The death has been announced by her family of Mrs. Olugbolahan Abisogun-Alo, one of the leading figures in the development of secondary school education in Nigeria. She had been ailing for some time and passed on peacefully in her home at Lekki, Lagos, on Saturday, June 13. She would have been 79 on September 26, 2015. News of her death spread quickly and was received by the Lagos elite and her professional colleagues all over Nigeria as a rude shock, even though it was known to her friends that her health had not been too good in recent years. For decades, after graduating from Cambridge in 1961, she had had been a towering figure in secondary school education in Nigeria, heading several federal government colleges in Nigeria, including the Federal Government College for girls in Abuja. She was widely admired by her friends and colleagues for her personal warmth, charm, professional diligence, and a formidable intellect, one of the best of her distinguished generation of women achievers in Nigeria in diverse fields.
Mrs. Abisogun-Alo had an excellent pedigree on both sides of her family lineage. According to her memoires, This City Girl, partly an excellent social history of Lagos, and first published in 2011, her father, Mr. Peter Akintunde Abisogun Wright, was a grandson of Chief Akinlaja Abisogun of Isale Eko. In his times, he was one of the leading social figures and personalities in Lagos in the 1930s. After primary school at St. Peter’s, Faji, he went up to the CMS Grammar School, Lagos, for his secondary education where he obtained his school leaving certificate in 1909. Thereafter, he trained as a Chemist and Druggist at the General Hospital in Lagos. He worked there for a while, but left later for the Post and Telegraph Department (P. &T) where he worked as an accounts clerk. He soon gave this up too and ended up being a successful auctioneer and general contractor. He was well known and was prominent in business and social circles in Lagos, where he was highly regarded and respected. In fact, his friends and admirers called him the ‘Lord Mayor’ of Lagos. He made his mark in the respected Lagos Stores, Wright and Co. He was one of the earliest nationalists in Nigeria. In protest against colonial rule in Nigeria, he officially dropped his European and Christian names, Peter and Wright, preferring to be called Akintunde Abisogun instead.
Equally, Olugbolahan’s mother, Ethel Adeleye, nee Shyngle, was the daughter of Margaret Cole and her husband, the distinguished lawyer, Barrister Egerton Shyngle, whose, older brother, Charles Egerton Shyngle, had read law at St. Catherine’s College, Cambridge. Another brother had also been at Jesus’ College, Oxford, where he real law. The Egerton Shyngle family was famous for producing some of the leading lawyers in colonial Lagos in those days. They had family connections in Bathurst, The Gambia, Freetown, Sierra Leone, Accra, Ghana, and Lagos. Olugbolahan’s mother, Ethel, was educated at the elite CMS Girls’ Seminary at Broad Street, Lagos. After her celebrated marriage to Mr. Abisogun at the Tinubu Methodist Church in December, 1930, she established a successful dress making business in Lagos. Mrs. Olugbolahan Abisogun–Alo, who was born on December 26, 1936, was the only child of the marriage, but she had siblings from her father’s other children before he married his mother. They waited anxiously for six years for Gbolahan to arrive.
Her distinguished parents, who settled at Tokunbo Street, moved in the best social circles in Lagos. It could be said of Olugbolahan that she was born with the proverbial silver spoon. She was her mother’s only child and her parents paid a great attention to her subsequent education. From her memoires published a few years ago, it can be seen how her privileged background had a profound effect on her education and public service later. She had a privileged education as well.
After the Princess School in Lagos, she attended the elite CMS Girls’ Seminary in Lagos which also admitted boys before they were sent off at 7 or 8 to the prep school at the CMS Grammar School, across the school at Broad Street. Among her contemporaries at the School were Chief Ernest Shonekan, and Chief Akin Disu, owner of the Eagle Paints. Then in 1949, she entered the Queen’s College, Lagos, then at Onikan. But a year later, some of the students at Queen’s, including Gbolahan, were transferred to the new school, St. Anne’s School, Ibadan. After a few months at St. Anne’s, Ibadan, she returned to Queen’s College, Lagos. In the process, she lost a year at Queen’s. But her father, who doted on her, could not stand the separation. The Queen’s College, Lagos, was the first girls’ secondary school started by the colonial government in Nigeria, and had established a reputation as the leading girls’ secondary school in Nigeria. In all respects it was a special school, carefully nurtured by the colonial government. Virtually all the teaching staff were British expatriates with an Oxbridge background. At Queen’s, she won the Lady Bourdillon Scholarship for gifted students. Sir Bourdillon was then the colonial governor of Nigeria. In 1955, her final year in school, Olugbolahan was appointed the head girl in recognition of her outstanding contribution, as a student, to the school’s reputation. Olugbolahan had also acquired some fame as the best athlete ever produced by the school. Her school record in the high jump remained unbroken for many years after.
