The 24th of December, 2018 will remain a watershed in the intelligentsia of Nigeria. The faithful day heralded the passing away of not just an academic icon but a reservoir of knowledge and wisdom – Professor Sophie Oluwole.

The University of Lagos don was a trailblazer as she was the first female scholar to obtain the Doctors of letters (PhD) in philosophy, a discipline widely seen and regarded as abstract in nature.

Since 1935 when she set foot at Igbara Oke, Ondo state, she was poised to impact her generation and indeed the world. She became a beacon of light and hope to women at a time when there was little a woman could do in the society.

To put it clear as noted in her interview with the Punch newspaper on 28 January 2017 “a woman’s career prospects were not your ambition but that of your parents”.

Her quest for knowledge meant she earned degrees from the prestigious Universities of Lagos and Ibadan respectively, and thus, would go on to distinguish herself in the academic world.

She was your unusual kind of professor and scholar in the Nigerian scene, a true patriot, and beyond a pan-Africanist. Her impact will live on for years and generations to come. Personally, I got to know of her recently, perhaps this is so because in this society of ours, people like her aren’t celebrated that much, after all, who knows and still remembers the late Professor Awojobi, another Unilag Don who died at an early age but was a compendium of knowledge.

Professor Awojobi was a mechanical engineering scholar par excellence and a patriot at that. So patriotic was Awojobi that he refused to give out his invention to foreign hands with the hope that it would trigger the technical development of his country, Nigeria.

“Mamalawo,” https://qwenu.com/2019/01/02/professor-sophie-oluwole-remembering-an-academic-icon/