Fascinating. Intriguing. Deeply instructive.
Chief (Engr) Dr Jubril Dotun Sanusi (JDS) was born and bred in Idi-Arere, Ilaji Compound, Ibadan, not in Bodija, the enclave of privilege and elite comfort, but in the slum, where life is raw, communal, and unscripted. It was a place where survival required character, where children were raised not by parents alone but by the collective conscience of the community. In that environment, raising a child was a joint venture, and values were absorbed as much from the streets as from the home
Education was not a priority in that setting. Yet destiny intervened through a remarkable woman, his mother.
She had no formal education, but she possessed what schools cannot teach: original native intelligence, courage, vision, and uncommon resolve. Against the odds of her background, she challenged and encouraged her son to read, to learn, and to pursue the very education she never had. She became his first model, his earliest mentor, and his loudest believer.
A blunt, fearless, and successful businesswoman, she was entrepreneurship personified. JDS did not stumble into business; he inherited it. The instinct, the courage to take risks, the eye for opportunity, all flowed from her. Her business bore the family name Ilaji. And when she passed on, JDS adopted that same name, not as branding, but as remembrance. To immortalise her. To keep her memory alive forever.
So yes, the Ilaji Game Reserve, Ilaji Resorts, and the Ilaji brand itself did not begin as a corporate idea. They began as the vision of an unschooled mother whose intelligence was native, whose wisdom was practical, and whose influence shaped the JDS the world knows today.
And the father?
An administrator. A master manager of people. A man of calm temperament and disciplined control, one who understood human dynamics and leadership. From him, JDS inherited structure, order, and the rare ability to manage people successfully. The fusion of both parents formed a balance: entrepreneurial fire from the mother, administrative precision from the father.
Then came the defining moment.
After repeated failures, JDS finally experienced a major breakthrough in business. Just one year later, his mother died.
That loss, painful and untimely, became a silent teacher. It etched into his life the philosophy that now defines him: resilience, focus, determination, and the refusal to give up, no matter how hard the fall, no matter how dark the season.
The story of JDS is not just a tale of success.
It is a lesson in origin, in grit, in legacy, and in the power of unseen mentors.
It reminds us that greatness can rise from the slum, that education can be inspired before it is acquired, and that failure, when met with persistence, can become the foundation of destiny.
Williams Abiola Martins
