How time flies! But to God be the glory as Professor Fola Esan, first Nigerian professor of Haematology turns 80 today. The academic trajectory of Professor Esan demonstrates the saying that morning shows the day as childhood shows manhood. Professor Esan’s formative years began in the famous Christ School Ado Ekiti under the tutelage of the English man Reverend Leslie Donald Mason who could recognize a genius whenever he met one. When the slightly and fragile young lad showed up in Christ’s School, the principal showed immediate interest and curiosity.
Fola Esan came to Christ School as a young boy of only 12 years in age. This was remarkable at the time when many of his classmates were much older than him. He even beat by one year, his immediate elder brother, Benjamin, who later became the school’s senior prefect and head boy in 1956. His much older brother, Olanipekun who later became a professor of classics at the University of Ibadan did not attend Christ’s School but his younger sister,Abike in later years attended the same school. In other words, Christ’s School became a permanent fixture in the life and times of the Esans.He finished secondary school at the age of 17 which was a record in those days. This was at a time that it was not unheard of that some of the senior students already had children at home. What was more remarkable was the fact that he scored A grade in all his subjects. This was a manifestation of his unique cerebral endowment and not because the school had good teachers.
Apart from Reverend Mason, the principal of the school, there were two or three graduates on the staff of the school including Chief Joseph Oduola Osuntokun who was to later go into full time politics. Science subjects were taught by non-graduates until about a year or so before Fola Esan took his final examinations in Christ School but this did not stop him performing excellently in the key science subjects that would be required for his medical education.The secret of any Christ School student’s success was hard work and belief in God. Prayers and fasting are important but God himself promised to bless the work of our hands .This was the case with Professor Esan.
The home background was also important. The Esans took education seriously like most Ekiti people of his generation. Fola Esan’s father’s extended family of brothers, sisters and cousins gave encouragement to the children early in life. All the children went to church and school and they combined this with helping their parents on the farm during holidays. Ikoro their home town in the western part of Ekiti State was and is still favoured by good soil and flat land unlike the stony and hilly landscape of neighbouring towns and villages. The people combined the growing of cash crops like kolanuts and cocoa with food crops grown in all parts of Ekiti. The point to make is that the people were sufficiently prosperous to the point that they were able to send their children to school. Unlike most people of his generation, his parents were able to put all their children in school without much hassle. Going to Christ’s School then in 1951 was not too difficult.
After his stellar performance in the Cambridge University Secondary School Overseas Examination, he had several options open to him like most young people of the time. He could have sought a scholarship to go abroad or join any of the commercial concerns in Nigeria and work his way to the top but he chose private study to prepare him for the concessional entrance examination to the only university inNigeria, the University of Ibadan. It was a fierce competition and almost a gamble to get in. He wanted to study medicine and had the examples of Adelola Adeloye and Kayode Osuntokun two old boys of Christ School to follow.
The medical school was severely restricted to exceptionally brilliant people not only in Nigeria but to students from The Gambia, Sierra Leone, the Gold Coast (later Ghana) and Nigeria. This meant the Nigerian quota was highly competitive. But the likes of Fola Esan had no problem in getting in. His example was followed by a host of Christ’s School old boys and by the time he graduated M.B, B.S in 1962, the path set by him and others became the trodden path for most students from Christ’s School into the University of Ibadan.
Fola Esan followed his sterling performance in the college of medicine by heading for England to specialize in haematology, an important area in laboratory medicine. He has had further exposure and training in American universities.
I ran into him in 1980 when he was on sabbatical at the University of San Francisco where he worked as a solitary researcher working away without airs but with absolute determination to make a mark wherever he went to in the western world. In 1964 while he was in England, he came to my rescue when, driven by more enthusiasm than wisdom, I lost my bearing in London.
Since the 1960s, he has taught at the College of Medicine at the University of Ibadan. He helped establish the sub speciality in haematology in the college where he rose to the full chair in haematology. As part of his public service to the nation, he was given field commission as a lieutenant-colonel in the Nigerian Army during the civil war in Nigeria and risked his life caring for the wounded on the war front .When he retired from the University of Ibadan, he helped develop the medical school at Ekiti State University. He was hampered by lack of resources and unnecessary pettiness in the university where people were envious of the special deference people paid to him. He has since joined the team helping AfeBabalola develop a modern medical school not humbled by severe lack of financialresources.
He can look back and thank God for His great mercies and for the excellent health he has endowed him with. He has had the fortune of a slim physique without any excess fat. As a young man, he kept fit playing tennis but he has never been a health freak and with minimal self-effort,God has preserved him this long.
As a slender child in Christ’s School, he was not known for athletics or football; he however did enough to keep fit. He ate very sparingly. I saw him do this in San Francisco to my absolute horror but as a physician he knows what is good for him. I have always admired Professor Esan as an old boy of my famous alma mater. When I entered Christ’s School in 1956, our teachers used to regale us of the incredible academic exceptionalism of Kayode Osuntokun and Fola Esan and challenged us to go and do likewise. We all tried but we were not good enough even though we too were not brain dead but the records of the two Christ School heroes remain. Professor Fola Esan is one of the brightest men that has ever lived in this our benighted country that pays little regard to academic excellence.
This is wishing you sir, happy birthday day and I pray you remain on eagles wings.
Leave a Reply