THE MAN, HIS HUMBLE WALK AND NIMBLE TALK: A BRIEF BIO-HISTORY OF S. OLA AJIMISANB Y ADESOLA FOLAWUMI AJIMISAN

Stephen Ola Ajimisan (also known as S. Ola Ajimisan in the literary clime) was born more than four decades ago to the family of Late Patriot Number Olorunsola and Esther Semilola Ajimisan of Ode-Etikan, Ilaje Local Government Area, Ondo State, Southwestern Nigeria. He had his primary and secondary education in Ilaje Local Government Area, Ondo State. He garnered a bachelor's degree in English Studies from Adekunle Ajasin University, Akungba-Akoko, Ondo State and a Master of Arts degree in English from the University of Ibadan, all in Southwestern Nigeria. He had a professional certificate in the teaching profession in 2019. He is an author, a practising translator, teacher, ethnologist/ethnomusicologist, researcher and a scholar of Oral Literature and Cultural Studies. 

He has nine literary works to his credit including Sweltering Labyrinth (2022), Dead End of Crossroads (2022) Transgressive Rubrics (2023) and Ajala-julu- The Eco-spirituals (2024). In 2022, he attended conferences at the Universities of Abomey-Calavi, Cotonou; Republic of Benin and Cape Coast, Ghana. His academic researches had been published in reputable journals within and outside the country. He is currently expecting the date of his final PhD defence in Literature-in-English and Cultural Studies at  Adekunle Ajasin University, Akungba-Akoko, Ondo State, where he currently teaches Creative Writing, Oral Literature, African Literature among other courses. He is currently the Back Translator of Ilaje in the ongoing Oral Bible Translation Project. He is married and blessed with brilliant kids. 

All his nine literary works attest to his status as a strident voice in world literature. His debut, Forty Testaments for Our Dearest Drifting Dome (2021) explores the socio-cultural and political apostasy of Nigeria away from the creed of the founding fathers and the need to retrace the drifting national steps. In Castle Built with Spittle (2022), Ajimisan places strident emphasis on how the colonial lies and skulldudgeries on which the nation and other colonial compartments called independent nations are built have placed one segment at a disadvantage at the expense of others. His Sweltering Labyrinth (2022) does an exploration of how the prevalent socio-economic conundrums of the 21st century have changed the situations of some people and have negatively re-calibrated their thought process and behavioural lenses. 

In Dead End of Crossroads (2022), Ajimisan calls to question the anomie, anarchy and confusion that befriend the entire world in the century and raises a call for caution and value re-engineering if the world is to be out of her doldrums. In Where Else Do We Go From Here? (2022), he observes that the confusion and directionlessness which precipitated the writing of Dead End of Crossroads still dovetail into successive generations and dispensations. The title is a way of seeking or charting new cause and course of collective global progress and avant garde in human existence.

 In his first play text, Verdicts of Money-muffled Gods (2023), the revolutionary author beams his binoculars on leadership and succession in contemporary African societies in which the elites, in their holier-than-thou dispositions leave the selection process of new leaders in the hands of rascals and profligate pastors whom he calls prophepreneurs and pastopreneurs or diviners who duplicate or do commodification of prophecies and divinations of the deities or rig elections for personal aggrandisement. He challenges the elite and all well-meaning citizens to be interested in the (s)election of who leads, represents or governs them, if there must be peace and collective prosperity. In Akatanigbo and the Atlantic Verses (2023), S. Ola Ajimisan uses the metaphor of "akatanigbo", a specie of the bee that offers no honey or sweetness but sting to unleash satirical fireworks on bad governance and focusless leadership in the world. It is purely a satirical poetic collection that defies threats to speak the truth to powers. 

Transgressive Rubrics (2023) shows the author's creative penchant and wizardry in teaching the world a new way and telling the truth in new dimension through transgressive forms. He observes that new styles and inventions are products of consistently re-inforced circumvented forms or rules; sheer rebellion against norms and conventions. This work is wrought after the pattern of Salman Rushdie's Satanic Verses. Ajala-julu:The Eco-spirituals (2024) invokes the aquatic and ecological imagery of the fluidity and the restless run of water current in the amplification of the environmental impact of oil exploitation, its attendant environmental hazards on the denizens, flora and fauna of the oil-bearing land that hosts the oil companies and their activities and the neglect of of the governments and the foreign companies of the denizens who live on water but with no water to drink sequel to environmental pollution occasioned by oil spill. Akatanigbo and Ajala-julu situate the author's creative vision in the two latest works within the ambits of environmental literary studies, eco-traumatism and eco-criticism. They are seen as the poet's chronicling of the ubiquitous messages of nature to man.

The author is currently working on two dramatic texts, His HERcellency and Enough!; which are in press as a consolidation of his stand as a fulfilled playwright and poet. This synoptic piece is just a compendium of his contribution to readership and study of World Literature-in-English.

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