Erelu Abiola Dosunmu at 70

•High society salivates for Lagos socialite’s forthcoming birthday celebration

Like the fabled goddess of the Verges, Erelu Abiola Dosunmu ages with elegance and grace. Dosunmu, the former wife of late Chief Dehinde Fernandez will be 70 in a few months time and she is showing no telltale of age.

Dosunmu still looks refreshingly young, with a glowing natural ebony complexion that is the envy of a lot of other women. At the backdrop of unpalatable rumours of Erelu Abiola’s alleged insolvency, the princess of Nigeria’s coastal ‘City of Excellence,’ Lagos, is hardly broke. It would be recalled that, to put paid to malicious gossip being peddled about her last year, Erelu Abiola decided to celebrate her 69th birthday in a grand way last year in the city of Rome. It was indeed grand.

Now the question is: ‘Where is she going this year for her 70th birthday? According to some of her friends, Erelu is planning something big in Nigeria or London. And she doesn’t do things in half measures, so it’s going to be grand as usual. As preparation hots up for her forthcoming birthday, few people will forget in a hurry how 2015 became Erelu Dosunmu’s most horrendous year.

In that year, she was afflicted by deaths of the three men she cherished most in her life. She lost her confidant and soul mate, Chief Molade Okoya-Thomas, the business titan and society patriarch. She also lost the late Ooni of Ife, Oba Okunade Sijuwade and her estranged husband, late Chief Deinde Fernandez. Erelu Dosunmu was undoubtedly devastated by the deaths of the three men.