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THE NATION ON SUNDAY, JANUARY 20, 2013
Life
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Yetunde Oladeinde was recently in IkereEkiti, the ancestral home of the world renowned singer Sade Adu. In this report she chronicles her meeting with members of her family.
•Sade Adu
I
T’S a Thursday evening and you are in Ikere-Ekiti in Ekiti State. Then someone points at a structure in the neighbourhood saying it belongs to Sade Adu’s grandfather. There is no mistaking that name. Sade Adu, the Nigerian singer, musician and model who has put the name of the country on world map long before many of today’s music stars were born. A well-heeled family Other structures owned by members of the Adu family are only shown to you and you know it is indeed a well heeled family. And they are indeed proud of this ‘daughter of the soil’ and wished she visits home more often! You get curious and want to know more about the family. You take a look around the buildings and you get different versions of her family’s history, especially the fact that they have recorded a number of firsts. This takes you deeper and deeper into the family tree of the singer, song writer and music producer whose fame and achievement made the nation proud especially in the eighties. A neighbour pays tribute to Sade’s father, Prof Adebisi Adu, the Nigerian lecturer who married an English district nurse, Anne Hayes, in 1955. A spot is pointed out to you, “He (Sade’s father) was buried somewhere here initially but when they were having road expansion his body had to be exhumed and it was taken to a new site.” James Adebola Adu, brother to Sade’s father lives in the neighbourhood and you finally locate his house somewhere close by. He receives you warmly and happily he goes down memory
‘How we lost contact with Sade Adu’
lane to talk about his late brother, family history and life as an engineer. “Sade’s father and I are from the same mother and father. The Adu family is situated in Afao in Ikere-Ekiti. Our father was Josiah Alawemo Adu, a popular chief.” Ask him about what he admired about his brother and he laughs, looks up in the sky as if he trying to find answers to your question and he continues: “My brother was a lecturer at the University of Lagos. He later became a professor.” Memories are made of these What are the things they share in common? “He came with his life and I came with mine. Share? I came to do my own thing in this life and he also came with his own agenda. We had nothing similar. We only share the same blood. I respect him and anytime I need his service I go to him and anytime he needs my assistance I also go to him.” Next you want to know what he does for a living and he answers this way: “I am an engineer, I am retired and also tired.” You take a look around and you find some of the things he does around. “That is what I do when there is nothing to do. I worked as an engineer in Dunlop and retired in 1993. I did some electrical sales in Lagos before moving here. I sell some parts and do some minor repairs, which is what I do now.” Why did he decide to go into engineering? “First I joined the Police Force and was there for about three years. At a point I wasn’t interested in what was going on and so I left the Police. Then I went to Yaba College of Technology where I bagged my OND. From that point, I went
Awards in her kitty 1. Sade Adu was awarded OBE (Order of the British Empire) in 2002 at the New Year’s Honours, for her service to the Music industry. 2. Nominated by the American Music Awards five times and won once. Here she was the Favourite Soul R and B Female video artiste in 1986 and 1989. She finally clichéd the Awards in 2002.
3. Also nominated for the Brit Awards four times and won it once. 4. Adu got nominated nine times for the Grammy Awards and won it four times. 5. MTV Video Music Awards nominated Adu twice but she didn’t get it. 6. She was also nominated seven times for the Soul Train Awards.
Some of her hit songs 1. Smooth Operator 2. Silver Shadow 3. Promise 4. Stronger than pride 5. Bring me home 6. Baby father 7. By your side 8. Please send me someone to love 9. No ordinary love 10. Diamond life straight to Dunlop and I worked all my life there, and never changed job. I love engineering very much. After my education at Yabatech, I would say that Dunlop was almost like a higher institution to me. You know, they had all the equipment and I had the opportunity to work with all the machines. At the latter end of my career I became the chief electrical engineer, which made me work everywhere. We worked mostly in the night. I was the most senior man on duty, morning afternoon and night. This made me know so much about engineering.” So, did this experience change his life? “Yes. I earned a very good salary, lived very well. I married and had children, eight of them.” You also want to know if any of his children followed his professional footstep. “The only one who read engineering is dead. All the others include accountants, teachers and other professions.” What about music, is anyone singing like Sade? He replies: “When you talk about music there are lots of musicians in my family.
•Adu’s cocoa store, now church
•Continued on Page 57