Professor Tomilayo Adekanye Conferred as One of the 2019 Ibadan Anglican Diocese Honourees & Awardee

Professor Tomilayo Adekanye was one of the Honourees & Awardees whom the Lord Bishop The Most Rev. (Dr.) J. O. Akinfenwa, Bishop of Ibadan Anglican Diocese, considered worthy to be honoured at the 2019 Ibadan Diocesan Honours & Awards. The date for the event was Sunday September 29, 2019, and the venue where the conferment ceremony was to take place was St. Anne’s Church, Molete, Ibadan, in Oyo State capital, starting at 10.00 am prompt. Information about the event, date, and venue could be found on the Invitation to The Honours & Awards Service received from the Diocese and later sent by the celebrant to close family members or relations, friends, professional colleagues or associates, and church members.

Immediately after the nomination, a widely-circulated Thank-you Letter to the Most Rev. (Dr.) J. O. Akinfenwa, Bishop of Ibadan Diocese, was done by the recipient’s husband Emeritus Professor J. ‘Bayo Adekanye, and written for and on behalf of the family and children, expressing gratitude to The Lord Bishop for considering Professor (Mrs.) Tomilayo Olufolake Adekanye one of the distinguished personalities worthy of being honoured in the 2019 Ibadan Anglican Diocesan Honours and Awards. The personalities nominated for the conferment turned out to be twenty four (24) in all, comprising fourteen (14) men and ten (10) women, and drawn from all walks of life, social strata, professions or occupations, and from both clergy and laity. Agreeing with the Lord Bishop that the honour to be conferred on the Matriarch of the Adekanye Family was so richly deserved, the husband Emeritus Professor Adekanye had gone on in the letter to reveal and share other things known to the Family about the awardee’s credentials that might not have been known to the general public.

“Apart from her academic and professional achievements at both national and international level”, information about which was already “available on the Internet” and was sure to be included in the Citation to be read at the ceremony, Emeritus Professor Adekanye’s Letter of Thanks to the Lord Bishop continued, “we know and can hereby publicly acknowledge the many contributions that Professor (Mrs.) Adekanye has made to many good causes, humanitarian endeavours, girl-child education, and Christian evangelical work”. Among the Professor (Mrs.) Adekanye’s achievements in these areas brought to the public attention and for the first time were the many prizes and awards endowed by her in a number of churches and educational institutions, including St. Michael’s Anglican Church, Okuku, St. Margaret’s School, Ilesa, St. Peter’s Anglican Church, Isona, Ilesa, St. Jude Anglican Church, Magodo, Lagos, University of Ibadan, Chrisland University, Abeokuta, Ajayi Crowther University, Oyo, and of course All Saints’ Church, Jericho, Ibadan among others. The Letter concluded by conveying the husband’s tribute to the personal qualities of the celebrant that had been testified to in the Inaugural Address delivered by the husband at the University of Ibadan a little over 25 years ago (on October 25, 1993, to be precise).

The Tribute was to be included in the Selection of Celebratory Messages received by Professor Tomilayo Adekanye congratulating her on being nominated for one of the 2019 Ibadan Anglican Diocese Honours & Awards. Compiled by her son and medical doctor J. ‘Bayo Adekanye, Jnr. for and on behalf of his siblings, the congratulatory messages were none other than those sent through text messages and chats by very close family members or relations, friends, professional colleagues or associates, and church members, many of whom had been invited to be physically present at the conferment ceremony, or show their support by sending their financial contributions as well as moral support and solidarity messages to the Diocese. As said, Emeritus Professor J. ‘Bayo Adekanye’s Tribute, which was the first on the list of compiled Celebratory Messages, had been part of the earlier widely-circulated Thank-you Letter to the Lord Bishop, and in which the former had testified to Professor (Mrs.) Adekanye’s moral attributes and qualifications for the honour done her. It described the honouree as “the paragon of beauty combined with brain whom money cannot corrupt, ‘a wife with a strength of character …far more precious than jewels’”. That Tribute was, again, to be quoted in the Programme of Events printed for and distributed to guests at the Honours & Awards Service, in addition to being part of the Citation that came to be read about her at the conferment of the Award.

His Grace The Most Rev. (Dr.) J. O. Akinfenwa, Bishop of Ibadan Diocese, was of course personally present, together with his wife Mrs. C. O. Akinfenwa, at the 2019 Honours and Awards conferment service held at St. Anne’s Anglican Church, Molete, Ibadan, on Sunday 29, 2019. The Lord Bishop was there to conduct the service, deliver the sermon, and perform the important function about “the laying-on of hands” on Honouree, along with the handing-over of the Certificate of Honour as well as the Insignia of Award. But preceding the latter part of the ceremony had been the reading of the Honouree’s Citation. Other highlights of the event on the Order of Service included Thanksgiving, Prayer, and Benediction. The Videos and Pictures Taken at the 29 September, 2019 Event, and hereby posted, do speak for themselves regarding the rest of the narrative.