By Dr Wahab Shittu
“I will actually be a good President,” she assured me. I confess I didn’t take her seriously; I had no idea she stood a chance in the race. But the confidence in her voice, in her poise, was unmistakable.
I should have known better. Confidence, after all, is her birthright. Oyinkan is the first child of two pioneers: the late Professor Folabi Olumide, renowned surgeon and first Vice-Chancellor of Lagos State University, and Mrs. Folasade Olumide, the first female Registrar of the University of Lagos.
She was raised on the UNILAG campus in a home where excellence was expected and breaking new ground was simply the family tradition.
It is a tradition the Olumide daughters have carried in both hands. Her sister, Dr. Jumoke Oduwole, MFR, serves today as Nigeria’s Honourable Minister of Industry, Trade and Investment.
Two sisters from one home, one leading the nation’s commerce, the other now leading its Bar. Professor and Mrs. Olumide did not merely raise children; they raised institutions.
And so, that quiet assurance has been vindicated in full. A Senior Advocate of Nigeria and accomplished arbitrator, Oyinkan is now the 33rd President of the Nigerian Bar Association, only the second woman to lead the Bar since 1933, and the first ever to win the presidency by direct election. True to her word, she did not seek the summit to stand alone, but to open the door for every capable woman behind her.
Congratulations, Madam President. Your parents lit the path; you and your sister have carried the torch further still. And yes, you will actually be a good President. I no longer have any doubt.
With admiration and pride.
Shittu, a Senior Advocate of Nigeria (SAN), writes in from Lagos.
