Looking Back: The History of an Oke-Padi Resident

By Olusesan Laditan

In this autobiography, Looking Back: The History of an Oke Padi Resident, Professor Laditan travels back in time to tell the story of his life, that spans over eight decades. It is the story of his birth, early childhood, education, marriage, and career. The book deals with his polygamous upbringing and describes how he spent early childhood with his mother and grandmother in Ibadan. His life journey took him through varied experiences as he later lived in Ilaro with his paternal grandparents, both of whom were non-literate. He was fourteen-years-old when he started to live with his father and stepmother in Lagos. He attended Igbobi College in Lagos for his school certificate and higher school certificate education, after which he proceeded to the United Kingdom to study medicine at the University of Glasgow in Scotland. Professor Laditan is a retired professor of Child Health and Paediatrics. His professional career started as a Paediatric Resident at the University College Hospital (UCH), Ibadan, Nigeria. He later transferred his service to the University of Ibadan (UI) as a Research Fellow and Consultant Paediatrician at the Institute of Child Health, where he became Professor and Director of the Institute. In 1984, he was invited from the Institute of Child Health to be the Foundation Provost of a new Medical School, Obafemi Awolowo College of Health Sciences (OACHS) and the Pioneer Chief Medical Director of its teaching hospital in Sagamu, Ogun State, Nigeria. In 1988, he left for Saudi Arabia and practised as a Consultant Paediatrician until he left in 2002 and relocated to the USA.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Book Builders
• Release date: Nov 17, 2022
• ISBN: 9789789212392

Book preview

One

MY PARENTAGE

The original name of my family was ÀGBÉ from Ìgà (compound) Èkèrin in Ilaro. The indigenes of Ilaro are associated with different compounds that give them a point of reference as regards their origin within the town. Agbe had children, but the five that possibly survived him are shown under the Agbe Family Tree. Of the five children, Oladitan, Omoyeni (female) and Motunde (female) were of the same mother, while Babayeju and Oniyide had different mothers. My father used to hold Agbe Descendant Family meetings at his house in Ilaro and these meetings were attended by members of Oniyide and Babayeju families.

My Paternal Great Grandfather

My paternal great grandfather, who was known as OLÁDÌTÀN, was one of Agbe’s children. Oladitan and his family lived at Ikerelodi (aka Kelodi), a smaller compound which was about a mile south of Iga Ekerin. He had many children, five of whom were Daniel Laniyan Akintunde Kolawole Laditan (my paternal grandfather), Efunyale Yewande, Ogundele Oladitan, Emmanuel Adeyemi Oladitan and Ladipo Oladitan, as shown under the Oladitan Family Tree.

My paternal grandfather

My paternal grandfather’s name was Daniel Laniyan Akintunde Kolawole Laditan. It was when he chose to have an officially registered name under the colonial administration that the letter O disappeared from his name and the family name became "Laditan'' till today. We have some family members who still bear Oladitan in Lagos and Abeokuta, but not in Ilaro.

My Paternal Grandfather.

Daniel Laniyan Akintunde Kolawole Laditan. had six children. Three predeceased him, while he was survived by three, two sons and a daughter, when he died on 3 September 1948. His three surviving children were Mr. Isaiah Adeleye Laditan, Chief Abraham Adejumo Laditan and Chief Comfort Teniola Laditan. He was a peasant farmer, a devout Christian, and an incredibly My paternal grandfather. taciturn, peace-loving and unassuming man. He started off in life as a tailor for several years before he switched over to become a cocoa and kolanut farmer on his father’s farmland at Bobado village. He had no western education and he was not wealthy, but he was endowed with wisdom, knowledge and understanding. He detested people who told lies and used to say that: Òpùró l’òtá ara è, translated into English as a liar is his own enemy. Since he tells a lie all the time, the day a liar needs help, people may not be willing to help him.

