Tiwalola

WARSHE Board of Trustees

Dr. Olutoyin Mejiuni (Chairperson)

Dr Olutoyin Mejiuni, a feminist adult educator, possesses a Ph.D in Adult Education, and is an Associate Professor in the Department of Adult Education and Lifelong Learning (Formerly Department of Continuing Education), Obafemi Awolowo University, Ile-Ife, Nigeria. Her work focuses on the political dimensions of education, especially adult education; training and development of workers; women’s learning; the concerns of women in teaching-learning interaction and contexts; the politics of identity; transformative and emancipatory potentials of formal and non-formal educational provisions; informal learning; sexual violence and abuse and other women’s rights issues; and the prevention and protection against child abuse and neglect. Dr Mejiuni has contributed to: the International encyclopedia of adult education; Widening access to education as social justice; Handbook of transformative learning: Theory, research and practice; and she has published in JENDA: A Journal of Culture and African Women Studies. Her book, Women and power: Education, religion and identity (2012, 2013), explores how the teaching-learning processes in higher education, and religion, taught and learned through formal and non-formal education, and informal learning (including the hidden curriculum), and other socialization processes within and outside the formal school system, all interface to determine the persons that women become. These education processes enhance or limit women’s capabilities, whether in the civic-political sphere or in their attempts to resist violence. A book entitled: Measuring and analyzing informal learning in the digital age, which she co-authored with two colleagues in North America, was released in May 2015 by IGI Global, Hershey, USA.

Through research studies that involved extensive field work in diverse rural and urban communities in about eleven (11) of the 36 states in Nigeria, Dr Mejiuni has participated in knowledge production and dissemination, and such have been rich resources for consciousness raising in different sites of learning in non-formal and community settings. She has also contributed to raising critical questions and expanding the discourse on the status of women, orphans and vulnerable children in Nigeria.

Dr Mejiuni who was the National Editor of the Nigerian National Council for Adult Education (NNCAE), the umbrella association of adult educators in Nigeria, has also been a consulting editor for Adult Education Quarterly (AEQ), one of the two journals of the American Association for Adult and Continuing Education (AAACE) for several years. She is a member of other professional bodies, and community development and social change organizations, including Phi Delta Kappa International (PDK), International Society for Prevention of Child Abuse and Neglect (ISPCAN), African Feminist Forum (AFF), and Nigerian Feminist Forum (NFF).

In cooperation with colleagues, Dr Mejiuni has brought her knowledge and skills as a feminist adult educator to bear on WARSHE education, training, support, advocacy and research activities, in distinct ways.

Professor Oluyemisi Oluremi Obilade

Professor Oluyemisi Oluremi Obilade is a Professor of Adult Education and Women Studies, the Vice-Chancellor, Tai Solarin University of Education (TASUED), Ijegun, Ijebu Ode, a women’s rights activist, a wife, a mother, and grandmother. Professor Obilade bagged the M.A. and Ph.D Degrees in Adult Education from the Obafemi Awolowo University and trained as an administrator in the Harvard Business School in the United States and the Judge Business School in Cambridge University in the United Kingdom. In her role as a teacher, Prof. Obilade makes efforts to mentor young women, including her female colleagues, and would only stop when there is obvious resistance to her efforts. A firm believer in evidence-based research, Prof. Oluyemisi Obilade would traverse difficult terrains to collect data about tricky subject matters. She has led and participated in research studies in the fields of adult education and women’s studies. Her scholarly works have been published in Nigeria, other African countries, in North America and in Europe. They focus on: efficiency and effectiveness of resource utilization and service delivery in adult education; and the impact of patriarchy on women’s well being, including access to education and other critical resources. Prof. Oluyemisi Obilade seeks knowledge and also shares knowledge in conferences and training sessions organized by the professional associations and leadership networks to which she belongs, such as the Nigerian National Council for Adult Education, International Sociological Association, the Adult Education and Poverty Reduction Network, (CRANDALL), U.K, the International Women’s Forum Leadership Foundation, Washington D.C.,USA and the HERS Academy, Cape Town, South Africa, to mention a few. An accomplished administrator, in 1999, Prof. Oluyemisi Obilade served as the Osun State Honourable Commissioner for Education and also oversaw the Ministry of Health on a number of occasions. She served on several committees of the Obafemi Awolowo University and was the Vice-Dean of Students Affairs, for about 6 years. It was therefore another call to duty, when in January 2012, the Ogun State Government appointed her as the Vice-Chancellor of TASUED. From TASUED, Prof. Obilade does not fail to check in on WARSHE, the organization she co-founded. Through WARSHE, alongside other colleagues, Prof Obilade has provided non-formal education and training to different categories of stakeholders including students in high schools and higher institutions in Osun, Oyo, Ondo and Ekiti States on the ugly phenomenon of sexual violence and abuse and the low social status of women. She has also participated actively in the intervention efforts of WARSHE which includes counselling, providing personal support, establishing links with medical, legal, social welfare and security personnel, and the management of educational institutions as deemed necessary.

Dr. Adeolu Ademoyo (Founding General Secretary)

Dr. Adeolu Ademoyo, formerly of the Department of Philosophy of Obafemi Awolowo University, Ile-Ife, is a senior lecturer in Yoruba language and culture at the Cornell Africana Studies and Research Center, Cornell University, Ithaca, USA. His research interests include: African Philosophy: Ethics, Epistemology and Aesthetics, the locus of African Languages in delineating met-ethical concepts in African moral discourse, gender issues, and family and social structures.

Prof. Sumbo Abiose

Prof. Ibiyemi Mojola

Ibiyemi Mojola has a bachelor's degree, a master's degree and a doctorate degree in French, a subject she taught from 1972 at the University of Ife, now the Obafemi Awolowo University (OAU), Ile-Ife, Nigeria, till 2009 when she retired as a professor of French. She spent a sabbatical year each at the University of Lagos and Ondo State University, both in Nigeria. After retirement, she took up a contract appointment with the Osun State University (Uniosun), Osogbo, Nigeria, from where she finally quit teaching in 2013. A seasoned administrator, she headed the Department of Foreign Languages at OAU for many years and was the foundation Head of the Department of Languages and Linguistics, Uniosun. She served on many boards and panels dealing with student and staff matters in her universities. She has many academic publications including two jointly authored French textbooks to her credit. She was the President of her professional body, the University French Teachers' Association of Nigeria, from 2005 to 2009. She has a passion for defending women’s rights, hence her joining WARSHE, and assisting people in need, hence her interest in a Non-Governmental Organisation, Water for Needy Communities Initiative. She is the Chairperson of its Board of Directors.

Prof. Abiodun Odu

Professor Abiodun Odu joined the Department of Botany in the then University of Ife (now Obafemi Awolowo University) Ile-Ife in March 1973 as a Graduate Assistant. He obtained a PhD in 1976 and rose to the position of Professor in 1990. He is a member of several professional bodies, and has served creditably as Professor and Head of Department at the Obafemi Awolowo University, Adekunle Ajasin University, Akungba – Akoko, Ondo State and Ajayi Crowther University, Oyo, Oyo State. He also served as the Provost of the Postgraduate College of Obafemi Awolowo University, and a Member of the National Universities Commission (NUC) Accreditation Panel on the assessment of undergraduate programmes in the science discipline in six universities in the Northern zone. Professor Odu has received meritorious service and distinguished service awards from bodies of professional colleagues. As part of services to the community, Professor Odu is currently serving as a member of the Board of Trustees of Women against Rape, Sexual Harassment and Sexual Exploitation (WARSHE). He is happily married with three children.