Prince Samuel Adedoyin Loses First Wife

…What Former Health Minister, Funke Adedoyin Said About Her Mother

imagePrincess Titilayo Ayisat Anike Adedoyin, the first wife of Prince Samuel Adedoyin, the chairman of Doyin Group of companies is dead.

She died on Wednesday, September 30, 2015, at her Victoria Island, Lagos residence, after a protracted battle with an undisclosed ailment. She was aged 74.

Her remains were interred at the Ikoyi Vaults and Gardens, while the Fidau prayer was also held at her home in Victoria Island.

Princess Titilayo Anike Adedoyin
Princess Titilayo Anike Adedoyin

The late Madam Adedoyin was a very close friend of Alhaja Kuburat Okoya, Ireti Asemota, Abah Zainab Folawiyo, Mrs Braithwaite and many other society matriarchs.

She is survived by children, grandchildren and great grandchildren.

Notable among her children is Yemisi Ogunde, the mother of celebrity designer, Funke Ayotunde-Adepoju of Phunkafrique signature.

Madam Adedoyin’s second child is Funke Adedoyin, the highly cerebral former Health minister and female politician. Her other children are Adenike and Bimbo Fola-Alade, the wife of Pastor Fola Alade.

Funke Adedoyin
Funke Adedoyin

A couple of years ago, when Funke Adedoyin was interviewed, she was full of endearing words for her mother. According to her, “My mum is what I call a closet Christian. When you go to her room, you see her listening to Pastor Adeboye’s preaching tapes, listening to Christian songs and watching him on video. She can’t come out to admit she’s a Christian. She doesn’t want it to look like we’ve converted her,” Funke said.

imageGiving more insight into her mother’s personalities, Funke Adedoyin said, “My mum is a politician unlike my dad that is a businessman. Somebody should pay my mum because she has a room full of all the newspapers from the days of the Action Group, NCNC. She has all the newspapers and West Africa magazines. She took part in every election in those days. My mum is a Muslim and Dad is a Christian and I am a Christian. My parents met when my dad was 22 years and my mum was 18 years. They fell in love and they got married contrary to every form of parental opposition. The reason why I don’t like to talk about my mum so much is because when we were growing up, my mum was the bad cop and my dad was the good one. We were frightened speechless of my mother. She frightened the hell out of everybody. My mum used to do some funny strange things then. Like if she sees you sitting down reading a newspaper, she will just say, oh, it is because you don’t have a job that is why you are sitting down. Then she would tell you to go and be washing all the doors in the house and I would say to myself: what is the matter with this woman? Why can’t she let me be? At least I am not disturbing anything. When we were growing up, she tried to reduce that. I later realised that she was fighting a battle because my dad on the other hand was like you can do it, go ahead. At some point, I was convinced that my mum could not be my mum because she was so strict and I didn’t understand why somebody had to be like that.”

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