It was my great joy this week to join a dearly delightful childhood friend, Mrs Ojuolape Adebayo nèe Kuku, in celebrating the traditional marriage of Oluwanifemi and Adebodun, as the Onabanjo and Adebayo families gathered their loved ones under the tender theme Ìfẹ́ Tó Dùn, A Love That Is Sweet!

There is a particular grace in the Yoruba tradition, where two families become one and the elders pour out their blessings upon the couple before them. The day carried a deep thanksgiving to God, made all the more meaningful by the loving memory of the groom`s father, our dearly departed late Dr Adedapo Adebayo.

To Oluwanifemi and Adebodun, my continued prayers. May your home overflow with peace, laughter and abundance, and may your love grow ever sweeter and fruitfully with the years, just as your day so beautifully foretold. My congratulations to both families.

#ifetodun
#GratefulForHisGrace ...

I was pleased to join the 10th Nigeria–EU Business Forum in Lagos yesterday, convened by the Delegation of the European Union to Nigeria @EUinNigeria and the Economic Community of West African States together with the Federal Government of Nigeria under the theme Enhancing Sustainable Investment Together, where health systems sat among the named priority sectors of the European Union’s Global Gateway strategy alongside digital infrastructure, renewable energy, sustainable transport and agricultural value chains.

The Presidential Initiative for Unlocking the Healthcare Value Chain records that Nigeria imports around 70% of its medicines and close to all of its vaccines, compared with a national ambition to produce 70% of its healthcare products locally by 2030, while the @WHO finds that noncommunicable diseases account for 27% of deaths in Nigeria.

Capital investment in health systems is realised only through a workforce equipped to translate it into service delivery. The European Union Support to Public Health Institutes in Nigeria EU-SPIN sets out to train 75% of the relevant public health workforce, and the @WellbeingAfrica Foundation has long delivered professional development to frontline health workers across Nigeria, as the Wellbeing Africa Institute for Research and Development aims to equip that very workforce with the data, research and innovation necessary.

I welcome the health financing announced at the Forum and the European Union’s continued partnership with Nigeria, and the Wellbeing Foundation Africa stands ready to carry these commitments to the frontlines of every clinic, ward and community across the federation.

#NigeriaEUBusinessForum
#GlobalGateway
#HealthInvestment
#WellbeingForAll
#FrontlineFriday ...

I was delighted to be received at the Philips Global Headquarters in Amsterdam, as my engagement with Philips continued into its second day, in the shared mission to advance the innovation, investment and partnership that bring care closer to those who need it most.

I was glad to meet with the Philips Foundation, in the company of Mr Victor de Boer, Program Manager, whose work to bring quality healthcare to underserved communities sits so closely alongside our own at the @WellbeingAfrica Foundation. Our conversation explored how collaboration and locally rooted innovation can carry care the last mile, into the hands of the health workers and families for whom access remains hardest won.

It was a pleasure then to address Philips staff at an internal meet and greet town hall gathering, opened with gracious remarks by Mr Simon Braaksma, Global Head of Sustainability, and thoughtfully moderated by Dr Beatrice Murage, Global Director, Sustainability and Access to Care. To speak with those who give daily meaning to the purpose of better care for more people, and to share the frontline realities we witness in the communities we serve, was deeply moving, a reminder that durable progress rests on the dedication of those who choose to pursue it.

I am especially grateful for the warm welcome of Mr Marnix van Ginneken, Chief ESG and Legal Officer of Philips and Chair of the Board of the Philips Foundation, whose stewardship gives real momentum to the cause of health equity, and whose care for the communities we serve in Nigeria and across the continent was felt throughout.

With sincere thanks to the Philips Foundation and to all at Philips for such a generous welcome, and for the partnership we carry forward from here.

#AccessToCare
#WellbeingForAll
#FrontlineFriday ...

It was an honour to be hosted at the @Philips Customer Experience Centre in Best, Netherlands, at the gracious invitation of Mr Jan-Willem Scheijgrond, Vice President and Global Head of Government and Public Affairs at Royal Philips, a longstanding friend and supporter of the @WellbeingAfrica Foundation mission to widen access to quality care.

