Losing a mother is like losing your life’s anchor. You are cast adrift, and all at sea. Following the death from her injuries of his mother, Funmilayo Ransome-Kuti, after being thrown by soldiers from a second-floor window, a depressed Afrobeat superstar, Fela Anikulapo-Kuti, penned one of the most lyrical odes to the timelessness of the maternal bond, in his 1979 Unknown Soldier:
That my mama wey you kill
She fought for universal adult suffrage
That my mama wey you kill
She is the only mother of Nigeria.
My own mother, Sekinat Adunni Abosede Adebajo – widely and adoringly referred to as “Auntie” – died recently on Sunday May 18, 2025 at the age of 89. She was born on Sunday September 29, 1935 in the Western Nigerian town of Ijebu-Ode during the era of British colonial rule. Her father, “Guard” Bakare, was an Administrator in the Nigerian Railway Corporation (NRC), while her mother, Alhaja Nofisat Wuraola “Mama Ghana” Bakare, was an intrepid trading and aso oke and gold seller whose father was Omo Oba Bello Sennaike, alias Olujanla of the noble Awujale Jadiara Ruling House of Ijebuland.
Adunni’s grandmother was Ajarat “Iya Suna” Omineye: the only child of the prominent Olisa Igbore of Ilese in Ijebu. Adunni grew up with her parents in Jebba, a small railway town in contemporary Kwara State overlooking the River Niger, until she was three years old, speaking only Hausa until brought back to Ijebu-Ode.
She attended Church Missionary School (C.M.S.) for Girls in Ijebu-Ode, a school system set up by European missionaries in Nigeria in 1859. The curriculum of these schools typically involved: Bible Knowledge, English, Greek, Latin, Arithmetic, Geometry, Geography, History and Logic.
Adunni then attended Remo Secondary School in Sagamu for two years, before moving to Ahmadiyya Muslim Grammar School, Lagos, where she completed her secondary education, obtaining the Cambridge Senior School Leaving Certificate as a diligent student with impressive results in 1955. Switching from a Christian missionary school to a Muslim college was effortless, and reflected the religious tolerance and secular spirit of the age. Adunni, herself, was brought up a devout Muslim before converting to Christianity later in life. This explained the legendary inclusiveness and tolerance for which she was widely known.
Adunni went on to the reputable Ibadan Grammar School for two years in 1957/1958 to complete her Advanced Levels, passing the Cambridge Higher School Examinations with Distinction. She then gained admission to Nigeria’s premier university – founded by British colonial rulers in 1948 – the then University College Ibadan (UCI), to study for a Bachelor of Arts degree in Geography: her favourite subject.
However, rather than taking up the prestigious offer to University College Ibadan, Adunni decided instead to go to England to study Law in search of the golden fleece. She met and married pioneering industrialist and owner of Nigerian Office Stationery Supply (NOSS) Stores Company and its “Flaming Flamingos” football club, Israel Adebajo: one of the wealthiest Nigerian tycoons of the era. She and Israel went on a three-month world cruise on the S.S. Canberra luxury liner – nicknamed “the Great White Whale”, with a capacity to carry 2,190 passengers – in 1963.
The ship sailed from Southampton to San Francisco through the Panama Canal to Sydney and Perth, across the Pacific, on to Bombay and Colombo to Alexandria through the Suez Canal, and then back to the Mediterranean Sea to Venice and Lisbon, before returning to Southampton. Adunni successfully completed her Law degree at the University of London, and was called to the Inner Temple bar in 1965.
She returned to a Nigeria that had recently gained its independence from British rule, and became one of the pioneering post-independence foreign-trained lawyers who were among the first set to attend the newly-established Nigerian Law School in Lagos. Adunni started her professional career working for her husband, Israel Adebajo’s NOSS Stores Company in Apapa as a Legal Officer, later serving as his Personal Assistant. His death in July 1969 at the age of 49, left her widowed with four young children – Adetilewa, Adekemi, Adekeye, and Adefemi – at the tender age of 33, and she never remarried. She joined the federal Department of Customs and Excise (now the Nigeria Customs Service) in Lagos as a Legal Officer, and moved to Ilupeju to live with the family of her only full sister, Abiodun Ayanlaja, with whom she had always enjoyed a close bond from their childhood, as well as with Abiodun’s daughter, Abiola Okeowo.
Our annual trips to Ijebu-Ode during the Ileya (Homecoming) festival two days after the Muslim Eid al-Adha, and the colourful Ojude Oba where the Awujale (the King) rode with his horsemen, was always particularly memorable.
Adunni would later move to Ikeja where she spent the rest of her life. She ensured that her children obtained a world-class education in Nigeria, England, America, and Germany, making great sacrifices, trusting them completely, and instilling in them important values of integrity and hard work, as well as the traditional Yoruba mistrust of people. Usually very self-contained, I remember the two rare occasions when Auntie rolled on the floor with unbridled joy: when I obtained a First Class degree from the University of Ibadan, and after I won the Rhodes Scholarship to study at Oxford University.
Urbane and cosmopolitan, many tributes have commented on Adunni’s fierce intelligence, calm and peaceful nature, strict but tender mothering skills, ritualistic love of brewing Earl Grey tea, and anglophile admiration for British traditions, sports, and monarchy.
Many family and friends considered Auntie their adopted Mother, and tales abound of her wisdom, warmth, generosity, fairness, Solomonic mediation skills, grace, and elegance. She loved to travel, and Zurich was her favourite destination. She had exquisite taste in clothes, shoes, women’s accessories, and household goods.
Adunni later joined the Lagos State Judiciary, rising up the ranks of the Magistracy, with her longest stint being at the magistrate’s court in Yaba where I vividly remember her thick, heavy maroon court books in which she would write judgments in longhand. She developed a formidable reputation for impeccable integrity, unscrupulous fairness, a sharp intelligence, and an unblemished reputation.
Through these qualities and much hard work, she would eventually be promoted on merit – steadfastly refusing to lobby – to the position of a Justice of the Lagos State High Court in 1996, a year in which a record number of female judges joined the bench in Nigeria’s most populous state. She continued to serve in this position with great dedication, distinction, and professionalism until her retirement.
Adunni devoted a dozen years of total and selfless sacrifice to looking after her beloved daughter, Adefemi, who died in England in February 2016. Come rain, sunshine, or snow, she would insist on taking the train to visit Femi at least four times a week whenever she was in hospital: something she would have done for any of her children. Auntie was thus truly a Woman for All Seasons.
Adunni’s last decade was difficult, after a second stroke in 2016 left her bed-ridden and unable to communicate easily. But amidst her travails, she showed an indomitable, fearless spirit and uncommon strength and perseverance, bolstered by her strong Christian faith. A large crowd of family and friends filled two cathedrals in Lagos and Ijebu-Ode to observe her final obsequies, with former colleagues from the Lagos State Judiciary well represented. Adunni was buried in Ijebu-Ode next to her sister, Abiodun.
I wish to end this tribute with the immortal words of “Sweet Mother”: the 1976 anthem written by highlife artiste, Prince Nico Mbarga:
Sweet mother I no go forget you
For the suffer wey you suffer for me yeah
If I no sleep, my mother no go sleep
If I no chop, my mother no go chop
She no dey tire ooo.
Adebajo is a senior research fellow at the University of Pretoria’s Centre for the Advancement of Scholarship in South Africa.
Credit:The Guardian