Brief and Surprise Announcement at Professor Tomilayo O. Adekanye’s Book Launch by the Author’s Consort, Emeritus Professor J. ‘Bayo Adekanye, International Conference Centre, University of Ibadan, Saturday September 2, 2023

Madam Chair, Distinguished Guests, Ladies, and Gentlemen, permit me to make this Brief and Surprise Announcement in my capacity as the Author’s Consort, even as the Programme of Event draws to a close. The Announcement may well have been titled, if you will, “September 2 Anniversary Always on My Mind, What, How, and Why”.

I have listened with rapt attention to and been touched by what a number of people who have bothered to talk in the course of this public presentation and launching event taking place here today Saturday September 2, 2023, and said about both the Author Professor Tomilayo Olufolake Adekanye and her new book on Women, Agriculture and Sustainable Development: Perspectives from Nigeria.

To summarise the various remarks: A number of the speakers, most especially those among the Dignitaries opportuned to have received complimentary copies of the book ahead of the occasion have joined both the Author and her work together by harping on such virtues as the instinct for details, methodical organisation of data, and coherence of analysis and conclusions. Others, zeroing largely on the Author’s character, refer to the Author’s meticulous approach to life, love, and work, her passion for research, resourcefulness, and diligence.

For a sizeable number from among the Distinguished Guests here present still, particularly the various classes of former students of the Author’s long known to me, including but not limited to those now turned professional academic colleagues, as I had suspected, many of these if they came to this function and had the opportunity to talk, it would be a different kind of attributes that they had observed and would testify about the character of their former teacher: namely about her being a kind, supportive, caring, affectionate, and empathetic person. I was proved right.

Still about the encomiums poured on my Author-wife: As preparations for today’s event gathered momentum and the last but one of the rounds of pro-forma chats of invitations were going out, among the text messages of congratulation that came in was that received on July 4 and had been meant to be passed through me to the Author. Sent by one of the Distinguished Guests here present and a close family member at that and a medico for that matter (I have noticed his presence in the audience, but respectfully decline to mention the name), the message had read thus: “This is great. God be praised. Most inspiring, still writing by this time. I guess a necessary debt /felt owed/ to humanity. Hearty congratulations, ma”.    

As if the foregoing is not enough to say about the Author, Madam Chair, permit me to add my own to those encomiums. This present speaker’s own characterisation speaks to a personal attribute of the Author’s that no one here has so far touched upon, namely, the integrity that the Author radiates in all things academic, moral, or financial, and be it in inter-personal relationships or at any public settings where she finds herself engaged. It is a testimony that has ever been “on my mind” and I have found myself reiterating every “September 2 Anniversary Always” and for quite some time now. For the “What”, “How” and “Why” of it all, our Distinguished Guests will only need to cast their mind back to the circumstances and timing when the testimony was first made. The testimony about the Author’s integrity was first made by me publicly some 30 years ago in the Inaugural Address on “Military Occupation and Social Stratification” which I had the opportunity of delivering at the University of Ibadan on Thursday November 25, 1993, and where I had characterised Professor Tomilayo Adekanye as “the paragon of beauty combined with brain, whom money cannot corrupt, a wife with a strength of character…far more precious than jewels”.                 

But, if one should now ask the question, “To whom or what source does one ascribe all the foregoing virtues of the Author’s nature, teaching ability, research and writing proficiency, as well as achievements which those encomiums testify to?”, I am pretty sure that overwhelming number of us , including of course the Author herself and the Consort presently speaking, are most likely to attribute all of these to God’s Doing, Grace, and Mercy, rather than to any human ingenuity or ability, not least the Author’s.

In pre-Christian times, though, when belief in astrology used to hold sway, and before skepticism towards astrology began to increase due to advances in scientific thinking, some would have thought that all those foregoing character traits and attributes of the Author’s remarked above do also speak to the nature and person of anyone bearing the Zodiac sign of Virgo, especially if the said Virgo, was born on September 2, and is also a female. Ladies and Gentlemen, may I invite you to please pick your phones, turn to and type on the Google App, and help read for what this veritable library of our contemporary times has to say about a Zodiac born on September 2. The write-up cannot but strike one as if directly addressed to, or was meant for, and as a characterisation of theAuthor-Celebrant of Today. Quoting from the piece (I had had my own downloaded few weeks back on Thursday July 27, 2023 @ 12.15noon), the source addresses the Author-Celebrant as if directly thus:

Tomi, my own source writes, and the quote begins: “Born on September 2nd, your zodiac sign is Virgo. As a Virgo, you are known for being analytical and details-oriented. You have a natural ability to solve problems, and you are always seeking ways to improve yourself and those around you. Your practical nature makes you an excellent planner and organizer.”            

