For over a decade, Phoebe Ajayi-Obe worked as a schoolteacher, frequently relocating whenever her doctor husband was transferred across the Old Western State.

After four children, she considered a more flexible career and pursued a law degree. Determined to succeed, she attended law school while pregnant with her youngest child. She gave birth just ten days before her bar examinations, which she passed with distinction.

Called to the bar at the age of 41, Ajayi-Obe quickly distinguished herself in the legal profession. Within two decades, she earned the prestigious rank of Senior Advocate of Nigeria (SAN), becoming the second woman in the country’s history—and the first from the Old Eastern Region—to achieve the honour.