He was one of the earliest and foremost of the converts into Christianity in Ilaro and had the fear of God, whom he worshipped sincerely. These fine qualities qualified him to be the first Baba Ijo (the Lay Head) of Christ Church, Ilaro. My grandfather found it very repugnant for the District Officer (DO) who was a white man, to be carried by Nigerians whenever he visited Ilaro on assignment from the provincial headquarters in Abeokuta. Few people who spoke English language were exempted from carrying him. My grandfather then vouched that his children must go to school to learn and speak English language so that they would never have to carry the District Officer. Thus, my uncle who was a year older than my father, from another mother, attended the CMS Grammar School, Lagos, my father attended St. Andrew’s College, Oyo and my aunt, who was my father’s younger sister of the same mother, attended school up to the primary education level.

My grandfather’s younger sister of the same mother was Madam Efunyale Yewande, whose only child was Chief Emmanuel Adeoye Fadayiro. Chief Emmanuel Adeoye Fadayiro attended the King’s College, Lagos and was a foremost Nigerian politician. His son was Chief Adetunji Fadayiro, who attended Igbobi College in Lagos, read law and became a Senior Advocate of Nigeria (SAN).

My grandfather’s other siblings were Pa Ogundele Oladitan, Chief Emmanuel Adeyemi Oladitan and Pa Oladipo Oladitan. Pa Ogundele Oladitan migrated from Ilaro and lived all his life at Alafara Olubadan, Ibadan, Oyo State. Chief Emmanuel Adeyemi Oladitan lived in Abeokuta with his children, which included Gilbert Olusoji Oladitan, Derinoye Oladitan, and his daughter, Chief (Mrs.) Olusola Adetoun Babarinde, who was the Iya Laje of Itoko-Ilaro in Abeokuta. Pa Oladipo Oladitan lived in Ilaro and one of his children was Pa Solomon Abati, who was Mrs. Sarah Adeagbo’s father.

My Paternal Grandmother

My paternal grandmother.

My paternal grandmother was an indigene of Ilaro, and she was from the royal family of Adebiyi Arogundade Agunloye. She had no western education like her husband and was a kolanut seller. She had two children for my grandfather and her third child, a female, was for another man she met at Ifo, a small town located between Abeokuta and Lagos. She went regularly to Ifo to trade in kolanut and that was how she got the name "Iya Ifo'', which every member of the family as well as the people in the Ilaro community called her. It was because of her infidelity that my grandfather sent her away and they became separated. She returned to her parents’ house at Aguro, another district in Ilaro, which was not far from my grandfather’s house. My paternal grandfather died on 3 September 1948 at the age of 73 years, while my paternal grandmother passed away in 1969 at the age of 94 years. However, after the demise of my grandfather, my father brought his mother back to live at Ikerelodi House. The picture below shows Kelodi House before it was demolished by the Ogun State government in 2018 to give room for road expansion in Ilaro. I lived in the house from age seven to fourteen years. My father (Abraham Adejumo) was standing in front of the house when this picture was taken.

Kelodi House

My Maternal Grandfather

My maternal grandfather was Mr. Ayo Banjo (Pa Ayo Banjo senior), who relocated to Ibadan from Ijebu Ode as a trader in building materials. His first place of residence was at the banks of Ogunpa Stream in Ibadan, where he legally married my maternal grandmother. Their first child was a male, who was named Ayo and he became Mr. Ayo Banjo junior. My grandfather later moved northward to Oke-Padi, where he built an estate. It was at Oke-Padi that my grandmother gave birth to her other children, beginning with my mother and her siblings. My maternal grandfather died intestate in 1936 at the age of 54 years. Before he passed on, he had children from other women.

My Maternal Grandmother

My maternal grandmother was Mrs. Eunice Lápésè Banjo (nee Akínsolá) from Oke Òfà Baba Sàlè in Ibadan. She was popularly called Mama Agba by family members. Mama Agba died at the age of 93 years in 1981, 45 years after her husband had passed on and was buried in the same vault as her husband at the cemetery of St. James Cathedral, Oke Bola, Ibadan. Mama Agba was survived by three of her seven children. She had given birth to twins twice, but only one from each pair of the twins survived and the remaining two from the pairs also died before her. Since five of her children grew up to adult age, got married and had children of their own, Mama Agba retained her matrimonial home with the five bungalows on the estate for her own children and gave the other children of her husband’s properties located elsewhere in Ibadan. After my grandmother died in 1981, my mother continued to live at Oke-Padi until she too passed on in 1985. My mother was buried directly behind her parent’s tomb at St. James’ Cathedral cemetery, Oke-Bola, Ibadan.

