Fatimo’s profitable ranch

A review of Fatimo Olusola Braimo’s memoir, Fatimo’s Ranch and Other Stories

Fatimo Olusola Braimo’s life story reads like a fairy tale. Hers is a life seasoned by grace with a generous dollop of mercy. Twice she went under the knife for breast cancer and came out unscathed though she knocked on heaven’s gate the first time. Her story is more remarkable given the high mortality figures from breast cancer in Nigeria. Research shows that it is currently the leading cause of cancer deaths, representing about 23 per cent of all cancer cases and approximately 18% per cent of deaths in the country. But God saw her through it all, and she recently marked her 60th.

The life story of the lady, one of the children of the late Ede, Osun State-born industrialist and Deputy President-General of the Nigeria Supreme Council for Islamic Affairs, Chief Sakariyahu Babalola, is chronicled in a beautifully produced coffee table book entitled ‘Fatimo’s Ranch and Other Stories’.

Published by the Erudio Alphabet Company, Lagos, the memoir has six chapters and a rivetting prologue that keeps the reader flipping the pages to know how the story ends.

How can a young lady, after burning the midnight candle in and outside Nigeria to reach the highest pinnacle of her career, come close to losing it through that invidious invader, cancer?

But this was the lot of Fatimo Olusola, who discovered a lump in her breast at age 30. The prime of her life when she was supposed to be settling down with her husband and raising a family.

Before that discovery, life had been a breeze. Born and raised in Ede, she had an eventful childhood, even finding a bag of money at the market as an 18-month baby. Weeks after no one turned up to claim the bag of money, the Chief of Olodan Market near Ile-Oke, returned it to her mother on her behalf. Her business-savvy maternal grandparents bought three rams for rearing with the money. The rams multiplied, and annually, after selling some of the animals, her grandfather sent the proceeds to her mother, saying, “this is from Fatimo’s ranch.”

She enjoyed a peaceful childhood, attending primary schools in Ibadan and Sekona near Ede before attending Ifeoluwa Grammar School, a private secondary school in Osogbo. Earlier, she decided to be a nurse while living with her grandmother. The latter spent time at the University College Hospital, Ibadan, from chronic ulcers. She trained at the School of Nursing and Midwifery, Awolowo Road, Ikoyi but later took a Higher National Diploma in Hospital Administration at the South Bank Polytechnic (now South Bank University) and then a master’s at Machester University.

She returned home and became Hospital Secretary (now Head of Administration and Human Resources) at Massey Street Children’s Hospital.Things were going swimmingly until the day in 1992 she discovered the lump, did a biopsy and then commenced cancer treatment in the UK in 1993. How she survived the treatment with support from her father, friends, and even strangers reiterate why we all need solid support systems around us. God and that supportive structure saw her through so that when cancer resurfaced in 2013 after her marriage to Dr Ajibade Braimo, whom she had briefly worked with, she still pulled through.

In this memoir, written in lucid, enjoyable prose, Fatimo takes us on her private and professional life journey. She shares her life outside Nigeria with her husband, motherhood and becoming Deputy Director of Administration at the General Hospital, Lagos.

In a laudable move, Fatimo has since established a foundation to assist other people with cancer in line with Albert Einstein’s “Only a life lived for others is a life worthwhile.” The Fatimo Olusola Braimo Breast Cancer Awareness Foundation took off last August and has been busy in the area of advocacy.

Appraising the author’s 60 years on earth, it is clear that God has been journeying with her, holding her up at trying moments and surrounding her with good people. Impressively, all of them shared birthday goodwill messages in a section of the memoir containing pictures from her past and the present.

‘Fatimo’s Ranch and Other Stories’ is an inspirational tale well told and produced. It is commended to all.

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