I was pleased to meet with the Philips Access to Care team, Mr Jeroen Maas, Director Access to Care Technology and Partnerships, and Mr Winfried Jansen, Commercial Sales Leader for Philips Africa, for considered discussion of how meaningful innovation, thoughtfully designed and equitably deployed, can extend care to the families and communities that need it most, advancing Philips`s commitment to improve the lives of 2.5 billion people a year by 2030, among them 400 million in underserved settings. 

It was a particular privilege to see at first hand the technologies advancing this purpose, foremost among them Lumify, the Philips handheld point-of-care ultrasound that places diagnostic imaging in the palm of a clinician`s hand, and whose AI-guided Smart Sweep capability enables midwives and frontline health workers to capture clinical-quality obstetric images and bring skilled antenatal assessment within reach of the rural and undersupported settings where it is most needed, as much here speaks to the mothers and children we serve in Nigeria and advocate for globally.

With sincere thanks to Mr Scheijgrond and colleagues across Philips for such a gracious welcome and for a shared belief in improving people`s health and wellbeing through innovation.

#AccessToCare
#WellbeingForAll ...

The World Health Organization`s call to expand newborn screening, set out in Strengthening Capacity for Newborn Screening, Diagnosis and Management of Birth Defects, finds direct expression in our daily @WellbeingAfrica work in Nigeria.

Inspired by Disability Activist @Oscar.Anderson.7967, Project Oscar – Light For Life, a Neonatal Jaundice Screening, Treatment, and Kernicterus Prevention Programme at the Wellbeing Foundation Africa, was developed in direct response to precisely this evidence base, supported by our social impact partner @ThisIsReckitt and delivered in collaboration with @LSHTM @NEST360Org, @SCIDaR_ and @LagosHealth. In Nigeria, neonatal jaundice affects close to 60% of term newborns and almost all preterm infants, and it persists as a leading yet preventable cause of kernicterus, the bilirubin-induced brain injury that produces permanent neurological disability, which is why the programme equips facilities with phototherapy units and bilirubinometers, integrates the @Picterus_Jaundice Pro digital screening tool into frontline care, trains health workers in clinical management, and strengthens maternal awareness through our WBFA #MamaCare360 antenatal and postnatal classes.

Newborn screening succeeds only where its results are recorded, retained and carried forward, which is why the Wellbeing Foundation Africa developed and drove the widespread adoption of the Nigeria Integrated Maternal, Newborn and Child Health Personal Health Record, which holds verifiable data across the full continuum from antenatal care through delivery to the child`s fifth year, recording each screening, immunisation and clinical encounter in a single document the mother retains and presents at every point of contact with the health system.

It is on this foundation that I highlight the @WHO’s call to integrate newborn screening, diagnosis and treatment into routine services and universal health coverage, beginning with the priority conditions each system can feasibly manage, so that no child is denied a healthy future because a treatable condition went undetected in the first days of life.

#ProjectOscar
#HealthRecords
#WellbeingForAll
#ThriveThursday ...

Two years ago today, we said farewell to Mama Saraki, our dearly beloved Chief (Mrs.) Florence Morenike Saraki.

We remember her warmheartedness, her grace, and the dignity she brought to our family as its matriarch, and the love she gave so generously lives on in her children, her grandchildren, and her great-grandchildren.

We give thanks for a life beautifully lived in faith. May she rest in the perfect peace of the Lord, forever in His grace.

Iya mi, Iya Oko mi, Atofarati, Iya Rere, Sun Re! ...

Today, we observe the Day of the African Child, established by the Organisation of African Unity in 1991 and stewarded since by the African Committee of Experts on the Rights and Welfare of the Child, in tribute to the children of Soweto who stood, fifty years ago, for their right to learn.

We mark it this year under a theme woven closely into the work of our @WellbeingAfrica Foundation, ensuring universal access to water, sanitation and hygiene #WASH for every child in Africa, which speaks to the @AfricanUnion_Official Theme of the Year 2026 on sustainable water availability and safe sanitation in pursuit of Agenda 2063, and which carries forward Aspiration 5 of Agenda 2040, the promise that every child grows up well nourished and within reach of life`s basic necessities.

@UNICEF places Nigeria among ten African countries where more than 190 million children face the gravest risk from unsafe water, poor sanitation and climate hazards, while the @WHO and UNICEF Joint Monitoring Programme finds that access to safely managed drinking water can differ between rural and urban communities by as much as thirty-five percentage points. With almost one billion children expected on our continent by 2055, there can be no full realisation of the rights to health, education and protection while clean water remains beyond any child`s reach.

