Wole Shadare, a co-author of Nigerian Aviation unsung heroes and heroines, in this speech he delivered at the launch of the book, opened up on the book, and the unveiling of the aviation hall of fame
I remember two years ago. Mr Gboyega Adeoye called me. He said Wole we need to talk. I said what are we going to talk about. He said Wole, we need to write a book. He said how long have you spent in Aviation industry? I said 20-21 years. He said that is enough for you to write something, we need to talk. I said I am not a fan of book writing. What are we going to write that is different from what other people have written. Are we not going to be putting the same thing together? He said no, when I come to Lagos we will discuss about it. I was even not ready to listen to him.
So he came to Lagos and he said Wole why don’t you write about the people that have done so well for the Aviation industry. I said yes we have many of them. He said we can sit down and look at it. I said how did we go about it. Some of them have passed. Some of them are not even in this country. Some of them are in Europe, United States and different part of the world, how did we get across to them? I said it is not going to be easy and we actually wanted to do something that people can relate with. I said okay, what are we going to do? Where are we going to get our stories from? We need to get people who have been in this industry for close to 40,50,60 years.
So we sat down. We said what are we going to do? We are going to set up a committee. We set up committee of three people. But the most interesting aspect of it is that this three people never sat down to see each other. We said who are we going to see? We put a call to Dr. Demurin, oga, we are coming to see you. He said you people can come. He said I just have ten minutes to spend with you, I don’t have that time. I said even if it is two minutes, just grant us two minutes because we knew that Dr Demurin, anytime we meet him, you can’t even spend 1 hour with Dr Demorin. Dr Demorin will take all your time, school you on what aviation is all about.
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We got to his office, he was actually waiting for us. We said Doctor, this is our challenge, we have a problem, we need to talk. So he schooled us on what we will do. He looked at us and he said Wole, fantastic, you and your friend, go ahead, you have my support. He said make sure you did not leave important people in this book you are writing. I said, okay, fine, thank you. We spent close to three hours with Dr Demorin. In fact, it get to a stage, We were even looking at our time and we have to say “Dr. we need to go”. He gave us everything will need to be recorded, he gave us everything we need to know.
The next thing we did was that we called Kabiyesi Femi Ogunleye, we said Kabiyesi we want to come and see you because you are a repository of knowledge in this aviation industry. He said, okay, Wole you can come and see me, I will be in my kingdom. We went there, we drove to Abeokuta. I can remember vividly the whole of Amala and Ogufe he gave us.
He sat down, he was very very happy to see us. So we told him we came for this and he gave us Everything we have to know about the history about the development of aviation industry in Nigeria. We were so excited.
The next person is Mr Adegbeye. We went to him. We said he should write foreword for us. He said he will not write foreword for us until he is sure of what we are going to write. So we started writing. We called him two weeks after and he said Wole you know I can not put my name on anything that is not quality. So even help us to expand the scope of the work. So we really thank him and everybody that supported this project because we looked at it that one thing is that we were not able to write about everybody that have moved aviation from what it was to where it is today. But something is important, aviation has developed, aviation has moved from what it used to be. We might no be there yet but certainly they have done so well.
I equally want to thank everybody that supported this project. I want to thank my wife here, Mrs. Shadare, I also thank Mrs. Adeoye, thank you so much. Thank you, my boss, Editor of Saturday Telegraph. I thank a distinguished professional and colleague, Mr. Adeola Yusuf, for his support. I also want to thank everybody that have spared time to be here. we really appreciate you all.
In this book, we have highlighted the achievements of our heroes. Secondly, we have the short biography of what this people have done and thirdly it is about aviation development from what it use to be to this present situation and lastly we also want to induct seven people into the annual aviation Hall of Fame. All the seven people we have there are qualified to be inducted in the aviation all of Fame.
Thank you.
