I found it so absorbing, I love reading, it came easy to me. - Abiola Odejide

I never wavered for one minute about whether I was in the right position or not, because right from when I was young, I knew that I wanted to be a teacher, but I didn’t know that I would be a university teacher. The people that inspired me at that time were the young ladies that came from the UCI, University College, Ibadan then on vacation job in my school in Yejide Girls Grammar School. You know, they came to teach us during the long vacation, this was in the 60s. And, I was so impressed with the way they carried themselves, the way they taught us. Some of our teachers were early graduates of UCI, so I just knew that was what I wanted to do and I knew I was going to teach English.

I started in 1965 as astudent and that was nice, it was enjoyable, the facilities were okay and we enjoyed the attention of our lecturers, you know, we had very small classes and we interacted with them, they kept note of us, they knew what we were doing. I mean there was no lecturer who didn’t know who and who were in the groups. And I graduated in 1968 with a BA in English at that time, 2nd Class Upper Division, the only one in the class that year.

We should aim to become strategic and effective within those roles and thus raise the profiles of women as did Nigeria’s first crop of western female educated activists like Margaret Ekpo, Olufunmilayo Ransome Kuti, Wuraola Esan, and grassroots mobiliser , Sambo Sawaba.