Nigeria Lost A Precious Gem Called Tai Solarin Exactly 25 Years Ago Today

'Gbenga Sesan, 40, Gives ICT Scholarship to 22 Nigerians at the 2017 Tai Solarin Memorial Walk Today

The globally acclaimed ICT genius and founder of Paradigm Initiative Nigeria (PIN), who clocked 40 today, gladly gives ICT scholarship to 22 volunteered Nigerians who had never had computer knowledge or training before. This is his birthday gift to some of the participants of the 2017 Tai Solarin Memorial Walk which took place today from the National Stadium, Surulere, Lagos to Yaba Bus Stop where the statue of our immortal national hero is.

This surprised birthday gift from 'Gbenga Sesan was innocently offered during the course of a motivational speech he delivered at the occasion titled "Tai Solarin, Curses, Darkness and Candles". He said this is part of personal social responsibilities he has been used to for some years now in line with Tai Solarin's spirit of patriotism and philanthropy in raising and grooming what he termed citizen heroes.

The highly impactful lecture at the base of Tai Solarin's statue was regularly interspersed with rousing ovation from the listening audience at the Memorial Walk. Some ex-Mays joyfully joined both the walk and the lecture. Among the great Nigerians at the event are the co-founder and emeritus chairman of Tai Solarin Organisation (TSO), Mr. Akinbayo A. Adenubi, mni; Mr. Olutayo Keshinro - Chairman of TSO; Sulaiman Dave Bola-Babs - Coordinator of TSO; Engr. Titi Omo-Ettu and Azeez Ayodele who are eminent Board Members of TSO.   

2015 Tai Solarin Memorial Walk Took Place in Lagos Today

Corin Solarin, daughter of Dr. Tai Solarin of blessed memory, relived the fond memories of her father in Lagos today at the end of a 2-kilometre 35-minute walk organised by Tai Solarin Organisation (TSO) in remembrance of the 21-year anniversary of the social critic’s transition.

     Corin juxtaposed the humanitarian legacy of her father with the current sociopolitical and economic realities of today in Nigeria as the Keynote Speaker.

The Guest Speaker of the day, Engr. Titi Omo-Ettu who doubled as a respected board member of TSO and former president of the Association of Telecommunications Companies of Nigeria (ATCON) emphasized the importance of ICT in 21st century educational curriculum of Nigeria institutions of learning today.

Among the dignitaries who cheerfully walked from the National Stadium in Surulere to Yaba Bus Stop en route Ojuelegba Roundabout were the founding Chairman and current Chairman of TSO namely Mr. Akinbayo A. Adenubi (mni) and Tayo Keshinro respectively.

The anchor of the pep talks at the end of the walk was Sulaiman Dave Bola-Babs, TSO Coordinator. The Vice Chairman of TSO, Mrs. Abimbola Nwokolo gave the vote of thanks at the end of the impressive programme at Yaba, Lagos.

A great number of ex-students of Mayflower School, Ikenne, who attended the great school from the 60s to recent time, gave a very good account of themselves at the 2015 Tai Solarin Memorial Walk today. Other admirers of Tai Solarin’s principles and personality also added their valuable time to the Monday morning event in Lagos. Even the throng of the masses who Tai Solarin lived and died for in patriotic zeal were not left out of the motivational talks which took place at the basement of the newly renovated statue of the great educationist at Yaba Bus Stop, Lagos, Nigeria.                                           

                             

Tai Solarin’s Legacy Lives On 20 Years After His Exit

As Tai Solarin Organisation (TSO) is remembering the 20 years of Dr. Tai Solarin’s transition today, we are excited to acknowledge that your immortal greatness is still fresh in our minds as an erudite scholar, author, columnist, social critic, moralist, humanist, human rights activist, disciplinarian, patriot, teacher and farmer. We, your admirers, shall continue to cherish your philanthropy and educational legacy for a long time to come. Your greatness is inspiring and enduring. Keep on living in our consciousness, Oga Tasere (The Slim Teacher).

May Your Road Be Rough!

Exactly 50 years ago, on 1 January 1964, our venerable “Pastor” Tai Solarin prayed for you and me: ‘May your road be rough!’ As we are welcoming the centenary year of our dear country Nigeria today, can somebody shout a big ‘Amen!’?
  

Coordinator of Tai Solarin Organisation Sulaiman Dave Bola-Babs (left)

and new Chairman of Tai Solarin Organisation Tayo Keshinro (right)

welcoming Professor Zakari Mohammed (FNLA, FNIM)

of Ahmadu Bello University, Zaria, as the Guest Speaker

at the 2012 Tai Solarin Memorial Lecture at Victoria Island, Lagos

‘May your road be rough!’ I am not cursing you; I am wishing you what I wish myself every year. I therefore repeat, ‘May you have a hard time this year; may there be plenty of troubles for you this year!’ If you are not so sure what you should say back, why not just say, ‘Same to you’? I ask for no more.

