A venue built for occasions that matter.

Grand Imperial Event Center is the work of Captain Olusegun Adesina Samson Oguneko — born at Omowunmi Hospital in Oke Ado, Ibadan, and proudly of Ago Iwoye Ijebu in Ogun State. As the first of thirteen children in a large, close-knit family, he learned early what it means to carry responsibility for other people: discipline, humility and a work ethic that never asked for shortcuts.

Those weekends spent walking kilometres to the farm with his grandmother, and the cocoa fields of his grandfather Pa Emmanuel Oguneko — Baba Koko — taught him the value of preparation. It was Baba Koko who financed his journey to the United States in 1981, to the Meacham Field School of Aviation in Dallas and then a degree in Aviation Management from Dallas Baptist College. One act of belief changed the course of a whole family.

The years that followed were not easy. He waited long for his first cockpit, and the door finally opened at Aero Contractors in Nigeria, where he spent twenty-five years and became a respected name in Nigerian aviation. He went on to fly the Boeing 737 series, the Boeing 777-200F, Embraer ERJ 170/175, the Dash 8 and the Twin Otter, later flying with Mesa Airlines, Southern Air and finally Atlas Air, from which he retired honourably on 27 October 2025 — his last flight taking place on his wife's birthday.

Grand Imperial is what happens when a pilot's standards are brought down to earth. In the cockpit nothing is left to chance: every checklist is completed, every timing is exact, every guest on board is somebody's family. That is precisely how this hall is run — dates confirmed properly, standby power tested before it is ever needed, the room set and inspected long before your first guest arrives.

His guiding line has always been simple: your name is all you have. It came from his father and grandfather, it shaped a career built on integrity, and it is now stamped on this building. When a family entrusts us with a wedding, a burial, a dedication or a company's biggest night of the year, we are holding something that cannot be repeated — and we treat it that way.

A husband, a father of six, a grandfather of eight and a mentor to many, Captain Oguneko built Grand Imperial as a home ground for the community that raised him: a place where excellence is ordinary, where service is personal, and where every celebration is handled with the care of someone who spent a lifetime bringing people safely to the moments that matter.