The funeral rites for Mrs Tinuola Aina (nee Soyinka) who passed on November 7, 2023, will commence on Thursday, December 7 with a Service of Songs in Lagos.
A statement by the family informed that, Mrs. Aina, aged 90 was the elder sister to Nigeria’s acclaimed writer and the 1986 Nobel Prize in Literature winner, Wole Soyinka.
From the details of the funeral rites, the two day program will end on Friday, December 8 with a private interment in Lagos.
Born April 29, 1933, and named ‘Tinuola Aduke,’ the Nobel laureate’s elder sister was the first of seven children of a school teacher, Mr. Samuel Ayodele Soyinka, and trader-homemaker, Mrs. Grace Eniola Soyinka (neé Harrison) at Ake Vicarage, Abeokuta.
“Though born to a strict disciplinarian, she enjoyed a healthy, robust happy childhood along with her two immediate younger brothers, Wole and Femi. As time passed Yeside, Kayode, and Folabo expanded the family”,the statement read.
Tinu began her education at St.Peter’s Primary School in the Vicarage, and later at Abeokuta Grammar School (AGS), Igbein.
After her secondary education at AGS, Tinu left for England to pursue her life-long ambition to be a nurse. She worked for a while in England before returning to Nigeria in 1959 to join the then Western Region at the Psychiatrist Hospital, Aro, Abeokuta.
A couple of years later, she obtained her first and second degrees in Community Nursing respectively at McGill University Canada, and North Carolina University, USA.
The deceased continued working for the Western Region, first at Abeokuta, and later at Akure General Hospital.
In 1963, she got married to Dr. Kola Aina, and the couple was blessed with two children, Oluyomi and Adebiyi.
Mrs T.A. Aina later joined the Federal Government service, working at Lagos University Teaching Hospital (LUTH). She rose through the ranks and became the Principal of the Nursing and Midwifery School at LUTH in 1986, a position she held until her retirement in 1993.
“Her stellar record bears witness to her commitment to the medical profession and her delight in training new generations of nurses. Mrs Aina retired into a new phase of professional life and community involvement”, the statement added.
Shortly after retirement, she took the initiative to start an Advisory Clinic at her church, The Christ King’s Church, which she ran with two other retired nurses and church members, Mrs Ajetumobi, and Mrs Olubi; both of blessed memories.
