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Exit of an intell-ectual
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By Sun News Publishing
Tuesday, May 13, 2008
The foremost Nigerian woman legal intellectual, woman and
human rights activist, adminstrator and educationist, Professor
Jadesola Olayinka Akande, departed for the great beyond on
Tuesday, April 29, 2008. Her death, which most described as
both sudden and shocking, being without any protracted illness
as she performed public functions the previous day, has attracted
varying, positive reactions from across the national spectrum—the
academia, the civil society, government, the legal profession
and women rights circles.
She was a multi-faceted personality, whose impact was felt
in many sectors of the Nigerian polity and beyond. She was
reputed as the first Nigerian woman to become a Professor
of Law and the second woman to be a Vice-Chancellor of a Nigerian
University. In those capacities, she gave a resounding account
of herself as she made tremendous impact on the University
community, building enduring structures and infrastructures
upon which a solid University was errected in Ojo, Lagos.
She deployed her legal expertise and skill to empower many
a Nigerian woman and to defend, in an activist fashion, the
rights of women in their striving to have a voice for themselves
in a predominantly patriarchal society. In that capacity,
she became the founder and Executive Director of the Women,
Law and Development Centre (WLDCN), a position she held until
death came calling, and which she deployed, most remarkably
to empower women lawyers across the country. She was also,
remarkably, the initiator of the Family Law Centre.
Her activism transcended women rights struggle as she was
to be found at the head of any human rights protestation against
injustice and inhuman conduct. She was the Chairperson of
the Women Forum of the Pro-National Conference Organization
( PRONACO), and she drafted the people’s Constitution
for the organization, which was launched in May 2007. A courageous
fighter and defender of human rights, she joined the march
of women protesting the death of their children in the Sosoliso
Airline crash of December 10, 2005 and was a victim of police
tear-gassing.
An exemplar of rigorous scholarship, the late Jadesola Akande
took a Doctorate degree in Law ,having previously bagged an
LL.B and LL.M. At the University College, London and the University
of Lagos, respectively. She was also a Barrister at Law at
the Inner Temple, London.All of these fine academic and professional
credentials she put in the service of the academia, the legal
profession, women and humanity at large.
It was in recognition of her sterling qualities, and especially
her dogged devotion to the cause of women that international
organizations such as UNICEF,UNDP and AU appointed her as
Consultant on matters of gender. She was also a delegate to
the United World Conference on Women in Beijing, China in
1995.
She was also a delegate to the International Conference of
recent development in Administrative Law in the United States
in 1979, where she acquired vast experiences whch she committed
to catering for women rights and the re-invention of the Nigerian
polity in a fearless and courageous manner.
For all these, or in spite of them, she was honoured and decorated
with the Commander of the Order of the Niger in 1998.
Some of the instructive lessons and legacies she left behind
include her unwavering belief in virtue, discipline and uprightness,
which she tried to inculcate in her students and those who
were opportuned to relate with her during her rich, covetable
and chequered sojourn on earth.
Her conviction that indiscipline is a major factor in the
increasing decay of the educational sector was misconstrued
for brashness or ruthlessness by indolent minds, but it will
remain an instructive bequeath to all those who wish to participate
in nation building and educational reform in this country.
No doubt, the late Professor Jadesola Akande’s demise
is a major deprivation and depletion of the Nigerian intellctual
class and the crusading sector of the Nigerian polity for
justice, human rights and the empowerment of the womankind
of our nation.
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