26 YEARS AFTER - THE REMEMBRANCE OF A GENIUS

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.   

It's 22 Years Today That Our Own Dr. Tai Solarin Left His Great Legacy for Nigeria

The good deeds of patriotism, honesty, hard work, freedom of conscience, religious tolerance, matrimonial ideal, educational excellence and moral probity that our great icon, Dr. Tai Solarin, was famous and popular for still live on today in the minds of us his followers and admirers.

Tai Solarin Organisation, Tai Solarin University of Education, Tai Solarin College of Education, Tai Solarin Memorial Schools, Mayflower School, Mayflower Private School, Mayflower Junior School, T(ai) & S(heila) Hospital, Tai Solarin Memorial Library and Tai Solarin Way are some of the monuments extant today that make his memory lingers in our mind.

Twenty-two years after the transition of the social critic and human rights crusader par excellence, Tai Solarin lives on.

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!