Adenekan… Putting Abeokuta in perspective

FROM the decor of his reception to other offices in the building occupied by Commstrat Associates Limited, a marketing communication agency, in Surulere, Lagos, there is no doubt that Hakeem Adenekan, managing director and chief executive of the outfit, is a man of arts and culture. The office walls are adorned with African prints depicting ravishing colours in flora and fauna motifs. Aside from the ambience, diverse artifacts dating back to pre-colonial era occupy vantage positions. 

  The Egba son recently moved from adorning his office with artifacts into another genre of the arts, writing; as a result of the experience he garnered while going through a book, Washington City, when he visited the US. That experience made him to reflect on his fatherland, first, Abeokuta, the home of the Egba, to tell their age-long history in pictures.

   Thinking of home, Adenekan began to look at those aspects of Abeokuta’s history that were not properly documented. He chose to document the ancient town in a pictorial book Abeokuta… Beyond The Rocks. The book comprises pictorial stories of Abeokuta from1830s to 2014 with explanatory notes.

  What prompted the book? 

    “Oh, it all started after I visited Washington DC in the US. While I was there, my host gave me a book on the city. The book was a wonderful panorama of Washington City and I cherished it,” he reveals.

   Rather than keep the book in his library as he has done to many books acquired of late, the book on Washington turned magical, kindling a passion that drove the advertising practitioner to reproduce a Nigerian version of the book.  

   “On my way back home, the information I got from the book began to haunt me and I decided to package a book; first of its kind on Abeokuta, because the ancient town has a lot of stories that could be told in pictures,” he says.

  Writing the book was not a bread and butter affair, as he had to source for fund and equally assemble a 50-man team that included, historians, photographers, archeologists and any person that could dig out information on the ancient city.  

   “The project is big and has gulped millions of Naira outside other challenges. Abeokuta… Beyond The Rocks is the first of its kind, it is a priceless resource book in the history of Western Nigeria and we need to get things right no matter the amount spent.”

  According to him, “the town has many ‘firsts’, which we need to project. It has he first hospital in Nigeria, Sacred Heart, which is still standing; the first and largest psychiatric hospital in Africa, the first church in the whole of Nigeria and West Africa – St. Peter, Ake. The first woman to drive a car and ride a bicycle, Mrs. Funmilayo Ransome Kuti came from there. The house where she brought up all her children, the Kutis, and their cousin, Prof. Wole Soyinka, is in Abeokuta and still standing.”

   Adenekan continues, “the first bridge across a river in Nigeria was built in Abeokuta, the first major mosque, the first police post, first abattoir, first sawmill, first motor park, the first newspaper and others too many to mention are in Abeokuta. So, it is the urge to help future generation know the history of Abeokuta, its socio-economic importance that endeared me to embark on the project.”

  He reveals, “today, even with the deluge of information available by the possibilities of the digital age, most young Nigerians continue to grope in the dark, as far as knowledge about our past, as a people is concerned. This painful and curious reality is made even more manifest by a saddening lack of interest in the archiving and preserving our history for posterity. A visit to the relevant institutions – which ought to be custodians and repositories of vital information on our cultural heritage, monuments and milestones – will, largely give credence to this.” 

   While pointing out that the book aims at correcting some of the misinformation of foreign historians about Africa, the advertising practitioner says, it is also an archival material. “For good measure, our museums, which are rather few and underfunded, can hardly scratch the surface of the avalanche of information needed on our cultural origins, values and mores. Indeed, most, if not all, there is to know about our pasts are contained in books and research materials published by foreigners in foreign climes and from a readily jaundiced perspective. What is worse? Most of the time, these books and materials are brazenly fraught with gross misinformation, inadequacies and half-truths.

   He explains, “to stem this negative tide, however, the solution cannot be to surrender and watch our past eroded or set ablaze by a growing culture of passivity and lethargy. Should this be allowed to happen, there will be no heritage or history to bequeath to our children. It is against this backdrop that the efforts of Evagrin Konsepts in seeking a resurgence of interest in aggregating, documenting, preserving and presenting our history and cultural heritage through Abeokuta – Beyond The Rocks’ becomes salutary, deserving support and commendation.”

PRINTED in India, Adenekan says that the book, which took his team five years to put together apart from gathering important information and pictures on Abeokuta, is coming at a time Nigerians need to know who they are to forge ahead. 

  “The truth is, nobody can tell our story as expressively and objectively as we can. The fact of the book being produced by Nigerians, who harbour first-hand, all the live experiences of true incidents is one of the strongest points in its favour. The book is a well laid-out, colourful and engaging compendium of the past, present, highs and lows of the ancient city,” Adenekan enthuses. 

   “True, civilisation and the demands of modern day living may have ruptured some of the pristine features of the town; it is still incumbent on the true story-teller or chronicler of events to put all the information in proper perspective.

    Mercifully, however, such time honoured monuments as the centenary hall in Ake, the Alake’s palace and Olumo Rock through the ages, are still standing as touchstones of Abeokuta’s greatness and cultural relevance. This resource book, without doubts, will keep the memories and pictures of the old and modern Abeokuta alive for the succeeding generation of Egba people to appreciate, relish and cherish,” he reveals.

  Why did it take five years to write? 

   “We need not rush to unveil a quality product. We needed quality time to get all the pictures and information. We had an industrial photographer that took the pictures of the landscapes. We had to get a helicopter and other equipment to get the aerial view of the town and as well as meet the elders to get first hand information on the town,” he says.

  With the book unveil coming after the general elections, the author hopes to begin works on other Nigerian ancient cities such as Ijebu, Kano, Benin and Ohafia, telling their histories, too, in pictures and showcasing some of their culture. 

   “We have started work on Ijebu. We are also working on Kano and would be looking at other towns in the country before visiting other African counties. Our aim is to project Africa, tell our history in the right perspective and leave a legacy the younger and future generation can draw from,” he assures.