Our successes are conditioned by the amount of risk we are ready to take. Quite recently, I visited a local farmer about three miles from where I live. He could not have been more than fifty-five, but he said he was already too old to farm vigorously. He still suffered, he said, from the physical energy he displayed as a farmer in his younger days.

Around his hut were two pepper bushes. There were cocoyams growing round him. There were snail shells which had given him meat. There must have been more around the banana trees I saw. He hardly ever went to town to buy things. He was self-sufficient. The car or the bus, the television or the telephone, the newspaper or the magazine, Vietnam or Red China were nothing to him. He had no ambitions whatsoever, he told me. I am not so sure if you are already envious of him, but were we all to revert to such a life, we would be practically driven back to cave-dwelling.
  

On the other hand, try to put yourself in the position of the Russian or the American astronaut. Any moment from now, the count 3–2–1 is going  to go, and you are going to be shot into the atmosphere and soon you will be whirling round our Earth at the speed of six miles per second. If you get so fired into the atmosphere and you forget what to do to ensure return to Earth, one of the things that might happen to you is that you could become a satellite forever, going round the Earth until you die of starvation and, even then, your dead body would continue the gyration!

When, therefore, you are being dressed up and padded to be shot into the sky, you only know too well that you are going on the roughest road man has ever trodden. The Americans and Russians who have gone were armed with the great belief that they would come back. But I cannot believe that they did not have some slight foreboding on the contingency of their non-return. It is their courage for going in spite of these apprehensions that makes the world hail them so loudly today.
  

The big fish is never caught in shallow waters. You have to go into the open sea for it. The biggest businessmen make decisions with lightening speed and carry them out with equal celerity. They do not dare delay or dally. Time would pass them by if they did. The biggest successes are preceded by the greatest of heart-burnings. You should read the stories of the bomber pilots of World War 2. The Russian pilot, the German pilot, the American or the British pilot suffered exactly the same physical and mental tension the night before a raid on enemy territory. There were no alternative routes for those who most genuinely believed in victory for their side.

You cannot make omelettes without breaking eggs; throughout the world, there is no paean without pain. Jawaharlal Nehru has put it so well. I am paraphrasing him. He wants to meet his troubles in a frontal attack. He wants to see himself tossed into the aperture between the two horns of the bull. Being there, he determines he is going to win and, therefore, such a fight requires all his faculties.

When my sisters and I were very young and we slept on our small mats round our mother, she always woke up at 6 a.m. for morning prayers. She always said prayers on our behalf but always ended with something like this: ‘May we not enter into any dangers or get into any difficulties this day’. It took me almost thirty years to dislodge the cankerworm in our mother’s sentiments. I found, by hard experience, that all that is noble and laudable was to be achieved only through difficulties and trials and dangers. There are no other roads.

If I was born into a royal family and should one day become a constitutional king, I am inclined to think I should go crazy. How could I, from day to day, go on smiling and nodding approval at somebody else’s successes for an entire lifetime?

When Edward the 8th (later Duke of Windsor) was a young, sprightly Prince of Wales, he went to Canada and shook so many hands that his right arm nearly got pulled out of its socket! It went into a sling and he shook hands thenceforth with his left hand! It would appear he was trying his utmost to make a serious job out of downright sinecurism. Life, if it is going to be abundant, must have plenty of hills and vales. It must have plenty of sunshine and rough weather. It must be rich in obfuscation and perspicacity. It must be packed with days of danger and apprehension. When I walk into the dry but certainly cool morning air of every January 1st, I wish myself plenty of tears and of laughter; plenty of happiness and unhappiness; plenty of failures and successes; plenty of abuse and praise. It is impossible to win ultimately without a rich measure of intermixture in such a menu. Life would be worthless without the lot. We do not achieve much in this country because we are all so scared of taking risks. We all went the smooth and well-paved roads. While the reason the Americans and others succeeded so well is that they took such great risks.

If, therefore, you are about to win any target you have set for yourself in this New Year, please accept my prayers and your elixir – May your road be rough!

The Good That Sheila Solarin Did Lives After Her, One Year After

All the Board Members of Tai Solarin Organisation remember the great departure of our dear Mama Sheila with fond memory exactly one year ago today at the Babcock University Teaching Hospital, Ilishan-Remo, near her home town Ikenne-Remo in Ogun State of Nigeria.

The good that Sheila did lives after her in the minds of three medical doctors here and hundreds of beneficiaries of her uncommon humaneness.

‘My Mama, though not your biological son, you loved and cared for me as one,’ reminisced Dr. Matthew Ogayemi of Mayflower Clinic, Ijebu-Ode. ‘Which one do I talk about: my days at Mayflower School; King’s College, Lagos; University of Lagos and Medical School at University of Benin? How can I forget your role as a mother during my wedding and your efforts in making Mayflower Clinic, Ijebu-Ode, see the light of the day? I still have with me one of the letters you wrote to the then Commissioner for Health under the then Military Administrator of Ogun State, Colonel Daniel Akintonde, telling him: “Matthew is my son. My husband and I brought him up and encouraged him to set up his own private hospital with the name, Mayflower Clinic.” That was a time the then Commissioner for Health never wanted the clinic to see the light of the day for no just cause, despite the fact that Dr. Akinola, the then Director of Clinical Services and his team had personally inspected and recommended that the certificate be given. “The evil that men do lives with them.” Thank God, with the backing of the then Military Administrator of Ogun State, Colonel Akintonde, who invited me to his office in company of my wife, the certificate of Mayflower Clinic, Ijebu Ode, was hand-delivered to me at Ijebu-Ode by officials of the Ministry of Health.

