Nigeria’s first female Army Major General has died.
Major General Aderonke Kale joined the Army in 1972 and retired in 1997, died on November 8 in London.
Here’s top fact you should know about Major General Aderonke Kale
She was 84 years old.
She was also the first Nigerian Army Medical Corps commander.
Kale was born on July 31, 1939.
Her father worked as a chemist, and her mother as a teacher.
She studied medicine at University College, later renamed the University of Ibadan (UI).
Kale went on to study psychiatry at the University of London.
Thomas Lambo, Africa’s first professor of psychiatry, inspired her to pursue psychiatry.
She worked briefly in the United Kingdom before returning to Nigeria in 1971.
She joined the Nigerian Army a year later, in 1972.
By 1990, she was a colonel and the deputy commander of the Nigerian Army Medical Corps.
She was then appointed to Brigadier-General, becoming West Africa’s first female general.
In 1994, Kale was elevated to Major-General, making her the first Nigerian woman to hold that position.
She was also West Africa’s first female Major-General.
In 1997, Kale retired from the Army.
She was the mother of five sons and married to Professor Oladele Kale, a prominent Professor of Preventive and Social Medicine.
One of her sons, Yemi Kale, became Nigeria’s Statistician-General.
The female hall of residence was named after Kale in 2011, shortly after females were admitted to the Nigerian Defence Academy (NDA) program.