On and on continues that veritable library of our contemporary times called Google, with its characterisations of the traits and virtues of persons bearing the Zodiac sign of Virgo

But, Madam Chair, how does one know this particular Virgo of an Author Professor Tomilayo O. Adekanye, whom we have previously also depicted both as an “Akinkanju” of Academia and “Omoluabi” of a woman (to use the Western Nigeria-own DAWN Commission’s expression) was actually born on September 2, and not on any of the other dates covered by the Zodiac sign of Virgo, which could range from August 23 to September 22, these being the first and last dates of birth for a Virgo? But how do we know the Author is actually a Virgo, and based on what evidence? Although there are written records for backing this, and the Author’s birthday had been marked and celebrated every year and almost all the years past going back since living memory, and coming up every year exactly two weeks from this speaker’s own, in the absence here of the parents both of whom are now of blessed memory, I believe it should suffice for our purposes here (or should it not?) to have physically present in our midst someone who can vouch for the circumstances of the Author’s birth, including whom by, the place, and the date. Perhaps, such an individual could also have the knowledge and qualification to show us that the Author of the Book that we have just helped publicly present and launch today did not just “drop from no-where”, as it were, and “unto a no-man’s land”, to use a contemporaneous jargon, but has had a source; and that that source has had roots reaching down deep, and stretching out wide, from the Land of the Oyo pe in Osun North East (read: Okuku) to the capital city of the Oshomalo of Ijesaland (substitute: Ilesa). Perhaps, such a person could also help us in tracing those roots.           

To be sure, Madam Chair, among the Eminent and Distinguished Guests here gathered at this September 2 Book Launch Event, Grandma Professor Bolanle Awe is the only one person known not only to have been physically present, but also to have observed with the five senses, as well as been a witness, at the occasion where and when the seed was being sowed and blessed that was to germinate, grow, bear fruit and produce omo ana yi ti a npe oruko re ni Tomi, to use Professor Bolanle Awe’s favourite depiction of the Author. Professor Bolanle Awe (nee Fajembola) was the flower girl at the wedding of the Author’s parents Chief (Mrs) Abigail Ebun Falohun (nee Ogunbiyi of AD 27, Oke Iyin Street, Ilesa) and Pa Niniola Olaniyi Falohun (of Baale’s Compond, Okuku), both now of blessed memory. The Holy Matrimony and Solemnisation Service, where Professor Bolanle had served as a flower girl, took place at Otapete Methodist Church, Ilesa, on December 23, 1941. The officiating Ministers at the wedding were Revd. R. N. Ludlow, Rev. A. O. Solarin, and Rev Gesinde; with Revd R. N. Ludlow, an Englishman, leading the officiating team of Ministers. Nine months after the wedding, precisely on September 2, 1942, was announced to the world the birth of this sweetheart. Also, according to the records pieced together from various oral historical sources, when Tomi was given birth to at the old site of Westley Guild Hospital, then located in the Agunrodo area of Ilesa, on 2 September, 1942, the then young lass Ms. Bolanle Fajembola (now Professor Bolanle Awe) was the first and in fact the only girl of her age group to be allowed to visit and see the baby child together with the mum at the maternity ward of Wesley Guild Hospital, in the Agunrodo area, Ilesa, a few hours after the delivery.

Meanwhile, for most of our Distinguished Guests here present, who until now might have been curious to know why and how this Programme of Event of today came to have, as its Special Guest of Honour, the Distinguished female personality, retired Professor of Oral History and Traditions from the University of Ibadan, and “The Matriarch of Feminist History in Nigeria”, Professor Bolanle Awe, OFR, also serving as The Mother of the Day” at this momentous event of Public Presentation and Launching of the new book on Women, Agriculture and Sustainable Development authored by omo ana yi (though long-since-turned renowned scholar and Professor of Agricultural Economics and gender specialist), Professor Tomilayo O. Adekanye, I hope the foregoing remarks of mine by now will have satisfied that curiosity.

Madam Chair the Senior Advocate of Nigeria, and “The Matriarch of the Bar”, let me conclude my intervention with a couple of punch lines. It gladdens my heart to announce that this day of the Event of Public Presentation and Launching of the book on Women, Agriculture and Sustainable Development: Perspectives from Nigeria, being Saturday September 2, 2023, is also “the Day the Lord has made; we will rejoice, and be glad in it”. This is because this day happens also to be the Anniversary of the Author’s Birthday, thereby adding a festive side to what was largely intended as an academic gathering. Hurray! Hurray! Hurray! The Author-Celebrant, Professor Tomilayo Olufolake Adekanye, is 81 years old today. Let the drums beat, Let the bells ring, Let the Song of “Happy Birthday to You” from the One-Man Band rend the air, including the song’s refrain, “Many Happy Returns of the Day, Long Life, and Prosperity”; even as All the Good and Distinguished People in this gathering shall join in unison, and say ‘Amen’ to this. I thank you all for listening.

Emeritus Professor J. ‘Bayo Adekanye

Ibadan, August 19, 2023