Mama Agba was a descendant of Daddy David Kúkómi (aka Bàbá Gbàgbó, meaning a converted Christian father), from Oke Òfà Baba Sàlè in Ibadan. My grandmother’s father was Mr. Akinsola, one of Daddy Kúkómi’s sons.

Daddy Kúkómi was a heathen whom Reverend David Hinderer, a missionary from England, converted to Christianity around 1855. Kukomi had many wives and children who also became Christians after he was converted. Many of his children and grandchildren became clergymen and notable among them was his son, the Reverend R.S. Oyebode. Others included his grandchildren like the Rt. Rev. A.B. Akinyele (Assistant Bishop of Lagos and later Bishop of Ibadan), Oba I.B. Akinyele (the first Christian Olubadan of Ibadan) and Rt. Rev. D.R. Oyebode (Assistant Bishop of Ondo-Benin and later Bishop of Ibadan). The Daddy Kukomi family tree, as illustrated below, shows the section that relates to my maternal grandmother.

My Father

My father was Mr. Abraham Adejumo Olaonipekun Laditan. He was born on 19 May 1909 in Ilaro. He said his date of birth was authentic because Mr. Yaro, the personal assistant to the paramount ruler of the town, was literate and he recorded the birth of children born within the adjacent area to the king’s palace, where our family home was located. He attended the Christ Church School for his primary education, passed the Standard VI certificate examination in December 1924 and took up a teaching appointment in the same school in January 1925. He taught for two years after which he took the entrance examination to the St. Andrew’s College Oyo in 1926 and started the four-year college education for teachers in January 1927. He graduated from the St. Andrew’s College in December 1930 and was posted to a primary school in Ishara, Ijebu Remo in January 1931 as the headmaster of the school. He taught for one year in Ishara and proceeded from there to a newly-founded s econdary school, Oduduwa College, Ile-Ife, as one of the foundation teachers in January 1932. By 1934, he had moved to Lagos because salaries were meagre and irregular in Ile-Ife and he took up a teaching assignment at another privately-owned school, National High School, Lagos. He finally left the teaching job and joined the Cooperative Department, Western Nigeria Civil Service in January 1935. He rose through the ranks to become the Head of the Cooperative Department as the Registrar in the Ministry of Trade and Industry of Western Nigeria. He held this senior position from 1 October 1960, to 28 February 1968, when he retired from the civil service. While at the Cooperative Department, he was opportune to travel to many countries in Europe for training, conferences, and seminars. He was awarded a one-year government scholarship from October 1950 to September 1951 to study Cooperative Movements at the Cooperative College, Stanford Hall, Loughborough, Leicestershire in the United Kingdom.

My father in 1937.

My father’s marital life

I wish to say something about my father’s marital life, how he came about having many children, why my birth was shrouded in secrecy, why I was delivered in Ogbomoso and not in Ibadan, and why I was given many names at my naming ceremony. My father had a church wedding in 1937 and the marriage was blessed with a son. Both the mother and the son later died; the mother died in October 1938 and the son died at the age of 11 months in April 1939. The marriage lasted one year and four months. It was after his wife and son died that he met my mother and another woman, both of whom were divorcees and they bore him a son (myself, Adewale) and a daughter (Adejoke), about six months apart. Adejoke was the only child of her mother for my father, while my mother had three other children for him after me, one of whom, a female, died at the age of six months.