‘Mama, I missed you and will continue to miss your motherly advice and encouragement. In my private moments, I still weep for missing you. However, considering what you have done for many in this world, I strongly believe you and Oga are in Heaven. Considering what Jesus said in Matthew 25:31-40, “When the Son of Man comes in his glory, and all the angels with him, then he will sit on his glorious throne. Before him will be gathered all the nations, and he will separate people one from another as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats. And he will place the sheep on his right, but the goats on the left. Then the King will say to those on his right, ‘Come, you who are blessed by my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world. For I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me drink, I was a stranger and you welcomed me, I was naked and you clothed me, I was sick and you visited me, I was in prison and you came to me.’ Then the righteous will answer him, saying, ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry and feed you, or thirsty and give you drink? And when did we see you a stranger and welcome you, or naked and clothe you? And when did we see you sick or in prison and visit you?’ And the King will answer them, ‘Truly, I say to you, as you did it to one of the least of these my brothers, you did it to me.’”

‘This space can never be enough for me to tell one percent of who you are to me. It is unfortunate that you will not be around to launch my almost completed book on you and Oga titled The Solarin I Know. Mama, enjoy yourself with Oga in Heaven till we meet to part no more.’

Similarly, in the words of the Medical Director of T & S Hospital in Lagos [T for Tai and S for Sheila], ‘Hers was a life not only dedicated to Nigeria but also totally donated to Africa. Like Jesus Christ died on the cross so that we may all live, Tai and Sheila often made themselves uncomfortable in order to make other people comfortable. When Dr. Tai Solarin died in 1994, Mama Sheila buried him within four hours! If Sheila had died before Dr. Tai Solarin, he would have buried her in less than two hours. After burying Tai, Sheila left the graveside and went to Ikenne to arrange for the staff salaries. Her conviction was that the living must continue to live. On the day Dr. Tai Solarin died and was buried, staff salaries were paid!

‘Tai and Sheila served the people and served God. They built houses for people, bought cars for people, provided for the clergies and did so much more for many others. But more than anything else, they sponsored many indigent and non-indigent students, home and abroad. As at when Sheila died on Sunday 21 October 2012, she had 34 students on her sponsorship list. In the years of crises in South Africa and Liberia, refugee students were sponsored by Tai and Sheila. Today, one of them is in government as a Minister in South Africa. While in Jos prison, Dr. Tai Solarin sponsored a warder to become a lawyer, a cook to become a teacher, and a typist to become an engineer.

‘During the Biafran war, several Igbo students were picked up by Tai at the war front, fed, clothed and sponsored through primary, secondary and tertiary institutions. Among them are two renowned medical specialists, one of them in a university teaching hospital in the U.S.A. Tai described one of them as “an egghead but a church rat" in his recommendation letter. How many times did Tai and Mama Sheila rescue accident victims on Ijebu-Ode – Ikorodu road, only Bros Ade can tell! How many hospital bills they settled? Neither Corin nor Tunde can tell. In the days of national crises, they did not maintain neutrality – they said their mind. They shared one heart and one love. They lived, served and died for humanity.

‘Like her husband, Sheila was straightforward, down-to-earth, hardworking, bold, courageous, cool-tempered, good-spirited and honest; and she was an embodiment of truth. She was a lover of students and mother of all.’

According to Dr. Tolani Oduwole of Alpha Clinic, Sagamu, ‘Madam was dear to us and supported our family and medical practice in very many ways. She supported our children as they schooled in Mayflower. She actually housed one of them when there was a pressure on accommodation in the students’ hostel. Our children had access to the school library all the year round.

‘Each time a fruit tree fell in Mayflower, we were the recipients of homemade marmalades if only we provided the jars. Madam provided us with ideas on hospital building and furniture. To her credit, our current site was built with bricks made from Mayflower. We got furniture from exquisite teak logs from Mayflower. Madam would send gardeners to put our garden right. Exotic plants were potted for us at Madam’s expense. A framed needlework adorns our waiting room, courtesy of her handiwork while she waited to be attended to in the banks and did not want her time idle!

‘Madam’s love for books and learning was legendary. She freely shared her books and thoughts. She was passionate about children’s education, the rights of women and the Nigerian state in general. Once she visited us and saw a burnt patient who could not afford the bill, Madam paid the bill in full.

‘Sheila loved nature and loved people. Once, at Easter, we drove to the Murtala Mohammed Gardens in Epe to see the gardens and park. She cared for the South African children who came to study in Nigeria. They were free to spend the holidays in her home and took very good care of them all. She found time to visit them in Johannesburg when they went back home.    

