A Nigerian poet, playwright and writer of short stories and children’s books, Mabel Segun has died at age 95.
According to an unsigned statement sighted, Mabel was said to have died on Thursday, March 6, 2025.
The statement reads, “It is with gratitude to God for a life well spent in the pursuit of excellence in Literature, Broadcasting and Sports that we announce the passing of our beloved mother, grandmother and great grandmother, Mabel Dorothy Okanima Segun (nee Aig-Imoukhuede) in the early hours of the 6th of March 2025. She was 95 years old.”
“Funeral arrangements will be published in due course”, the statement added.
According to the statement, the deceased was predeceased by Femi Segun (son), and survived by Gbenga Segun (son), Omowunmi Segun (daughter), Rolari Segun (granddaughter), Damilola Segun (grandson), Ayomide Segun (grandson), Fikemi Femi-Segun (grandddaughter), and and great grandchildren.
Born in Ondo City, in Ondo State, Nigeria, Mabel had her secondary school education at CMS Girl’s School, Lago. She attended the the Nation’s premier university, University of Ibadan (UI), where she graduated in 953 with a BA degree in English, Latin and History.
She taught these subjects in Nigerian schools, and later became Head of the Department of English and Social Studies and Vice-Principal at the National Technical Teachers’ College, Yaba, Yaba College of Technology.
Her first book, My Father’s Daughter, published in 1965, has been widely used as a literature text in schools all over the world, and her books have been translated into German, Danish, Norwegian and Greek. Her work is included in the anthology, Daughter of Africa (1992).
Segun has championed children’s literature in Nigeria through the Children Literature Association of Nigeria, which she founded in 1978, and the Children’s Documentation and Research Centre, which she set up in 1990 in Ibadan. She is also a fellow of the International Youth Library in Munich, Germany.
She was a founding member of the Association of Nigeria Authors, established by Chinua Achebe in 1981.
Among the awards and honours in her credit are the Nigerian Broadcasting Corporation 1977 Artiste of the Year award, Nigerian National Order of Merit Award (NNOM) for lifetime achievements in 2019, and LNG Nigeria Prize for Literature in 2007.
Among the books Mabel authored are My Father’s Daughter (1965), Under the Mango Tree (co-edited) (1979), Youth Day Parade (1984), Olu and the Broken Statue (1985), Sorry, No Vacancy (1985), Conflict and Other Poems (1986), My Mother’s Daughter (1986), Readers’ Theatre: Twelve Plays for Young People (2006), The First Corn (1989), Ping-Pong: Twenty-Five Years of Table Tennis (1989), The Twins and The Tree Spirits (1990), The Surrender and Other Stories (1995), and Rhapsody: A Celebration of Nigerian Cooking and Food Culture (2007).
