Environmental Law Scholar and First Female Dean at IFELAW, Prof Okorodudu-Fubara Set to Retire
Accomplished Environmental Law scholar and the first female Dean of the Faculty of Law, Obafemi Awolowo University (OAU), Professor Margaret Okorodudu-Fubara is set to retire from the university on April 6, 2021.
The distinguished academic who remains the only woman to have served as Dean of the OAU Faculty of Law and held the position twice, will be 70 on Tuesday, April 6, 2021, thereby attaining the mandatory retirement age for academic staff in the professorial cadre in Nigeria.
Easily one of the most loved and remarkable lecturers at the OAU Faculty of Law (also known as IFELAW), Prof. Okorodudu-Fubara has trained many generations of outstanding lawyers excelling in various fields, including the current IFELAW Dean, Professor S. B. Odunsi, who was the first doctoral candidate supervised by Prof. Okorodudu-Fubara.
As part of activities heralding her exit from the ivory tower after an illustrious career, Prof. Okorodudu-Fubara will deliver a valedictory lecture on April 6, 2021, titled “EDUCATION FOR SUSTAINABILITY…Pedagogies and Odyssey of My Ivory Tower Years at IFELAW.”
The environmental law don is a 1972 graduate of the University of Lagos and was called to the Nigerian Bar in 1973. She obtained the LL.M and SJD degrees in 1977 and 1980, respectively, from Harvard Law School, USA, after a first LL.M. degree from the University of London, UK in 1975.
Aside being the first female Dean of the Faculty of Law at OAU, Prof. Okorodudu-Fubara also holds the spectacular record of being the first woman to become a Professor of Law in a first generation/federal university in Nigeria; the first Professor of Environmental Law in the ECOWAS sub-region; the 2nd Professor of Environmental Law in sub-Saharan Africa; and the first Nigerian woman law doctorate from Harvard Law School.
Outside academia, Prof Okorodudu-Fubara distinguished herself in environmental law consulting. She previously served as a Consultant to the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP), Nairobi, Kenya and has worked as a consultant to several other international organizations including the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) and the World Bank. Working with UNEP, she pioneered Mainstream Environment for Sustainable Development into African Universities (MESA), an initiative on Education for sustainable development and conservation in all tertiary institutions worldwide.
Professor Okorodudu-Fubara is a member of the IUCN Academy of Environmental Law, the American society of International Law, and the International Federation of Women Lawyers. Additionally, she was appointed a member of the Nigerian Universities Commission in 2009, and the Federal Inland Revenue Service (FIRS) as a Professor of Taxation (Professorial Chair) in 2012.
Previously, Prof Okorodudu-Fubara contributed to the Thesaurus of World Tax Data Bank in 1987. In the early 90s, she was granted the Senior Fulbright Scholar award and received the Robert S. McNamara (World Bank) Fellowship award to undertake overseas sabbatical as a visiting scholar at the St. Mary’s School of Law, San Antonio, Texas, USA. She was also a visiting professor of Law at the University of Oregon, Eugene, oregon, USA.
In addition to several papers and articles in reputable national and international journals and she is the author to the first Nigerian text on environmental law.
Dr. Misbau Lateef, the last doctoral candidate supervised by the retiring professor has described her imminent exit from IFELAW as bitter-sweet, an occasion deserving of celebration of Prof Okorodudu-Fubara’s inspiring accomplishments as an academic but also one that creates a gap that many can only aspire to fill.