‘We can only say she had played her part creditably well. We have been enriched by her life, we are grateful for her remembrance.’ We remember the immortal Sheila today and always for an excellent life well lived for humanity for 88 years, 4 months and 3 weeks. One year after her departure, Sheila lives on.

Hurray! Tai Solarin Organisation Is 10 Today

I was an avid reader of late Dr. Tai Solarin’s column “Thinking with You” when I was in secondary school. I grew up to know that even the whites teaching us at that time loved to read Dr. Solarin, because there was a lot of sense in what he said.

But there are some present-day Nigerians you have known for the last 20 years repeating the same theme that makes no sense. The moment they know they are being ignored, maybe we will have a breeze of good air.

General Ibrahim Badamasi Babangida (rtd.)

Leadership newspaper, 19 August 2012

In preparation for the 10th year anniversary of Dr. Tai Solarin’s demise, Tai Solarin Organisation (TSO) was jointly founded on 1 September 2003 by two admirers of the great educationist and social critic extraordinaire: Mr. Akinbayo Adekunle Adenubi, mni, former Registrar and Chief Executive of The Chartered Institute of Bankers of Nigeria (CIBN) who edited a 1985 book Timeless Tai: A Collection of Tai Solarin’s Articles on Education and Sulaiman Dave Bola-Babs (SDB), Millionaires Consultant at MillionaireWorkers.com Inc. who edited and published a 265 pages book with 48 colour pictures Education for Greatness 1: Selected Speeches of Dr. Tai Solarin with a foreword by Professor Babs Fafunwa.

   

Today, TSO’s Board is comprised of the co-founders as Chairman and Coordinator respectively plus the following dedicated and committed members: Mrs. Abimbola Nwokolo, Engr. Titi Omo-Ettu, Leo Igwe, Tayo Keshinro, Azeez Ayodele, Teju Onasanya and Lawal Ibrahim.

The Chairman and Coordinator of TSO delivered papers at the Tai Solarin International Humanist Conference jointly organised by the International Humanist and Ethical Union and Nigerian Humanist Movement in 2004.

In 2009, TSO published a 126-page book Tai Solarin in a Nutshell: Immortal Quotes of Tai Solarin with a foreword by Professor Grace Alele-Williams.

If you are interested in contributing your own quota to the great legacy of Dr. Tai Solarin, you are cordially invited to join TSO or be on our mailing list for a premium invitation to our annual memorial lectures which usually take place at The Chartered Institute of Bankers of Nigeria’s auditorium, Victoria Island, Lagos. Please call 0803-365-3110 now for either option and get a free ebook on Dr. Tai Solarin in advanced appreciation of your kind gesture.

We have successfully organised seven Tai Solarin Memorial Lectures as follows:

1.   “The Individual and the Challenges of Commitment in an Anomic Society” by Professor Femi Osofisan in 2004.

2.   “Nigeria: A Country in Perpetual Flux” by Professor Tam David-West in 2005.

3.   “Tai Solarin and the Legacy of Protest: Civil Society and Nigeria’s Political Transition” by Dr. Reuben Abati in 2006.

4.   “The Evolving Crises in the Credibility of Nigeria’s Ivory Towers” by Professor Adamu Baikie, CON, in 2008.

5.   “Education, Merit and the Corrosion of Social Balance: The Nigerian Case Study” by Dr. Kalu Idika Kalu, OFR, in 2009.

6.   “Nigeria: Corruption, Corrosion and Correction” by Professor Munzali Jibril, FNAL, OFR, in 2010.     

7.   “The Dynamics of Information: Embracing the Present to Cope with the Future” by Professor Zakari Mohammed, FNLA, FNIM, in 2012.     

The great people who have made this possible over the ten years by their sponsorship are:

The Solarin Family represented by Mrs. Fola Olumide (nee Solarin)

Senator Mrs. Oluremi Tinubu, OON

Engr. Lekan Adeniji

Dr. O. J. Mbonu

Dr. Ebi Omatsola    

      

The corporate bodies and their arrowheads which have also associated their great brands with our sponsorship in cash and in kind over the last decade are as follows: 

Dale & Parker Ltd., Dr. Jonathan Okoakih

De-United Foods Ltd., Makers of Indomie Noodles

dkr Associates, Mr. Dokun Oyenuga

Florence & Lambard Ltd., Mrs. Ronke Fetuga

FMA Architects Ltd., Arc. Femi Majekodunmi

International Energy Services Ltd., Dr. Diran Fawibe

Landmark Publications Ltd., Elder Ojo Agboola

Leadway Assurance Ltd., Mr. Oye Hassan-Odukale

Morgan, Omonitan & Abe Ltd., Engr. Dapo Abe

Peninsula Resort, Mr. Niyi Onibudo

Spectrum Books Ltd., Chief Joop Berkhout

Stag Engineering Ltd., Engr. Ayo Jagun

SVD Concerns, Mr. Chris Ogan

T & S Hospital, Dr. Wale Omole

Tantalizers, Mr. Folu Ayeni

Telecom Answers Associates, Engr. Titi Omo-Ettu

Terra Energy Services Nigeria Ltd., Engr. S. A. Adetunji

The Chartered Institute of Bankers of Nigeria (CIBN)

Ultima Ltd., Mr. Femi Ayeni

Wemy Industries Ltd., Pastor Ademola Odunaiya

Electronic & Print Media Houses

As we are marking the 20 years of Dr. Tai Solarin’s departure on 27 July 2014 with a grand memorial lecture at our Victoria Island, Lagos venue, please call 0803-365-3110 now if you are interested in being an individual or corporate sponsor of the great event and your brand will be duly acknowledged on our website and our printed programmes.  

