When One Life Attracts One Thousand And One Others 

 Title: B.A. Adesina: Gracious Living and Service 

Author: Olufemi Omotayo 

Reviewer: Banji Ojewale 

Publisher: Esperance Contact Point, Lagos, Nigeria 

No Of Pages: 33

 Biographies are deceptive; luring us with one personality, they lead us into more lives, worlds and cultures than they proclaim on their cover or blurb. The writer announces he’s going to be talking about the life and times of Personality X. But as you read what he’s offering, you find yourself in a labyrinth, swarmed by a thousand and one intrusive figures linked to Personality X. The reader’s reaction to this motley ‘follow-come’ crowd depends on the garlands the raconteur hangs on the protagonist’s neck. 

And although in Olufemi Omotayo’s portraiture of Bashiru Alani Olalekan Adesina, there’s also a large gathering of kinsfolks, friends, professional colleagues, church associates etc. the author reserves a dominant presence for Adesina, with those tagging along made to play symbiotic roles. There’s no climate of parasitism. But that’s because of the masterly style adopted by Omotayo; for it’s not enough to have a great person to write about. How about how you go about relating it? You can diminish a big man’s stature if you don’t present their lofty frame in matching language. 

In B.A. Adesina: Gracious Living Service, we discern a massive melting pot involving one prominent man attracting scores of kindred spirits on account of his own greatness. 

 But some of the names tower over him. There’s the legend, Pastor W. F. Kumuyi, General Superintendent of Deeper Christian Life Ministry, DCLM, where Adesina, functions as a pastor. We also have the affable Pastor Philip Oluwi, who fittingly writes the Foreword to the book. On the secular sector the book brings in big fishes like retired General T. Y. Danjuma, who has been part of the elite of Nigeria’s ruling class. On retirement, the ex-soldier went into business, promoting Comet Shipping Agencies that became Nigeria America Line Limited, where his path crossed with Adesina’s. 

Current Blue Economy Minister, Gboyega Oyetola (he was Adesina’s old school friend) and Prof. Grace Alele Williams, former VC of Uniben, are also featured, among a host of others. 

The book begins where Adesina celebrates his 70th birthday after exit from Danjuma’s company. He left as Group Chief Accountant and Company Secretary. He had been with them for more than 40 years, after a rustic background in Abule-Panu, Ogun State, emerging from a hardly fractious Muslimpolygamous family that promised forlorn hope of fulfillment and achievement for the boy. 

Biographer Olufemi Omotayo relates the tough and gritty battles Adesina had to fight to wade through the waters that threatened to keep him under. By a stroke of Providence, Adesina was moved to urban Abeokuta, the state capital. He didn’t look back thereafter. Nearby Lagos was next…And, the rest, as they say, is history. 

He was able to strive for a good education that prepared him for what finally became his lifetime vocation, chartered accountant. 

The author summons some of the close friends of Adesina to find out the qualities that brought him excellence, after family and community circumstances seemed set to botch a future of hope. Pastor Oluwi says: ‘’I have come to know Pastor Adesinaas a great friend, confidant, counsellor and man of integrity. He is sincere…always stands for what is right.’’ And one of his cousins, Prof. Olutola Kehinde Peters adds, ‘’Growing up, Adesina showed qualities of humility and contentment. He never aspired to positions that didn’t belong to him, and he was never greedy.’’ 

Adesina’s Christianity was fundamental. It taught him, needless to say, uncommon love for fellowman. He gave sacrificially, such that his wife said sometimes they looked for when to ask him to apply the brakes. There are moving accounts of how Adesina helped to construct Church buildings, supported those who needed to have their own homes and granted financial assistance to needy would-be couples. Pastor Uduma Kalu says Adesina’s ‘’life is dedicated to helping people,’’ recalling when he was ‘’on a mission in the Bahamas, he (Adesina) flew all the way from London to visit and spend eight days with me, generously covering his own expenses.’’ 

Still, Omotayo’s book isn’t a hagiography. He applies the rod of balance here and there, letting his readers into the foibles of Adesina. He was a once a Kegite (palm-wine drinkers’ club); Adesina “had a reputation for having multiple ladies in the past’’; his marriage to Victoria was a union of contrasts that experienced “some initial reluctance.’’ 

The book has its own low patches: needless repetitions of the subject’s pasts, clash of tenses in some respects, obsession with titles and position (Pastor Dr.), with a long suffix etc. Others would wonder why the author’s name on the cover should be where it is, clashing with the photograph of Adesina and forcing the graphic designer into a tautology. Another class of critics would expect a more challenging title. 

However, the main takeout is that the book gives readers a salutary style of narrative. Olufemi Omotayo rises to admirable splashes of colourful language and imagery, suggesting an attempt at a merger between the industry of his subject and the need for telling the story with literary integrity.