After my younger brother, Gbadebo, was born in 1943, my father had a church wedding with a spinster who became our stepmother. It was this stepmother who gave me the name: Ara Oke-Padi(a resident of Oke-Padi or an Oke-Padi resident). After the 1943 wedding, my father had traditional weddings with three other women at different times (1955, 1963 and 1972) and at the time that he passed on in December 1994, he was survived by eighteen children, eleven males and seven females, from six women. This was how he ended up having many children. Although my father was polygamous, no two wives lived with him at a time. Besides, he achieved integration, interaction and unity among his children.

Honours and awards

In March 1953, my father was one of the five Ilaro indigenes who were conferred with traditional chieftaincy titles. He was conferred with the title of Seriki of Ilaro, while his cousin, Chief Adeoye Fadayiro, was conferred with the title of Apesin of Ilaro (the same title with which I was honoured in 1993). Chief Fadayiro was my father’s first cousin and classmate at the primary school.

In 1977, my father was installed as the Baba Ijo (the Lay Head) of Christ Church, Ilaro, which was elevated ten years later in 1987 to the Cathedral Church of Christ and my father remained Baba Ijo until his death in December 1994. I wish to repeat that my grandfather, Chief Daniel Laniyan Akintunde Laditan, was the first Baba Ijo of Christ Church, Ilaro, from 1943 till he died in 1948. The second Baba Ijo passed on in 1967 and nobody was made Baba Ijo until 1977, when my father was installed the third Baba Ijo, the post he held for seventeen years.

Seriki of Ilaro

Baba Ijo of Cathedral Church of Christ, Ilaro.

The death of my father

In December 1993, a year before he died, my father met with three of his sons, namely: Adewale (myself as the eldest child), Folarin and Muyiwa. He discussed with us the format for his burial and gave the following guidelines: that he should be buried within a fortnight of his death, that he should be given a Christian burial, a granddaughter should read the Bible passage during the church service (my daughter Adebola did), and that the burial should be at the church cemetery near his late mother’s vault. He touched many other aspects of his funeral like the hymns during the church service. I took minutes of the meeting, which I typed and forwarded to him for vetting.

I was in Saudi Arabia when my father died early on the Monday morning of 5 December 1994 and I travelled to Nigeria on 8 Thursday December 1994 to take charge of his burial, as he had instructed a year earlier. After discussions with my siblings, he was buried on Friday, 23 December 1994. A week after his burial, the late Justice Olubunmi Adelowo Ajibola read a copy of Baba’s will to all the children before we left for our respective destinations. Justice Ajibola told us that the original copy of the will was kept at Sapon High Court in Abeokuta. However, each child received a photocopy of the will before departing from Ilaro. We then agreed on a date in March 1995 for all the children to assemble in Ilaro to share Baba’s perishable goods as indicated in the will. Justice Ajibola presided over the sharing of the items.

My Mother

My mother, Mrs. Adelphine Ladunni Soneye (nee Banjo), was born in Ibadan on 22 October 1910, where she lived all her life with her father and mother at first, and later with her mother, except for the brief period she was married to Mr. Soneye. She died at the age of 75 years on 16 January 1985. Her formal education started at St. James’s Primary School, from where she later attended Kudeti Girls School. She taught at Idikan Primary School and later worked at the University College Hospital (UCH), Ibadan as a domestic assistant until she retired in 1970.

My mother during her 60th birthday in 1970.

My mother was married in 1932 to Mr. Soneye from Ijebu Odogbolu. Mr. Soneye was a staff of the Nigerian Railway Corporation and as part of his job, he travelled by train throughout Nigeria. He returned home one day from one of his official trips with a woman from the Nigerian Middle Belt. Both Mr. Soneye and the woman began to ill-treat my mother and because she could no longer bear the insult, she left them and returned to her parents with her daughter and the pregnancy of her second child. Her daughter, Omotunde, was born on 29 May 1933, and her second child, Akintunde, a male, in 1935. Omotunde died on 30 November 2011 at the age of 78 years, while Akintunde passed on in the year 2000 at the age of 65 years.