We have been immortalising the quintessential legacy of Dr. Tai Solarin over the years via intellectual channels such as:

a)     publication of annual memorial lectures and books;

b)     creation and maintenance of Tai Solarin Organisation's website and blog;

c)     collection and development of research materials on him; and

d)     organisation of lectures and attendance of conferences.

Thanks to our individual and corporate sponsors over the years. Thanks to the selfless sacrifice of time, money and intellect of all the Board Members of Tai Solarin Organisation. Tai Solarin lives on. Happy 10th birthday Tai Solarin Organisation!  

GREAT LESSONS FROM MRS. SHEILA SOLARIN, MBE, MFR. (1924–2012)

         

“Tai was my greatest motivator from the time I met him in 1947 till his death in 1994. If more people had listened to him, Nigeria might have made better progress.” 
SHEILA SOLARIN 

The memory of Madam Sheila Solarin will remain evergreen in the minds of thousands of people whose lucky paths crossed that of this diminutive angel who has left her giant footprints on the sands of time as attested to with the MBE (Member of the Order of the British Empire) and MFR (Member of the Federal Republic of Nigeria) honours awarded her from her country of origin and country of adoption by marriage respectively. Her 88 years, 4 months and 3 weeks of exemplary life from 31 May 1924 to 21 October 2012 is worthy of emulation by the younger generation of today.

The octogenarian lady of honour we are celebrating her life and times today was an epitome of positive femininity, selfless philanthropy and embodiment of humility in greatness as well as an ideal wife and passionate teacher. She was a gentle celebrity who deliberately deferred the monopoly of klieglight to her equally cerebral husband cum human rights activist while she took care of the home front as the de facto administrator of the school.   

Just two of the hundreds of students across the globe who benefited from the university scholarship of the Solarins are Dr. Wale Omole who immortalised the great couple with the name of his Lagos-based hospital, T & S Hospital complex in Apapa and Mushin (T for Tai and S for Sheila) and Pastor W. F. Kumuyi of Deeper Life Christian Ministry who graduated with first class in mathematics from the University of Lagos. “Many of those who benefited from Solarins’ benevolence are established professionals and consultants in virtually all fields both within and outside Nigeria today,” so admitted Dr. Omole in a recent interview he granted a Saturday Tribune reporter.

According to her authorised biography Sheila: A Lady of Courage by Adewale Bakare, “I married Tai because he was very hard-working, very honest, had a good sense of humour and was very handsome. We had known each other four years before we got married, so we had plenty of opportunity to change our minds but we didn’t.

"I came to Nigeria without knowing much about it. The culture was different. I gradually began to understand it.  Fortunately, my parents were poor.  I didn’t grow up in the city but the countryside. There, we didn’t have electricity supply until I was in my teens. There was no pipe borne water in my house or water toilet. The ability to survive in Nigeria was helped by my background. I was lucky that Tai was the kind of man he was. If he had been a less supportive person, it would have been difficult. Again, his family accepted me.”

The selfless community leader who was once the chairperson of the Ikenne Local Government Education Authority explained further that "Nigeria then was better in many ways. There was no corruption, cheating or fraud. There was much honesty. You could go anywhere at any time, day or night. Life was safe and secure in the 60s and 70s. Then you could drive anywhere. But now, if I have to go to Sagamu, I will think twice. I believe part of the problem is that of inequality. The country is producing thousands of university graduates with no job and it is now reaping the harvest." 

Tai Solarin on the other hand went down the memory lane in his autobiography To Mother with Love to regale us with many lessons to be learnt from their 43 years of excellent matrimony. "Sheila and I met during my second year in the university. We went to the dance and cinema together, but I did it with the casualness that had been the trait of my relationship with all other girls I met. We were all students with some time off duty for a spree. I never proposed to any girl that I disappointed in my life.

"Any time we were together, I was surprised by the versatility of Sheila’s mind. She was a competent electrician. She could darn perfectly. She was a first-class cook and any time I commended her cooking, she always said it was nothing as compared to her sister’s. Not once could I talk about a book in those days which she had not read, or a news item she had not picked up on her own before me. In every aspect, she was my better.”

