Looking back, the year 2022 was a memorable one for many reasons, one of these being the historic event of the death of Queen Elizabeth in the autumn of last year. With this event still in recent memory, I took the opportunity to look back into our archives to see if there was a time when the Monarch of Great Britain ever interacted with the Sisters of Our Lady of Apostles during her long life. During this exploration, I was pleasantly surprised to unearth a small photograph taken in Nigeria during the Queens official visit to the country which was at that time, a British colony.
St. Teresa Students waving to Queen Elizabeth II and Prince Philip in Ibadan Stadium
Queen Elizabeth landed in Lagos on the 28th of January 1956 sixty-seven years ago. Her arrival marked the beginning of her twenty-day visit which ended 16th of February 1956. During this visit, the Queen travelled from Lagos, to Kaduna State in Northern Nigeria before finishing her journey in Port Harcourt in the South. Along this journey, the Queen and the Duke of Edinburgh stayed in Ibadan, just north of Lagos for five days and it was sometime during this stay that this photograph was taken. The students of Saint Teresa’s College, a school set up by the O.L.A in Ibadan, came out to join the cheering crowds accompanied by their teachers. They can be seen here in the photograph waving flags as the Queen’s car drives by.