Kofo Ademola

Kofo Ademola (May 21, 1913 - May 15, 2002) was a Nigerian educationist who was the first president of the National Council of Women Societies in Nigeria, she was head of the women's organization from 1958 to 1964. She was also an author of children's books.

Life

Ademola was born to the family of Lagos lawyer, Eric Moore and his wife Aida Arabella (nee Vaughan). She was a first cousin of Oyinkan Abayomi and a niece of Charlotte Obasa.^[1] She spent half of her young life in Lagos and the other half in U.K. ^[2] Ademola was educated at C.M.S. Girls School, Lagos, Portway College, Reading and St Hugh's College, Oxford. She earned a degree in education and english from Oxford, while at Oxford she wrote a 21 page autobiography at the instance of Margery Perham to douse British stereotypes about Africans, she wrote of her childhod as a mixture of western cultural orientation and African orientation.^[3] Ademola returned to Nigerian in 1935 and took up appointment as a teacher at Queens College. While in Lagos she participated in some women organizations such as YWCA. In 1939, she married Adetokunbo Ademola, a civil servant. Her husband's work took the family to Warri and later to Ibadan and Ademola established links with the women organizations in both towns.^[4]

Career

While in Warri with her husband, Ademola was a member of a women's literary circle and was a teacher at Warri College. When she moved Ibadan, she began to cultivate friendship with Elizabeth Adekogbe of the Council of Nigerian Women and Tanimowo Ogunlesi of the Women's Improvement Society. She was a member of the latter and was a bridge linking both organizations and a few others to join hands and form an a collective organization.^[5] In 1958, when the National Council of Women Societies was formed she was chosen was the frist president. As president, she became a board memebr of the International Council of Women.

Ademola was also a social worker, teacher and educator, she co-founded two schools: the Girls Secondary Modern School in Lagos and New Era Girls' Secondary School, Lagos. She was a director of the board of trustees of UBA and secretary of the Western Region Scholarship Board.

References

1. George 2014, p. 1898.
2. George 2014, p. 1899.
3. Geroge 2014, p. 1899.
4. Ojewusi 1996, p. 276.
5. Ojewusi 1996, p. 279.

Sources

• Ojewusi, Sola (1996). Speaking for Nigerian women: (a history of the National Council of Women's Societies, Nigeria). Abuja: All State Pub. and Print. Co.
• George, Abosede (2014). Making modern girls: a history of girlhood, labor, and social development in colonial Lagos. Athens: Ohio University Press.