Ola Opesan: Unsung literary sensation- By Bayo Obajemu

Ola Opesan is a familiar name in education management and consulting, but not everyone knows he’s an accomplished novelist and script writer. Surfing through a book store early last month, I came across two of his titles: ‘Another Lonely Londoners’ and ‘Many Rivers to Cross’. I was struck by the title of one of the novels; ‘ Another Lonely Londoners ‘, what an evocative title! I remember Samuel Selvon’s novel : The Lonely Londoners. Could this be a transplant or an evocation of that great Caribbean novel?, I thought.

Another Lonely Londoner, was written in a mix of English and Nigerian pidgin, close to the style of Gabriel Okara’s experimental novel, ‘The Voice’, in the work’s brilliant attempt to domesticate English to serve and reflect the Nigerian flavour as seen in the use of Creole English ( pidgin) .

The novel deals with the experience of young Nigerians in London. Alienated as an immigrant by his encounter with British racism, the novel’s protagonist Akin eventually decides to return to Nigeria.
In 1997 he published his second novel, Many Rivers to Cross, under his own name.

What will certainly interest readers is Opesan’s newest outing: ON 55 WE STAND, which is a detailed, well researched social analysis of the Universal Primary Education programme of the Western Region under Chief Obafemi Awolowo, beginning in 1955.

ON ’55 WE STAND is a seminal account of the free education program of Awo administration in the 50s, a massive educational experiment started in mid 50s , which today has stood out as the most successful of all education initiatives in Africa. ON 55 WE STAND is a landmark work, provocative and deep, it interrogates the 1955 UPE, the most successful free education initiative in Africa, this radical, ambitious program is the reason Western Nigeria is the most educated people on the Africa continent.

This book also set searchlight on the journey of decline of quality education in the country following military takeover of power from the politicians right from 1966. It’s a must read, and should be a required reading in education departments across universities and colleges of education.

Opesan can be provocative without being polemic. He maintains a kind of aesthetic distance from his work, both literary and occasional writing. This gives him some measure of independence to comment critically on his characters, and as in non literary work, this critical detachment offers him an angle of vision to be more thorough in his analysis. As in the book on Universal Primary Education, it hands him critical tools to look at the merit of the free education program.

A mathematics teacher, with a Master degree in mass communication , he has also shown uncanny interest and ability in other disciplines; little wonder he brings a lot of profundity and scholarship into his account of the Universal Free Education programme of the Chief Obafemi Awolowo administration during his days as Premier of the Western Region in the 50s.

The book is a must read for policy makers, stakeholders, students, and all those interested in education as a tool of national development.
Opesan’s outing in this important work is not all that there is about him.

Opesan was born in London to Nigerian parents in 1966. He returned with his family to Nigeria when he was ten years old, going to school there, and attending the University of Ife. He returned to London to study scriptwriting, completing a TV and video course, and writing several screenplays.

He had spent the greater part of his life in London, and he had come to realise that though the colour of him passport blue, the colour of him skin tell him, he had no choice about where was home.

In 1996-7 Opesan was editor of the Nigerian lifestyle magazine, Ovation. In 1997 he published his second novel, Many Rivers to Cross, under his own name.

In 1999 he became the editor of another lifestyle magazine, Omega. He also contributed an essay on African businesses in the UK to the 2000 Penguin anthology IC3.

Opesan gained a BA in Business Studies from the University of East London and a MA in Mass Communications from the University of Leicester before training as a secondary school maths teacher. He became head of mathematics and later assistant head teacher at George Mitchell School in Leyton. In 2007 he moved to Lagos as the founding Principal of Meadow Hall School, Lekki, Lagos. There he has also authored an introductory book about Nigerian history.

Opesan’s wide interest encompassing many fields and his engaging prose have defined him as a polymath with self -effacing nature. He is indeed, an unsung literary sensation, a writer with a promise.

Bayo Obajemu is a seasoned journalist and book review expert