She had very good results in the school in 1955, coming out in Grade One, and with many distinctions, in the then Cambridge School Certificate Examinations. For many years after, her impressive academic accomplishments at Queen’s was the talk of the town in Lagos and made her a role model for secondary school girls in Lagos. She was the envy of many parents for whom she became a reference point in the education of their daughters.
From Queen’s, she entered the King’s College, Lagos, in 1956, after examinations, for her Higher School Certificate (HSC), then equivalent to the GCE advanced level. She read English, History, and Latin there. Among the girls who had preceded her to King’s for the HSC were Miss Ebun Adenubi ( now Prof. Mrs. Elebute), Grace Alele (now Prof Grace Alele Williams), and Miss Olugbo Lucas, the daughter of the highly respected Ven. Lucas of St. Paul’s Church, Breadfruit, fame (now Mrs. Olugbo Hollist). At King’s, Olugbolahan was equally an outstanding student, obtaining her four HSC subjects in two years.
After King’s, and on the basis of her 1957 HSC results, she sat for the entrance examinations and was admitted to Girton College, University of Cambridge, in 1958, a rare feat then, for an honour’s degree course in history. At Cambridge, she was the contemporary of the famous and beautiful Princess of Toro, Uganda, Elizabeth Bagaya, who once served as Idi Amin’s Foreign Minister. They became close at Cambridge and good friends after. When I served in Uganda in 1973, as acting High Commissioner, the Princess always asked me about Mrs. Gbolahan Abisogun Alo, with whom I was then barely acquainted. She spoke with nostalgia about their times at Cambridge, the fun they both had there, and the many friends they made at Cambridge.
Among her Nigerian contemporaries at Cambridge were Hope Harriman, now deceased, Dayo Akinrele, and his younger brother, Tunde. There were also Alaba Akinsete, Olumuyiwa Awe, and Sam Olaitan, all of them research students at Cambridge. As she says in her memoires, social life at Cambridge was a pleasure and a lot of fun. She was a foundation member of the Oxford and Cambridge Universities Club of Nigeria and was very active in the Club, participating fully in the preparations for the Annual May Ball, which she attended regularly until recently when she became frail. When I was the President of the Club she encouraged me and gave me her full support, which she also extended to my successors.She was very passionate about the Club.
On graduating from Cambridge in 1961, she returned home. She had by then met and been engaged to her future husband, Olajide Alo (later Ambassador Alo), a young and promising Foreign Service Officer, then serving in our High Commission in London. They were married at the Cathedral Church of Christ, Marina, Lagos, on December 30, 1961, and returned immediately to London where her husband, Jide, was then serving as a second secretary. He was my senior and much admired colleague in the diplomatic service. She had herself wanted to join the diplomatic service as she read history at Cambridge. But this was not possible at the time. So for the first few years after her marriage she did not seek any employment, going abroad with her husband on his different postings from London, to New York, to Cotonou, Geneva, and Brazil. Meanwhile, the children, three of them had started arriving, the first, a boy, Akinola, in London, in 1962, the second, Olatunbosun, a girl, in Cotonou, in 1964, after which they returned to Lagos on posting, and then Segun, a boy, in 1971.
As Mrs. Abisogun Alo discovered later to her discomfort the life of the wives of Foreign Service Officers was by no means an easy one. For those of them who wished to have a career, like Abisogun, she could not, despite her impressive education. They could not work abroad. They could at home, but this meant staying in Nigeria to pursue their careers, while their husbands went out frequently on posing. My wife and I also found ourselves in this rather difficult situation. For ten years after our marriage, she too could not work despite her excellent qualifications. This situation often created strains in the marriage. Eventually, Olugbolahan and Jide, her diplomat- husband, decided that it was best for her to pursue her career at home and be with the children. By then she had already lost ten years of her career.
Nonetheless, she subsequently had a distinguished career in the federal ministry of education where she served as principal in several federal government colleges. She was the foundation principal at the federal Government College for girls in Abuja for several years. She also rose to the pinnacle of her professional career as Principal (special Grade), and a National Director of Education. She was appointed the Pro-Chancellor of both the Universities of Bauchi and Abuja, a member of the Governing Council of Bells University, and a Trustee of the West African Examinations Council (WAEC). In 2003 she was honoured with the award of an Officer of the Federal Republic (OFR) in recognition of her immense contribution to the development of secondary school education in Nigeria. She was a recipient of many other national and international honours, including an honorary doctorate in education from the Lagos State University.
Sadly, she was pre-deceased by several decades by her husband, Ambassador Olajide Alo, and her eldest son, Akinola, a geologist, who died in a road accident in Lagos in September, 1995. Left to mourn her are her two remaining and loving children, Olatunbosun, and Segun, her devoted cousin, Mrs. Bimbola Bolodeoku (nee Egerton Shyngle), her former students, and her numerous friends and admirers all over the country and beyond. May her soul rest in perfect peace.
