The author of Nigeria’s National Pledge, Professor Felicia Adebola Adedoyin, has died after a brief illness.
According to Inside Oyo, Prof. Adebola passed on May 1, 2021.
Prof. Adedoyin wrote the National Pledge in 1976.
She previously worked as a lecturer at the University of Lagos and was a consultant with the United Nations.
She was inspired to write the pledge following questions by her children, who had been used to reciting the Oath of Allegiance while in school in New York, and the State Pledge in Achimota School, Ghana.
Prof. Adedoyin published the Pledge in the Daily Times on July 15, 1976, in an article titled ‘Loyalty to the Nation, Pledge.’
Then Head of State, Gen. Olusegun Obasanjo, modified and introduced it to the country during the formal launch of the Universal Free Primary Education (UPE) and decreed that all school children recite the National Pledge during assembly.
In 2005, Prof Adedoyin was given a national award, the Officer of the Order of the Niger (OON).
She was in the care of her children when she passed away, surrounded by loved ones.
