Project Nigeria: The construction industry's outstanding women

Born in 1941 in Ilesha, Osun State, as the first child of Mr. Daniel Dada and Mrs. Oluwafunmilayo Layinka, Joana Olatumbi has since defied several odds to become a force to be reckoned with in the Nigerian engineering industry.

She attended Otapete Methodist School for her primary education and then proceeded to Methodist Girls’ Grammar School, where she transferred to Queen’s School in 1955. Madam Maduka got a B.Sc in Applied Physics from the University of Ife, now Obafemi Awolowo University, in 1965.

In 1969, she got her M.Sc in Engineering from Trinity College Dublin. As a young woman who became well-read when most Nigerian parents only educated their male children, she became a role model to many young women like herself and one of the construction industry’s outstanding women.

Madam Joana Olatumbi Maduka is a woman of many firsts. She became Nigeria’s first female COREN Registered Engineer in 1974. She was also the first female Fellow of the Institution of Electrical Engineers (FIEE) in the United Kingdom and the first female Fellow of the Nigerian Society of Engineers (FNSE).

In 2014, she was appointed Chairperson of the Lagos Chamber of Commerce and Industry’s Power Sector Group. Madam Joana Maduka has established herself as a thought leader in the Nigerian construction industry and one of the construction industry’s outstanding women.