Women, Law and Development Center, an organisation co-founded by Dr Keziah Awosika and Professor Jadesola Akande recently had a post humous 78th birthday and 10th memorial lecture in Lagos. The focus was on her passion for women’s political, economic, legal and educational empowerment Yetunde Oladeinde reports.
It was a Thursday evening and the M. A Ajomo Auditorium of the Nigerian Institute of Advanced Legal Studies, University of Lagos, was filled to the brim. The event was the 10th memorial and 78th posthumous birthday of late Professor Jadesola Olayinka Akande.
Activists, scholars, distinguished professors, legal luminaries, friends and family members all came paying tributes to this wonderful Amazon who had many firsts recorded in her name, like the first female professor of law in Nigeria and even in Africa.
The chairperson of the event, Hon. Justice Helen Moronkeji Ogunwunmiju, gave her opening remarks talking about the impact made by Akande and the need to emulate the values that she stands for in the society.
Bolaji Owasanoye, one of those mentored by this rare gem, recalled his first meeting with her, how she impacted on his life and his colleagues at that time. “I met Mrs Akande in 1984 at the Law School and there was this project by the family law centre, then, for poor families and they were looking for young lawyers to learn. About 30 of us volunteered then. Everybody disappeared but I stayed put; I did this for seven years. I learnt a lot from Professor Akande in the process. My reason for staying put was not very altruistic but you know God works in mysterious ways. I stayed because I didn’t want to go home and stay with my aunt.”
Owasanoye served in Lagos and became an academic because one day Prof Akande asked him during youth his service what he wanted to do next and his answer was that he wanted to go to England. “She said you are going to waste your time. The next thing she brought me a letter of employment to work in LASU. I took the letter but I had no intention of going to LASU anyway, but I didn’t say that to her.”
Professor Akande had just been appointed as the Dean and she was poaching young people. “Ayo Atsenuwa and I ended up in the faculty. We had the best result in Nigeria at that time, nobody beat us to it. That was the kind of impact that she has. Mrs Akande was also a dogged fighter; she had a very unique style of mentoring. You either drowned or floated. Many of us floated.”
For the Executive Director, WLDCN, Dr Keziah Awosika: “We at the WLDCN have posthumously marked this day in the past ten years with interactive forum on issues of great interest to her in her lifetime. These include constitutionalism, women and political participation and decision making, legal reforms, access to justice for the grassroots, particularly women, to mention but a few.”
Awosika added that “Suffice it to say that as we are in another national election year 2018/2019, many of the issues our late professor would have raised her views and proffered solutions to are still very much with us today.”
WLDCN, the organisation Awosika co-founded with Akande, sees the empowerment of women as a total development process and therefore its training and advocacy programmes emphasise capacity building of the individual woman and women’s groups, whilst its research focuses on issues which are constituting obstacles to women’s self development and enhancement of the girl-child.
Erudite guest speaker, Professor Ayo Atsenuwa, started her presentation by appreciating Akande’s friends and what they stood for. “Once I got to know Professor Akande, I got to know Mrs. Priscilla Kuye; they were five and six. I also must recognise women activism in their way. We are grateful to them because we are here today because you were there at that time and took the bull by the horns.”
Atsenuwa went on to talk about WRAPA and the role Akande played at its beginning. “She was the chair for the strategy committee that designed WRAPA for Justice Fati Abubakar, then first lady of Nigeria.”
Speaking on the topic, “Women, Law and Development, ten years after Jadesola Akande: Reflections and Projections,” Atsenuwa opened up on how she met Akande, when she was employed as a junior lecturer in the faculty of law at the Lagos State University. “She held my hands and nurtured me in legal academics. In fact, I didn’t know anything about women’s law and rights. I didn’t study that but thanks to Prof Akande.”
Atsenuwa continued: “One day I got a call that the vice chancellor wanted to see me. When I got to her office, she had a topic that she wanted me to research on, that she had a paper to deliver. I put my heart into it and at a point she had to send for me, that it was enough. When I got to her, she said it was a good paper, ‘you will go and deliver it.’ I was to deliver it at a National Conference of Women and Children under the Law, organised by the Federal Ministry of Justice, under the leadership of Prince Bola Ajibola.”
This interestingly was Atsenuwa’s third opportunity to deliver a lecture in honour of the Amazon. “The first was at her own instance where she invited me to do a lecture to mark her 60th birthday. That was the way she chose to mark it; there was no party. It was in one of the halls at the School of Advanced Legal Studies, UNILAG, and today that lecture theatre is named after her.”
Atsenuwa stated: “I feel that her lifestyle is reflected in the name of the organisation that she founded; Women, Law and Development. These are the intertwined causes that she devoted her life to as a scholar, administrator and socialite. She did her dissertation (LLM) on women’s rights in property. That tells you that right from the beginning, she knew that there were issues.
“There was nothing in her work for women that overshadowed her love for Constitutional Law. If anything, that was an area that she was known for as an academic. She was a constitutional lawyer and in that area, she also left her mark. She was all about moving women, law and development forward. She worked as researcher, teacher and socialite.”
Women’s rights and legal equality were some of the other issues Atsenuwa spoke about in her presentation.
Professor Akande’s Son, Debo, gave a goodwill message on behalf of his sister, Hon. Justice Adenike Coker, who was absent at the event. “We are indeed grateful to those kind and wonderful people who have stood by us in the last ten years. It has not been easy but God has been truly faithful. It is also noteworthy and laudable that an annual scholarship support award is to be given to a deserving student in her name.”
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