HID, Nigerians eulogise Mrs Solarin •Burial holds in November

NIGERIANS have continued to mourn the passage of the widow of the late social critic and educationist, Dr Tai Solarin, Sheila, who passed on, aged 88, on Sunday evening.
In her condolence message, matriach  of the Awolowo dynasty, Chief(Mrs) HID Awolowo, described the death of  Sheila, who was a close family friend, as a shock.
“We are really going to miss her greatly and pray God to give the children and family the fortitude to bear the great loss,” she said.
The Ogun State Commissioner for Education, Science and Technology,  Mr Olusegun Odubela,  said the deceased was a great woman. “Mama was great. We cannot talk about education in Ogun State and Nigeria in general without mentioning Mama’s name.
“The late Mrs Solarin was a great tutor and a woman with a large heart,” Odubela said.
The vice chancellor, Tai Solarin University of Education (TASUED), Ijagun, Ogun State, Professor Segun Awonusi, also said  Mrs Solarin’s death was a great loss.
“She was to our university both a physical and philosophical strength who epitomises the educational colossal impact of Dr Tai Solarin,  which has become a brand for our university,” Awonusi  said.
The secretary to Ikenne Local Government Area, Mr Bayo Oyekoya, said the news of ‘Mama’s  death was a big shock. According to him, her contributions to humanity and education would not be forgotten.
Children of the deceased, Corin and Tunde, said their mother devoted all her life to teaching.
“Even at old age, she will sit on her chair,  gather some children of staff and others who used to come to her from outside and teach them,” Tunde said.
According to him, his mother would be buried beside her husband in two weeks time.
One of the deceased’s grandchildren, Seun, wrote in the condolence register, “My grandmother was wonderful and she was a strong person. I love her.”
To Mayflower School Junior (Public), represented by their principal, D.O. Osedem, Mama Sheila Solarin, was “a woman of candor, a woman of valour, an enigma in the field of education, a woman that rendered selfless service to humanity and touched many lives during her life.”
Ex-Mays, as the old students of Mayflower call themselves, came in large numbers on Monday to pay homage to “our mentor”, as Professor Francis Ademola Oluwole, a former Chief Medical Director (CMD), Olabisi Onanbanjo University Teaching Hospital (OOUTH), put it.
According to him, “nobody loves losing his parent, no matter how old.” But the Ex-Mays’ consolation, he said, rested in the fact that Solarin had done more for education in Nigeria than any government had done.
Representatives of Ikenne Microfinance Bank, led by the Managing Director, Pastor Babatunde Thomas,  also paid a visit to the Solarins’ home. They said the Solarins’ have played a significant role in the continued existence of Ikenne Microfinance Bank, the only community bank in Ikenne.
“Thus, we have come to pay our last respect to Mama and I will urge members of the family, especially the children, to continue to relate well with their parents’ associates, even now that they have both passed on,” Thomas told the Nigerian Tribune.
Former chairman, Ikenne Local Government Area, Chief Tiwalade Sobo, said at the Solarins’ residence that he joined millions of Nigerians to honour Mrs Solarin, who he said, was exemplary in her lifetime.