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As Osun State clocks 32 years on 27 August, a publishing outfit, The Erudio Alphabet Company, is set to release an epochal book on its evolution formally.

Titled ‘Courage & Character’ The Definitive History of Osun State, the 460-page coffee table book recounts the history of the struggle of the people for their State till military president Gen Ibrahim Babangida, acceded in 1991. The book covers the activities of the various administrations, concluding with that of Rauf Aregbesola.

There are sections on the governments of Col Leo Ajiborisha, Senator Isiaka Adeleke, and the military interregnum featuring Colonel Abel Akale, Navy Captain Anthony Udofia, Lt Col Anthony Obi, Col. Theophilus Olufemi Bamigboye. The administration of Chief Bisi Akande brought back the civilians. The book Courage and Character extensively documents the government of Olagunsoye Oyinlola and Rauf Aregbesola.

The book is dedicated to “The Omoluabi of Osun” described as “brave hearts, unrelentingly optimistic, and flinty in their determination” and “to the abiding memory of the first executive governor of Osun State, Senator Isiaka Adetunji Adeleke”.

Courage & Character is Volume One of the Osun Trilogy. It offers a rich narrative in four parts. President Muhammadu Buhari wrote the foreword, and immediate past governor Ogbeni Rauf Aregbesola authored the preface. Sections include the story of Abdulsalami Agbaje, an Ibadan high chief, described as “the unlikely catalyst” for creating the Oshun Division following a gang-up by the Ibadan nobility in the 1940s.

There are accounts of the struggle, the creation of the state, and the highlights of each state administrator or governor from 1991 to 2018.

According to The CEO of Erudio Alphabet, Temitope Lakisokun, “the Osun story is essentially about a people’s rejection of subjugation and oppression; their quest for independence and sovereignty, and the struggle for survival and relevance.”