One year memorial service held for ex-beauty queen and event planner, Ibidun Ajayi-Ighodalo

Today is exactly one year that ex-beauty queen and event planner, Ibidun Ajayi- Ighodalo died of cardiac arrest in Port Harcourt.

Her family and friends gathered at the Trinity House in Lagos today for a memorial service in her honor.

Her mum, husband Pastor Ituah Ighodalo, her two children Keke and Zenan and other family members were in attendance. Also present were the Lagos state governor, Babajide Sanwo-Olu, his deputy Hamzat Bello and many others.

On June 14 last year, former beauty queen and wife of a popular Nigerian preacher died prompting shock and sadness in the country.

Ibidunni Ituah-Ighodalo died in the early hours of the morning in Port Harcourt, in the southeast of the country.

The cause of death was cardiac arrest, according to the family.

39-year- old Ibidun Ighodalo was due to celebrate her 40th birthday the following month, and had been traveling across the country to build isolation centers for coronavirus patients, her family said.

As well as being the co-pastor of Trinity House church in Lagos, Nigeria, along with husband Ituah Ighodalo, she also ran upscale, luxury events services Elizabeth R, a leading event management company in Nigeria.

Her husband described receiving the news of her death as “the call that shattered my life.”

“A lot of you know that I really shouldn’t be here,” he said during a funeral service he officiated on that fateful day.

“At 2 o’ clock this morning, I received a call that shattered my life… Life is a deep mystery, there’s no human being, no matter how wise they are who can say they understand life… Let us accept the mystery of life. We don’t have any control of most things in life…” he said.

Many described how through the Ibudun Ighodalo Foundation, the deceased provided grants for women to pay for IVF treatments and helped reduce the stigma around IVF in Nigeria.

Ibidun Ighodalo was open about her own struggles to conceive and shared in an interview that she had undergone 11 IVF procedures before adopting two children with her husband of 13 years.