For a country where the teaching of history is long forgotten, this is a huge plus, as conditions that existed before Nigeria was formed, its formation, its evolution up until independence and the historical trajectory and turmoil of self-rule are all documented in Adeola’s The Life and Times of Imran.Īgainst the backdrop of Imran’s birth and how his family came to live in Abeokuta, Adeola gives an elaborate historical evolution of the city on a rock. But these events give a sense of the times and the social and political ferments that signpost the life of Imran.įor a book that is family history, this historic writing, a blend of family folk narrative and national and world historical saga, is of immense value. What became of his life after this aborted higher educational quest through the years? What trajectory did his life undergo all through the colonial era, the upheavals of World War II and then to Nigeria’s colonial experience to independence and beyond? What specific mark did he make on his society and how is he being remembered today? These are elements of curiosity Adeola creates and resolves in his epic narrative.īut also importantly, he backgrounds the life of his illustrious father with apt historical events even though Imran did specifically not take part in them. A job opening in John Holt made his father, Sanusi Lawani Madinuori Adeola, to withdraw him from attending Methodist Boys High School, Lagos, just before settling into school. Indeed, a man born in 1917 who also had a primary education, or elementary school, as it was then called, at Holy Trinity Primary School, Ikereku, Abeokuta in 1932, who was among the earliest to be employed in a multinational company like John Holt and later became a banker and lived to be almost 90 years surely has something unique to offer and a proper subject fit for memorialisation and investigation. So how did a man who was born at the turn of the 20th century on come to elicit the writing of a 618-page tome? The taste of the pudding, or indeed the taste of amala and ewedu, is in the eating, as it were. His father, Imran would be just such folk hero in his own right. Heroes are not only kings or princes, as the famous American dramatist Arthur Miller makes us to understand, but also ordinary folks doing ordinary things extraordinary ways.
He did this through strong work ethics, great personal sacrifice of comfort, and intense and consistent prayer.”īut here perhaps is where Adeola misreads history. He was able to accomplish these objectives to the best of his abilities, but not without difficulties, like most simple, ordinary, everyday people. The first was to take care of his parents and siblings, nephews and nieces as best as he could.
The primary focus of his adult life were two. He was not a prince… He was a simple, ordinary, everyday person who struggled through a simple, ordinary, everyday life. Ironically, what he threatens to leave home for (being saddled with two wives) would eventually be what he eagerly embraces as the years wear on (marriage to four wives)!Īdeola is unpretentious about the man he is writing about which further elicits curiosity about the man who would turn out to be an enigma in his own right as the narrative progresses: “Imran (Adisa Olatunbosun Sanusi Adeola) was not a hero in life.
Indeed, the dramatic opening of a son who is woe-begotten and is threatening to leave home on account of an impending imposition of two wives on his young shoulders, when he could barely take care of himself with his meagre earning, is aptly entertaining. This is what Adeola’s The Life and Times of Imran has admirably done, the preservation of a family tree that reaches back in time, and in so doing also traces the socio-political, cultural, religious and economic indices that shaped this notable family and its interconnectedness to the larger society into which it is weaned.īeginning with what almost feels like fictional dialogue between a son and his grand mother, The Life and Times of Imran soon takes a detour to a communal narrative.
It also traces what may be termed a country’s ‘great grandpa’, a category in reaching back to a country’s pre-history and founding, through the turbulence of painful history, to the modern times.