At WBFA, we put this into practice through our Personal, Social, Health and Economic Education #PSHE WASH Adolescent Skills and Drills Programme and through the WBFA @DettolNigeria Hygiene Quest Programme and Curriculum, supported by our social impact partners @ThisIsReckitt, bringing handwashing, hygiene education and infection prevention into the schools, facilities and communities we serve.

I offer a hopeful call, that we recognise children`s rights to water, sanitation and hygiene in our laws and budgets, embed child-responsive targets within the Africa Water Vision 2063 and Policy, and honour the standard already set by Article 14 of the African Charter on the Rights and Welfare of the Child, so that every child in Africa may learn, grow and thrive.

#DAC2026 
#DayoftheAfricanChild 
#WellbeingForAll ...

It was a privilege to attend the fifth edition of the @Ecobank_Group Adire Lagos Experience, themed Threads Across Borders, at the Ecobank Pan African Centre in Victoria Island, Lagos, where more than one hundred artisans, designers and creative entrepreneurs gathered to honour Adire as a living expression of Yoruba heritage and a craft now carried with confidence across the continent.

Nigeria`s fashion economy is valued at more than $6.1 billion and supports over 2.1 million young people in work, while @UNESCO estimates that Africa`s wider creative industries could generate more than 20 million jobs and $20 billion in annual revenues under the right conditions. Adire, the indigo dyed cloth rooted in Egbaland, sits at the heart of that opportunity as both cultural inheritance and economic asset.

At the @WellbeingAfrica Foundation, I have long held that the wellbeing of women and the prosperity of their communities advance together, and the women who dye, pattern and trade Adire are among the clearest illustrations of that truth, turning skill and heritage into household income, dignity and the means to invest in the health and education of their children.

I commend @Ecobank_Nigeria for sustaining a platform that places our artisans before wider markets, and I add my voice to the call for coordinated national support through access to credit, structured training and the protection of indigenous designs as intellectual property, so that Adire takes its rightful place among the cultural exports through which Africa tells its own story to the world.

#AdireLagos #F4D
#Fashion4Development
#ThreadsAcrossBorders
#CreativeEconomy ...

Yesterday I had the honour of joining the Ojora Royal Family of Ijora, Apapa and Iganmu Kingdom for the Grand Finale of Ojora Day, held in celebration of the 32nd Coronation Anniversary of His Royal Majesty Oba Abdulfatai Oyeyinka Aremu Aromire, Oyegbemi II, the Ojora of Ijora and Iganmu Kingdom @hrmojora, under the gracious theme Together in Unity, Stronger in Legacy.

It was a gathering of custodianship and distinction, graced by revered monarchs in whose company I shared the occasion, among them His Royal Majesty the @HRMOniru of Iruland, Oba Abdulwasiu Omogbolahan Lawal, Abisogun II, accompanied by his Olori, His Royal Majesty the Onikoyi of Ikoyi, and His Royal Majesty the Oba of Ilashe, together with other esteemed traditional rulers who lent their presence.

Across the days of celebration the royal house extended its care to the wider community through a medical outreach, a gesture that speaks to the enduring conviction that legacy is measured, above all, in the wellbeing of the people we serve.

I came away with a true sense of kinship and the belief that the ties we honour together will carry our shared heritage forward for the generations who follow.

#OjoraDay
#CultureIsContinuous ...

Today, the 13th of June, my family and I remember with love and gratitude our dearly beloved Father, Grandfather, Great-Grandfather, Olori Ebi, HRH Otunba (Dr) Adekunle Ojora OFR CON JP, The Otunba of Lagos & Lisa of Ife, on what would have been his 94th birthday, and the first since he returned to his Creator earlier this year.

For 93 years, Almighty God blessed him with a life of purpose, dignity, wisdom, and service to family, community, and country. Though we no longer celebrate this day in his presence, we celebrate it in his honour, comforted by the words of the Holy Qur`an, "Surely, to Allah we belong, and to Him we shall return" (Q2:156).

May Almighty God be pleased with him, continue to bestow His infinite mercy upon him, illuminate his resting place, and grant him Aljannah Firdaus. May He continue to comfort our beloved mother, Erelu Ojuolape Ojora, and all who loved him.

We miss you every day, Daddy. Your light, your legacy, and your love remain with us always. ...