Accolades as doyen of counselling retires at 70

By Dorcas Aluko and Gbemisola Adesola

Hundreds of people who were impacted by Prof. Olugbemisola Mopelola Omoegun trooped to the University of Lagos (UNILAG) to celebrate with the academic icon as she clocked the retirement age of 70, after over four decades of meritorious service.

The retirement party, which also featured the presentation of her book entitled The Icing on My Cake and birthday held at the Jelili Omotola Multipurpose Hall of the university.

It had in attendance the Senior Special Assistant to the President on Sustainable Development Goal, Mrs. Aderonke Orelope-Adefulire, UNILAG Vice-Chancellor Prof. Oluwatoyin Ogundipe; and chairman on the occasion Chief J. B. Oke, among others.

In an interview, Omoegun of the Department of Guidance and Counseling, Faculty of Education, thanked God for giving her the grace to clock 70, retire and present her book.

On what advice she had for colleagues looking forward to this kind of celebration, she urged them to do their best and bring out the potentials in students.

“I will tell my colleagues that they should do their jobs well with the fear of God, no partiality and there is nobody that is a failure. God has created us for a reason and a purpose and there is no one God creates whom God has not endowed with some potential so our job as counsellors and teachers is to bring out the best every time so that the students will make progress,” she said.

Mrs. Orelope-Adefulire described Omoegun as her mentor, a scholar, rare gem, role model and academic giant.

“The evidence that Prof, Mopelola Omoegun has indeed lived a successful life cannot be overemphasized,” she said.

Ogundipe described her as a “Testimony” and commented on the evident power of prayer in her life.

“She’s been in the university for over 42 years and today she is still standing. Anytime I see her, I will say this is a testimony moving because if not for God, she would have been forgotten but because she has a destiny to fulfill today to the glory of the Almighty God that is why we are celebrating her and I believe that as God liveth she will live so many years she will give more testimonies,” he said.

Reviewing The Icing on My Cake, Prof. Olagunju Gbadebo of the Lagos State University (LASU) said the book was a memoir of the author’s life meant to inspire readers to achieve any goal that they set their minds to achieve regardless of circumstances of their birth or any other prevalent purpose.

“The Icing on My Cake; a memoir of Professor Omoegun, a teacher and counsellor at 70 is fascinating collection of memories of the life, career and achievement of the author with a captivating analogy where the author likened herself to a cake. She underscores the certain importance of ingredients like flour, milk, sugar, etc. as fundamental in baking a cake. The author acknowledges the grace that God deposited these baking ingredients in abundance in her life which formed the bedrock of her successful career. The highly articulate author noted that not only did God bake her into a wonderful cake, he added icing in the form of tremendous practices such as the doctorate degree in 1988 and the professorial appointment in 2008 that she went on to achieve in her career,” he said.