ABISOLA GABI-WILLIAMS PRIZE
The Abisola Gabi-Williams History Prize is one of the Gabi Williams Memorial Prizes. It was established in 2024 to reward the best graduating student in History in the final examinations at the University of Ibadan. It was inaugurated as a bequest of Dr. Gabi Williams who wished to honour his beloved wife, Dr. (Mrs) Abisola Gabi-Williams, a graduate in History (1964) at University College Ibadan which was at the time, a college of the University of London.
Biography of Abisola Gabi-Williams
Abisola Gabi-Williams worked as a teacher of history, English literature and geography at Lagos Anglican Girls Grammar School, Surulere, Lagos from June 1964 to December 1971. She rose to the position of Vice-Principal in 1968 before leaving in 1971 for new horizons within education management. She joined the Federal Ministry of Education where she took up the post of Education Officer Grade 1, rising quickly through the ranks of the civil service, moving from the professional cadre to the administrative cadre until January 1987, when Abisola Gabi-Williams made history with her appointment as the first woman in Nigerian history to be appointed as Federal Permanent Secretary, Exchange Control, Minister of Finance. She continued to grow in stature and power in the nation and became Secretary for Police Affairs serving under Military Head of State, General Muhammadu Buhari. As a result of civil service reform, the nomenclature of Permanent Secretary changed to Director-General which was the position she occupied at the Federal Ministry of Transport, Aviation and Communication until her retirement in 1994.
Her dynamism and vision extend beyond the workplace. An accomplished author of Christian books, her first, Prayer: My Survival Kit in the Journey of Life, astonished many and continues to impress people with its passion, wisdom and the fluency of the author’s writing. Abisola Gabi-Williams’s second book, The Power of the Blood, a re-working of her PhD thesis, is a superb analysis of the power of the Blood of Jesus Christ - from various critical perspectives.
About the prize
The Abisola Gabi-Williams History Prize seeks to reward a student who has demonstrated the passion and brilliance that characterized Abisola Gabi-Williams 's studies and her career teaching history at Anglican Girls Grammar School, Lagos, Nigeria.
