Chief Elizabeth Abimbola Awoliyi, MBE, OFR (née Akerele, 1910–14 September 1971) was the first woman to practise as a physician in Nigeria.

[1][2] In 1938, Elizabeth Awoliyi became the second West African woman to qualify as an orthodox-medicine trained physician after Agnes Yewande Savage who graduated from medical school in 1929.

[4] Elizabeth Abimbola Awoliyi was born in 1910 Lagos, southwestern part of Nigeria, to an Aguda-origin family and her parents were David Evaristo and Rufina Akerele.

[1] The Aguda people are descendants of emancipated Afro-Brazilians and Afro-Cuban returnees who began arriving in Nigeria from 1830 onwards.

[1][2] Awoliyi returned to Nigeria and became a gynaecologist and junior medical officer at the Massey Street Hospital Lagos.