Tai Solarin

This book is about the life and times of a Nigerian education icon, Tai Solarin, written from the perspective of a very close student who was trained by him. Tai was unusual and deserves to be celebrated because he dedicated his entire life to the service of humanity, starting by building a unique Nigerian secondary school from scratch with his British wife without any significant financial investment but robust physical energy, Spartan self-discipline, and a meteoric vision. This was in 1956. This school allowed religious freedom and full development of the human spirit; motivated the students to become the best they could be and taught physical and vocational education. The students worked with the non-teaching staff to build classrooms, cook, and process food; grow and harvest crops; manage 24-hr water and electricity supply; bake bread, raise pigs, poultry and goats for domestic consumption. Tai still found time to write pungent newspaper articles criticizing the government to improve social and educational services for the underprivileged citizens and to stop the shameful plunder of public funds for self-aggrandizement. He was jailed several times for his efforts. He picked corpses from the roads (innocent victims of hit-and-run drivers and the destitute) for proper burial; dressed and lived simply to afford the funds to educate indigent but otherwise highly cerebral students.