The book: “My Life like a Rainbow: Reflections and Life Lessons at 60,” is a memoir written by Dr. Florence Ajimobi. It was published in 2019 to coincide with the 60th birthday of the wife of the former Governor of Oyo State, Senator Abiola Ajimobi. The memoir, My Life like a Rainbow, is the life story of a woman who was born out of wedlock, raised by a disciplinarian single mother, loved and pampered as a child and married at 21. The book tells a story of a young Florence whose colourful life was nurtured in Ibadan and made to blossom into the icon that she has become.
We read the author was a “love child” who “lived a fairy tale” and enjoyed “a privileged and indulgent childhood.”
The book, My Life like a Rainbow, tells the story of Florence Ajimobi and how she had loved reading books and how she developed the enterprise mind-set even while schooling in The Polytechnic, Ibadan where she studied Secretarial Management at diploma level. This entrepreneurial spirit had started fetching her money, for while at the polytechnic, Florence would sell various items to her school mates.
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In this work, Mrs Ajimobi tells us about her relationship with her parents, family and those who helped to shape her worldview and disposition to life. In the book, the author writes about the life lessons she glimpsed from those whose paths crossed with hers, and how the individuals have mentored her and moulded her into the quintessential woman of substance that she has come to be.
In the book, the author discusses her friendship and love relationship with her husband Abiola Ajimobi. In the book, the author tells the reader how her marriage to Abiola Ajimobi (Pp29-30) has moulded her this way: “I was a loved, cared for and pampered child, therefore I was so used to having my way in all things. My mum, dad and guardian hardly ever said ‘No’ to any of my demands. My mum scolded me from time to time but more often than not, I had my way. As a child, I never understood why I couldn’t have my way.
“While this excited me as a child, it became a huge albatross as I grew into womanhood. Thank God for the kind of man I married who gradually weaned me off that mindset. I can say without any fear of contradiction that the huge difference in our age played a big role in accomplishing; I doubt that a younger man could have achieved this but my husband did, over a long period, with maturity.”
In this work, the author narrates for us their first meeting (p39), second meeting (p40), how the relationship blossomed and how he proposed to her (Pp64-65): “One particular evening when we went out for drinks after work, he told me ‘Flori, this is my card, I have placed all my cards on the table, I don’t need a girlfriend; I just want to marry you.’ Naturally his sweet talk swept my off my feet.”
In this book, the author narrates to us, how she was able to cope with challenges of getting married, managing the home front, playing the role of wife and mother, daughter, daughter-in-law, and at the same time keeping alive her entrepreneurship flames. She tells interesting tales about transiting from the wife of a chief executive in the corporate world to the wife of a politician, a senator and later, governor.
This book is the story of a woman who defied the odds to perpetually surmount obstacles to become an accomplished and distinguished woman, home keeper, mother and grandmother, and philanthropist. As a perceptive reader, I have described this book as a down-to-earth, matter-of-fact, self-confessing catalogue of a life that couldn’t have been lived otherwise, to show that the various lessons packed into the book by the author, must be fully imbibed by all. The author’s unpretentious point of view and no-holds-barred exposé has lessons for all, male and female, young and old. And it is written in a smooth-flowing first person point of view and in simple, easy-to-read English for everybody.
. Olatunbosun is a broadcast journalist, fact checker and book reviewer at Splash FM 105.5, Ibadan. He can be reached by email molatunbosun@splashfm1055.com and on X and Instagram @miketunbosun.
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