Meanwhile, my father, a widower, was living in Ibadan at Oke-Seni, which was close to Oke Padi. In his search for a wife, he was introduced to my mother by one of his friends who lived in the same neighbourhood as my mother. That friend was the late Mr. S.A. Amole, father of Chief Tunji Amole, the proprietor of Oluyole Chemist in Ibadan. They fell in love and the romance led to my birth in 1940. Within a mile and half from where my mother lived, my father’s younger half-sister, Mrs. Florence Omolara Malomo (nee Denton Thomas), introduced another woman, who was her friend and workmate at a sewing institute to her brother. He became intimate with the woman and she gave birth to a female child six months after my birth. It was during the prevailing circumstances of harassment and intimidation from Aunty Molara and her friend that my mother was advised to relocate elsewhere to achieve a safe delivery. This was why my mother travelled to Ogbomoso and stayed with her maternal aunt, Mrs. Aderinola, to give birth to me there. My mother and I returned to Ibadan after three months to live with her mother at Oke-Padi, where she had four children for my father, three boys and a girl. The girl died at the age of six months in June 1947. By the time I was born, my sister, Omotunde, was living in Lagos with my mother’s older brother (Mr. Ayo Banjo junior), while my mother retained Akintunde to give her a helping hand. My full siblings were Prof. Gbadebo Olufemi Adedamola Laditan, who died on 24 February 2020, and Mr. Folarin Olajide Tejumade Laditan.

My parents and parents-in-law. L-R: My mother-in-law, my father, father-in-law and mother.

Two

MY BIRTH AND EARLY

CHILDHOOD IN IBADAN

My name is Adewale Ayodele Olusesan Laditan. My hometown is Ilaro in the Yewa South Local Government Area of Ogun State, Nigeria. I was born on Monday, 5 February 1940, in the house of Rev. and Mrs. T. Aderinola in Ogbomoso, but raised in both Ibadan and Ilaro. During the last three months of her pregnancy, my mother travelled to Ogbomoso and stayed with her maternal aunt (Rev. Aderinola’s mother) to have a safe delivery. We both stayed in Ogbomoso for another three months before returning to Ibadan. Hospital services were limited at the time of my birth, hence the reason why I was delivered at home. There were no birth certificates at the time for those born at home and possibly for those delivered in the hospitals. That is why the church baptismal certificate that was issued a year later at my baptism has always been used to confirm my date of birth. It was the same certificate that I submitted and was accepted as a substitute for my birth certificate in 1999, when I applied for the United States of America Green Card. Green Card is what you are given when you become a permanent resident, but not yet a citizen of the USA. It is the first step towards becoming a naturalized American citizen.

According to my mother, I was fed on breast milk for a long time. She also informed me that I did not suffer from any neonatal illness or had any hospital admission after birth. Consequently, I was well enough to be given names in Ogbomoso on the eighth day according to the Yoruba custom. My names were as follows: Adewale, Kayode, Olusegun, Akanbi, Ayodele, Olusesan, Adeleke, Olaniyi, Omowande, Alabi, Olanrewaju, Ayinla, Ayodeji, Akintunde, Atanda opo and Adebayo. I collected these names from my father’s family record book because he was present in Ogbomoso for the naming ceremony. I was informed that there were many people from both sides of the family present on my naming day and that explains why there were many names given to me. My grandparents, who were not present, also sent names for me. Other events associated with my birth that I obtained from my father’s record book included the origin, meaning and interpretation of my names with respect to who gave them and for what reasons. While in other parts of the world, people bear two names besides their family names, it is not so in Yorubaland. One can have many names because as many family members who may attend the naming ceremony can give names to the newborn. The names have meanings and reasons associated with them, as they may be indicative of events that have taken place in the family.

The meanings of my names derive from the circumstances of my birth. Adewale derives from my paternal grandmother, a princess from the Agunloye Royal Family in Ilaro. The prefix Ade means crown. Adewale literally means a crown has come home to us. Ayodele represents the arrival of joy in the family. The Ayo prefix means joy, gladness. Olusesan denotes God’s compensation for the misfortune that my father had experienced. Olu represents "The