•What Many Don’t Know About Her
Her Excellency Mrs Oludolapo Osinbajo, the beautiful and amiable wife of the vice president of Nigeria Prof Yemi Osinbajo and also the grand-daughter of a revolutionary, political icon and the first premier of the defunct Western Region, Chief Obafemi Awolowo was born on July 15th, 1967. She has been married to the vice president for close to three decades and they are blessed with three children. She is a pastor in the Redeemed Christian Church of God and author of several books. One of her books is entitled: “they call me mama” and in the literary piece, she shared her 10 years’ experience and interaction with teenagers under Lagos bridges. She wrote about the poisonous venom of drug abuse amongst teenagers and the possible solutions. She is not just a writer but one with outstanding poetic devices.
Call her a philanthropist to the core and you can’t go wrong because she has engaged herself in different community projects even before occupying the office. She remarked that helping others should be a way of life for everyone not minding religious, ethnic, gender and financial differences. Since her ascension into the office of the wife of the Vice President of the Federal Republic of Nigeria in 2015, she has been able to use her good office to serve God and humanity in diverse ways. She has been at the forefront of helping people and touching lives. During the first term in office, she carried out several massive projects that were channeled into helping the less privileged in the country. She gave out thousands of shoes to children in the slums. She was actively involved in the campaign against breast cancer, sickle cell, HIV/AIDS, violence against women, drug abuse, tuberculosis, female genital mutilation, gender equality, malnutrition and starvation of children to mention but a few. She has paid several visits to Internally Displaced Persons camp (IDP), Nigerian women prison at Kirikiri, hospitals, orphanages to give free medical screening and items. She has been contributing to and supporting the Non-governmental organisations, which primarily focus on displaying generosity and compassion to the needy.
With the aforementioned, we can say that her philosophy of life is serving God through man, but another amazing thing that people don’t know about her is that she a handcrafter and has used that platform to empower several women. In honour of her Mum Late Otunba Ayodele Soyode 1944-2011, she organises a two weeks empowerment course for women across different regions in the different part of the country where they were exposed to creative arts of bag making, decoration, soap making to mention but a few. The empowerment programme involved all manner of creativity in handcraft and women have been able to learn skills that would keep them self-employed. Within the two weeks, they were given intensive training and possible business ideas that would help them become better women in society. When women are empowered, the nation is empowered; this quote has been brought to life by Mrs. Osinbajo who has turned many financially dependent women into successful entrepreneurs. The empowerment programme has taken place on Lagos Island, Ogun, Osun, Oyo, Ikenne, Imo, Ijebu, Anthony village, and Ajegunle to mention but a few.
Do you know that Her Excellency Mrs Dolapo Osinbajo is a confectioner, handcrafter and gardener? Anyone would have thought that she was fed with a silver spoon and may likely not know any skill, however, it is amazing to know that she bakes cakes, nurtures flowers and knits some of her wears and we must say that her hands are blessed. Her love for handcrafts gave birth to the annual handcrafters’ exhibition, a programme organized by her Excellency to celebrate creativity in handcraft. The exhibition majors on crocheting, knitting and pencil art. She recently organised an Open day for handcrafters at the Federal Palace Hotel Victoria-Island, Lagos where she rocked a pine-apple crochet dress, which took her about three months to make. It was revealed that her grandmother introduced and taught her the creative leisure of handcraft through crochet. She is a very homely person and has taken a lot of pleasure in promoting and making handcrafter materials.
Through the initiative, she has been able to open eyes of many Nigerian women to the fact that handcraft could be a great source of income, a constructive hobby that could prevent or replace, destructive habits, a great way to unwind and an excellent therapy. She is a definition of a proverb 31 woman who “seeks wool and flax and work willingly with her hands. She considered a field, bought it with the fruit of her hands and planted a vineyard. She stretches out her hands to the poor, yea; she reaches forth her hands to the needy. She makes herself coverings of tapestry; her clothing is silk and purple.”
–Titilope Ogunleye
