{"id":335,"date":"2018-11-13T22:27:36","date_gmt":"2018-11-13T22:27:36","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.qub.ac.uk\/africa\/?p=335"},"modified":"2020-10-07T19:39:41","modified_gmt":"2020-10-07T18:39:41","slug":"mary-ekpiken","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.qub.ac.uk\/africa\/2018\/11\/13\/mary-ekpiken\/","title":{"rendered":"Mary Ekpiken"},"content":{"rendered":"<h3>First female African student at QUB<\/h3>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-339 alignright\" src=\"https:\/\/blogs.qub.ac.uk\/africa\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/28\/2018\/11\/mum-at-Graduation-191x300.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"191\" height=\"300\" srcset=\"https:\/\/blogs.qub.ac.uk\/africa\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/28\/2018\/11\/mum-at-Graduation-191x300.jpg 191w, https:\/\/blogs.qub.ac.uk\/africa\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/28\/2018\/11\/mum-at-Graduation-654x1024.jpg 654w, https:\/\/blogs.qub.ac.uk\/africa\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/28\/2018\/11\/mum-at-Graduation.jpg 750w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 191px) 100vw, 191px\" \/>Born in Assang Eniong, Cross Rivers State, Nigeria, Mary Ekpiken arrived in Belfast in 1953. She came to study economics with a Nigerian government grant. She resided at Riddel Hall until she graduated in 1955.<\/p>\n<p>After Queen&#8217;s, Mary returned to Africa to work for the Nigerian Civil Service. In 1965, she was Senior Labour Officer within the Employment Division of the Federal Ministry of Labour in Lagos.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"#_ftn2\" name=\"_ftnref2\"><\/a>She continued in the Ministry until she retired on 18 May 1984 as a director in the ministry. She was the first woman to reach such position in Nigeria and was awarded a Nigeria National Honour (OFR).<\/p>\n<p>She passed away in 2010, leaving behind an adult son, Tunji Roberts, who is a media entrepreneur in the United State. Tunjo visited Belfast on his mother&#8217;s traces in November 2012, and saw the small dossier the QUB archives hold of her mother.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone size-medium wp-image-343\" src=\"https:\/\/blogs.qub.ac.uk\/africa\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/28\/2018\/11\/Chief-Mary-Ekpiken-aka-Ma-May_1-300x225.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"300\" height=\"225\" srcset=\"https:\/\/blogs.qub.ac.uk\/africa\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/28\/2018\/11\/Chief-Mary-Ekpiken-aka-Ma-May_1-300x225.jpg 300w, https:\/\/blogs.qub.ac.uk\/africa\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/28\/2018\/11\/Chief-Mary-Ekpiken-aka-Ma-May_1.jpg 640w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" \/><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"#_ftnref1\" name=\"_ftn1\"><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>First female African student at QUB Born in Assang Eniong, Cross Rivers State, Nigeria, Mary Ekpiken arrived in Belfast in 1953. She came to study economics with a Nigerian government grant. She resided at Riddel Hall until she graduated in 1955. After Queen&#8217;s, Mary returned to Africa to work for the Nigerian Civil Service. In &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/blogs.qub.ac.uk\/africa\/2018\/11\/13\/mary-ekpiken\/\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">Mary Ekpiken<\/span> <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":47,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-335","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-africans-qub"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pa93ki-5p","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.qub.ac.uk\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/335","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.qub.ac.uk\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.qub.ac.uk\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.qub.ac.uk\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/47"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.qub.ac.uk\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=335"}],"version-history":[{"count":9,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.qub.ac.uk\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/335\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":449,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.qub.ac.uk\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/335\/revisions\/449"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.qub.ac.uk\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=335"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.qub.ac.uk\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=335"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.qub.ac.uk\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=335"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}