A mighty congratulations, Mama, Professor Bolanle Awe, as you step gracefully and gingerly into the Nonagenarian Season of life. This is a wintry age in which the beauty which you have worn these many seasons, through the rough and tumble of life, has transfigured into admirable charm and grace as we celebrate your exceptional and pioneering exploits in scholarship, academia, intellectual pursuits, Administrative and cultural milestones. Today, many will sing for you and garland you in the many colours that you have assembled, journeying through life as a woman in a world proverbially created, as it were, for men but in which you have shone, radiantly and brightly all through the ages.
You have smashed, effortlessly, many myths and fables of existence tó attain this rare and enviable age. Congratulations Mama.
The hi/story books are replete with the narrative of your life and struggles as a First female lecturer and historian at the Premier University in Ibadan where you rose to be one of the First female Professors; in Kwara State where you were the only female member of the state Executive/ Commissioner in the seventies, but coming back later, as Chairman of the Governing Board of the University of Ilorin Teaching Hospitals where I worked under you as a Board member.
You have served as Pro- Chancellor and Chairman of Council at the University of Nigeria, Nsukka. In all of these many stations of service to humanity, you have been a coveted success story, not a mere token to womanhood as it may be idly perceived but in your own right as a veritable study in exceptional merit, genius, compulsive and propulsive industry, inimitable patritiotism and excellence in service accomplishments.
I have been quite privileged to work with and observed you at very close quarters as an Administrator, Manager of men and ideas and as a unionist and activist. I have benefitted tremendously from your leadership style and qualities in those positions.
Earlier in life and in the mid- eighties, Professor Bolanle Awe was the Chairman of the Academic Staff Union of Universities, University of Ibadan Chapter while I had just ended my term as Chairman of the Unilorin chapter. I had occasions to travel with her in difficult circumsrances on very long distances. In these occasions, what I found and encountered was her thoughness and firmness of character, even in her gentle and humorous mien.
Simple but no- nonsense, resilient and tolerant but ideologicaaly and intellectual clear. You May not list her among the radical hot- heads in the Union national leadership, but she was unequivocal in her commitment to and pursuits of the struggle ideals of the Union in her mediation of the growing decadence in the nation in the clutches of military oligarchy. Professor Awe’ s capacity to contain and stand her ground among the more volatile members of her Ibadan Exco was instuctive.
I witnessed this on one of our trips from Ilorin to Jos for a National Executive meeting. An argument occurred between her and one of her member Union officials, Mrs Laide Soyinka, wife of the Nobel Laureate who was evidently impatient with what she believed was Mrs Awe’ s genteel handling of issues. Those of us, younger in afe ones from Ilorin, were frightened that fisticuffs will result from the very hot and aggressive, even abusive volleys in the station-waggon Peugout vehicle ferrying us to Jos. But the cool- headed strategy deployed by Prof Awe to marshall her points tempered the exchanges.
In the end, it was all laughter, banter and jangles through the long journey to Jos. Prof Awe was a humane activist- unionist who carried through her conviction with disarming simplicity, incredible sense of humour and fresh anecdotes.
Working with her on the Board of Unilorin Teaching Hospital was a period of mentorship for me. A woman and leader of incredibly patience, throughness and genuine approach to difficult matters, Professor Awe led the Board meetings with charm and distinctive charisma. She would sit through meetings for many hours without recess and without food, crunching her kolanut and sweets. One rememberable occasion was when the unions went on strike over over unpaid allowances. They had barricaded the gates, carrying placards, and hauling vituperations at us and singing unprintable, derisory songs as we sat, trapped in the bus. Her calmness and smiles in the stormy moment allayed our fears for her and for ourselves. In the end, the Board was able to make recommendations which she carried to government and which nfluenced the positive outcome for the entire paramedical Associations of the Teaching Hospitals.
Prof Bolanle Awe has impacted my life and many other lives with her kindness, humane approach to difficult matters and generosity of the spirit. At Ninety, she ramains graceful, charming and futuristic.
There are yet many untold stories, Mama, in your intellectual armoury that we cannot wait to hear in the years to come before your centurion . Happy birthday Mama. It is yet warm Summer in your Winter years.
Olu Obafemi.
