Dr. Adetiloye Oniyire of Jhpiego drew laughter and applause with an origin story of due diligence, integrity, and an institution maturing beyond its years.
When the invitation to TAConnect’s fifth anniversary landed on his desk, Dr. Adetiloye Oniyire of Jhpiego admits his first reaction was disbelief. “I was saying, would it be a typo? Five years?” He told the audience, because the organization’s footprint felt like that of a far older institution.
Dr. Oniyire’s memory stretches back to the very beginning, when DAI was incubating what would become TAConnect and the team visited Jhpiego’s office to explain the vision being shaped with the Gates Foundation. What pleased him most, he recalled, was watching the transformation take a distinctly Nigerian shape: “Nigeria’s own NGO taking the leadership.” Jhpiego, which championed the Group Antenatal Care platform alongside other partners, would become one of the organizations funded through TAConnect, placing a young Nigerian institution in the position of leading investments and disbursing grants to a global affiliate of Johns Hopkins University.
Two things stood out for him from that experience. The first was integrity. Despite Jhpiego’s long history of managing Gates Foundation funding directly, TAConnect insisted on a full onboarding and due diligence process. “They grilled us for over five hours,” he said, recalling questions flying “left, right and center,” including, to his amusement, how long Jhpiego had existed. Far from resenting the scrutiny, he was impressed: “That clearly showed me that this is an organization that knows where they are going.”
The second was longevity. Having recently celebrated partners marking twenty-five and even fifty years of service, Dr. Oniyire framed TAConnect’s fifth anniversary as the early chapter of a long institutional life: “I want to be here in ten, fifteen, twenty years down the line.”
On behalf of the entire Jhpiego family, he congratulated TAConnect’s leadership on the integrity it has built, and closed with a challenge suited to the scale of Nigeria’s unfinished health agenda: “The work is not done. There is still a lot to be done, so we will be counting on you and the other partners to roll up your sleeves, and let’s get to work.”