The social critic haply laid the foundation of his egalitarian marriage by jettisoning the age-old culture of patriarchy ab initio. "I remember visiting the registry a day before our wedding on the 14th day of September 1951and carefully checking over the passage that was to be read at the ceremony. I found that the wife must obey the husband. I told the registrar that sentence should be deleted. I did not want my wife who was more intelligent than I was to obey me. If she was to obey me, the family would die of mediocrity, as my wife would be taking dictation on decisions that might not be in the best interest of the family.  The registrar accepted my wish and that portion was deleted.

"Sheila and I have achieved a very healthy and happy union. Our relationship has been very symbiotic. I listen to her, she listens to me. I also remember that a few weeks before the wedding, Sheila reported her mother saying that she would be happiest if I got married to her daughter in the church. I asked her to tell her mother that the church and I had parted company for good.  Mrs. Tuer, her mother, did not take it badly at all. She wanted people to practise what they believed. She listened and accepted. And today, without the blessing of the church, our marriage remains highly fruitful.

"Long before we got married, I asked my wife how many children she would like to have. ‘About four or so,’ she said, her mother had six. I would like to be father to only two children – a boy and a girl. She acquiesced. I told her I wanted to have as much time as possible to serve the public in any way I could, but that a crew of children would create an impediment.  We have two children – a girl and a boy.

"I owe the volume of work – for what it is worth – I have given Nigeria today to the fact that I did not have an army of children to shepherd round. And I consider any educated man these days with four children or more a very irresponsible man. The fact that such men are irresponsible is the reason why most Nigerian men never tell how many children they have in the public. Great nations are built only by great families but great families are in short supply in Nigeria. All societal evils in Nigeria stem from the overabundance of pseudo-families. Citrus trees in many orchards are better tended than most of Nigerian children. This is the core of the chaotic and amorphous character of Nigerian citizenry.     

Three years before his death on 27 July 1994, Dr. Tai Solarin proudly revealed more secrets that were the hallmark of their unique compatibility to the Winslow magazine of Mayflower School. "Sheila and I have so much in common. We do not hold secrets between ourselves. We remain honest and trustworthy in our relationship with each other. If I take money out of our joint account, Sheila never asks me why or what I use it for. Like me, she does not buy clothes or jewelleries. We have no need for them.

"I can safely assume she shares my stand on religion, though we have never discussed the issue. She allows me all the degree of freedom I can ever need. I don’t need to inform her beforehand of my social crusades or my public statements or roles, yet she’s ever so supportive. I don’t have to discuss the contents of my articles to her before publication, yet she shares the tribulations with me when they do occur.

"She’s a courageous woman, very brilliant too. I respect her. I’ve never shouted at her and I’ve never raised a finger against her in the forty-plus years of our marriage. Ours has been a happy and highly successful marriage and Sheila has been a strong positive influence in my life.”

The founding chairman of defunct People’s Bank of Nigeria climaxed their didactic union with these profound statements in his autobiography, "In our 40-plus years of married life, we have never had a day of sorrow. Ask me why not. My guess is that we spend each day as our last. We fill each day with plenty of activities in the service of others – that of course is our religion."

The great couple also shared a common work ethic which formed the buttress of education for self-reliance they taught successive generations of students who benefited from their tutelage in both Molusi College, Ijebu-Igbo and Mayflower School, Ikenne-Remo. Hear Sheila in her above-mentioned biography, "When I was a student, I sold cloth in the Saturday market, cleaned the apartment for one bachelor and mended socks for another. I worked as a waitress in a hotel in the long vacation; one summer I worked on a farm. On fine days we were outside working on the fruit farm. On raining days we were inside packing sweets made from fruit juice, or making wooden crates to pack the fruits for market. There was no day when a lazy worker could put his head down on the table.

"Tai worked an average of 15 to 16 hours per day all the time I knew him. Even before he came back from Europe, he had worked on a farm in Sweden and hit the headlines as the man who could pick twice as many potatoes in a day as any other farm worker. When he was in the air force in Canada, he collected the socks that his mates were too lazy to wash from the dustbins, washed them and sold them back to those who had thrown them away.

"Tai also worked as a mortuary attendant. And he was already a graduate at that time, but he had learnt to take any job available. If you get a job, work harder than you are expected to do and be ready to put in longer hours if need be. Whether you will get extra pay or not, you will be training yourself to work and building a reputation that will always be useful."

In the words of Tai Solarin: “Without Sheila, it would have been impossible for us to build Mayflower School. She had been the very strong pillar in the construction,” that is why the school’s Founder’s Day has been dedicated to the birth date of Sheila on 31 May every year in spite of the school being founded on 27 January 1956. 

The co-founder of the Students’ Second Home, Ikenne, and proud mother of Corin and Tunde who eventually served as a former principal of Community High School, Ikenne, averred, “There were times when we worked through the night – staff, students, office workers, cattle herdsmen, all. We were not divided by tribe, religion, skin colour or sex. Everybody worked and I believe everybody enjoyed it.

“Tai and I created our own culture. We did not spend much time socialising with either Nigerians or Britons. We spent most of our time, quite enjoyably, in working. If we had time to relax, it would be in reading, or in my own case, sewing or gardening. Quite a lot of people of all nationalities, Nigerians inclusive, seemed to enjoy the culture we created. We have had a lot of fun.

