Surviving SAJOMACO: A Nigerian Boarding School Odyssey

Question: What do you do when the kitchen wall collapses into the vat of beans being cooked for a horde of hungry schoolboys?

Answer: You serve it up anyway! Why let a few lumps of clay and the odd metal screw spoil a decent meal?

When Bunmi Asaolu arrived at the grand gates of St. John/Mary's Unity Secondary School (SAJOMACO) as a first-year student, you'd be forgiven for assuming he was swapping life on the serene university campus he grew up on for another of equal civility. Wrong! Behind the gates of SAJOMACO lay a world of contradictions - unspoken but strict hierarchical codes juxtaposed with utter chaos.

Asaolu presents a wry, satirical and at once serious look at a Nigerian public boarding school in the 1990s through the eyes of a sheltered child navigating its brutal corridors. In Surviving SAJOMACO, Asaolu's experiences and those of his contemporaries are laid bare, giving the reader a raw and at times jarring insight into the incongruencies of school life, whilst subtly tracking the story of Nigeria itself.

ISBN-13: 9781739941505

Media Type: Paperback

Publisher: Bunmi Asaolu

Publication Date: 08-27-2021

Pages: 260

Product Dimensions: 8.00h x 5.00w x 0.59d

Asaolu, Bunmi: - Bunmi Asaolu was born in Ile-Ife, Nigeria in 1980 but joined the brain drain out of Nigeria in 1996 with his family. After completing his Chemical Engineering degree at Imperial College London, the allure of the City of London was stronger than working at a chemical plant. So, he wrote investment research on European technology companies for a few years at the now infamous Lehman Brothers until its collapse in 2008. Post-Lehman, he pivoted to advising investment managers in Europe, South Africa and the United States on Nigeria. He has a life outside banking, though. He sings and plays the keyboard for his church band, and with his wife, Tosin, helps reduce the global divorce case count by counselling young married couples. In his spare time, he forcefully schools their three children in Mathematics.@thebunmiasaolu (Instagram, LinkedIn, Twitter, YouTube)www.bunmiasaolu.com