Nigeria’s first-ever female Major General who paved the path in military history
Nigeria’s Major General Aderonke Kale, will have her name engraved in history as the first female Major General to have obtained that rank not only in the Nigerian Army but also in West Africa.
Having obtained this position in 1994, Kale shaped the face of women and gender mainstreaming in the Nigerian military.
She is also the first woman to command a military hospital in Nigeria, according to local media The Peoples Gazette.
Kale was born on July 31, 1939, to a mother who was a teacher and a father who was a pharmacist.
After obtaining her primary education in Lagos and Zaria and her post-primary education in St. Anne School, Ibadan and Abeokuta Grammar School, she pursued studies in medicine and trained as a medical doctor at the University of Ibadan before specialising in psychiatry at the University of London.
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The former major-general worked briefly in England before returning to join the Nigerian Army in 1972.
As a psychiatrist, Major General Kale became recognized in 1973 as a consultant psychiatrist and later became chief consultant in 1982.
She rose through the ranks in the army, becoming a colonel and deputy commander of the Nigerian Army Medical Corps from 1991 to 1994, local media The Peoples Gazette confirms, a position that put her in charge of the health care of all Nigerian Army personnel and their families.
She retired from the army in 1997.
Nigeria has been in a state of mourning since November 8 when her death was announced. Kale died in London.
