Who Was Folayegbe Akintunde-Ighodalo?

Akintunde-Ighodalo was born on 17 December 1923 in Okeigbo, Ondo State, to Benjamin Olojomo Akintunde, a cocoa farmer, and Sarah Akintunde. Akintunde-Ighodalo was educated at CMS Grammar School and in 1938, she gained a scholarship to study at Queen’s College, Lagos. After passing the Cambridge Senior Certificate Examination in 1941, She taught at Methodist Girls’ High School, Lagos from 1943 to 1948. In 1949, she received a government scholarship to obtain a diploma in teaching from the Institute of Education, University of London.

While in London, Akintunde-Ighodalo—whose dream was always to have a degree in Economics—sponsored herself through school by working during vacations. Later she received a scholarship from the British colonial government. As a university student, she was involved in campus politics, rising to the position of vice president of the West African Student Union, University of London, and founding president of the Nigerian Women’s League of Great Britain in 1953. Her new position took her to British political party conferences where she made new connections and met Margaret Ekpo and Comfort Tanimowo Ogunlesi—two Nigerian women’s rights activists and nationalists—on different occasions when they visited London to help negotiate Nigeria’s new constitution.