Ode to my sister Iyabo Atta

By Shade Thomas-Fahm

This is an ode to my Sister Iyabo Atta. Born in 1935, with a gap of two years and two months between us – the sixth child of a family of nine siblings.

Our patriarch, Baba Bankole Ayorinde Thomas, and our matriarch, Mama Elizabeth Olanihun, of Ile-Onsha, Oweloba, Akinmorin, Oyo State.

You were always very studious and highly disciplined…

In the line-up before dinner, reading the school lesson of the day, you were the one who’d read the longest page. After a spell in Pitman College, you met your prince charming; Prince Abdul-Aziz Atta and God blessed you with beautiful children.

Amongst the children, we have the author, Mrs Sefi Atta-Ransom-Kuti, author of the novel “Everything Good will Come”.

A star in her own right, Alima Atta was beautiful, soft spoken, highly disciplined and

intelligent. She was the founder and CEO of Sesema Public Relations, a leading Public Relations company with an impeccable client list. Alima was a foodie, loving to try all the new restaurants. She was the leader of a sisterhood of adventurous travellers. She often devised the travel plans for her group of friends and is fondly remembered and loved for that. She even had her own radio show! We can truly say Alima didn’t waste her time and she packaged it full of achievements and fun!

In her loving memory, Iyabo, you have built the 62-bed Alima Atta Oncology Wards on the grounds of Lagos University Teaching Hospital (LUTH) for the treatment of cancer patients.

And actually this is not the first you have done. Looking back, you once built an open-plan children’s hospital in Okene in the memory of your late husband Abdul-Aziz Atta.

You have always been a quiet giver.

With God directing you, Iyabo, you can still climb a mountain. Even after 80 years- old, you started Alima’s Oncology Wards project, and you have delivered a well-equipped, international standard, medical facility – and you did it single-handedly within four years….

I thank God for making you my immediate sister from Baba Agba and his devoted wife Mama Olanihun.

I thank God for giving us the opportunity to watch our parents teach us the blessings that come from hard work. I can never forget our family’s labour: picking and discarding infested kola nuts out of the bag of kola-nuts set for market; pushing rock salt bags, and lifting red-oil tins to be transported to Ghana – then still called the Gold Coast. And finally trading in Panla – dried stock fish, which we were known for in the neighbourhood.

I am sure that Baba Bankole Ayorinde Thomas and his devoted wife, Elizabeth Olanihun Thomas, our parents, are resting in perfect peace. Well done my sister Iyabo, well done Atta Girl!