By Dupelola Ajala:
We know that Moshood Adisa Olabisi Ajala travelled to America and became a great success. My father’s story began in North Africa where Moshood Adisa Olabisi Ajala originated from.
Olabisi Ajala frequented Roosevelt University, in Chicago, USA. It would not be entirely surprising if my father had gotten recruited into a fraternity. I am aware of the influence of a fraternity amongst piers. A brotherhood that goes beyond scholastic fleeting friendships and is an everlasting bond forged on Campus. The impact of having a fraternity support you, can be colossal. Many of the politicians we see today were forged in that mould.
Another interesting fact about my father Olabisi Ajala is his biography, which was edited by one of his common-law wives whilst he was living in Australia. Australia is one of the many countries that Olabisi Ajala visited. He wrote extensively about the country’s economic and social situation in his acclaimed narrative “An African Abroad”.
I guess this is where I come in. I have also written my memoirs under a penname in a book of the same title as my father’s. “An African Abroad”, written by Aurora Mizutani is available on Amazon.
I was born in Nigeria, West Africa, and relocated to Italy at the age of three with my mother and two sisters. During the early 1980s, my father Olabisi Ajala visited me, my mother, and my sisters in Italy on one memorable occasion. I attended schooling in Italy until the age of fourteen when I moved to London, in the United Kingdom.
Like my father Olabisi Ajala before me, I was also arrested. Whilst living under the childcare system in London, at the tender age of seventeen years old I was remanded into custody, where I had the dubious pleasure of experiencing incarceration first-hand. Eventually, I began working odd jobs, but I was mostly an exotic dancer and skirted my way around drug misuse. I travelled around Europe and the West Indies until I married my first husband and relocated to East Yorkshire, England. Upon giving birth to my son, a series of unfortunate events led me back to school. As words became my vocation, I wrote my first Children’s Illustrated Storybook, “Little Boy and Mr Scary Snake”, under the pen name D. A-Gravill, first published in 2012.
It was a little surprising to me to discover the similarities between my father’s life and my own. I also travelled to Japan and studied in Osaka, where I published a satirical travel guide, “Easy Japan”, by Aurora Mizutani.
I wasn’t trying to emulate my father’s epic accomplishments but knowing that I came from good stock encouraged me.
A remarkable feat would be if one day all my father’s children could gather to pay homage to the memory of the outstanding man that was our father, Moshood Adisa Olabisi Ajala.