Molete is an integral part of Ibadan Southwest Local Government Area of Oyo State where many famous individuals once lived. Indeed, when the highly cerebral, mathematical genius and one-time Governor of the old Oyo State (now Oyo and Osun States), Dr. Victor Omololu Sowemimo Olunloyo (1935 to 2025) passed on to glory in April 2025, one notable journalist remarked that Molete Bridge had collapsed! Before Omololu Olunloyo, another famous resident of Molete and strongman of Ibadan politics who was referred to in his lifetime as Alaafin Molete (‘King’ of Molete) was Alhaji Lamidi Ariyibi Akanji Adedibu (1927 to 2008).
In our current discourse, a school girl began to hone her sporting skills at St Anne’s College, Molete, Ibadan and she later became a famous sportsperson and a highly successful academic, University administrator of immense repute, distinguished clinician and eminent Professor of Ophthalmology who did her secondary education in this part of Ibadan in the late 1960s and early 1970s. We talk of Aderonke Mojisola Baiyeroju (nee Agbeja) who turns 70 on 13th August 2025.
She was so good in sports, especially in hurdles, that she earned the admiration of secondary school students in the then Western State of the country who nick named her the Molete Hurdler! She had a great time at every level of her education from nursery, primary, secondary and University education in Nigeria before proceeding to Scotland for her specialist clinical postgraduate training.
As an undergraduate student, her Dean of Medicine at the University of Ibadan, the inimitable Professor Benjamin Oluwakayode Osuntokun, NNOM, FAS (1935 to 1995) was not prepared to grant her a leave of absence from her studies and he sternly ‘advised’ his mentee to choose between her clinical training and representing Nigeria at the Commonwealth Games holding in Edmonton, Canada in 1978. Needless to add that she chose the former. She had previously won numerous prizes and trophies to her credit.
She joined the academic staff of the University of Ibadan on 1st October 1987 as a Lecturer and rose through the ranks. For her consistent hard work, persistence, grit, determination and seminal contributions, she was promoted a Senior Lecturer in 1990, a Reader in 1995, and she attained the ultimate accolade of Professor of Ophthalmology in 1998. She has also been a Consultant Ophthalomologist to the University College Hospital Ibadan, for several decades now.
She has served her alma mater dutifully and diligently as Head of the Department of Ophthalmology, Deputy Provost of the College of Medicine and as a highly respected, influential, loyal and consequential Deputy Vice-Chancellor (Academic).
Her autobiographical work, titled ‘Sublimely Blessed’, to which she requested that I write the Foreword, summarises her worldview, her successes, her triumphs, her travails, and her accomplishments, both nationally and internationally. And in all this, as a woman of faith, she attributes all the glory, honour and adoration to her creator.
Of noble background and parentage, she pays well-deserved tributes to many members of her illustrious and industrious lineage notably including her parents, grand-parents, husband, siblings and other relatives.
Happy birthday, my dear Aunty Ronke. I congratulate your husband, Brigadier-General Akin Baiyeroju (Retired), children and their spouses, and your grandchildren on this landmark birthday.
You are a very good and humane person. This was attested to at the regular meeting of Senate held on Wednesday 30th July 2025 at the Adeoye Lambo Senate Chamber, University of Ibadan. Provost Ayo Ogunjuyigbe (The Postgraduate College), Dean Oluwadayo Sonibare (Science) and Dean Adejoke Akinyele (Renewable Natural Resources) who spoke on behalf of Senate were effusive in showering encomia on you for the way you have related with them throughout your stint as Chairman of the Committee of Provosts, Deans and Directors. In particular, each of them confirmed your down-to-earth approach to issues, how you would ensure you rounded off your meetings before dusk so that your good self and other female members could return home to prepare dinner for their husbands, and how you address them by their first names. I have never been prouder of you.
I will like to place on record your invaluable support to me as your younger brother during my stint as the Vice-Chancellor, not the least your assistance in various ways to the University of Ibadan Women’s Society. We will never forget.
When I grow up, I want to be like you. We love you, Aunty Ronke. Enjoy your retirement, Ma. The celebration can start now.
Professor Olayinka is a former Vice-Chancellor University of Ibadan
