Ibidunni Ighodalo: The former ‘Miss Lux’ who built one of Nigeria’s biggest events management firms

From dreaming about becoming a medical doctor just to please her father, Ibidunni Ajayi-Ighodalo, shattered glass ceilings to build a huge name in the event management space, and for 17 years, she successfully ran one of the leading events agencies in the sub-continent.

A career in Medical Science was her father’s dream for her, but life happened and she settled for a career far away from the sciences. “I had wanted to study medicine but somehow, my name was on the admission list for medical microbiology. I felt I could stay there and transfer to medicine at some point. However, the opportunity never came,” she recounted in a 2019 interview. “I eventually found out that my name was included in the next batch to study medicine. Meanwhile, Elizabeth R had been birthed by then, so I just decided to finish with the medical microbiology degree.”

Not achieving her purpose on earth was her greatest fear, as she revealed in an interview, but with what she achieved in almost 17 years with Elizabeth R., which she founded as a public relations and events management firm in her 20s, it is clear that she overcame her greatest fear in the short period she walked this land.

Young, sassy, and gorgeous, Ibidunni was a perfect definition of beauty and brains. She rose into the limelight during her days as a microbiology student at the University of Lagos when she won the maiden edition of Miss Lux, a beauty pageant organised by Lux bath soap. Fame came quite early and she used it as a springboard to give her career a fillip. From the 1990s when she won Miss Lux, she graced magazine covers, made news headlines for her trail blazing endeavours in the events and hospitality industry, till her death.

In October 2003, she dumped her dream of becoming a medical doctor and opted for solving event issues.

“I wanted at all cost to become a doctor to please my father. That was my childhood ambition,” she said. When that didn’t work, she started Elizabeth R. at the age of 23. At that time, the events management industry in Nigeria had not taken shape, but Ibidunni had big dreams.

“Although that industry hadn’t fully formed in Nigeria, I knew it would eventually become something big and that was how Elizabeth R started,” she recalled.

Ibidunni worked for high profile clients like the Lagos State Government, Guaranty Trust Bank, Sahara Group, Dangote, Skye Bank (now Polaris Bank), MTN Nigeria, Thisday Newspaper, amongst many others.
Despite being one of the best in the industry, she was defined by virtues such as tenacity, doggedness, humility, and foresight. Her annual signature Christmas decoration on the Ajose Adeogun roundabout in Victoria Island, Lagos, made possible by Zenith Bank bears testament to her great panache.

Finding the right partner in Pastor Ituah Ighodalo who did not only support her dreams but also helped her manage her business for three years while she battled health challenges, was a gift she vocally cherished.

Ibidunni said: “At a time when I was going through my health challenges and was out of the industry for almost three years, he (Ituah) built me my event centre and kept my business running all the time I was away. He stood in for me, attended meetings and was just there for me which, to me, was a very romantic gesture.”

In a short but impactful life and career, Elizabeth R. diversified into establishing Avant Garde – an exclusive wedding gown and party accessory firm and ‘The Dorchester’, a 3000-capacity event hall in Oniru, Victoria Island area of Lagos. Ibidunni also handled most of society’s top events, such as the wedding of Halima Babangida (daughter of ex-military head of state Ibrahim Babangida), EbonyLife TV’s Tomike Adeoye’s wedding, among many others.

“I want everyone to help me say THANK YOU to @elizabeth_r_events & @elizabeth_r_couture family. Everything you saw yesterday was a result of their hardwork. The wedding was beautiful from their traditional wedding to the garden service and the wedding reception,” those were the words of Tomike singing the praises of Ibidunni for a successfully planned wedding.

Classy and highly cerebral, Ibidunni was born on July 21, 1980. After her education at the Federal Government Girls College, Oyo State, she bagged a degree in Microbiology from UNILAG.

She also founded the Ibidunni Ighodalo Foundation (IIF) which gives grants to couples in need of fertility treatments after trying In Vitro Fertilization (IVF) more than 10 times.

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She worked closely with her husband and assisted him in overseeing the children’s church and the women’s ministry of the Trinity House.

Ibidunni was a lover of dogs, it was this part of her that helped her family expose one of her domestic staff’s plan to poison her husband in 2015 after testing the poison on one of her dogs.

Multiple soirces said Ibidun died of cardiac arrest in the early hours of Sunday morning in Port Harcourt, Rivers State. In the past month she had worked with Bayelsa and Rivers States government, helping with the building of COVID-19 isolation centres.

Her family in a statement announcing her demise requested for privacy as they mourn.