An Adventure Beyond Social Mobility

'An adventure beyond social mobility' portrays the importance of human resource development as a life pursuit. One objective is to document for my family information about my roots, educational struggles, and my adult life. The account, a legacy to my family and Africa, sends a message to other children born into similar socio-economic and cultural environment that hard work ultimately yields dividends. Another objective is to share with scholars interested in African development efforts by the international community to foster such development focusing on the population sector. The contribution under reference is not limited to personal publications; it also includes the recommendations from conferences, meetings, seminars, studies, symposia, and workshops organized under varying auspices of the international community. A final objective is to highlight key factors accounting for my social mobility in relation to those reported in social science literature. In terms of content, chapter one outlines the way of life of people in my village, their survival strategies, their traditional beliefs and religion, and cultural background as aspects of "my roots". Chapter two discusses my educational training experiences. The focus of chapter three is the re-entry problems that I encountered on returning to Nigeria from studies overseas and my initial contribution to African population and development literature. Chapter four highlights the evolution of the United Nations Economic Commission for Africa (ECA) and the development of African regional population program within the framework of the African census program. The next three chapters (five-seven) capture details of the main activities within the region in the course of my working for the ECA. While chapter eight outlines factors that have facilitated my upward mobility and relates the latter to those generally reported in social science literature as influencing social mobility, chapter nine focusses on my ongoing retirement.