to make one thing clear: these were allegations, not facts.
Published accounts say Tiamiyu’s residences and office were searched, but nothing incriminating was reportedly found. The case was subsequently dismissed by the Ijebu-Ode Chief Magistrate’s Court, with several accounts giving 7 June 2005 as the date of dismissal.
That distinction matters.
A court dismissal does not establish that every detail surrounding a case was false, but neither should unproven allegations be presented as evidence of guilt.
When the brand never recovered
By then, however, the damage to Tiamiyu’s public image and business was reportedly severe.
The once-prominent businessman gradually withdrew from public life, while S.T. Soap’s presence in the Nigerian market faded.
Several retrospective accounts connect the company’s decline to the combined effects of the labour dispute, community tensions and the damaging allegations of 2005. The precise contribution of each factor is difficult to establish from the surviving public accounts, but the end result is clear: the S.T. Soap that had once been a household name did not return to its former prominence.
Tiamiyu died on 5 October 2020, following years of reported health problems.
And with him went the story of one of Nigeria’s forgotten indigenous manufacturing successes.
So, what happened to S.T. Soap?
Perhaps the biggest lesson isn’t simply that a business can fail.
It is that success can create its own vulnerabilities.
Tiamiyu reportedly turned ₦5,000 into a company employing more than 1,000 people. He understood branding before social media, built recognition through radio and created a product people remembered decades later.
But growth also meant managing hundreds of employees, community expectations, labour relations, reputation and crisis.
That is where the story becomes bigger than soap.
S.T. Soap was not just a product that disappeared from Nigerian shelves. It was a reminder of what Nigerian manufacturing could build, and how difficult it can be to protect a successful business once the problems around it become bigger than the product itself.
