Olamide Adams Returns to Roots with ‘Native Tales’

Yinka Olatunbosun

He may be tucked away in France with his family but his connection to his Nigerian roots are palpable through his stories. The France-based entrepreneur, teacher, music enthusiast and author of Native Tales, Olamide Adams had always wanted to be a writer as a young child who was weaned on stories. In his first year in secondary school, he began writing some of the stories in this collection released in October 2020 as a gift to his daughter who turned five. Having discovered his little girl’s interest in stories, he decided to complete his writing and publish his stories after being on a self-imposed hiatus.

“Storytelling was part of our lives,’’ he said during his recent visit to Nigeria. “My brothers and I used to enjoy our uncle telling us stories sometimes in the evenings. The most memorable of those childhood years was when I would be playing with friends in our compound and you’d suddenly hear the theme song of Tales by Moonlight start from the neighbour’s television. I would scramble to our own living room to put on the television to watch one of NTA’s attempts in preserving the rich Nigerian culture. The children entertainment programme dramatized moral-teaching folklores from different ethnic groups in the country.’’

In addition to the oral tradition, literary texts such as Chinua Achebe’s ‘Chike and the River,’ Cyprian Ekwensi’s ‘The Passport of Mallam Ilia’ and Kola Onadipe’s ‘Call me Michael’ fired up his interest in storytelling. But as he approached his late teens, he stopped writing. But then, he kept the manuscripts carefully through the years. After studying Business Administration at the University of Lagos, he worked as the cultural animator at the French Cultural Centre in Ikoyi, Lagos before leaving to work as a senior executive at the Air France KLM group in Nigeria. He has also worked in the recruitment and banking sectors in Paris.

He refocused on his writing skills and completed five stories for his daughter’s fifth birthday.

The book Native Tales: A collection of Short Stories includes stories such as ‘A Dance to Save the King’, ‘The Old Man’s Potion’, ‘Ayangoke and His Magical Talking Drum’, ‘Journey to Oke Oro’ and ‘Rere Lope.’ The stories teach the values of kindness, courage, wisdom, problem-solving and heroism. For instance, in ‘Journey to Oke Oro,’ the author deploys the travel motif that is reminiscent of D.O Fagunwa’s ‘A Forest of A Thousand Daemons.’ That edge-of-the-seat adventure story will excite young readers and help them develop strong imaginative minds.

“Initially, I didn’t even want to sell the book. But now, it is selling on Amazon, Jazzhole, Terra Kulture and the Narrative Landscape online. My daughter speaks only French but she understands English sparingly. My objective is to speak English to her repeatedly. But just to make her happy, I have got the book translated in French,’’ he said.