Advisory Council

Dr. Ọlatokunbo Awolowo Dosumu

CHAIRMAN

After graduating from Bristol University in 1972 with an MB ChB, Dr. Ọlatokunbo Awolowo Dosumu worked in several pre- and post-registration teaching hospital posts before she obtained postgraduate qualifications in Occupational Medicine from the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine in 1979. She worked in private practice in this capacity for nine years. She then followed a career break, which involved significant leadership and administrative positions, as well as public policy analysis and research. Specifically, she was a nominated member of the Constituent Assembly (1988-89), where she served as Vice-Chairman of the Assembly’s Committee 4, preparing the philosophical foundations of the new Constitution, namely, the Fundamental Objectives and Directive Principles of State Policy. After that, until late 1991, she played various roles in the emerging politics of the Third Republic, and in April 1992, she co-founded the Obafemi Awolowo Foundation, a non-profit, non-partisan research organization set up in memory of her father, Chief Obafemi Awolowo, and dedicated to generating ideas for national development. 

She is the Foundation’s Executive Director. She was appointed member of the International Committee of the Council on Foundations, an umbrella body of Foundations based in Washington, DC, in 1995. She was appointed Ambassador of the Federal Republic of Nigeria to the Netherlands and served from January 2000 to July 2003. During this time, she was concurrently accredited as Nigeria’s Representative to the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW), where she was, at various times and in succession, appointed Vice-Chairman of the Conference of States Parties, Member of the Executive Council, Vice-Chairman of the Executive Council (Administrative & Financial issues), Vice-Chairman of the First Review Conference, and Chairman of the African Group of States Parties. She was also concurrently accredited to the Permanent Court of Arbitration (PCA) and Common Fund for Commodities (CFC). She subsequently chose to return to her profession as an Occupational Health Physician and has continued her work as Executive Director at the Obafemi Awolowo Foundation. She was appointed Chair of the Board of Management of Lagos University Teaching Hospital, Idi-Araba, in which capacity she served from April 2013 to June 2015. She was one of the fifteen delegates representing the South West zone at the 2014 National Constitutional Conference. At the conference, she served on the Political Restructuring and Forms of Government committee. Consequent to the transition of the matriarch of the Awolowo family, Yeye Oodua H. I. D. Awolowo, on September 19, 2015, she assumed the role of Co-Chairman of ANN Plc, publishers of the Tribune titles. She is currently Chairman of ANN Plc. In memory of her mother, Dr. Awolowo Dosumu, in her capacity as Founding Member of the Obafemi Awolowo Foundation, was the moving spirit behind the founding in September 2016 of the HID Awolowo Foundation, a subsidiary of the Obafemi Awolowo Foundation. Dr. Olatokunbo Awolowo Dosumu’s non-medical appointments, past and present, include Member, Governing Council, Lagos State College of Science & Technology; Member, Board of Directors, African Newspapers of Nigeria PLC and Chairman of the Board since January 1, 2018; Vice-Chairman, Board of Directors, Dideolu Specialist Hospital, Ikẹnnẹ; Member, UNIFEM National Advisory Board (Nigeria) and Chairman, Fund-raising Committee; Chairman, Board of Trustees, Women’s Health and Action Research Centre (WHARC), Benin City, Nigeria and 1st Vice-President, CIVITAS Nigeria. She is currently the 1st Vice Chairman of the Yoruba Unity Forum. She is an Honorary International Women’s Society (IWS) member. Dr. Olatokunbo Awolowo Dosumu is the fifth and last child of Chief Obafemi Awolowo, SAN GCFR, and Yeye Oodua H. I. D. Awolowo, CON. She conferred various chieftaincy titles, including Yeye Onibudo of Ifẹ. She is Iya Ewe of Our Saviour’s Anglican Church, Ikẹnnẹ, and Asiwaju Obinrin Onigbagbọ of Ogun State. She is the recipient of several awards, including Outstanding Contribution to Human Development (NAWOJ Oyo State), Outstanding Role Model (Youth Focus Initiative), the Kwame Nkrumah Award for Service to Pan Africanism (Babcock University/University of Texas, Austin, USA/TOFAC Board), the Sir Ahmadu Bello Sardauna Platinum Distinguished Leadership Award by the National Association of Northern Nigerian Students. She also received an award for her contributions to the growth of the Anglican Church as part of the celebration of the 106th Anniversary of Archbishop Vining Theological College and an award for contribution to the attainment of Sustainable Development Goals by the Faculty of Social Sciences, Obafemi Awolowo University. Dr. Ọlatokunbo Awolowo Dosumu is a proud mother and grandmother.