Sophie Bosede Oluwole (née Aloba, 12 May 1935 – 23 December 2018) was a Nigerian professor and philosopher, and was the first doctorate degree holder in philosophy in Nigeria.
She was a practitioner of Yoruba philosophy, a way of thinking which stems from the ethnic group based in Nigeria. She was vocal about the role of women in philosophy, and the underrepresentation of African thinkers in education.
Life and work
Sophie Bosede Olayemi Oluwole was born on May 12, 1935, to Timothy Ogiemare Aloba Egbarevba, in the town of Igbara-oke. Despite being from Benin city, Oluwole never spoke the Edo language but instead took to an excellent grasp of the Yoruba culture she learned from her parents. The town of Igbara-oke and the rest of the Ekiti region had a strong history of interaction with the Benin Empire, both in peaceful trade, and diplomacy. Oluwole’s grandfather came from Benin in about 1850 and was a high ranking official in the Oba’s palace in Benin. Her paternal grandmother too came from Benin, a daughter of a Benin governor in Ogotun, a town in present-day Ekiti state. Both her parents were established traders. Her mother, who was an expert in tie and dye, was also a professional weaver and an astute trader in Igbara Oke market.
Her father had three wives, and her mother had eight children, but only 4 survived childhood. She was the youngest child of her mother. Her older brother was journalist Abiodun Aloba. She was given the name Sofia around the age 8, and later spelt it as “Sophie.” She went to school in Ife, and was critical of the education system in the 1940s, saying a woman’s career prospects were “not your ambition: it was your parents’ ambition.”
In an interview with Jesusegun Alagbe, a journalist for The PUNCH Newspapers, Oluwole describes an event during school, where she was sent to a hospital to distribute food and medicine, and was scared by the desperately sick patients, saying “That day, I knew I was not going to be a nurse.”[
Education
In 1953, she enrolled at the Women Training College in Ilesa, where she finished with a class IV certificate in 1954. With this excellent result, she became a qualified teacher. She then taught at Ogotun-Ekiti, and then Ibadan. She then married Olanrewaju Joseph Fapohunda, from the town of Igbara-odo, a sister town to Igbara-oke. Oluwole traveled with Fapohunda to Moscow in 1963 where she intended to study Economics, and learned Russia at the Moscow State University in 1963. In 1964, her husband decided to leave the then Soviet Union, and she decided to attempt her studies in Germany, while her husband left for the United States. She received a scholarship in philology at the University of Cologne, but decided to join her husband in the United States. She ultimately decided to complete her college education at the University of Lagos in 1967, where she decided to study Philosophy instead of English, allegedly because of the reputation of Professor Wole Soyinka.
Following obtaining her first degree in 1970, she was employed in UNILAG for a time as an assistant lecturer in 1972, and went on to complete her PhD at the University of Ibadan, making her the first to hold a doctorate degree in philosophy. Oluwole had taken interest in traditional African philosophy before obtaining her PhD, but did not have any faculty to supervise a thesis or dissertation on such a topic. Oluwole taught African Philosophy for six years between 2002 and 2008 at the University of Lagos. At a time, she also served as the first female Dean of Student Affairs in the same institution.
Teaching
Oluwole’s teachings and works are accredited to the Yoruba school of philosophical thought, which was ingrained in the cultural and religious beliefs (Ifá) of the various regions of Yorubaland. She synthesized the Orisha Orunmila with the teachings of Socrates. These two thinkers, representing the values of the African and Western traditions, are two of Oluwole’s biggest influences, and she compares the two in her book Socrates and Orunmila.
Personal life and death
Oluwole was first married to Olanrewaju Joseph Fapohunda, where she had four children. They later separated and she then married Oluwole Akinwunmi, a teacher in Igbara-oke, her hometown. They were married till his death. She died in the early hours of 23 December 2018, aged 83. She was survived by children, grandchildren, and great-children.[
Bibliography
Oluwole’s many books and articles include:
Books
- Oluwole, Sophie (1992). Witchcraft, Reincarnation and the God-Head. Issues in African Philosophy. Ikeja, Lagos: Excel Publishers. ISBN 9789783013032. OCLC 30008785.
- Oluwole, Sophie B. (1997). Philosophy and Oral Tradition. Ikeja, Lagos, Nigeria: ARK Publications. ISBN 9789783389052. OCLC 44117856.
- Oluwole, Sophie B. (2014). Socrates and Ọ̀rúnmìlà : two patron saints of classical philosophy. Lagos: Ark Publishers. ISBN 9789789295258. OCLC 921844799.
- Oluwole, Sophie B.; Akin Sofoluwe, J.O. (2014). African myths and legends of gender. Lagos: Ark Publishers. ISBN 9789789317240. OCLC 994204609.
Article
- Oluwole, Sophie B. (1997). “Culture, Gender, and Development Theories in Africa”. Africa Development / Afrique et Développement. 22 (1): 95–121. JSTOR 24482785. Gender Revisited/Le genre revisité.
Secondary literature
- Fayemi, Ademola K. (2018). “Remembering the African Philosopher, Abosede Sophie Oluwole: A Biographical Essay”. Filosofia Theoretica. 7 (3): 118–131.
- Presbey, Gail (27 May 2020). “Sophie Olúwọlé’s Major Contributions to African Philosophy”. Hypatia. 35 (2). Semantic Scholar: 231–242. doi:10.1017/hyp.2020.6. S2CID 219884905.