“I think it is an error to think that you are entitled to stop working at some point because of age. Many great men have gone on into their 80s and 90s productively contributing to the improvement of society. I hope I can stay in good health and work till I drop. It will be simplest and quickest to bury me alongside Tai. My late husband and I disliked the senseless ostentation of funerals; so we had agreed on absolute simplicity.

“I would like to be remembered for hard work, honesty, some kindness here and there, and an effort to make the best of the mental and physical equipment I was born with.” Rest in peace Mama Sheila. Mayflower School is missing you. Tai Solarin Organisation is missing you. Tai Solarin College of Education, Omu-Ijebu, is missing you. Tai Solarin University of Education, Ijebu-Ode, is missing you. Nigeria is missing you. But we are taking solace in your legacy of greatness.

Madam Sheila Solarin, MBE, MFR, Dies Today At 88

Coordinator of Tai Solarin Organisation (TSO) Sulaiman Dave Bola-Babs and Chairman of TSO Mr. Akinbayo A. Adenubi, mni, welcoming Madam Sheila Solarin to the Victoria Island, Lagos venue of the 2009 Tai Solarin National Memorial Lecture.

Our heroine, Mrs. Sheila Solarin, MBE, MFR, dies today at 88. May her heroic gentle soul rest in perfect peace. She was a great role model and ideal wife cum partner in patriotic progress with Dr. Tai Solarin. We shall greatly miss this innocent intellectual and teacher of thousands of Ex-Mays and students of other schools where she taught English language.

Her biography "Sheila: A Lady of Courage" by Adewale Bakare is a must-read for all her admirers. Sheila, you are a great amazon.

Today's Memorial Lecture was a Great Success

Precisely 18 years and 2 months ago, Dr. Tai Solarin parted with us after a hugely eventful life of 78 years, with his footprints on the sands of time as the first Nigerian with two higher institutions of learning named after him posthumously - Tai Solarin University of Education, Ijebu-Ode and Tai Solarin College of Education, Omu-Ijebu.

7th Tai Solarin Memorial Lecture is Thursday 27 September 2012 at 11 a.m. Prompt

You are cordially invited to the Seventh Tai Solarin National Memorial Lecture entitled “The Dynamics of Information: Embracing the Present to Cope with the Future” to be delivered by Professor Zakari Mohammed, FNIM, University Librarian, Ahmadu Bello University, Zaria, on Thursday 27 September 2012 at 11.00 a.m. prompt at the auditorium of the Chartered Institute of Bankers of Nigeria, PC 19 Adeola Hopewell Street, Victoria Island, Lagos, under the distinguished chairmanship of Senator Chief (Mrs.) Oluremi Tinubu, OON.

Our Special Guest of Honour is Mrs. Sheila Solarin, MFR, OBE while the Master of Ceremony is the veteran broadcaster and actor, Mr. Yemi Shodimu. 

ADMISSION IS FREE FOR ALL ATTENDEES!
  
Please call 0803-365-3110 or 080-22233-413 for more information.

“The World Owes You Nothing,” Says Mrs. Sheila Solarin At 88

TSO COORDINATOR & MRS. SHEILA SOLARIN

As the highly respected widow of Dr. Tai Solarin clocked the enviable age of 88 yesterday, admirers of her late husband’s most popular article “May Your Road Be Rough!” will also enjoy Madam’s version of it republished here with the above title. It’s a sort of career guidance for the 21st century youth and the young at heart.

 “Don't go around saying the world owes you a living.

The world owes you nothing. It was here first.”

MARK TWAIN

I would like to suggest that the only thing that is certain in this millennium is uncertainty. The world is changing rapidly and we will have to change with it, whether we are ready or not. It will surely be better to prepare for this uncertain future.

You should grasp at every shred of education and work experience that you can get. If you have a week or two of vacation, or a compulsory stay-at-home for a strike, look around for what work needs doing in your area and start doing it voluntarily. Don’t look only for what you will be paid for. If there are potholes in your street, look for broken blocks or an abandoned heap of laterite.  Get others of your kind together, beg for a shovel and a derelict bucket or head-pan and fill some of those potholes thoroughly. Get used engine oil from a local mechanic to pour on top of your filling. This will protect it from the rain to some extent. You will feel so good, you will have got physical exercise and you will have shown what is possible without money. Who knows, you may one day be a PWD engineer, or a local government chairman, and you will remember what you learnt. Above all, you will have learnt to be a leader, not a follower.

Volunteer to work in a local hospital – read stories to children, hold the hands of someone afraid or in pain. Look round and see what you can do to help. I am not suggesting that you are going to spend your life in a poverty-stricken volunteer, but you will learn a lot from any kind of work experience.

