Saki-born Writer of Nigeria’s National Pledge, Felicia Adedoyin, Dies at 84

The author of Nigeria’s national pledge, Prof. Felicia Adebola Adedoyin, has passed away on Saturday after a brief illness.

The Late Professor Adedoyin, who was born on the 6th of November 1938, is the 2nd of 6 Children and a Princess from the Iji Ruling House of Saki, Saki West Local Government, Oke Ogun area of Oyo State.

She is an educationist, and she received her PhD in 1981 from the University of Lagos.

Prof. Adedoyin was a lecturer at the University of Lagos and was a consultant with the United Nations. She wrote the national pledge in 1976.


She was driven to write the pledge after a barrage of questions from her children who had been used to saying the Oath of Allegiance while in school in New York and the State Pledge in Achimota School, Ghana.


The Professor wrote the pledge in the Daily Times on July 15, 1976, in an article titled ‘Loyalty to the Nation, Pledge’ which was shown to the then Head of State, Gen. Olusegun Obasanjo, who amended it and introduced it to the country during the formal launch of the Universal Free Primary Education (UPE) and ordered that all school children recite the national pledge in assembly.

In 2005, Prof Adedoyin was given a national award, the Officer of the Order of the Niger (OON). She died in the care of her children and loved ones