Lagos, Nigeria – In a small row of five ordinary-looking apartment blocks housing residential medical staff and their families at the College of Medicine, Idi-Araba, is Flat Number 24. Set in a leafy suburb of Lagos, the five blocks face a row of detached houses, the buildings forming a quadrangle that serves as a play area for children.
Although neither lives there these days, it still holds good memories for Dr Alero Ann Roberts, 60, and Dr Kofo Odusote, 73, and they break into smiles and giggles talking about it. The women have fond recollections of the time they spent together in that flat.
On the second floor of one of the blocks, it was home to Kofo, her husband, Professor Kayode Odusote, and their three sons.
It is also where Kofo and Alero met for the first time in the early 1980s, when Kofo’s younger brother, Seyi, introduced the woman he would later marry to his family.
Over the following decade, the two women would spend long hours in that busy, hectic two-bedroom flat helping each other navigate the demands of their medical careers, marriages and children.
“It became the ‘family hub’,” Alero explains. “I was a resident doctor but I lived off-campus and was on call every night. Aunty Kofo’s support was what kept me going.”
At the time, Kofo was working as a registrar in the Paediatrics Unit at the College of Medicine, but says, “Alero was a young wife and a new mother just starting out on her career … so I offered to help out with my young nephew.”
These days, Alero has become something of a public figure in Nigeria with her reassuring appearances on the popular news station, Channels TV, in her thick-rimmed glasses, lipstick and doctor’s coat. She has an approachable, yet no-nonsense air about her when she speaks and it is easy to see why viewers love her when she gives updates and guidance about COVID-19.
A senior lecturer in public health at the College of Medicine, University of Lagos, Alero also works as a public health consultant at the Lagos University Teaching Hospital. Kofo, who has retired from medicine, now runs a care home for the elderly in Lagos.
Today, the two women are sitting side by side on a dark green leather sofa in Kofo’s home on Lagos Island, and their excitement and sisterly bond are palpable as they reminisce about their early days together.
The older woman is dressed in a patterned, white Ankara long gown and sports a well-coiffured hair-do; while her younger sister-in-law who has her long, slightly greyed hair woven into plaits, wears a black T-shirt and slacks.
There are nearly 14 years between them and both are now grandmothers.
“I am the eldest of four girls and ‘Aunty Kofo’ was the perfect big sister for me,” Alero explains. “Everything I do, I run through the prism of ‘What will Aunty Kofo say?’ She has had a great influence on my life.
“It all comes down to affirmation; open and honest affirmation at all times.” Smiling knowingly at her sister-in-law, she adds: “But if you do something wrong she will call you and let you know!”