As I said above, get every shred of education you can. I would like to emphasize mathematics, science and English. These are your core subjects in secondary school. You can read up subjects such as history, geography, economics and literature at anytime, but you must get the basic rudiments in mathematics, English and science. Your science should be as practical as possible, so try to encourage your teachers to give you practicals. Volunteer to help set up, clean up and put away equipment. Your teachers are probably overwhelmed by the number of students and lack of equipment. Try to suggest politely ways in which students can help. You and the teachers are not in opposing teams. You are on the same side, facing the same goal post.

When you reach the end of Junior Secondary class 3, you have to be thinking of your choice of subjects. Try to make sure that your results are good enough to offer at least biology and chemistry, and physics if you can. The world we are in – the millennium we have just moved into – needs science and technology. Don’t opt for physical education or religious knowledge because you can get marks. You may get through Senior Secondary class 3 and university and end up with a useless qualification. Music and art should be taught and should be enjoyed, but remember that very few people make a good living from either of these. The same goes for football. Sure, an international footballer may get, for a few years, a salary beyond its widest dreams but count how many such footballers there are. Get a degree in, say, biochemistry and play football thereafter. When your football career is over, you will go back to your biochemistry for the rest of your life – perhaps another twenty or thirty years after the period you spent on football.

Aim at becoming computer literate by whatever means. One of those compulsory breaks from university may give you a couple of months for a short computer course. Befriend somebody who has a computer. Offer to clean his car, do up his garden, scrub his cement yard or wash his clothes in exchange for half an hour on his computer. Read the theory by all means but try to get your hand on somebody’s keyboard. Bill Gates never went to computer school. His mother got hold of a computer from somewhere and he learnt as a teenager what he needed to know to become one of the world’s richest young men – a computer wizard.

Consider what you can do to be self-employed. If you want a job these days, you had better make one. What about making work and wealth from waste? There are a few people in Lagos combing the rubbish heaps for reusable materials but they are not well organised and do not own the processing equipment themselves to turn the rubbish into something useful.

You can sell waste paper, scrap metal, glass and cloth. Get yourself a collecting cart, two bicycle wheels, a rectangular metal bottom with the sides heightened with iron mesh. Go around your collecting area on the same day every week, so that your visit will be expected.  If you can afford to divide the inside of your cart into three sections, then you could collect paper in one, glass in one and metal in the other section. After your round, you have to press the paper into bales.

Reusable tins and bottles can be sold off to those who reuse them for selling palm oil, vegetable oil, etc. Other metals need sorting into types – aluminium and iron will be separated. Factories producing aluminium pots and pans accept aluminium for recycling and pay for it. Plastic can be recycled also to coat hangers and similar small items. Cloth can be cut up and turned into rugs or reprocessed for re-spinning and weaving.

Clearly, one quality you have to put aside is pride. What will my mates say when they see me collecting rubbish? Perhaps, ultimately you will have a small business producing coat hangers and your mates will still be dressing up to carry their application letter from door to door looking for a job ten years after they graduate.

If you are going into business, be ready to start small, producing something people want. ‘Eleganza’ knew what he was doing when he started producing coolers for carrying food for parties. Which household does not own one, or does not hope to get one? Slippers we need; carpets we can live without.

If you can manage to have two businesses going – especially if one is seasonal – you will have a better chance of surviving. If you drill a small borehole and produce bottled water, you could run it in the dry season and farm during the rains.  In China, on a commune we visited, the farm was a fruit farm but they also produce children’s cloth (which Nigeria imports from them) when there was not much work on the farm. Nigerian farmers are largely idle throughout the season.  

In the U.S.A. and United Kingdom, there are special department stores where all kinds of handcraft from the Third World are sold. You will find embroidery and crochet work from Zimbabwe, carvings from Ghana, textiles from India, small items of furniture from Thailand – from Nigeria, nothing. Yet this country has a wealth of handsome cloth, pottery, wood carving and metal work we do not seem able to show the world. All of these could be produced in the dry season as a second leg on which to stand when times are hard. You might also make a business out of going round the country collecting craft items for export.

If you are lucky enough to get a job at any point in your career, make sure you do more than you are asked to do. Tai worked an average of 15 to 16 hours per day all the time I knew him. Even before he came back from Europe, he had worked on a farm in Sweden and hit the headlines as the man who could pick twice as many potatoes in a day as any other farm worker. When he was in the Air-force in Canada, he collected from the dustbins the socks that his mates were too lazy to wash. He washed them and sold them back to those who had thrown them away.

When I was a student, I sold cloth in the Saturday market, cleaned the apartment for one bachelor and mended socks for another. I worked as a waitress in a hotel in the long vacation; one summer I worked on a farm. On fine days we were outside working on the fruit farm. On raining days we were inside packing sweets made from fruit juice, or making wooden crates to pack the fruits for market. There was no day when a lazy worker could put his head down on the table.

Tai also worked as a mortuary attendant. And he was already a graduate at that time, but he had learnt to take any job available. If you get a job, work harder than you are expected to do, and be ready to put in longer hours if need be – whether you will get extra pay or not – you will be training yourself to work and building a reputation that will always be useful.

So these are a few suggestions to think over.  The world does not owe you a living. You have to make a place for yourself. Good luck!