Akinpelu Oludele Adesola - Online Memorial Website

A Trbute to the departed Pioneer Academic Surgeon, Professor Akinpelu Adesola. I feel personally grateful to Almighty God for the life of Akinpelu Adesola now taken away from us. His life's journey is over , yet his life's work as a pioneer academic surgeon has enriched our home country Nigeria. This, indeed, is his legacy which lives on.For several decades starting around the second half of the last century, he toiled tirelessly, valiantly and fruitfully in the vineyard of medical education , initially for a short time at the medical school in Ibadan and for a much longer time at the then newly establ=shed medical school in Lagos. A quintessential trail-blazer he was, and.the fruits of his labor are the innumerable doctors and surgeons whom he educated and are now spread the world over. Many work and live in Nigeria, yet a large contingent work and live in the United states where I am domiciled.I was not privileged to go to either Ibadan or Lagos Medical school,so I now wish with all humility to leave the task of paying the glowing tributes to the great teacher by his students as they are much more capable to do this than me,a lowly Yankee-educated Nigerian-born physician. The relationship of my family with the Adesolas is much more personal.For the little over twelve years my family and I spent in Nigria after my long educational sojourn in America, we were never far from the Adesolas.After so many years from Nigeria I. and to a much lesser extent my wife Naajama Iyabo{ mixed Ghanaian -Nigerian parentage}, felt like fish out of water , but the Adesolas always welcomed us, always listened to me frequently venting my frustrations. And for that, we are eternally grateful. The Adesola children, older than our own children 'Foluke and 'Toyin always felt welcomed in our home and we always enjoyed being guests of all the entire family of Prof and later Vice-Chancellor in Ilorin and lastly in Lagos from where our departed uncle retired. At that time, we had already found our way back to America and Uncle made sure he heard from us and whenever he could visit with us,. I was particularly thrilled when Foluke the older daughter got married to the Ogunbekun family of Odoogbolu. Why? Because Odoogbolu, a place famous for "IGBEKERE", is a place near and dear to my heart. My father was a teacher and headmaster in Odoogbolu in the first half of the last century. Please don't go into any mental gymnastics trying to guess my age. This was before I was born. My father had taught an earlier generation of the Ogunbekuns and I have a sneaky suspicion that Foluke does not know this.What does this all mean? Well on April 16,1963 the great pastor, orator and civil rights leader, Martin Luther King wrote the famous letter from the Birmingham Alabama jail during the high noon of the civil rights struggle for black people in America.Hear some of the immortal words of Dr King :"We are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny." In the year 2000,at the start of this millennium, a literary giant and a son of this our Nigerian soil, Ben Okri wrote a poem to celebrate the dawn of the millennium titled, "The Awakening Age". Ben Okri said : "For we are all richly linked in hope, Woven in history, like a mountain rope." It is crystal clear that that these two thinkers and writers are saying is that all life is int=r-related. Indeed ," we are all caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny." Permit me to make one more interesting observation about this awesome and remarkable human being. It is about his unflappable calm demeanor. We who live in America have in the past eighteen months or so been told that the 44th President of the United States is " No Drama, No Obama". meaning, that great Son of Africa is blessed with a cool demeanor but is inwardly determined, strong and dogged. Yet, he is a man very confident in his abilities and yes willing to listen to other people's views , a man willing to listen to inconvenient truth because he is not wedded to dogma. Akinpelu Adesola was such a man but his theater of service was his native Nigeria and Nigeria was better for it May his gentle and noble soul rest in perfect peace. By Olufemi Ogundipe, on behalf of Iyabo Ogundipe, and our three children, Akinkunmi, Taiwo and Babatunde Ogundipe.