That Professor Adenike Akinjobi, a princess of Igogo-Ekiti in Ero Local Government of Ekiti State, is a teacher permanently living in the good book of hundreds of graduates, is not an happenstance or a mere play on word. The enviable reputation is a product of 46 years of standing in front of her students and transforming their lives to whom they are today in their respective callings.
Incredibly, at age 14, Akinjobi, who clocked 60 years on April 4, 2025, began her teaching career in her hometown shortly after obtaining her West African School Certificate from the Igogo High School, and never has she looked back till she finally ascended the pinnacle of her career as a substantive professor of English Phonology at the premier University of Ibadan in 2013.
More incredibly, how she brilliantly blended scholarship with fashion and style as she often demonstrates on and off social media, is a sociological study on its own. A stranger to English Department, for instance, could walk pass and mistaken her for a steeze undergraduate given the manner she carries herself and interacts with high and low in antithetical to her biological age.
To maintain her figure and by extension her good health requires sacrifice in a strict diet regime and unbroken physical exercise. Thus, she is a regular face on the roads of the University of Ibadan quarters, sweating it out and burning calories.
Above all, her secret is derived from her philosophy that happiness is a personal decision which everyone should intentionally make with a view to remaining happy, even in time of trial. “No one has ever been happy by proxy,” she tutored, adding, “don’t let your strength be in the trust in another human. No matter how difficult, be strong for yourself.”
To hundreds of well wishers who cheerfully dropped birthday greetings and messages at her doorstep, Akinjobi, who has authored 78 publications, says her “gratitude is inexhaustible.”
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