From Grass to Grace: How ‘You never knew me’ redefines ‘Compliance and rating’ Landscape.
Title: You Never Knew Me
Author: Abimbola Adeseyoju
Publisher: DataPro Limited, 2025
Reviewer: Ewache Ajefu
Abimbola Adeseyoju’s autobiography “You Never Knew Me” addresses many aspects of humanity. From perseverance, love, patience, steadfastness, doggedness, discipline and above all compassion.
The over 200-page book by the author were arranged chronologically.
The first two chapters of the book dwell on his upbringing from his early years, though highly emotional, introducing the parents that made real impact on his life.
A hardworking and thorough-bred Christian father and forward- looking Muslim mother from the widely known Fawehinmis.
Sidikat, who is the mother of Abimbola was described with traits of tender loving care being administered to her son despite his waywardness.
Her calculation is that the son would definitely outgrow the present circumstances, thus exhibiting love, tenderness and patience as you would soon realize.
In this same chapters, Abimbola is captured with his friends in Christ’s School, Ado Ekiti, football betting and other activities which were full of wam and humorous memories.
The underlying factor here is that he got good educational foundation that eventually prepared him for the future.
Events unfolded and then arrived 1977 and the infamous “Expo ’77” scandal. This was WAEC exam leakages, which were cancelled and this brought despair, hopelessness to a boy who was promising, well-prepared, as the situation was entirely outside his control.
The author from this day on drifted to smoking and other bad habits including car crash in an uncle’s brand-new Peugeot 504. The narratives were all laced with humour.
Within the gap years of his youth, hopelessness and despair threatened to overwhelm the young Adeseyoju. The right hand of the Almighty led him to Mubi to live under the tutelage of his maternal uncle, Major Fawehinmi in the barracks.
Twenty four months that went by was quite transformative, as he imbibed discipline. It was in the barracks in Mubi that he first heard an unknown voice urging him to change his name while assuring that his future was bright.
The mysterious voice would later declare that he would become a known figure in Compliance and Rating sector.
These revelations later defined his life’s career and became the cornerstones of his destiny.
Chapters 4 and 5 focus on The Family Man and Parenting. At last Adeseyoju finds love. He met Francesca “Frankie” Omigie. This is the lady who describes her husband as blunt and fearless. Can you imagine he resigned from his job and told the wife about it later. She was shocked. Some would say I am gone because I don’t matter to you. She stayed and cooperated. The partnership of trust played out here.
Adeseyoju brought compliance and rating to the family domain. Each child has his or her own “risk profile” before taking a position to parent them. Na waooh!
All the three different children have different approaches, all shaped by the values poured by the mother.
The children reeled out testimonials describing their father as someone who showed up early when there is problem, paid school fees first before considering himself, and always letting them know that they matter to him.
The remaining chapters dwell on how the Mubi barracks prophecy metamorphosed into DataPro Limited—Initially as a one-room correspondent of Dun & Bradstreet in 1995, then as Nigeria’s third licensed credit-rating agency in 2004, and finally as a pan-African compliance powerhouse offering AML/CFT training, data-protection audits and the world’s largest country-specific Politically Exposed Persons (PEP) list.
Adeseyoju plans to step aside at 70, and probably become the chairman of the Board. To date, he has refused either chieftaincy title or political appointment. He labels both terrain as risky. Hear him:
“I have seen what public office does to reputations; I ensure mine by staying out.”
The book is highly recommended to policy makers, entrepreneurs, parents and students.
